Site Comments & Suggestions

Banner ad just tried to install "FLV Player" on Android

  • Last Updated:
  • Dec 15th, 2017 12:23 pm
Deal Expert
Aug 26, 2001
18145 posts
1741 upvotes
Mississauga, ON

Banner ad just tried to install "FLV Player" on Android

Surfing the forum using chrome on Android... Just got a pop-up which tried to install FLV Player from the Google Play store. Heads-up, you may want to check your advertisers.
17 replies
Moderator
Sep 27, 2003
11122 posts
3367 upvotes
Newmarket
I reported this to @TomRFD this morning and I believe he has his teams looking into it.
RFD Forums Moderator
Deal Addict
Jan 13, 2004
1629 posts
536 upvotes
Mississauga
This has happened to me several times in the past week.
"With today's sheep mentality sometimes I feel like going to a wall and just bang my head"
Deal Fanatic
Apr 20, 2011
7747 posts
2750 upvotes
ON
Still coming up.
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Jun 3, 2006
9103 posts
4568 upvotes
12 days north of Hop…
Just got it as well.

Considering it redirects to Google Play, I wonder if it's worthwhile to flag that app in the store too.
Deal Expert
User avatar
Jan 7, 2007
21266 posts
6251 upvotes
Poormond Hill
Me too.
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A life spent making mistakes is not only more memorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Deal Addict
Nov 27, 2003
2022 posts
660 upvotes
Vancouver
Whoah, I had these pop-ups too. I was wondering whether it was my phone or the RFD forums.
Deal Expert
User avatar
Jan 7, 2007
21266 posts
6251 upvotes
Poormond Hill
Just happened again.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more memorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Banned
May 17, 2005
4845 posts
661 upvotes
sandikosh wrote: Just happened again.
it does happen to me on and off ... (administrators) any news ?
Administrator
Feb 13, 2013
42 posts
51 upvotes
Toronto
We're still trying to track down the rogue advertisement. If anyone does spot the ad again, some items that would be very helpful for us to know include:
  • the forum URL (or URLs) you were on when the pop-up appeared, and especially
  • any banner ads you saw on the page (this one is understandably more difficult because of the popup, so don't worry too much if you can't tell us).

What we do know is that the ad in question is trying to load some kind of Flash video, which is why it's triggering the pop-up that asks you to install FLV Player. This pop-up doesn't come from our site (nor do we have any Flash video!), and though other reports in this thread suggests the pop-up simply takes you to the Google Play store, I would try to avoid interacting with the pop-up as much as possible and simply reload the page if you do see it.

I know how much of a pain this is, and we're trying to get it resolved as soon as we can.
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Jun 3, 2006
9103 posts
4568 upvotes
12 days north of Hop…
wesleycsmypg wrote:
What we do know is that the ad in question is trying to load some kind of Flash video, which is why it's triggering the pop-up that asks you to install FLV Player.
I don't think this is true, Android Chrome doesn't handle Flash at all. Even going to Adobe's test site won't trigger such a prompt. The popup seems to suggest a cross-site script to something on the "updates.system" domain, and I checked that is indeed a valid TLD.
Administrator
Feb 13, 2013
42 posts
51 upvotes
Toronto
ToniCipriani wrote: I don't think this is true, Android Chrome doesn't handle Flash at all. Even going to Adobe's test site won't trigger such a prompt. The popup seems to suggest a cross-site script to something on the "updates.system" domain, and I checked that is indeed a valid TLD.
Right, that's true, I think it might be more complex than just "flash video loads and browser asks to install FLV Player." Unfortunately, all we really have to go on is that at some point the page makes a request for a URL with an FLV extension. We've only managed to get that ad to load on one of our devices once, and weren't able to get much diagnostic info out of it at that point.

I talked to our ad team on Friday and they added some extra filters against that domain as well as ads that trigger Google Play and iOS App Store links, just in case. But these filters were supposed to have taken effect on Friday evening. If people are still seeing the ads this week, it implies to me that the filters aren't blocking the right things. We'll keep digging into the issue.
Administrator
Feb 13, 2013
42 posts
51 upvotes
Toronto
Just got an update from our ad team, they've also blocked Flash ads entirely within this class of ads. This is a new change, so hopefully that did the trick. If anyone continues to see the popup after this, please let us know.
Newbie
Feb 15, 2007
45 posts
18 upvotes
Kitchener
I haven't had this issue for the last couple days but I do know each time it happened to me there was a coopertires ad at the top of the page.
Administrator
Feb 13, 2013
42 posts
51 upvotes
Toronto
cc86 wrote: I haven't had this issue for the last couple days but I do know each time it happened to me there was a coopertires ad at the top of the page.
We'd also noticed this banner the one time we were able to reproduce the popup, so that helps confirm our hypothesis. We've blocked this specific ad and hopefully shouldn't have any more issues.

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