Adware help anyone?

I don't know why anyone would say that. We fellow users handle such questions here all the time. Apple also does in the Apple Stores and with their phone support.

Being redirected is not adware. Adware is software that must be installed by you in some way. You can't even do it on an iPad or iPhone. Not unless you've jailbroken them.

Legitimate web sites occasionally get hacked. The persons doing the hacking changes the HTML code of the site to make it do things it shouldn't. How long it takes the real owner of the site to see the problem determines how long it stays in a compromised state.

The biggest issue online are ads that are simply part of the site. Many of them cause redirects to sites you have no desire to visit. The easiest thing to do is install an ad blocker. There are a few good free ones in the App Store. Put one on your Mac and your iOS devices.

It's not a virus. Those don't exist on the Mac. You're being redirected.

Though it is entirely possible to be caused by adware. Have you ever gotten a popup from a site insisting you need to update Flash? If you did and installed the download, it wasn't Flash. Those are always a scam to get you to install adware, or other unwanted software.

A trusted app, recommended by almost all experienced users here (and written by one of the forum's users), is MalwareBytes for Mac. It does ask you to purchase the full version, but you can use it for free. It's not typical AV software. MalwareBytes main function is to find and remove junk you've already installed. Removing adware is what it started out as, and is still its main goal.

Once run, you can easily remove it by choosing the Uninstall option in its menu

You can't infect an iPad that way. Any downloaded malware would be unsigned. iOS won't let those run. The worst that can happen is they'll take up space in the Files folder. If there's anything in there, just delete it.

I know you said you don't like downloading things, but any ad blocker in the App Store is safe. Apple has vetted it to be safe and does what it says it's for (or it wouldn't be allowed to begin with). Your problem won't change until you install one.

The “not secure” message normally indicates that attempting to connect to a website that is not using SSH (i.e., is not using “https” to secure the connection) or something is seriously wrong with the SSH Certificates / Chain of Trust.

Anyway, given your recent history of suspected malware concerns, pop-ups and “dodgy websites” that you have described, here are a couple of suggestions that will go a long way to protecting you from on-line troubles.

1) From the App Store, find and install 1Blocker. It’s an add-on for Safari - and it’s now free; whilst it might look a little daunting at first, it is one of the very best Ad-blockers for iOS that is currently available. You don’t need to pay for the optional subscription. Another benefit is that it will make Safari much faster in downloading content.

2) Manually change your DNS settings to to the Quad9 Recursive DNS Service (Primary - 9.9.9.9, Secondary - 149.112.112.112). If don’t know what this means for you, suffice to say that using this DNS provider will prevent the majority of access - and malicious redirects - to dodgy websites.

I hope you’ll find this helpful in improving your internet experience.

There's no need to do that at all. Unless you've jailbroken it, infecting an iPad with anything is just short of impossible. If you don't know what jailbreaking is, you haven't done it.

What you need is an ad blocker. For whatever reason, these popups and redirects are much more prevalent in iOS than the Mac.

Open the App Store and pick one. As noted above, I use the free version of AdGuard. No matter which one you choose, installed doesn't mean active. Once you install an ad blocker, go to Settings > Safari > Content Blockers. Turn the blocking option(s) on.

That's it. Most of this junk will now stop happening.

Do you mean such as my web site:

http://jklstudios.com

Where Safari (while on a Mac) says Not Secure at the top?

Take a screen shot of one of these messages/popups and post it here. Make sure no personal information is part of the image. To add an image to a post, click on the little image of a mountain scene (second from the right on the tool bar).

Ad blockers aren't dodgy software. It's about the only way these days to use the Internet without being driven crazy by ads, popups and redirects. Apple lists a few themselves. They're all easily available in the App Store.

As LotusPilot notes, 1Blocker gets good reviews. I use Ka-Block! on our Macs, and AdGuard on all of our iOS devices. Both have free versions.

I have read all your comments (some of which a hard to follow) - and previous recent questions that all follow a similar theme.

Ah well, I tried...