Getting redirected to sketchy websites constantly on mobile

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Strangestories

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#1  Edited By Strangestories

I'm on an iPhone 6s and recently (starting yesterday) coming here I'll be redirected within a few seconds to a series of different websites. I don't even have to touch the screen so it's not me hitting an ad or anything. Most of the time I'll just see a bunch of urls flash by and nothing will actually open but occasionally I'll get sent to one of those "You've won a free trip to _____" sort of things. The one url I can remember seeing out of the string of them is offerjuice.me

Normally I'd ignore something like this but what makes it extra annoying is it will redirect me, I'll try to go back to what I wanted to look at, and it will redirect me again immediately. I tried reloading the page 9 times at one point and closing safari entirely but it would still redirect me.

There are some points when I can look at something normally (no redirections) but going to another article or forum topic is a gamble at this point. I also want to add that I've been getting the same redirection when I go to Metacritic but it resolves itself if I reload the page there.

Thanks in advance!

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e30bmw

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@rorie Probably wants to see this.

Also, this is primarily the reason that I don't visit the website on my phone anymore, has happened a few times. Once it was so bad, that I couldn't close out the spam tab no matter what I did. Had to literally uninstall and reinstall Chrome on my phone to get it to stop popped up.

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psyklon

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I just experienced the same on android with constant redirects to "virus removal" downloads followed by dialogue boxes to install repeatedly. Entering through a Secret window seemed to stop it though.

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Strangestories

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I haven't had any trouble with this today luckily so maybe fixed for me?

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Slag

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Oh good, I thought it was just me. I was getting rerouted to 5-6 different sites yesterday

I assume it was yet another rogue ad, I'm guessing it's out of rotation now.

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SpaceInsomniac

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#6  Edited By SpaceInsomniac

@e30bmw said:

@rorie Probably wants to see this.

Also, this is primarily the reason that I don't visit the website on my phone anymore, has happened a few times. Once it was so bad, that I couldn't close out the spam tab no matter what I did. Had to literally uninstall and reinstall Chrome on my phone to get it to stop popped up.

I've had issues as well. My phone is quite outdated, so perhaps that's allowing some shadiness to go down. What happens for me is I'll occasionally get a full-screen pop up that tells me an update is available for my phone. It's using website link that has nothing to do with my phone manufacturer or service provider, and then gives me the option of hitting yes or continue, or whatever it said. At the same time, without hitting anything to confirm, it starts a 10 second or so countdown that says it will start updating my phone when the timer ends.

The really shady part is that it seems to disable my "back" button on my browser, so I can't back out. Whenever it's happened to me, I just put my phone in airplane mode and then turned it off.

It's pretty creepy seeing something like that happen from visiting this website. If @rorie or anyone else on the tech side of things would like a bit more info about my phone or operating system, feel free to PM me. The last time it happened was either yesterday or the day before.

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Strangestories

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I spoke too soon, it's still happening.

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Devil240Z

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#8  Edited By Devil240Z

That's nuts. I've never seen an ad on mobile

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sanderjk

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#9  Edited By sanderjk

Yeah unfortunately these kind of hijacking ads seem more and more common on Android, I haven't experienced them on giantbomb but I see tons of relatively safe websites get them in their ad rotation. Can't go to game specific wiki's on my phone for instance, and it even happens on big news sites every now and again. On my relatively recent phone (An S5 running 6.0) Chrome does offer "stop this page from displaying more popups" after 4 or 5 of them and stops installs but you can't really go back to the content you were reading

Unfortunately old versions of Android especially are not very safe, Google made a big error when they gave away their security updates to the phone manufacturers, who in turn give it to their localisation teams, which give it to the Operators, meaning huge and variable delays in how phones get supported, and that the majority of phones are vulnerable to some driveby tactic or another.

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Strangestories

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@sanderjk: Unfortunately I'm on an iPhone 6s so I don't have the same sort of options for blocking these popups. It does seem to happen more when I'm on LTE instead of my home's wifi which means trying to come here as soon as I leave my door will start the redirecting again.

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liquiddragon

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#11  Edited By liquiddragon

this was an issue for me for years. doesn't happened now cause I'm currently premium logged in. love the site but fucking gross. PLEASE DO SOMETHING. IT'S AN AWFUL EXPERIENCE TO VISIT THE SITE FOR NON-PAYING MEMBERS.

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SchrodngrsFalco

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#12  Edited By SchrodngrsFalco

[Deleted]

Wow, for whatever reason, I thought this was a thread on having the site go white whenever visiting any page. I must have mis-clicked the wrong thread and rushed to post. Sorry!

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Slag

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problem started reoccurring for me today in Safari

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whitegreyblack

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#14  Edited By whitegreyblack

Definitely get a hold of Rorie. Probably an advertiser behaving badly.

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Lab392

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#15  Edited By Lab392

@psyklon:

Same thing happened to me earlier today.