I have a feeling that the Escapist are hosting virus banners...

[The Stonker]

See those banners above you about downloading and the ones to your side on the main page which says "blabla american life!"
Yeah, I never thought the Escapist would go that way, but I'm really dissapointed since most of them are viruses.

Any opinions upon this?

 

[Cheezeypoofs]

Do you know for a fact they are viruses?
I don't see them as a PubClub member but if they are viruses, that is out of line.
I don't want to seem like I'm advertising PubClub, but if you are worried about them, I'd suggest joining. Losing credit card information would be worse than $15(I think it's that much)

 

[The Stonker]

Do you know for a fact they are viruses?
I don't see them as a PubClub member but if they are viruses, that is out of line.
I don't want to seem like I'm advertising PubClub, but if you are worried about them, I'd suggest joining. Losing credit card information would be worse than $15(I think it's that much)

First of all being silly enough to click on one of them then yeah...
But I just never thought that the Escapist would do such a thing and it kinda feels like Pubclub members are sitting from their ivory towers.

 

[Aris Khandr]

All the ones I see are for Deus Ex and Dragon Nest, which I am reasonably sure aren't viruses.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Wait, do people actually click on the advertisements? In all my time here, my mouse hasn't so much as waved over them.

 

[Garrsus]

to be perfectly honest i havnt looked but i know that if you click on the virus stuff there is no one to blame but yourself, the escapist needs money and ads are a good thing for that but it may mean that you get those, its a fact of life (on the escapist), best you can do is ignore them, or go pubclub. I'm not but i have seen it and it isn't half bad.
but you should know what is a virus and what isnt if you pay attention. i mean i see a match.com advert and that's not a virus, but i know that because ive seen match.com if you haven't seen it before, don't click it. simple enough.

 

[teqrevisited]

At the moment, I'm seeing one that says I've been tagged in 4 photos. It means nothing to me but it's screaming scam in bold red. I hate those kinds of ads.

 

[SuperiorityComplex]

the Escapist doesn't necessarily have control over what is *in* the ads. They essentially have ad space that is sold, blah blah blah, and so they don't always control what is in the ads. I'm fairly new here but that has been my experience with several other sites.

My advice? Report the ads you believe to be scams and that you believe contain a virus. They won't be removed if they aren't reported, because the likelihood is nobody that can do anything about it knows about it.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

Ok, you don't get viruses by browsing websites. People need to learn this. Ads cannot be viruses. They can lead you to pages where if you follow stupid instructions you might get viruses. They can lead you to pages that contain linkspam that will generate popups if your browser is too crappy to block them. But ads != viruses.

 

[Jack and Calumon]

Most ads on the Internet are scams. Big whoop! I went to Joystiq and they asked me whether a Seagull with muscly arms was shopped or not. Didn't hinder my enjoyment of their frequent posts.

Just don't click on them if you think it's a scam. Just scroll the fuck down, and hope it doesn't flash constantly at you!

Calumon: Then see me so we can play all day, all the time, forever and ever!

 

[Colour Scientist]

I'm currently getting the "Shoot Five Targets" or "Catch 10 Penguins" ones.








Seems legit.

 

[LaughingJester]

I am looking at one that says I have won a prize... do I click on it? NO!!! cause it's not 1995 and I am sure it's a scam of some kind

 

[PleasantAsAHeadcrab]

I'm just getting ads for Rise of Nightmares, and I don't think that counts unless you consider Kinect to be a virus inflicted on humanity. *Ba-dum-tsh*

 

[LobsterFeng]

I'm unfazed by ads unless there's a hot chick on them. Even then I still don't click on them.

 

[Rednog]

Yea my avast goes nuts at least once a month due to the ads on the site. I just stay off for like 2-3 days and run a sweep on my computer to remove them.

 

[Rednog]

AdBlockPlus is preventing any banners, and thats free.

Don't quote me on this but I don't think the Escapist likes (or even bans?) people using any ad blockers.

 

[ace_of_something]

AdBlockPlus is preventing any banners, and thats free.

I recall that being against the conditions of signing up for the forum. Or some such thing.
Meh, Pretty much the only ads I even pay attention to are ones that end up leading me to wizards of the coast or a game I'm already interested in. Slim Jims and such I couldn't care less.

 

[RagnarokHybrid]

Sometime's it's just a slip of the wrist, though. Or the video ad pops up when you're trying to get the actual content to start so you may click on it accidentally. I'm just projecting, of course, maybe I'm just a klutz.

At any rate, the ads are a nuisance but I doubt they have viruses.

 

[Mr Thin]

The only ad I've seen that I don't like is that 'you are the 100,00th visitor!" crap. It looks ugly and out of place on such a nice, clean website.

I've no idea if it's a virus or not, since I've never clicked on it; I'm more bothered by the way it mars the aesthetic.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

the Escapist doesn't necessarily have control over what is *in* the ads. They essentially have ad space that is sold, blah blah blah, and so they don't always control what is in the ads. I'm fairly new here but that has been my experience with several other sites.
.

So if I bought out adspace to post porn...

Joking, joking.


Yeah I generally don't even notice the ads any more since I only come here for news and moviebob since they've removed a lot of the things came here for...

Besides, I think my antivirus... Actually nevermind, going into that got my a warning last time, but I will state that I would prefer to be getting in trouble for certain rules than to let the Escapist give me a THIRD VIRUS crashing my 1,500 dollar laptop.

I think I'm in the right for things my antivirus does outside of my control, that is, unless you want to pay for my laptop replacement when another virus I get from here kills it.