Ad doing App Store hijack on iPhones -- PLEASE PROVIDE SCREEN SHOTS
 

One of your ad providers is doing App Store redirects, where it opens the App Store to some crap app. These types of ads are really, really uncool. Apple is fixing it in ios8 but someone should look into this because it means your mobile browser is on a blank page, ie you're no longer seeing FT and have to go back, and it's beyond annoying


ETA: here's the ad sever, happened again just now and I grabbed the URL doing the redirect. http://trck.ad-serving.co/jump/ and the app they are peddling is Shadow Kings

Happening again. I've gotten hijacked over to the Lyft app in the App Store repeatedly in the last day, including twice in the last 3 minutes. :mad:

I get it's an Apple thing, but surely FT has some control or influence over its advertising partners and what kinds of ads may be presented on this site?

Oh, come on, that's true but FlyerTalk could switch to using reputable ad providers. This site has some of the most obnoxious adverts of any site on the Internet.

Ok seriously, this has happened 5 times in the last two minutes. Ironically, once as I opened this thread...

Frankly, I imagine FlyerTalk probably gets more money using sketchy ad providers than they would by sticking to legitimate, reputable ad providers.

Seeing it from their perspective, I don't totally blame them - it's a business decision - they see extra revenue. I have to ask, though, extra revenue at what cost? Is the FlyerTalk content compelling enough that everyone who wants it will just put up with the borderline malicious ads to get it? Or does FlyerTalk lose more traffic due to them than they gain in added revenue per visit? That's the question.

I have just been redirected to some dodgy fake 'flash download' page.

I can provide the whole link, but it came from 'adsby.bidtheatre.com'

Sorry, just realised I posted to the wrong thread - this is a browser hijack, not app store

That's even worse. App Store hijacks are annoying, but those fake flash downloads are malicious. Same root cause though: allowing dodgy advertising partners to deliver ads on this site. FT clearly needs to clean up its advertising.

Flyertalk is being almost unreadable lately. I keep being redirected to dodgy website while surfing from iPhone.
The only way to disable these ads to redirect is to disable JavaScript but then many website won't worl properly.

FT should prevent ads with JavaScript and that would solve all of these issues

Or, switch to a more legitimate ad provider that filters the ads they allow for spammy rubbish. But that wouldn't pay as well, I imagine.

Back again.

Game of War - Fire Age
Some sort of Vegas slots app

When I get hijacked every couple page views, the result is that I stop viewing FlyerTalk. I can't imagine I'm alone in this, and I can't imagine that's a desirable outcome even if (or especially if) the primary driver is $$$.

ETA: Jelly Splash

Same as above. Awful and unusable.

Editing this post I got bounced over to the App Store again. I'm out of here.

Just happened on my ipad now. It is "paint monsters" which ever buyer that works out to be.

Site is unusable on iOS. Please fix this garbage.

We've shut down a part of the ads that we believe is causing the app store hijack. Please let us know if it continues.

Paul

Thanks! ^

Several times in the last 15 mins. Diverts to one URL then ads.mobvertising.net then App Store (a casino app)

If you could screen shot this, it would help a lot. Thank you,

Pual

Running into this on Windows Phone. It hijacks something taking me to try to download an android app. #fail but really annoying

Some really nasty ads redirecting me all the time (Windows 7/Chrome) - ironically as I tried to compose this post it just happened - took me to

http: //upflv.tsgwe.com/up/cd/ca.html?s1=xad355-defrauca-160-js-lm&s2=browser-ca-cd&id=219&q=fa152420-a4a7-4ee4-86ba-60c56cb77ec5

Seems FT is using some dodgy ad providers as this has happened to me numerous times in the past

Since it is the ad that is causing this, if you can provide us a screen shot of the FT page that leads you there, we can track the bad ad and block it.

The bad ad hijacks the page before it is possible to get a screen shot. Hitting "back" after the page is hijacked returns you to a previous page with different ads on it.

Just happened again

Went to this:

http://i.imgur.com/zA3Q9V7.png

Hitting "back to safety" took me to this

http://i.imgur.com/MpwaQTt.png

It was not possible to go "back" to the original FT page from where this happened.

OK - this time I am on a completely different computer and I got this - clearly this was going to lead to a phishing attack - I was unable to close the page or Chrome without using Force Quit (I am on a Mac this time - previous posts have been from my work PC)

You have some really nasty advertisers - hopefully this will help to stop them

http://i.imgur.com/kEBlzeh.png

It's not possible to determine if this is coming from FT ads unless we can see what ads are on the page in the screen shot. I want to help, if I can. Can you shoot the whole screen?

OK- I do get it - I will try to find a time to have Camtasia running while I am browsing the forums and hopefully this will catch it

It is not easy to catch this with even Camtasia.

Even if you get a screenshot of the page before it redirects, the ad itself will not look suspicious.

You need to capture the underlying redirects that are happening when the ads are redirecting.

That can only be captured by opening up the Developer tools (CTRL+SHIFT+I) when it happens, and then capturing the source code at the point of redirect.

This is why it makes such a difficult thing to catch.

This really is a job for FlyerTalk to figure out (and trust me - they can. It is just easier for them to hope that the problem goes away rather than invest time and money figuring it out).

It's something that we and many other site have been dealing with for a year or more, off and on. We do not have any way of controlling which ads an ad network puts up on a daily basis, and they shift constantly.

Ultimately, Apple is responsible for changing the way ads redirect to their app store. We can block a single ad -- but they are the only ones who could prevent these redirects altogether. I suspect if they have not done so by now, they won't.

Since a couple of days I have the issue that from time to time access the FT forum on my iPhone Safari I'm immediately forwarded through a couple of advertising links and end up in the AppStore on some stupid app.

Using back buttons to see which ad it is does't work since it immediately forwards me back to the AppStore. I also have not yet found a pattern... Sometimes I have it three four times a day and than not for 5 days. Best I can do is to post this link I was able to grab during the forwarding;

http://ads.mobvertising.net/mobiledi...TQxZDFjZDY4NmU

Very very annoying!

I've started getting this this morning on the FT forums. I'm using the Safari browser on my iPad Air. I requested the full desktop site.

When a page loads my App Store pops up asking me to download a betting app.
Lim going to try Chrome to see if that makes any difference.

The iPhone Appstore highjacking ad is still around...in the last three days at every second or third page load for me. I literally had to kill the safari to stop redirecting, opening again it started again. Very difficult to get rid off.

Also new ones are opening pop-ups and whatever you do (Ok or cancel) will send you on a wild redirect hunt to either the Appstore or some cra*py ad-page. I did some screenshots of those:

http://i59.tinypic.com/2d7c9lf.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/zv4ltz.png
http://i58.tinypic.com/14chff5.png

Thank you I will pass those screen shots on to ad ops to see if we can block the ads!

Thanks IBobi, will report back if I see it getting better (or worse ;) )

Today I've been getting AppStore redirects on pretty much every page I try to load. Dozens of times.
Making the forum virtually unusable... Getting directed to Ladbrokes or Uber app and frequently getting "trace.682.co" in the address bar if that helps.