Unfamiliar websites in Safari history!?

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Level 1

11 points

Unfamiliar websites in Safari history!?

Hey everyone!

So today I went to Website Data in Settings>Safari>Advanced, and there were a bunch of websites all taking up 0 bytes that I never remember visiting, and that weren't in my browser history.

Some of the websites took this form:

(something).cloud(something).net

Other websites ended in '.io', '.com' and '.net'.

I remember seeing one that was 'areyouahuman.(i forgot the ending)'.

Recently I have been traveling, and I connected to the wifi of these three airports:

Calgary Airport

Chicago O Hare Airport

Logan Airport

I also connected to my hotel wifi.

Is it possible that all of those websites were from the redirect/sign in portals of the wifi networks I connected to? Or does someone have remote access to my iPad or iCloud account?I already cleared history and website data.

Additional info:

iPad model: Air 2

OS: iOS 10.3.3, no jailbreak

iPad Air Wi-Fi

Posted on Jul 27, 2017 12:29 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Diana.McCall

Level 7

21,255 points

Jul 27, 2017 5:47 PM in response to Puggerino

So, you have just discovered that virtually every webpage you load includes references to items from other sites. The most common of these are ads, but there are lots of others. Those entries in the browser history were created by Safari referencing sites based on the HTML text of a page which you viewed. They weren't inserted by some weird remote control, and they probably didn't come from one of the portals you visited, except maybe that areyouhuman site, which was probably a captcha service. The web isn't what it was 25 years ago. And with every free provider trying to monetize his views, it gets a little crazy sometimes.

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Answer 2

Puggerino Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 27, 2017 3:15 PM in response to Puggerino

Just checked again.

I looked at some Calvin and Hobbes fanfic pages and checked website data again.

Bunch of weird websites ending in .com, .net and others popped up that I never visited. Is it because the website I was on pulls data from those websites? Someone help!

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