Chinese writing

[Tim D-XRD]

There is Chinese writing everywhere along with advertising and is extremely slow. Have we been hacked?

 

[avvidclif]

Ok admins, what's with the ads all of a sudden???? What do big rig axles and motorcycle insurance have to do with RV's?

 

[johnboytoo]

It's called monetizing of the website...
they are all doing it now and the chinese is due to a bad third party ad that is ported into this web site....

happened months ago on ford-trucks.com and took them a while to clean it up...

they turned off the ads for a few days and put feeds back in one at a time to find it....
(looks like the ads are gone here now )

 

[Lloyd S]

I haven't seen any Chinese writing--yet.
As far as the adds, we were told way back when that they would probably be coming. Like any other business--somebody has to pay the bills.
The forum is owned and operated by Social Knowledge, so I guess they can do what ever they feel necessary to keep things afloat.

 

[avvidclif]

All very true on their website. BUT, that doesn't mean I have to participate. CUL.

 

[Jerry Pinkard]

It's called monetizing of the website...
they are all doing it now and the chinese is due to a bad third party ad that is ported into this web site....

happened months ago on ford-trucks.com and took them a while to clean it up...

they turned off the ads for a few days and put feeds back in one at a time to find it....
(looks like the ads are gone here now )

Chinese is still on mine.

 

[johnboytoo]

Ah - I use firefox and the ads are gone - IE or phone browser probably still see them...

 

[Andy R]

Hey there, the ads were indeed added last night. We are currently trying to track down the one that is showing Chinese text to IE users. I have an email in with Google asking how we can identify and remove that ad. It´s not harmful in any way. I will post back as soon as we resolve the issue.

As for the site having ads, this site like millions of others is provided free of charge by the support of the advertisers. Google, Facebook, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and millions of others use the same model to provide their services for free. Thanks for understanding.

 

[cowboy_71]

And what does toysrus dolls have to do with campers? It's kind of annoying...

 

[Andy R]

And what does toysrus dolls have to do with campers? It's kind of annoying...

We are simply not big enough to afford a dedicated ad sales team so we depend on ad networks like Google's AdSense. Google has an auction system to determine who wins the ad impression. Sometimes business use retargeting so if you visit a site you continue to see their ads. Sometimes they are based on your search history and sometimes they are just poorly targeted. All the ad supported sites suffer from the same issue.

 

[MooManChu]

Hey there, the ads were indeed added last night. We are currently trying to track down the one that is showing Chinese text to IE users. I have an email in with Google asking how we can identify and remove that ad. It´s not harmful in any way. I will post back as soon as we resolve the issue.

As for the site having ads, this site like millions of others is provided free of charge by the support of the advertisers. Google, Facebook, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and millions of others use the same model to provide their services for free. Thanks for understanding.

Andy,

Firstly, thanks for volunteering your time to admin this site...But..I have to clarify your comment that ads are safe.

Not be an alarmist here, but ads are not always harmless. We've recently seen an outbreak of malware and ransomware coming through ads people either intentionally or accidentally click through. In the last month, we've seen some of the worst ransomware out there is coming from adware sights. Obviously, not clicking through ads is the safest approach.

It's clear the sponsor isn't vetting the ad content either. Chinese ads, I won't even comment on those.

Folks can educate themselves with a few articles here:

Ad-borne Cryptowall ransomware is set to claim FRESH VICTIMS

ttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/23/cryptowall_malvertising_outbreak/

Yahoo Ads Spread CryptoWall Ransomware

http://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-ads-spread-cryptowall-ransomware-163927204.html

Malicious ads on major websites held users' files to ransom

http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/24/cryptowall-ransomware-attack-proofpoint-report/

 

[mark5w]

I use AdBlock Plus on my computer and it eliminates all the ads on most web pages including this forum. It's available as an extension from the Tools menu; add-ons; extensions. Just search for it.

 

[Lloyd S]

My Step Son has been hounding me to install add blocker for quite some time.

I finally got it done!!! I don't know why I have been dragging my feet on it.

 

[MooManChu]

I use AdBlock Plus on my computer and it eliminates all the ads on most web pages including this forum. It's available as an extension from the Tools menu; add-ons; extensions. Just search for it.

My Step Son has been hounding me to install add blocker for quite some time.

I finally got it done!!! I don't know why I have been dragging my feet on it.

Good work!

It's so disheartening when I get a call from someone who has ransomware on their pc. Best protection is education and awareness...

 

[Janet H]

I'm sorry there was no announcement - this was an oversight to be sure. That said, the website has expenses, servers, software and tech support all cost $$$ and so the ads help in this respect.

The Chinese characters are broken ads and we are working with google and programmers to ditch them. They seem to only displaying to IE users and while they aren't malware or even clickable - they still need to go.

 

[Andy R]

It looks like they found the issue. It was affecting Internet Explorer only and should be resolved now. The issue had to do with encoding and the way ID handles the rendering differently than Chrome and Firefox. The specific ads in question were not malicious or (as Janet pointed out) not even clickable.

As for malware ads, they primarily come through the 3rd tier ad networks. We really just use top tier networks such as AdSense. I'm not saying a malicous ad can't happen but on our sites we are taking precautions to make sure they don't.

 

[Tim D-XRD]

The Chinese writing is gone and it does seem to be faster again. Thanks.

 

[Tim D-XRD]

It appears I spoke to soon. It has reappeared and slowed it down again,

 

[Andy R]

It appears I spoke to soon. It has reappeared and slowed it down again,

Tim, thanks for the feedback. Sorry to hear it's not completely gone. Can you help us find some clues. Which page were you on when you saw the chinese text? Was it on a regular page or a page where you were replying? The reason I ask is that it appears the issue has something to do with a header that needs to be sent for the enhanced text editor to work (ie. page where you post a reply). So we basically put in a rule to stop the issue on all pages but it's possible it might happen on the reply page.

Can you provide the version of IE you are using?

Thanks again for the feedback. We want to see these be gone as much as you do. Also, just for others reading. The Chinese text is not malware or anything to worry about. It actually an english banner being rendered by the browser into Chinese letters. You cannot click on it.

 

[Tim D-XRD]

Tim, thanks for the feedback. Sorry to hear it's not completely gone. Can you help us find some clues. Which page were you on when you saw the chinese text? Was it on a regular page or a page where you were replying? The reason I ask is that it appears the issue has something to do with a header that needs to be sent for the enhanced text editor to work (ie. page where you post a reply). So we basically put in a rule to stop the issue on all pages but it's possible it might happen on the reply page.

Can you provide the version of IE you are using?

Thanks again for the feedback. We want to see these be gone as much as you do. Also, just for others reading. The Chinese text is not malware or anything to worry about. It actually an english banner being rendered by the browser into Chinese letters. You cannot click on it.

When I first clicked here it was gone. IIRC it was maybe the rushmore I was viewing at the time? I made no reply.

Think I am still using 7. A computer whiz I am not.