There are ads on my website! Get them off, NOW!

With the large customer base that pageBuzz.com has it is very common to have people call us or email with abusive comments like "you added ads on my website, get them off!" or "I never authorized you to put ads on my website, remove them immediately or I will sue you!".

Now, as a hosting company, we would never add advertising to anyones website, that goes without saying.

But when people see ads on their website they assume that it is something that we did.

You would almost think that they would expect that maybe the site was hacked and some hacker added the links, but that is not usually the case. For some reason when website owners go to view their website and see photo ads, link ads and pop ups they instantly become very angry and lash out at us as the ones responsible without much consideration.

However, we are not responsible and it is not the website that has the ads on it, the problem is on the users computer.

As a website host with a closed system, meaning no FTP accesss and the highest level of security and meticulous management of all files being uploaded, we take those actions because we understand the vast number of hackers infecting computers and that users will blindly download and install all sorts of free software.

So while we have taken great precautions against any website infections or maleware, our customers are not quite as diligent. In fact most have some type of virus on their computer and it often prevents our webtools from working for them.

While we can create some of the best software in the world, if your computer is infected with a virus we have no way of overriding that problem or correcting it.

So when our users websites seemingly have ads on them, it is actually out of our hands. No matter how abusive the calls or email get, we can't do anything about it, unless they ship us their computer for an overhaul.

To write this article about adware and malware, I did some research and a quick google search of "malware adding links" on google gave me some interesting details about what other people are experiencing with their customers and website visitors.

I found this article an wikimedia about wikipedia and people seeing banner ads on the pages.

Of course, wikipedia is funded solely by donations and never runs advertising of any kind, but below, you will see a screen capture of a page on wikipedia with a full size banner ad across the top.

Most people would not give this a second thought, becuase they just assume that the ad is part of the page.

But in fact it is not part of the page. It is actually put there by software on the users computer that rewrites the page and adds the banner sent from some outside advertising network.

The user is none the wiser because they don't know what is supposed to be on the page and they assume that the ad on the top is legit.

But when they view their own website and see an ad they know they did not put there, then they realize something is wrong. Never for one second thinking that maybe the "FREE Website Traffic Booster" they downloaded last week might be the cause or any of the other 10 programs that they installed recently might not be completely legit.

In fact. many programs are clearly labeled as "ADWARE" and you agree to viewing those ads in exchange for downloading something for free. I guess people never consider that the ads would be on their own website. Or they just never read the terms use of the software that they agreed to.

And of course, the ads are not on the website, just on the users computer.

That is until, the users goes to edit the page to remove the ads and then saves the page with the malware running on their computer, because the new page they save is exactly what they see. So now they have saved the ads to the website page permanently.

Adware / Malware is a Very Common Problem

I appears the issue is more common that I originally suspected and there are so many different types of adware and malware that all do very different things. So lets talk about the difference between adware and malware.

Adware: This is ad based software. You download a free program that discloses it is adware that will display ads and that is how they pay for software development and provide it free of charge. These are legit programs often put out by large companies such as yahoo to support their advertising network. Sometimes packed in the yahoo tool bar or programs targeting website owners that want traffic to their website.

Malware: These are programs that the user installs that don't let you know they are going to place ads on everything. For software developers, this is very simple and since you just download the binary file and install it, you never really know what it is going to do.

It could hijack your Internet connection when your computer is inactive and surf the net making the software developer cash by sending traffic that they sell or click on ads that the software developer gets paid for.

More commonly, they just modify the way your web browser works, exploiting bugs in IE, Safari or Mozilla to add links or ads to websites that you might click on ad make them money.

So wile the links are not on the websites, the software adds them to the pages that you see. The more people that download and install the program the more money they make.

Malware can be passed in programs, emails or on websites.

Webmasters use tricks to make you think your browser is locked up or your computer is infected with a virus to get you to install something that you think you need. When you do, then you are screwed.

But that is not always the case.

Malware can be packaged in anything like a pretty set of images zipped up in a self extracting zip file which will install programs when it unzip or a free program to make cool text for your website.

Anything that you install in your computer can be malicious and might be the cause of your problems.

If your computer is running very slow, it probably has malware in it!

Malware will constantly check for ads and write them into your pages, so it can be CPU intensive but that is not always the case.

Wost of all, because it is a program that you installed, no virus program is going to remove it or catch it. Since it is packed in something you authorized to have installed, you bypassed the security you had when you installed your virus software.

So now what do you do?

What do you do when you are violated, robbed or run over by a truck? You get back up and start over again.

This might mean wiping out your computer to get the malware off or it might be as easy as uninstalling the software that you added.

In any case, you should consult an expert that can make that determination in your particular case.

In most cases, having a recent restore point before the infection occurred will allow you to restore your PC back to the way it was within a few minutes without much effort.

Check The Most Obvious First

The point of the story is that you should not jump to conclusions and assume that your website was hacked, that your host has placed ads on your pages but consider first that maybe it is something that you might have one, downloaded or installed.

While websites and computers are quite complex, it is the inexperienced user that causes most of the problems.

Software developers know that average people are unsuspecting and quite careless when it comes to security. They are after personal information, credit card numbers, social security numbers and bank account access.

But they also write malware to use your computer to do their bidding, send emails, attack websites and networks or even just gather data and relay it back to their servers.

Deal with the Problem Professionally

Whatever the case is, whatever you have installed, having ads on your pages in the least of your worries. Because if they can get in to your computer to do that, they can also get in to access all that critical banking data and financial account access.

Many people want to cheaply try to remove the problem, quickly or just ignore it since the ads are not on their website, they can deal with the fact that only they have to see them.

But leaving that type of software in your computer is a big mistake and can lead to more serious problems.

For example: The hacker could be using your computer to relay illegal child porn or sell dugs or run as a proxy for terrorist networks. Any of those things could put you in jail,

So if you don't think the problem is serious, just ignore it and see what happens. But if you end up being water boarded in a holding cell in Guantanamo Cuba, don't say that we did not warn you.