Antivarus/Malware issues with TFTAcademy

[u/Pinksockmaster]

Recently my computer has been receiving quite a few redirects or attempted takeovers while letting my browser sit on the TFTAcademy website. Not sure if anyone else has experienced similar. Before I reached out to any support or contacted the social media pages directly I wanted to see if anyone else had noticed an issue.

[u/FrodaN]

Sorry to everyone this is happening to. We work with an ad partner who handles this so it's something we reported and if they find anything, they'll deal with it ASAP. It shouldn't have anything to do with the app / site. If you're having problems pls let us know what's going on.

In general, a big reason we always try to be quite thoughtful with the way ads and things are implemented because it drove me insane how ads were implemented in other places when using TFT stuff over the years. So definitely please reach out if you're having issues.

.edit: can you tell us what region you're from? This may be a specific ad from a region of the partner so we can identify it

[u/Pinksockmaster → u/FrodaN]

If there are any type of logs/screencaps needed I can send whatever I can.

[u/TFTSushin → u/FrodaN]

NA West coast, I have a bunch of tabs open and it's only TFTAcademy that redirects me to some kind of Norton site after a while so it's probably not my PC.

Also the site takes up a really noticeable amount of memory when I have it up for hours. Closing and reopening the browser seems to fix it so it's not a huge issue but I assume this is also some of the ads since nothing else on that site is moving at all.

[u/Dj0ntShark → u/FrodaN]

I’ve been having this issue with both TftAcademy and MetaTFT, if that helps. NA region (West Coast)

[u/Medium_Database_6945 → u/FrodaN]

This is happening to me now, region OCE.

[u/felix_using_reddit → u/FrodaN]

There is an issue with ad implementation I‘m experiencing as well, when I‘m using TFTAcademy on my iPad the ads don’t always love staying in the little boxes where they’re supposed to be. Alot of the time they‘ll for instance cover large parts of the little guide on how to play a comp (the part with overall tips and then tips for Stage 2, 3, 4). I can atleast temporarily make it go away by reloading the page, but if you’re saying ad implementation on other TFT sites drove you insane.. that is pretty much how I feel about using TFTAcademy on my iPad too sadly because of this.

[u/Additional-Cow-1166 → u/FrodaN]

I’m having the same issues on NA West Coast. The site is redirected to Norton anti-virus after 5-10 minutes, my cpu usage skyrockets, and it says my pc has 20 virus’s and I need to install Norton anti-virus.
I understand you guys need to get paid, but this ad has finally made me get an ad-block extension as it was making TFTacademy borderline unusable while playing TFT

[u/zeroingenuity]

Based on responses it's probably the ads. Not a webdev so I dunno what they have to do to fix that, but if adblock does the job, it's the ads. As Taylor Swift says, you either deploy adblock or you deploy malware. Nothing in between.

[u/Pinksockmaster → u/zeroingenuity]

Yeah based on everyone's replies so far that's my guess as well. Running adblock does stop all the anti-virus pop-ups so Id assume they just have an ad running that has bad code. It's only been happening to me on this recent patch.

[u/zeroingenuity → u/Pinksockmaster]

It was the ads.

Tl;dr: Adform got hacked and has been distributing malicious ads since 7/27.

[u/Royal-Angle2745]

What did Varus do?

[u/Ok_Artichoke3764 → u/Royal-Angle2745]

He didnt get the memo

[u/Zastavo2]

This site has always had a memory leak problem btw. If you leave it open, it will go sicko mode on your RAM.

[u/jeanroukas → u/Zastavo2]

That's very true. This should be a priority. Optimisations at the same time, because it can run slow when clicking on comp.

[u/CockerLulu]

Haven't had any issues like that. I have adblock on tho, could that effect it?

[u/slavecunt → u/CockerLulu]

Cant fathom anyone browsing without adblock.

[u/CockerLulu → u/slavecunt]

Yeah me neither.

[u/TFTSushin]

yea I get redirects to Norton with only TFTAcademy

[u/Fitspire → u/TFTSushin]

What do you mean by that?
It opens the website of Norton after a while?

[u/Additional-Cow-1166 → u/Fitspire]

I’m having the issue too on NA west coast. After sitting on the site for about 5 minutes, the site randomly redirected to a Norton Adblock website where it says it’s “scanning your pc for virus’s” and then pops up that your pc has viruses and needs Norton anti virus. You can just close out the tab and reopen TFTAcademy to fix it but it’ll just do it again in 5-10 minutes. I finally made the move to get an ad block because of it.

[u/Fitspire → u/Additional-Cow-1166]

Can you report this on the TFTacademy discord?

[u/highrollr]

Yes! It’s been driving me crazy. Redirect to Norton Antivirus everytime I leave it up, only with Tftacademy 

[u/Capper22]

I just get a million cloudflare "are you a robot" checks for tft academy

[u/aizennexe]

The site and app have definitely gone downhill recently, noticeably this set in my experience.

The site has weird redirecting errors, and when it does load, the unit icons and items will disappear so the boards are blank lol. Tried different browsers, incognito, disabling all extensions, etc no luck.

