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So we've come full circle. The biggest ad peddler on the world and a predominant distributor of malicious ads (because ain't nobody got time to check that stuff

So we've come full circle. The biggest ad peddler on the world and a predominant distributor of malicious ads (because ain't nobody got time to check that stuff) is now integrating an ad blocker and offering tools for publishers to check their sites for the bad ads they themselves offer.

victorhooi 9y ago
Do you have any sources or evidence for your statement "predominant distributor of malicious ads"? If true, that would be pretty radical - but I'm unsure if you're just being hyperbolic or just re-hashing something you read somewhere. (Disclaimer: Work for Google, but not in ads).
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  It's hard to prove numbers without Google sharing them. But suffice to say... You may recall this blog about fake download button ads: https://security.googleblog.com/2016/02/no-more-deceptive-download-buttons.html https://security.googleblog.com/2016/02/no-more-deceptive-do... ...That's the Chrome team. But fake download buttons are alive and well at Google AdWords. (Most of them you'll find on sites like paint.net are from Google.) As far as I understand, they aren't even against Google AdWords' policy. Google allows malicious ads which Google says are bad. And as a computer technician, most malware I remove, I check web history to figure out where they got it. Almost always it's a malicious Google ad at the top of search, which Google has progressively made look more and more like real search results over the years. Great for Google's bottom line, but terrible for everyone else.
  - victorhooi 9y ago
    I just went to your website "paint.net" - it redirects to "Warren Paint & Color Co." - which appears to be a paint company in the US. Did you perhaps mean getpaint.net? That's the download site for Paint.NET, a Windows-only paint program. I did see an ad there at the top for "FileSendSuite" which does have a download button: http://i.imgur.com/ed3CKGb.png http://i.imgur.com/ed3CKGb.png To me, it was reasonably clear the link was for FileSendSuite - but perhaps some other people could get mistaken? If you hit the "x" in the top-right of any ad, you can report an ad (e.g. for being misleading/spammy), or simply say you never want to see that ad again (it gets filtered).
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      I was referring to the software, yes. Some examples were documented here, and have been seen this year as well in a recent HN discussion: https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/google-and-paint-net-need-to-stop-misleading-users/ https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/google-and-paint-net-need... I absolutely disagree with your suggestion it's "obvious" FileSendSuite is what that download button is for. Notice how the text for the actual name is drastically smaller than the Download command, which is at the top of the ad, so it appears to directly follow the page content above. Notice how it also lacks a border or background so it is more easily mistaken for page content. I am not inclined to go into the detail here, but I have spoken with Google employees on this issue before. And reporting an ad Google doesn't think violates it's policies is pointless. From the recent HN discussion on this topic, site owners have confirmed that even if they ban these malicious providers, they're rapidly replaced by other accounts doing the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336695
jonathanyc 9y ago
Why is this person being so vehemently downvoted? Anyone who has ever tried browsing the web for more than a couple minutes on a computer without an ad-blocker has run into fake download button ads. As they point out in a later comment, getpaint.net has them: I literally just went on there right now and what do you know: http://i.imgur.com/Ygjyn3H.png http://i.imgur.com/Ygjyn3H.png . If I go to Sourceforge, another malicious Google ad for "antivirus" software that at best just scams people out of their money then does nothing: http://imgur.com/a/WlcQB http://imgur.com/a/WlcQB . Once while visiting my family I happened to be at the dinner table with my parents when my mom mumbled something about a message prompting her to update. Just out of curiosity I walked over and saw her about to click on a completely fake Java update message that would have almost certainly installed malware... served by Google. It's counterproductive to live in denial of this massive problem. The original commenter has posted evidence; if you want to deny this claim, you ought to be prepared to supply some of your own.
- yohui 9y ago
  Eh? I don't see much content in revelation's comment? As for the images you posted, I checked out EasyPhotoEdit and thetop10antivirus.com and neither site appears actively harmful (the former looks like an online photo editor and the latter an antivirus comparison page), so while the ads may be distasteful I'm not sure they should be called malicious ads since that's usually reserved for actual malware.

victorhooi 9y ago

Do you have any sources or evidence for your statement "predominant distributor of malicious ads"? If true, that would be pretty radical - but I'm unsure if you're just being hyperbolic or just re-hashing something you read somewhere. (Disclaimer: Work for Google, but not in ads).

