Medusa's blog

Ads in Non-https Codeforces
By Medusa, history, 6 years ago, In English

Hi Codeforces Community,

This is my first post and I want to share something I have observed lately.

On a newly loaded page, I see pop ups ads which prevents from interacting with site's content until a sacrificial click on page takes me to pop ads, much like in mirrors of torrent sites. I switched to https page on experimenting and I found that those types of ads doesn't happen there.

I re-installed firefox on my linux machine, and this only happens on codeforces, so I dont suspect any malware on my PC (nor any unknown process).

Is this intentional from Codeforces? Screenshot attached.

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Comments Comments (5)
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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +31 Vote: I do not like it

Looks like either malware on your PC (not necessarily in Firefox, it may be more complicated) or man-in-the-middle on your internet connection. Some ISPs may do that, especially if you're using a public Wi-Fi.

What happens on other non-https websites, which have you tried?

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

    1. I looked over every running processes on my Linux Mint and everything looked normal there.

    2. Other http sites works fine, I switched ISP but still everything stays same.

    If other CF users are not facing this, then I suspect the plugins for CodeForces (CF Predictor, Competitive Companion) may be causing this, just like: Google Ads

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      6 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +15 Vote: I do not like it

      Sure, any browser plugins (even non CF-related) can do that. Please try disabling them or running Firefox in Safe Mode. Also note that it's possible that author didn't expect ads to show up at all.

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      6 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      If it shows up on http version of the site only, that is most likely man in the middle. Are you using VPN, there could be a malware on router as well.

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6 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +31 Vote: I do not like it

The url shows mobpushup.com (bottom left). This url appears to be associated with many malware/adware (Source: grindsoft).

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