That Advert

[Kidas]

In between cooking a full roast (pulled pork, veg crackling and so on) for my mum and family, I've been looking at this advert thing.

Following suggestions from Gromit, I did a couple of experiments to test out a particular theory.

The theory is that mentioning the advert or using any web page that includes the name of the advert attracts more incidents of the advert being served to your browser,

First rule of ad-survival club: Don't mention the advert!

ADVICE: The "advert that must not be named" will pop-up more often on pages that refer to the company concerned. Mention the name of the advert, and it will probably appear on your browser.

Please take note of the above.

This was Gromit's theory, and it appears to be true.

Site management has taken action to remove as many mentions of the advert as they can find. This has included decisions to delete entire threads. If you find your post in such a thread has been deleted, do not be alarmed. It is a precautionary measure to minimise the impact of the advert-that-must-not-be-named.

This is beneficial, but does not entirely eliminate the issue.

Second, the advert-that-must-not-be-named is associated with the Ally-X-Press (deliberate mis-spelling) banner ad. Symptoms vary, but it seems that if you click on any links when the Ally-X advert is showing, then the page you linked you will load, but may immediately be replaced by the advert-that-must-not-be-named.

ADVICE: When the Ali-X "50% off" ad is showing, use caution. Maybe re-load that page until the Ali-X advert is not showing. Better still, block the Ali-X advert. Advice on how to do that is expected to follow in the near future.

Third, it varies by browser.
Chrome appears to have identified the advert-that-must-not-be-named as malicious. This means Users of Chrome on its default settings see the advert less than other browsers.

Safari (Mac-specific) appears much more vulnerable.

Firefox is also vulnerable.

Internet Explorer and Edge browsers have not been tested.

ADVICE: If you are affected by the advert, use the 'back' button AT LEAST TWICE. A single 'back' step will almost always result in a rapid repeat of the issue.

Fourth The advert is malicious.
It seeks to gain control of your microphone, camera, location and other aspects of your computer. Although we have no evidence that it has caused damage, we believe it to be a security risk while it is showing in your browser.

Research is continuing, but we wanted to bring you this update to demonstrate that site management is working on the issue and seeking to resolve the difficulties that users are facing.

We thank you for your continued support.

[Kidas]

Please think before responding to this post. This is not Chatterbank.

[murraymints]

EEK..who's Kidas ?? another wee gnome ? thank you anyway...

[murraymints]

Chrome seems to have been unscathed in this matter, I have had none of the reported problems...

[Tilly2]

Well done for all your hard work, Kidas. I'm on Chrome which, as you say, doesn't seem to be as affected but I understand that some people have been driven to distraction. Thank you for explaining what's going on.

[choux]

As we are not mentioning things, I am so pleased today. I acquired a thingummy to prevent me from seeing merchandising. It has worked extremely well.

[marval]

I have a thingummy as well, no annoying things reach me here.

[Bertrum]

Went to post this earlier but the threads had been removed
I discovered that by blocking "mathtag dot com" the problem appears to goes away

[Jackdaw33]

The simplest solution is, of course the 'thingummy', but its use, or even alluding to it, is seriously frowned upon.

[Gromit]

Thanks for your good work kidas.