Fighting Malicious Ads on Download Pages

donho

Here is the response regarding the malicious ads on download pages.

Ref:

You’ve certainly seen the ads that use words like “Download”, “Install”, “Start”, “Continue”… etc on Notepad++ download pages.
While not all of these ads are malware/adwares, most of them are. Of course, it’s not intentional on my part - the title “Download Notepad++” unfortunately attracts such ads, and there’s no automatic way to filter the ads in question via Adsense. There are 2 ways to block them manually from Adsense’s interface: the first is to check all incoming ads and ban those with the keywords mentioned above one by one; the 2nd way is to ban the domain name (up to 500 domains).

To prevent such ads from appearing on the download pages, I try to ban the malicious ads using both 2 methods twice per month: by blocking the malicious ads individually (the 1st method), I also block their root-level URLs (domain name) using the 2nd method.

However, what I have done is clearly not enough. The frequency of blocking malicious ads will be increased to once per week.
Additionally, since my location is fixed in France and these ads target global audience, if you encounter any ads that try to mislead users (using the keywords mentioned above), please click on them and post their URL here - I will block them for sure.

The download pages have also been improved with larger, more eyes-catching download image. Additionally, the ads have been separated from the content to reduce the confusion, in case these malicious ads persist:

Finally, if you are an Adsense expert and know how to prevent certain types of ads from displying, please let me know.

Lycan Thrope

@donho ,
Just a note. If the users use the Firefox browser, with the AdBlock plugin, this is the screen they’ll see, at least, this is what I see, no ads:

Mark Olson

I still see ads with the word “Download” on Microsoft Edge.

I agree with other posters elsewhere that the real solution (for ads in general) is to use Firefox with UBlock Origin installed.

donho

@Mark-Olson

I still see ads with the word “Download” on Microsoft Edge.

As I said above:

The download pages have also been improved to reduce the confusion, in case these malicious ads persist:

Additionally, since my location is fixed in France and these ads target global audience, if you encounter any ads that try to mislead users (using the keywords mentioned above), please click on them and post their URL here - I will block them for sure.

Mark Olson

@donho
Right, sorry for missing the part where you asked me to list the offending URLs.

In the past few minutes of visiting the Download pages on Edge with no ad blocker, the only sites I noticed placing ads with “Download” links were:

https://download.driversupport.com/
https://lp.jetbrains.com/intellij-idea-http-client/
https://allmanualsreader.com/manuals/
https://pdfonestart.com/pdf
https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/
https://convertpdfplus.com

donho

@Mark-Olson
Thank you.
The 6 URLs have been blocked on their root level.

A Former User

Install uBlock Origin as a browser extension.

PeterJones

@Fast said in Fighting Malicious Ads on Download Pages:

Install uBlock Origin as a browser extension.

@Mark-Olson had already suggested uBlock Origin, and @Lycan-Thrope had already suggested AdBlock Plus.

And that suggestion won’t help anyone who doesn’t read this Topic before visiting Notepad++‘s official Downloads page: pointing out the offending advertisers’ URLs to Don is the only way we have right now to protect random users who are downloading the application (we cannot make everyone who wants to install Notepad++ first go add adblock to their browser).

Lycan Thrope

@PeterJones ,
Personally, I can’t see why everyone does NOT already having it installed in their browsers. Ads are the most aggravating thing on the Internet now. They keep pushing crap into our faces when we’re the ones paying for the connections, offering the knowledge, applications and help.

It’s like when cable started airing ads. I couldn’t wait to get a Roku so I could cut the cable (cable tv that is, not the internet feed). If there’s going to be ads, it’s going to be because I get free shows, I’ll not pay to be shown advertising.

PeterJones

@Lycan-Thrope ,

Whether or not ad blockers should be used is an argument with more than one side, and is not something that needs to be argued here. The fact is, since not everyone is using them, it’s not unreasonable to be glad that Don does put effort into trying to stop bad ads from being served on his end.

I didn’t object to ad blockers being recommended. I objected to the pointless “me too” that ignored the fact that it was a “me too”.