Virus-like behavior with website through Safari

Question

Level 1

4 points

Virus-like behavior with website through Safari

When I go to a local tv station website through Safari on my iPhone 6s, I get a number of pop ups after I click on and begin reading a news story. The final pop up that appears has been pornographic. I have questioned if my phone has a virus, but have been told that iPhones do not get viruses. My iPhone is not jailbroken.

I believe this behavior happens the first time that I go to that tv station website each day or possibly only after I haven't been to the website for several hours. Subsequent visits to the website immediately after the pop up behavior occurs results in expected website and viewing of news story behaviors without the pop ups. I also believe it has only happened when I visit this one particular website. I do not have the same behavior when visiting that same website from my iPad, MacBook, or iMac --- only on my iPhone. I have also cleared my history and website data for Safari through the settings app.

Any suggestions on what this is and how to fix it? Thank you!

iPhone 6s, iOS 10.1.1

Posted on Apr 21, 2017 7:55 AM

Reply

Answer 1

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,306 points

Apr 21, 2017 7:59 AM in response to MommytoMs

sounds like the tv station is allowing whatever advertisers that will pay them for ad space and don't have clue of what that content is or don't care if their audience is scammed by them when they go to their site.

stay off the site. or contact another news station and tell them to run a "shame on you" segment for the station allowing crap posts.

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Answer 2

thomas_r.

Level 7

32,031 points

Apr 21, 2017 8:46 AM in response to MommytoMs

This sounds like a problem with that site. I'd guess that their ad provider is serving up some malicious ads. If you were using Mac, Windows or Android, this could be caused by adware, but on an iPhone that doesn't happen unless you have jailbroken your phone and installed some questionable app that infected your phone with adware.

It could possibly be caused by a network issue on your end, as well. If that's the case, though, you'd see it on any other device connected to the same network, and it would stop happening on your phone if you moved to a different network. If that's not the case, we're back to a problem specifically with that site.

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Answer 3

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Apr 21, 2017 9:39 AM in response to MommytoMs

Some sites show different content when you are on a small screen. Could be the ads are only for small screens. You could get another browser like iCab and set to view in desktop mode. You will see the large screen web site.

R

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Answer 4

Apr 21, 2017 9:44 AM in response to MommytoMs

Hi

Go to settings Safari delete history and data

Try Firefox browser from apps store.

Cheers

Brian

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