Pop-ups/adware/other crap

August 9th, 2007 // 350 Comments

logo.jpgAre any of you guys getting pop-ups for some drive cleaner or adware or some other crap? We’ve gotten a few emails and we’re trying to figure out what the hell is going on. We haven’t authorized any of that stuff and haven’t put any on the site, so we’re having a hell of a time trying to figure out where it’s coming from. If you’ve seen or not seen the pop-up, leave a comment with some helpful info so we can get to the bottom of this. And if you have any experience with this sort of thing, any helpful advice would be appreciated.

NOTE: If you are getting the pop-up, is it only when you visit this site? Nobody here can recreate the problem so we can’t figure out if it’s actually coming from the site.

UPDATE: I’m shutting down the comments because I think it’s safe to say there’s a serious problem with one of our ad servers. If you’ve got any additional info that might be helpful you can contact us using the regular contact form. Right now we’re contacting all of our ad brokers and by the power of Grayskull I swear we will get this thing fixed.


  1. WebFairy

    Pop-up drive cleaner message that WILL NOT go away! Not visiting this site again!

  2. John

    This site has gone to shit. Totally niggered up with popups, and adware. Looks like these fuckers need to get their shit under control or they will totally lose their readers

  3. jenntroy

    I had the same thing happen this AM. didnt know what was going on. but my virus protetion kicked in and told me to exit. weird. now i’m back and it hasnt happed since.

  4. criscodisco

    I am getting the error, both at home and at work. In both, it takes away the window and shrinks firefox down to just a box asking if I want a system scan.

    At work we use IE, and it does the same, although it doesn’t crash the window completely like FF does.

  5. WebFairy

    Nice #302: Pop-ups & racists!!! Definitely outta here!

  6. jackye

    i am only getting it from this site. No where else..it happens when ive been on the site for about 5 minutes

  7. sara

    I have gotten the pop up several times when visiting this site. It usually only happens when I am first visiting the page, or when I am going to page 2, 3 and so on. It usually only happens to me when i’m loading up the page for the first time.

  8. Guida

    I got the pop-up. It said it would clean my computer’s history of adult websites. Then on my mac it started to download on its own so I had to stop it. When I logged into your website a second time it didn’t happen.

  9. Mel

    I got the message when I clicked on a picture. It’s never happened before today. Firefox window disappears, then small screen on bottom right corner comes up. I got 2 different messages. I took a screenshot of the window, but can’t upload to your site.

  10. YouGuysAreIdiots

    Idiots. It’s not the superficals fault. It’s a virus on your own computer. Welcome to not knowing how to take care of your computer, and suffering the consequences. Refer to #300′s on how to remove the program causing the pop-ups.

    To clarify: You have a trojan on your computer, that will activate whenever it thinks you are at any site you don’t want tracked. All of those experiencing this issue can visit any porn site and get the same pop-up.

    Point that finger where it belongs… at yourself.

  11. teresa

    It happened the first time I tried to access the site today and I thought I had clicked on something by mistake. No problems accessing the site a second time today.

  12. Jane

    I’ve been getting them too and once it pops up, you can click back to this page. You have to totally close down explorer and then open it back up. Also, I check this site from work and our IT dept. claims to have a pop up blocker and all kinds of spam filters blah blah blah. So whatever it is, it’s circumventing our office’s filters.

  13. dom english

    Yes I got a pop up

  14. Natalie

    I’ve gotten the pop up a few times. It comes up randomly when i click on the pics you post under the main article. It wont follow the link to the picture and it will come up with a drive cleaner advertisement. When I close that box out it will also close Mozilla and I’ll have to reopen it.

  15. Peachy

    I’ve seen the pop ups when clicking on pics. I use FF and it’s happened at least three times in the last few days. If you try and close the pop up down then it tries to start installing. You guys need to get this sorted!

  16. SuperficialGal

    I only get it from this site. I think it only comes up when I click on pictures to enlarge them.

  17. Alia

    I got WinStar virus again yesterday the page wouldn’t even load just a blank screen it took me an hour to fully get it off my computer. Hope you get it fixed soon as I love the Superficial.

  18. Steve

    The popup right now is on the iWatchStuff site, when your on that site and go to click the technology link, it appears some button is above it and makes it go to another site.

  19. Jane

    Sorry, that should be “can’t click back to this page.”

  20. jkhollyk

    I got redirected, not a pop-up, to a site warning me to clean my drive to erase my history of visiting “adult” sites. Everyone knows TheSuperficial is for babies.

  21. dingleberry

    i got a popup right after i opened the page and tried to click on that lefthand side of the page to scroll down. im running os X

  22. James

    I am getting this message also the past few days I have visited the site…

  23. Danielle

    I am getting the drivecleaner popup after a few minutes on this site only, but not everytime. I work for a university, so it is getting through firewalls and such. It looks like it closes the browser and only a small box with a message warning you of adult content etc. detected on the pc….if you hit close, it redirects to an install window (in internet explorer). Hope that helps somewhat.

  24. cracka

    I got the pop up last night when I clicked on mcphee wedgie pic. Just once though, I closed my browser and came back and was able to see the pic without the pop up. It was a weird pop up, I had to close my browser to get rid of it.