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
It's hard to prove numbers without Google sharing them. But suffice to say... You may recall this blog about fake download button ads: https://security.googleblog.com/2016/02/no-more-deceptive-download-buttons.html https://security.googleblog.com/2016/02/no-more-deceptive-do... ...That's the Chrome team. But fake download buttons are alive and well at Google AdWords. (Most of them you'll find on sites like paint.net are from Google.) As far as I understand, they aren't even against Google AdWords' policy. Google allows malicious ads which Google says are bad. And as a computer technician, most malware I remove, I check web history to figure out where they got it. Almost always it's a malicious Google ad at the top of search, which Google has progressively made look more and more like real search results over the years. Great for Google's bottom line, but terrible for everyone else.
- victorhooi 9y ago
  I just went to your website "paint.net" - it redirects to "Warren Paint & Color Co." - which appears to be a paint company in the US. Did you perhaps mean getpaint.net? That's the download site for Paint.NET, a Windows-only paint program. I did see an ad there at the top for "FileSendSuite" which does have a download button: http://i.imgur.com/ed3CKGb.png http://i.imgur.com/ed3CKGb.png To me, it was reasonably clear the link was for FileSendSuite - but perhaps some other people could get mistaken? If you hit the "x" in the top-right of any ad, you can report an ad (e.g. for being misleading/spammy), or simply say you never want to see that ad again (it gets filtered).
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    I was referring to the software, yes. Some examples were documented here, and have been seen this year as well in a recent HN discussion: https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/google-and-paint-net-need-to-stop-misleading-users/ https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/google-and-paint-net-need... I absolutely disagree with your suggestion it's "obvious" FileSendSuite is what that download button is for. Notice how the text for the actual name is drastically smaller than the Download command, which is at the top of the ad, so it appears to directly follow the page content above. Notice how it also lacks a border or background so it is more easily mistaken for page content. I am not inclined to go into the detail here, but I have spoken with Google employees on this issue before. And reporting an ad Google doesn't think violates it's policies is pointless. From the recent HN discussion on this topic, site owners have confirmed that even if they ban these malicious providers, they're rapidly replaced by other accounts doing the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336695

jonathanyc 9y ago

Why is this person being so vehemently downvoted? Anyone who has ever tried browsing the web for more than a couple minutes on a computer without an ad-blocker has run into fake download button ads. As they point out in a later comment, getpaint.net has them: I literally just went on there right now and what do you know: http://i.imgur.com/Ygjyn3H.png http://i.imgur.com/Ygjyn3H.png . If I go to Sourceforge, another malicious Google ad for "antivirus" software that at best just scams people out of their money then does nothing: http://imgur.com/a/WlcQB http://imgur.com/a/WlcQB . Once while visiting my family I happened to be at the dinner table with my parents when my mom mumbled something about a message prompting her to update. Just out of curiosity I walked over and saw her about to click on a completely fake Java update message that would have almost certainly installed malware... served by Google. It's counterproductive to live in denial of this massive problem. The original commenter has posted evidence; if you want to deny this claim, you ought to be prepared to supply some of your own.

yohui 9y ago
Eh? I don't see much content in revelation's comment? As for the images you posted, I checked out EasyPhotoEdit and thetop10antivirus.com and neither site appears actively harmful (the former looks like an online photo editor and the latter an antivirus comparison page), so while the ads may be distasteful I'm not sure they should be called malicious ads since that's usually reserved for actual malware.