Please consider removing the "Crackle" ads

[TombaManga]

No banner of any kind shows up, I'm just forcibly redirected to their webpage. Forcibly redirected to an entirely different webpage. The popups were bad enough (Ad banners are reasonable imo), but this is just..not good. Is there any way to possibly take those ads off?

[7by12]

I'd like to second this. On Mobile Safari, the Crackle.com page auto-loads and I have to hit the back button multiple times (sometimes an many as 10 times) in order to enter only one new comic in My Collection. I've tried allowing an open window on Crackle to stay while I open another tab on the site and I've tried allowing Crackle to fully load before hitting the back button, hoping a cookie would keep it from opening again. Neither has worked. I love this site and am highly invested. I have no objections to ComicBookDB being ad supported. However, this problem with Crackle auto loading makes it nigh unusable. I don't want to switch to another site. Is there any way to fix this?

[Ukiah]

Same thing happens to me, I'm looking at an issue and then next thing I know I'm on Crackle - three times this morning I tried to look at the same issue and three times a few seconds later I'm on Crackle. If this continues to happen as consistently as it has then I see a drop in users on this website, it's that bad.

[Uthor]

On the plus side, you get to watch free movies randomly!

[TombaManga]

Agreed; My statements are meant to be read as the ones above: Ads are fine, it's just the ad that keeps sending us to a new webpage is really, really a bit too much.

[mikebo]

Ukiah had sent me a link to a page that was repeatedly causing the problem as an example, and I was unable to recreate the situation myself. I tried it in several web browsers. And there didn't appear to be anything wrong with the source code of the page to my eyes. I was putting together some links for you all experiencing this a few days ago, when my electricity cut off. The short version:

There are some 'redirect viruses' that can cause this sort of behavior, and redirecting to crackle.com in particular is a common one. Its possible your computers could be infected. If you haven't done so lately, I'd suggest starting with updating your anti-virus/malware software and doing full scans.

What web browsers are you using? Does the redirect to crackle occur if you try the same page in a different browser? It's only occurring when you're using comicbookdb.com? Has it ever occurred while on the forums? How about other websites that use the PHP scripting language? (wikipedia, and facebook amongst many others use PHP.)

[Uthor]

Happens at work using IE7. Our virus protection *ought* to by up to date (I don't have control over it). I just got IE8 today, so I don't know if it will continue happening. Hasn't happened at home, but I have ABP running, so that may be stopping it.

From what I've experienced, it hasn't been any specific page that does it. If I back up far enough to break the loop (hitting back once usually just keeps redirecting me to Crackle), going back to the page that first caused it doesn't do anything.

I've only experienced it when looking at ComicBookDB and no other site.

Update: Just happened on IE8 at work when browsing a random character page.

[jimcripps]

I only experience the "crackle.com" redirect while on comicbookdb.com, after signing in or not, and after doing a title search, looking at the title page, then clicking on a specific issue: once going to the issue page, the pop-up blocker within Firefox alerts me to a pop-up, then goes away. Where the ad banner usually loads, it doesn't or happens too fast, then the redirect occurs. Hitting the back button is similar resulting like others', but I can hit stop before the title page fully loads, then continue on normally; within this scenario, the ad banner is not loaded at the title page.

Windows XP sp3
FF 13.0.1

[7by12]

It happens to me using my iPhone (latest version of iOS, not jail broken). I tried mobile safari, Google Chrome and perfect browser. I'm not aware of any iOS viruses, or iOS anti-virus software, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. I haven't tried it on my laptop, it's so far away in the other room. It happens to me only on this site. It is making the site unusable for me. Are there redirect viruses that affect web servers?

[Chris]

I haven't been able to replicate this problem and I've done an exhaustive search through the entire codebase and database for crackle and have found no results. A quick search on Google for this issue brings up articles like this one:

http://www.2-viruses.com/remove-crackle-redirect

In short, this is a browser hijacking virus and resides as a trojan on the computer of the person browsing, evidently not on the website itself. There is a solution offered but I can't vouch for it as I haven't needed it.

I'll keep an eye out for things, but so far I haven't been able to find anything on our end that would cause the reported behavior.

[jimcripps]

Some time back, Microsoft Security Essentials disappeared from my laptop..., quite possible there is a connection. I will run a scan with another program, and then maybe try re-installing MSE.

[Sly]

I haven't been able to replicate this problem and I've done an exhaustive search through the entire codebase and database for crackle and have found no results. A quick search on Google for this issue brings up articles like this one:

http://www.2-viruses.com/remove-crackle-redirect

In short, this is a browser hijacking virus and resides as a trojan on the computer of the person browsing, evidently not on the website itself. There is a solution offered but I can't vouch for it as I haven't needed it.

I'll keep an eye out for things, but so far I haven't been able to find anything on our end that would cause the reported behavior.

With respect, I really don't think it's a problem on users' end. That article describes a much different problem with Crackle redirects than what is happening on this site. The problem is in the banner ad rotation, so you won't find evidence of it in your code or database. Every so often, the banner ads cycle around to one that instead of giving a pop-up ad, forces a redirect to Crackle. A cursory Google search turns up multiple other forums where users complained of the exact problem we're having here, starting around the same time it did here, the source of which turned out to be a banner ad in those sites' rotations.

What ad service do you use?

[jimcripps]

FYI: One scan found Win32.Trojan.Agent and associated files "hsettings.exe", "earchSettings", "onupdater.exe", "ApplicationUpdater", and something about "HomePage".

Signed in on comicbookdb.com, and nothing happened so far. I'll keep checking in to see if there's any more redirects.

[Uthor]

I ran a scan at work and found nothing. It's also worth noting that I only have issues on this site and have none of the other issues mentioned in Chris' article (stability, hijacked search results, page redirects, etc).

[jimcripps]

After removing those items in my scan, and several visits to comicbookdb.com, there have been no recurrences of Crackle.
w00t!