Weird [AD]

[DDarrell]

Hello, I don't know if I put this in the right section, not sure if it's a virus of some sort, but here is my problem :

Lately I noticed that on alot of websites I visit, there are some places on the page with weird AD between brackets. This [AD] shows up in some places in the page, and it's not only on Firefox. IE and even Steam does this. As I write this, I can count 5 on Tom's Hardware.

So I'd like to know what is up with these [AD].

Thanks for all the help.

 

[boonality]

Hmm I did a google search and didn't come up with anything worth linking. I'm curious but I don't have any kind of answer.

See if you can narrow down what should be there in place of the "[AD]". Maybe it's replacing the exact same character string every time?

 

[DDarrell]

Well I'm not sure but most of the time, it seems to replace ads. But I sometime see it at places where there is no ad, and where there is only a picture. So it looks like it has something to do with Flash or pictures, I don't know which.

 

[boonality]

oh it's not replacing ASCII characters? Could it be ad aware or something like that blocking the stuff from showing? Many anti virus/malware programs do that.

What antivirus stuff do you have installed?

 

[DDarrell]

I have AVG, Outpost firewall and Spybot

 

[boonality]

You could probably troubleshoot by stopping the services for each of those programs and browsing the web each time and see if it goes away. Then you'll find the "offending" program, though it seems to be working as intended.

 

[DDarrell]

I disabled my firewall, and the [AD] disappeared. It seems a rule I have created today may have done this. I'll try to revert the change I made, but for now it works. Thanks for the help.