Intrusive Shopping Links

[Monophobia]

Not sure if anyone's noticed, but when mentioning an item in a post (such as "iPad" or "laptop"), a link will be added without your consent that connects it in some way or form to a shopping website that displays search results for that item.

Now, I completely understand that this forum uses ads to help cover costs, but seriously? These are kinda intrusive...they make me look like I'm trying to sell somebody something (or if I am actually suggesting and item or linking in general, things look messy and it's a bit confusing).

I don't know if there's a way to disable these on the staff's end and replace them with something more...out of the way, but I'm just saying I don't appreciate them at all. Of course, they could just be on my end.

Again, I totally understand that they probably help cover costs, but they can get kind of annoying if I'm browsing a thread with links and I have no idea which ones were actually put there by the poster.

 

[Khoshi]

I don't even know if this is a PC thing, to be honest...I got the same thing as you when I disabled my Adblock - something like this. You could dodge all of this by getting Adblock yourself, if you're using Chrome/Firefox.

 

[Hiatus]

That used to happen to me; links would show up on random words whenever I visited certain websites, and would be taken to some advertisement page whenever I clicked. I did some virus scan, and it turned out to be some ad-ware. Instantly got it removed, and thankfully, everything was back to normal. If above suggestion doesn't work for you, you should try doing the same and see how it goes! If none of these work, then disable all your browser addons and re-enable them one-by-one. One of them might have something to do with this, I think. If it's still not fixed, I'm not really sure what else you could do.

 

[Virtual Headache]

I don't even know if this is a PC thing, to be honest...I got the same thing as you when I disabled my Adblock - something like this. You could dodge all of this by getting Adblock yourself, if you're using Chrome/Firefox.

I don't use adblock and I don't see the links in the post in your screenshot. This must be something on your end.

Though, there are also words which give turn into links for me, like the word Gamestop.
After sending this post, I guess that must have been .another word instead but it didn't happen for me this time.

I don't really mind those ads though.

edit: okay, after a few minutes, the word Gamestop turned into a link

 

[Hikamaru]

I have this occurring on my end too, some pieces of text get ad links in them and I was one who also used Adblock. It always bothers me, and it happens on many sites to me, not just PC.

 

[Monophobia]

I don't use AdBlock on sites I care about (such as PC), however, enabling it doesn't solve the issue and I haven't installed anything sketchy (since my hard drive failed recently), so I doubt anything there (I'll check anyway). I have no browser add-ons other that ABP.

 

[Khoshi]

I don't use AdBlock on sites I care about (such as PC), however, enabling it doesn't solve the issue and I haven't installed anything sketchy (since my hard drive failed recently), so I doubt anything there (I'll check anyway). I have no browser add-ons other that ABP.

psst

As stupid as it sounds, run normal adblock along with adblock plus. See if that works. I don't know why, but I got better results with both active than with just ABP.

 

[Monophobia]

psst

As stupid as it sounds, run normal adblock along with adblock plus. See if that works. I don't know why, but I got better results with both active than with just ABP.

I'm running Mozilla Firefox, not Chrome or Safari, so unfortunately, that's not an option.

 

[maccrash]

it's because you have a virus. this happens to me sometimes after I download an album from someplace sketchy or something to that effect, even with adblock enabled. just run a scan and it'll probably find the problem for you

 

[Monophobia]

it's because you have a virus. this happens to me sometimes after I download an album from someplace sketchy or something to that effect, even with adblock enabled. just run a scan and it'll probably find the problem for you

No viruses detected at all. Like I said, this is a practically new hard drive, I just got it a few days ago. I only have Avast, Office, GIMP, and Firefox installed, all from their original sources. This has to be a site-wide thing.

 

[maccrash]

No viruses detected at all. Like I said, this is a practically new hard drive, I just got it a few days ago. I only have Avast, Office, GIMP, and Firefox installed, all from their original sources. This has to be a site-wide thing.

well, it's not a site-wide thing, because it's not affecting me. try installing a different browser and see if the problem still exists there.

 

[machomuu]

No viruses detected at all. Like I said, this is a practically new hard drive, I just got it a few days ago. I only have Avast, Office, GIMP, and Firefox installed, all from their original sources. This has to be a site-wide thing.

I had this too, it's adware. It may not have been from what you installed but from where you've been (what you opened in mail, what you've downloaded, etc). In fact, it's easy to tell what exactly the adware is by hovering over one of the links. The name of the sponsoring website should be just above or below the actual ad.

 

[Monophobia]

well, it's not a site-wide thing, because it's not affecting me. try installing a different browser and see if the problem still exists there.

It does, this happened back when I used Chrome as well, but I never thought to bring it up because it wasn't as frequent as it is now. Besides, others are getting the same links and I'm sure not everyone here is using Firefox.

 

[Monophobia]

I had this too, it's adware. It may not have been from what you installed but from where you've been (what you opened in mail, what you've downloaded, etc). In fact, it's easy to tell what exactly the adware is by hovering over one of the links. The name of the sponsoring website should be just above or below the actual ad.

It depends, but most of them say SkimWords, which is - from what I can tell, a type of ad-link provider used on forums. It had to have been integrated into to the forum, not to my computer.

 

[Honest]

Actually, if I've read and understood your post correctly, that's just how advertising online works. Your recent searches contribute to what is shown to be advertised, so that they target you by showcasing what you want. Just a little 411 right there.

 

[machomuu]

It depends, but most of them say SkimWords, which is - from what I can tell, a type of ad-link provider used on forums. It had to have been integrated into to the forum, not to my computer.

Huh, haven't experience SkimWords myself, but if it is SkimWords than it is indeed likely site automated.

In which case, try choosing the "Acceptable Advertising" option in Adblock Plus. I assume for regular advertising to still be available you can whitelist the site or something to that effect.

 

[Monophobia]

Actually, if I've read and understood your post correctly, that's just how advertising online works. Your recent searches contribute to what is shown to be advertised, so that they target you by showcasing what you want. Just a little 411 right there.

Well, yes, but since this is feedback, instead of "please tell me what's wrong with my computer", I'm letting the community and staff know that these are very intrusive, annoying ads that have no place in posts that I did not include them in. What I want is for it to be disabled or something, maybe make them less frequent.

 

[Livewire]

Well if it's an adware thing, there's not a whole lot we can do about it, unless it's originating somewhere on the site.

For the record though, I had that happen to me last week.

 

[Monophobia]

Well if it's an adware thing, there's not a whole lot we can do about it, unless it's originating somewhere on the site.

For the record though, I had that happen to me last week.

Well, if it's something that's from the site, do you think it would be possible to remove it? I'm pretty certain it is, though, since I don't really see how it could be anything on my laptop and others are experiencing it.

It's not a big deal, it's just irritating in my opinion.

 

[Deja Vu]

I'm experiencing this issue as well. I severely doubt this is a problem with specific computers, seeing as it would be strange that we would all have the exact same adware. I think the ads are integrated into the forums and based on certain words that are used on PC more frequently than others.