Amazon winner pop ups on my iPhone

Apple needs to recommend an ad blocker answer to stop the craziness of this thread.

That's the problem. They can't do that without giving the appearance of endorsing a particular product. If they simply said, "Use an ad blocker.", people would then ask which one Apple thinks they should use since there are a fair number to pick from. So, then they make the mistake of naming one or two personal preferences. Uh, oh. Now the rest of the ad blocking developers are up in arms because almost no one is looking at their product anymore and sales have plummeted.

It isn't just ad blockers, Apple will not give the slightest impression of endorsing any third party app. That's why the recommended reply is marked. It's an official statement they can recommend because it doesn't endorse any company outside of Apple, and it does work, though only briefly depending on your browsing habits.

Kurt my wife ran into this type of issue again. It wasn’t the Amazon one. But it was through her Facebook app. I don’t use Facebook at all in any way so I’m not familiar with how its browser functions. But thinking that it was the problem we looked up the linked article which was on the Washington Post site and went to it directly in Safari with no issues.

So I'm chalking this occurrence up to the use of the FB app. I have looked up a 3rd party FB app, Friendly for FB, which includes Messenger, Twitter and Instagram integration, and an ad blocker for FB. Has very good reviews and I am recommending it to my wife. Do you have any knowledge of this app?

Friendly apparently with the paid version does have the option to block FB ads in your feed.

Ah. So it's possibly a specially modified version for use with Friendly so it can block FB's inline ads.

The AdBlock Plus extension for Safari is still there you just have to enter a search for. It’s just not on the featured page.

For a long time, it was front and center. I just didn't bother to look for it beyond the lead page. I will say that the Mac version of AdGuard is working great. Blocks all of the ads and allows web sites to load much faster than AdBlock Plus did. Also, so far, with less sites noticing there's an ad blocker installed and then begging you to turn it off.

And looking at all the current news about FB, I would be concerned about having anything to do with them. Actually scratch, that I AM concerned!

It wouldn't have been so bad if only people who purchased the app responsible for the intrusion were at risk. But the app also dug into the accounts of every person in their Friends list. Which means it would cascade to a friends Friends list and find even more accounts to access. So, while I never purchased or ran the app, the doesn't mean my account info wasn't accessed.

Kurt and Lawrence have given you and others here the most rational and informed advice. Look for their posts and ignore the noise and rants. If you follow Lawrence’s original advice you will get rid of what bit you to begin with. But eventually you’re going to hit another site that will start this all over again. Turning JavaScript off will kill the issue but you’re not going keep it that way. If you absolutely refuse to install an ad blocker which we’ve all found to work, then follow Lawrence’s instructions and then turn JavaScript off for a few hours or a day. Then see where you are. That may tide you over for a while but the odds are against you.

Cichrad wrote:

I am having this issue on Chrome. How do I clear history, etc. from Chrome? I went to settings and Chrome but don’t see that option.

Open the Chrome app (not Settings). Tap on the 3 dots in the upper right, then tap Settings.

1. Tap on Content Settings, and make sure Block Popups is on (this will not fix this specific problem, but will help with others).
2. Go back to the Settings menu and choose Privacy, the Clear Browsing Data. Choose what you want to clear (probably Cookies, Site data, and Cached Images and Files) and tap Done.

Turning Javascript off might be a reasonable workaround if it was a single click option within the browser; however it takes at least 4 clicks to navigate to the toggle switch, and another 4 to turn it back on. Only advanced users would even be able to find it.

Apple's issue is that with Safari (and the other iOS browsers that are required to use the Apple WebKit rendering engine) - this malicious javascript code is successfully disabling the ability to use Back functionality.

That IS apple's fault.

It really has nothing to do with the web page you where currently on - CNN - Ect -Ect ...... it has to do with a file that is on your actual device.... As for “heading back to “ driod -take a deep breath and not make more of something then it really is!

I tried just about everything, plus turning off javascript while performing your steps. This stuff is just vicious. There must be something else at work here.

Now, if I don't use javascript at all, the problem doesn't appear at all. But without javascript most sites are not viewable. So whatever is causing this amazon congratulations popup, it's powered by javascript.

