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Reporting a highly inappropiate ad seen on Academia (and History). No link URL visible without clicking. This ad (or another on the page) also tried to open popups and new browser tabs. Please clean up the ads you serve.

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    You saw a hovering or pop up ad? I'm not sure SE ads can cause that. Perhaps your browser has malware?
    – Raedwald
    Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 10:22
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    The hillarity of googleing for it is... it gives me a bunch of dodgy malware removal tools - Does look potentially like malware though
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 10:30
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    While SE did change their ad policy drastically and now allows evil ads, this one isn't on SE side, it's some external software hijacking your browser, as others pointed out already.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 12:20

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The example ad you've posted says "Ads by WGX". Those seem to caused by a well known kind of malware. A quick Google search for "WGX spam ads" found several sites providing instructions on how to remove it (I can't vouch for their accuracy).

You probably ought to update the malware scanner on your computer and scan your computer for malware; if that malware got in, there could be others.

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    I have only seen this ad on Stack Exchange pages and no signs that something on my machine is causing this.
    – Raidri
    Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 10:40
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    @Raidri the malware is smart enough to hijack only specific pages. It is still 100% a malware, not something on SE side.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 12:47
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    @Raidri SE ads have been getting worse recently, but not that bad. SE still only serves ads in the designated ad spots; that's not one of them. There's a banner ad, and there are ad slots in the sidebar, but definitely no floating ads. Either SE has been hijacked, or you have - one of those is far more likely than the other.
    – ArtOfCode
    Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 12:47
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    No suspicious programs or browser extensions. Multiple virus scans from inside and ouside Windows without finding anything. I still have no idea where the ad came from. But I have now installed an adblocker, so hopefully, it will not come up again.
    – Raidri
    Commented Sep 24, 2019 at 11:31

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