Avast Antivirus keeps blocking our adult dating affiliate sites

[gx60]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has been dealing with this issue. We operate multiple affiliate sites (pre-landings) for adult dating & cams globally, and recently AVAST has been blocking all our pages quite aggressively.


We do not collect user information, our sites are free of cost to access, and do not contain any malware as reported by 70+ other antivirus vendors on VirusTotal.


AVAST is now used by Exoclick and TrafficStars/Xhamster to moderate advertising content, which is why we need this cleaned up asap so we can continue to advertise compliantly.


We are already working directly with Avast to remove our sites from the blacklist. I was wondering if anyone on Affiliatefix is facing the same issue, and if so, how did you fix it?


Feel free to PM me if you would like to share ideas privately, or just post here. Thanks

 

[azgold]

You are not the first one that I've heard has an issue with that.

@PureLander had the same site issue at one time. Tyoussef was able to get it cleared, thankfully.

I don't know if there's some way to do a mass quantity at one time. If you have a lot of sites, that's could be a pain to do individually (and potential lost revenue while doing it).

 

[Graybeard]

Why is AVAST Proxy Anti-Virus blocking your pages?
Do the give you a reason?
We would all like to know just WHY.
What needs to be remediated? Anything?

Attached is a file with all of their identified proxy servers ... Last resort if they won't work with you stop their shake down (at your own risk)

 

[endriul]

just change the tracking domain for your own

 

[gx60]

Why is AVAST Proxy Anti-Virus blocking your pages?
Do the give you a reason?
We would all like to know just WHY.
What needs to be remediated? Anything?

Attached is a file with all of their identified proxy servers ... Last resort if they won't work with you stop their shake down (at your own risk)

Reason: URL falsely detected as “Scam”

I had posted the below on the Avast forum. They had already agreed to whitelist it as per our email exchange, but seems nothing has been done so far.

"We are not a “Scam” URL. Kindly note the following


- Our website’s Privacy Policy which clarifies we do not collect or store user information of any kind.
- Our website is free to access. There is no cost to the user as described in our Terms of Use.
- We do not offer any downloadable software of any kind, or any malicious links or programs that may harm a user’s device.


Additional supporting information for false positive detection:


“CLEAN” as reported by all vendors on VirusTotal and Sucuri.


We have already reported the false positive to Avast team. They have indeed confirmed it is a false positive and have claimed to remove it from their database, twice. But, the changes seem to have not taken effect yet for some reason. The last update from Avast team was around 5 business days ago. Our URL is still being blocked."

 

[Graybeard]

Only thing you can do is lawyer up and sue them if you can prove loss of income and no wrong doing on your part. For reason that it is probably a foreign jurisdiction, and a very costly lawsuit to initiate, you cannot afford to do jack-shit but cry about it.

Since you are just an affiliate, and not a brand

We operate multiple affiliate sites (pre-landings) for adult dating & cams globally,

Buy some new domains and make damn sure those pages are clean of any hacks, virus, any not ''legit'' redirects and abandon the problem --if it cannot be resolved in a timely manner. Welcome to the innerwebs.

 

[Graybeard]

AVAST is now used by Exoclick and TrafficStars/Xhamster to moderate advertising content, which is why we need this cleaned up asap so we can continue to advertise compliantly.

I find this concept troubling but so many advertisers have *peed in the pool* with ads that are cloaked and using prohibited products/or methods exhibiting misfeasance --you get this.

 

[T J Tutor]

This is not unique to Avast. This is occurring with Malwarebytes, ZoneAlarm, and most others in that part of the industry. Vendor platforms, content sites, etc., are all getting hit with this.

 

[Graybeard]

ZoneAlarm is a firewall it uses stateful inspection.

ZoneAlarm Firewall

ZoneAlarm | Learning Center

www.zonealarm.com

I haven't used Windows and an anti-virus for window-worms and other sewer-rat trash.

Anti-Virus programs are infamous for detecting false-positives --that is the nature of heuristics --it's been like that since day one. Will AI make AV better oh boy, here we come.


There is a reason why my domains block most datacenters and try to only allow real people ISP type traffic.
I also author all my own code so I know what is going on.
I firewall all my servers too.
So, far I have not had these sort of issues (knock on wood).

I did 380,000 users 2/14 - 3/10 and all of that traffic was redirected without any *apparent or obvious issues seen*
So, I ask on what are these complains based --user support issues "your site was blocked by my "insert app here"?

A lot of servers get hacked --especially those running WordPress or other popular exploitable CRM applications. Could that be the real reason? New vulnerabilities? Really that is an old story ...

 

[T J Tutor]

ZoneAlarm is a firewall it uses stateful inspection.

It is a suite of tools that also includes a VPN that has been "neck to neck" with NORD for many years. Nord has fewer on demand scanning options for things like malware and other threats.

I've been using ZA and Malwarebytes as a combination for many years with excellent results.

 

[Graybeard]

So, I ask on what are these complains based --user support issues "your site was blocked by my "insert app here"?

complaints** What is the basis of these recent events?
If there is a user complaint or you own tests show there is an issue, or;
now with ad moderation using AV tools that could be a source ....

I don't miss the ALERT Windows errors at all

Unfortunately, I am not sure if;
by (heuristics) nature, or;
by design ( you have to scare people to keep them renewing the subscription),
these applications need to exist.

I just checked my server doing ads firewall silently blocked 58,000 packets in 8 days 2024-03 10/18 that was not HTTP traffic...
13756 requests from 'bad actors 21/Feb/2024 to now --just checked

avast:
88 / 65747
~0.00133846411243098544
28 denied 403
nothing other than a *footnote