The only thing I haven't tried is ad blocker. I'm also considering doing something more drastic, such as wiping an my iPhone clean. Are these mxxxxxfxxxers registering a million websites? Everything I got seemed to come from *.top mostly.

Everything Lawrence Finch said was correct. It has to do with malicious ads from reputable sites such as cnn, msn, yahoo,...etc. But I also suspect that once this thing is embedded to your phone, it cannot be deleted at least with the methods outlined by Lawrence. I tried his methods many times, and I've even included turning off javascript in the process while cleaning the phone. Nothing worked. As Lawrence Finch said, my wife's iPhone did not have this problem, and she visited msn and yahoo very often so it had to be something I did to my phone. I probably clicked a few popups because at the time I didn't know what else to do to go back to the page I was viewing before.

As Lawrence said, it has to do with the reputable websites running malicious ads. I was just hoping there is an option of not having to install another app to my phone.

I wish we can find out who paid all those *.top sites. That guy deserves to be shot 100 rounds and fed to the dogs.

A few weeks ago I "caught" it from weather.com. I had a few other ASC level 6 and higher associates here test and confirm my experience. This was clearly a problem for Apple, because the iPhone weather app uses weather.com, and there's an icon in the app that opens weather.com (which is how I found the problem). I reported this up the chain of command at Apple and it was fixed by weather.com about a day later. Or that might have been coincidence.

I also got it from a scrabble cheat site that I occasionally use. Probably karma, in that case 😉

Apple has a closed architecture. For a browser to get in the App Store, it must use the WebKit engine. APIs must be used only in ways Apple deems acceptable.

In order to do whitelisting, ad blockers have to be passed the UR you are visiting. There is your proof.

I’m not here to argue over who makes money off which ad, ads pay out to a source. The websites are dependents but the browser is owned and operated by apple/Mac. The ads are not simple pop up ads like that what you get in games like” rate now” or “link to Facebook to earn and find friends” they are a new page opened in the browser. So I see it being sourced to the browser not the site. They are not links on the page you are viewing that you click on. They are pop ups that create or open a new page and lock the other pages and back feature out of the safari browser. I may be wrong as I am not a developer or even have a full understanding of the processes envolved in these ads behavior. But to me it seems to be an apple only issue. Leading me to think it’s not the websites action. Many have quoted it to be on many very reputable sites. These sites would not allow this type of ad to be launched off of their site. But if the cause is located within the browser it can launch on any site.

I posted my temp fix for it now which I currently use everyday. In my very first response to the question.

I have found that once the ad has popped up I can click the url bar hit the x then hit back < button in the safari browser to go back to the actual page I was on. No restart or no closing browser to retype my last search.

You asked me to solve the original question asked. I’ve already posted my current fix. Now you are here just to argue with me. I do not believe consumer will have a permanent fix for this issue as it is a developer side solution. We can disable certain features, install certain apps or however we believe we will solve the issue. But it is going to be solved by apple. Or website designers. Who ever is responsible to stop these sort of things from happening. When we download an app it states the terms. In app purchases things like that. When you visit a site it may say this site uses cookies etc. Wherever this problem originates will be the person responsible to solve. Amazon, Walmart, and any other company’s name that is being used will eventually catch on. They will track the origin and solve the problem in court. The US government has the technology to trace about anything they want online. This is part of the cybercrime our presidents have bargained for. Even years ago Obama was speaking of our ability to track online activities. I am not speaking of conspiracy. I have many friends in the tech field, military and civilian side. They can do thing unimaginable by most individuals.

These ads are using big companies names in their ads. That is copyright infringement. Which is illegal.

Yup, completely agree. You can't sue over it, but Amazon can. It's their name that's being used in the ad.

Well, probably not entirely true. If you lost money on a scam ad like that, then you can sue or press charges. But, first you'd have to be able to locate the actual person or entity behind it. And most of the time, they are located in countries where the authorities are known to do little or nothing about it. Even when you can tell them where the perps are. The court system where you live has no jurisdiction in another country. So if they do nothing, you're out of luck.