I noticed today when browsing the reviews page for my story that there were suddenly all these random links that shouldn't be there.

When I refreshed the page looked normal at first but then it kept loading and the links re-appeared.

I'm using chrome (with adblock) on a Win 8.1 OS.

I linked the page to my friend to ask if he was able to view them as well or if it was just me and he said he could. Also as a much tech savvier person than I, he said that it's javascript inserted into the page and that the source for the links seems to be icontent.us. Hope that helps.

Anyway, I thought that was weird and that you would want to know.

Could be browser related. I use Mozilla and adblock, so I disabled adblock and checked out your link page Chie.

It gave me access to your reviews, but with words highlighted and hyperlinks to ads somehow stuck in the page.

I googled a bit, and found this link: malwaretips.com/blogs/ads-by-media-player-removal/

That explains what it could be.

Don't know how it got there though.

It could be client-side too, since I reset Mozilla to get rid of the links but it didn't work. I also checked for adware I might have installed. Went dry there too. Also it doesn't occur on my own review pages.

Chie, on your reviews page it's going back to the 8th of Sept right through to the 30th. I've checked other authors updating this month recently too but no highlighted words or advertisements either.

And yups, the Icontent crap is embedded in the webpage's script, disguising itself as text/javascript.

It's fairly clever and very annoying too.

~ Pyre

P.S - If you want to use a freeware anti-malware program to scan for anything nasty. Don't use malwarebytes. Use the freeware version of Spybot - Search and destroy. Malwarebytes is out of date. Spybot allows you to update regularly, provided you prompt the program manually to update its anti-malware database by hitting the Update button.

Well I checked it just now on Firefox (that also has adblock) and the links were still there.

I have subscription to F-secure and I ran a full scan of my computer just last week and everything was fine, and nothing was found.

I mean I can use the browser extension I have on Chrome to disable javascripts to make the links disappear, but it's still annoying. :/

An antivirus program won't always find Adware. That's was mediaplayer ads is. It's similar to a browser hijacker I had accidentally installed on my PC last year. I only noticed it was in there because it would try to redirect my webpages to another search engine that wasn't google.

I had to clear my PC's registry, since there was a key in there that shouldn't have been there.

I also had to refresh my browers, Mozilla and Explorer.

I also had to scan my PC with three different anti-spam/anti-spyware applications, on top of a standard antivirus scan to find all of the adware's components and delete them permanently.

It's also why I keep a freeware anti-spam app on my PC and scan regularly with it too on top of my antivirus.

~ Pyre

P.S - This youtube video shows a good example of what I mean with Media Player Ads creating a key in your PC's registry, and also of it having files on your PC's hard-drive too, most noticably in the program folder, where all of your installed programs keep their files like images, sounds, etc for the app to run.

You're being helpful, Pyre, and I appreciate that. I'm just confused as how, if this is something caused by adware in my laptop, can other people see those ads too? And why I don't see them come up everywhere else except for this one page on Dokuga?

I've been through those tutorials you've linked. I don't have anything suspicious installed recently. There is no "mediaplayer" folder in my program files or in the registry. No mediaplayer.exe is showing up on the task manager.

I used the freeware Hitman Pro to scan my laptop just in case (as it's designed to work with existing AV software and I didn't want any compatibility issues) and it found no threats, nothing more malicious than tracking cookies.

So it there is something in my computer causing this, I can't find it. >_>

Heya Chie,

Hmm, well if you didn't find anything.

Thanks for checking btw.

It might not be on your lap or PC, lol, dependent if you use a lap or a desktop.

Nods, and I can see the ad-links thing on your reviews page too.

Well we've eliminated two possible sources, your PC and mine too.

Which leaves one conclusion that our PC's are clean.

No infection.

Weird.

It could have been a random event, like someone else's PC being infected that caused it to happen, or maybe it was server-side related. We have had some odd anomalies with the site doing various weird things in the last couple weeks. Could have been that.

I mean the ads things hasn't occurred anywhere else on Dokuga that we know of just yet it may pop up at some point.

Dunno.

I think you're good Chie, and NP, I was glad to help. I know how pesky unwanted crap on your PC can be.

T____T.

My hard-drive is like my holy-grail.

It holds all of my stuff!

I'm just grateful that you posted on Dokuga with the issue.

It's a good way to spread word that odd things may be happening, and for other Dokugans to be aware of Adware and the nightmares it causes.

Chin up, Chie.

Your PC is fine.

Thank you for letting us know.

~ Pyre

It is weird, yeah. :/ That's why I made this post, I just really felt like I should mention it, let others know.

And no problem, I just want wanted to make sure my computer was clean. You know, I'm totally with you, my laptop is my life! xD And I only got this one in July, too, so it's still fairly new.

Thank you Pyre for all your help and encouragement. Stay awesome!