Well then we all better chip in for server costs, because ads pay for that...

I'm just thankfull that I now use Opera, thanks to our (lack of) marketshare (it's under 1% I believe) I'm pretty sure that I will be fairly safe for atleast a few years. :)

Also, closing down the site shouldn't really speed up the virus fixing, but if more people get affected by this virus they're less likely to return than if they get a message saying that the site currently has a virus and it will be back up in a few more days.

That being said, I've noticed alot of sites have been hit by this recently (VGChartz, NexGenWars, AllAbout-SP) and they all have one thing in common, flash based banner advertisments.

I dunno about anyone else, but using something like Google AdWords would be much better, you know Google aren't going to stick a load of viruses on them. You can customise the ads so that the colours fit better, the adverts are generally more useful compared to the normal advertisments (no, I really don't want to click on the big red fart button... I learnt my lesson from the first time). They're text adverts so they don't get in the way, and ioi will be paid ~50p everytime someone clicks on the add.

Alexa tells me that on average around 14,000 people log onto this website everyday. If only 1 in every hundred people who visit this site click on an add, that would mean that around 140 people would click on an advert every day.*

Google pays the site owner $1 for every click (pays on a monthly basis, I think it's for the month previous, not the current month). XE.com tells me that equals roughly £69.78. So that's roughly £70 a day from advertisments.

whois.net tells me that VGChartz is currently hosted by DreamHost Web Hosting. Their websites most expensive package (from what I could find after a couple of clicks) costs around $80 per month, and with a maximum of ~$50 setp up fee. Clearly the money made from Google AdWords would be vastly more than enough to pay for advertising.

*Actually according to C|Net (http://www.news.com/Firefox+users+ignore+online+ads,+report+says/2100-1024_3-5479800.html) roughly only 0.5% of internet users actually click on adverts, now this will still prduce more than enough cash to maintain this site and make a profit, especially when members, like myself, would be clicking adverts to help support the site.

I suggested that ioi join an advertising network, which matches up websites (like this) and advertisers, and will offer a pay-per click revenue stream for this website. 

I may be wrong, but I have serious doubts that the ads causing the most problems are the Google ones, or that they'd list the site as malware because of their own ads.

Could be Kruze.

Yea it currently isn't the ads its a hacker hitting an exploit and writing their own code(an iframe) into the site which is pointing to a different location that either they also hacked or have full control at and thats what is delivering it. I think the only reason its been so associated with ads is that various adblocking features like the downloadable one for firefox can be told to block iframes which is helping them to avoid even having to see its script attempt to execute in a plugin like NoScript. Right now there isn't immediate danger for anyone who has set up correctly to block these things in any browser but of course if the hacker does realize people have started to just throw his sites up on block lists I'm sure he has others he'll start using. So I don't think its any of the advertisers currently though it can be sometimes the same World of Warcraft account stealing scheme I talked about once on this board also used ads on sites like Allakhazam to help spread the keylogger. Google ads aren't invincible either they have been in the news a few times already because they are quite lucrative at the moment if you can use them I just don't think they are involved this time they usually aren't because google does have smart people working for them but google is not immune to the malware writers of the world either nobody is. Edit : If you need to know what to block link back to Jman's thread http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=6903&start=0#end

This site has downloaded viruses to my computer. I agree it should be shut down...

The problem should be fixed ASAP... It's really annoying and well even though there's no problem (atm) with firefox, not everyone uses it... Personaly, I can't... I have an old computer and it's pretty much full. =/

Hopefully ioi can fix it soon there does seem to be a good deal of members far more informed on issues like this trying to help him out. You can block those sites too in IE the biggest danger though like I said earlier is if the hacker switches the sites hes been using which he has once already he was using that wanrzcvupf.hk before to deliver the virus and now hes using the mediacount.net one the only consistency has been the iframe from symboliclynx.com. If he does change them and you are using IE unfortunately IE doesn't have features built into it to provide some defense automatically. Hope I don't sound too preachy about FF its not my intention the last statement was more just as a matter of fact since I do feel the best weapon against these things is at the very least knowledge. I do believe its safe to surf the internet on IE if you know what to watch out for the only reason I personally use FF is to help my odds out against the things I don't know. My posts intent is only to try to help others as I think this is a great community and don't want to see it destroyed because of a petty hacker. As for the issue at large I personally don't blame ioi I'm sure hes doing all he can this stuff can be hard to pin down when it suddenly hits you on a site with so much code to sift through what exactly is the spot the hacker is using to get in. As others have said too it might even be multiple exploit vectors being scanned for by a computerized bot which is getting more and more common nowadays. Through my MMORPG playing days I've seen many a community message board get hit by something like this its frustrating for sure.

i started to have viruses in firefox yesterday, why is this?