  25. Jennifer

    Every time I have come to the site, I have received this popup, and can not get rid of it until I close out of the whole page, it only occurs on this site
    Thanks!

  26. Yes, yesterday I received it. It was only really for one story and then it went away. Since I am on a Mac I wasn’t too concerned about it messing anything up. Nothing today.

  27. Bond, James Bond

    Yep, I got the drivecleaner pop up from this site, too.

    Come on, Fish, get ‘em!

  28. ariana

    I just got the pop up too. And something about how the computer will record when I visit “adult sites” and to then click on drive cleaner.

  29. Bond, James Bond

    As soon as pushed the “post your comment” button on my previous post, the damn drivecleaner popup reared it’s ugly head! Get ‘em FISH!!!

  30. Deona

    I’m not getting a pop up. What it is doing for me is I will come to the site and it will start to load and then automatically switch to the ad page, where it says my computer is infected and do I want to install some drivecleaner.

  31. Paula

    I keep getting pop ups about “browsing for porn and how it can ruin your life – Let us scan your computer for free!!!” No, I’m not a pervert browsing for porn all day – it only happens when I visit this site. . . .

  32. lisey

    i’m guessing it’s fairly obvious by now but yes to pop ups. my browser (int expl) just redirected to: http://newbieadguide.com/statsg.php?campaign=plandeep&u=1186672519614 when i tried to access the site.

    i’m no longer visitng the site from my home computer (sorry work computer!) and tend to read the site through google reader now so i avoid the annoying pop ups. i’d assume my work computer has decent protection but perhaps not.

  33. Sabrina

    Yup, I get the pop-up every time I open pictures “after the jump”, Th ecleaner is referencing cleaning up porn, so it may have to do with images popping and this software feeding off that. I tool a screen shot too the last time it happened if you’d like me to email it over to someone as well.
    Thanks!!

  34. Tom

    I got the pop-up, and it automatically downloaded the mentioned software. Virus scanner caught it, But I was REALLY suprised to get it.
    I clicked on the 6 option under the “So Freakin Hot” bar on the right side

  35. hEATHER

    ‘INSTALLDRIVECLEANERSTART.CAB’ The pop up only happens when I come to this site. I get completely redirected. The error message says something about porn being installed without you even knowing and that it could ruin my marriage. (oh,no) Hope this helps.

  36. maddy

    Yep. And I think I got a virus from the pop-ups as well, when i ran my virus scanner because of all the pop-ups it came up and said i had a virus in the computer.

    Hoping you get it fixed, i love this website.

  37. Amy

    When clicking on the comment section of this post I got redirected to:

    http://newbieadguide.com/statsg.php?campaign=plandeep&u=1186672694593,

    then immediately redirected to:

    http://www.drivecleaner.com/.freeware/index.php?p=56&ax=1&ex=1&z=-5&link=intl&ad=plandeep_us_en_ed2&aff=

    it immediately starts to try to download a file to the computer. Hope this helps.

  38. ManiacFive

    No Pop ups here,

    Using two different machines with OS X 10.4 with Safari at home, and Win XP with IE 6 at work. All in the UK

  39. Johnny

    Yes, i was auto redirected to the site:
    http://newbieadguide.com/statsg.php?campaign=0therye5&u=1186672545895
    which then bounced me to:
    http://amaena.com/securityworm5/index.php?lid=intl&ax=1&ex=1&aid=0therye5_rdt_uk_en_ed2
    which then launched the kind of popups other posts have mentioned.

  40. Joanna

    Also got the popup.. visiting from Sweden. The site is closing down when I get it. Dunno what it is

  41. Alibear

    I’ve had the pop up on both my work and home computers…I’m in England. It happens a couple of times and then redirects me to some anti virus website. The third time I visit the page it’s fine.

  42. Quinn

    No PopUps ever

  43. BW

    Some pop ups don’t generate because of the host site. If a person has adware already on his computer, when they visit a site that has a keyword, there will be a popup from that. The best program I’ve used, and have been using it for years, is Spybot Search and Destroy. It will take care of your adware, spyware, etc.
    Sorry if this is a repeat post.
    God bless
    BW

  44. Zonie

    Now, in Firefox 2.0.0.6 on OS X 10.4.10 the comments for this post are disappearing. Like, the entire “container” div is hidden. It still works in Safari, though. Getting the popups as well.

  45. Zonie

    Now, in Firefox 2.0.0.6 on OS X 10.4.10 the comments for this post are disappearing. Like, the entire “container” div is hidden. If I disable CSS styles using the Web Developer Add-on in Firefox, it shows up. It still works in Safari, though. Getting the popups as well.

  46. Penny

    I’ve been getting this pop-up pretty regularly for the past couple of weeks. I don’t know what happened, but something (and I have a sneaking suspicion that it came from this pop-up–same as described by others here) corrupted one of my system files. It’s looking like I’m going to have to either find a way to repair the file or wipe the whole computer. If you figure out what the problem is, I’d really appreciate a general post…might help fix the problem on my computer! Thanks!

  47. Dave

    Check this out…

    http://www.mikeonads.com/what-is-errorsafe-and-how-do-we-stop-it/

    Here, here on SpyBot Search & Destroy too.

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