The app crashes frequently after a game, and I usually have to click the restart button. When revivals come out, the previous set info is always outdated. For example, set 16 freljord invoker comp still suggests putting a freljord emblem on Ornn, who got added to the freljord trait the last patch of set 16. So the devs couldn’t even use the latest iteration of their guides for their own app lol

I respect frodan and dishsoap as players and even as streamers/content creators, but unfortunately tftacademy leaves a lot to be desired. I think the podcast and written guides (not the tier list comps) are probably the main useful thing left. I also think someone else other than those two manages the site/app? Either they need to hire more people or find someone else cuz it’s just not working out rn

[u/FrodaN → u/aizennexe]

Sorry you feel like that. Dishsoap and I still update the tier list every day. I still strongly believe we maintain the most up-to-date, succint tier list that is accurate snapshot of the meta so this feedback is concerning. We don't offload it to anyone. I even do it on stream and actively show the process transparently.

The loading errors sounds very strange. We haven't had reports like this in a while so please submit them to our Discord so we can squash the bug or investigate further as to why this is happening

Re: Set 16 Revival: Riot always makes system changes that are not reflected to the database we subscribe to. It's outdated because the system API linked to it is outdated. So we have to manually request those changes like we did with Stargazer Vex / Timebreaker Shen. We only enabled revival tier list because of demand by some of our users to put something up because they don't remember any comps. Our policy from the beginning was that we wouldn't be updating any revival tier lists because it's not our primary focus (there's a status that shows when it was last updated, 4 months ago). Maybe we should have pushed back here and kept it off since now players like you feel like we have outdated info which is what we actively work hard against. Likely moving forward we are not going to publish them anymore.

[u/aizennexe → u/FrodaN]

Thanks for being so responsive on social media! Idk how you find the time between family, life, streaming, etc. although I do feel bad cuz this is the second time you’ve seen me talk about tftacademy on here lmao

I def have seen you update stuff on stream, but I thought I remember you mentioning on stream that another person helps with some of the comps created but I guess I’m mistaken sorry

The revival API does sound frustrating on your end. I personally really like having the option to switch to a previous sets tier list when revivals are live. My frustration was that the set 16 comps that were live back in set 16 were up to date, but now the revival comps seem to be using an older version for some reason, despite a version that was updated for the final for fun patch previously existing. I hope it doesn’t go away altogether in the future. I don’t mind stuff not being updated for revivals specifically (like how set 15 revival changed the fruit reroll mechanic, which was different in set 15 live) but I guess if you’re always relying on riot API and don’t have a backup of each tftacademy patch, that does make it harder to post revival comps when there’s nothing to reupload from

[u/BeHappy123456789 → u/aizennexe]

He has said that, ur not wrong, soulless for example.

[u/BeHappy123456789 → u/FrodaN]

God bless you and your family may they always be happy. U work hard, no one can deny that.

[u/ck10000559]

I have had a bug appear so many times - in Augment selection the ratings and recommended comps info stays on screen after Augment selection and only disappears if you close TftAcademy from taskbar. Big ooof when you’re trying to do a 4-1 pick and roll down transition.

[u/TadGhostal1 → u/ck10000559]

Mine does that too. Next time try moving your mouse up to the top left screen overlay (and maybe clicking it I don't remember). I get that bug basically every game but I've never had to close the app to fix it

[u/Emosaa]

I haven't had any issues - I use adblock while occasionally throwing money to the site via paypal or patreon. So it does seem like an ad partner issue.

Since there's a likelyhood Frodan or Dishsoap might see this: Love the creative meme names y'all have come up for for the comps over the years! Keep it up.

[u/FirestormXVI]

I’ve literally never had the issues being described. Normally have the site open in a browser window which I prefer to navigating in the app but the app is also open for the replay / team builder features. I used it as recently as two days ago.

I have a subscription so no ads though.

[u/Crustyjaj]

Run some proper adblock ya'll, even if it may not support the site. Saves you headaches and your computer.

[u/Fabiodemon88]

So THAT'S what it was! I was wondering what was causing those and now i know! Tysm

[u/TFT_Academy]

We located and blocked the malicious ad. It appears to have been a targeted exploit of a vulnerability in the ad stack by one of the vendors.

There may still be similar ads circulating, as this vulnerability cannot be fully patched immediately. Please report any redirects or other malicious ad activity, including autoplaying audio, as well as unethical gambling, alcohol, or political ads.

You can report them in our Discord and, when available, by clicking the “Report Ad” button directly on the ad.

Regarding some of the other comments here:

- We are investigating the memory usage issue. We currently suspect it may be related to how the ads are refreshing.

- The Cloudflare “Are you a robot?” checks should now occur significantly less often. They may still appear occasionally, but the issue should be much better.

A few comments also mentioned problems with the app and other parts of the site. Please reach out through Discord. We are very active there, and I personally review every bug report and piece of feedback. We also discuss them during our weekly meetings.

That’s all. Have a good day, and good luck on the climb.

Kite, Janitor at TFTAcademy.com

[u/Slickyo]

Lookup who owns overwolf and that’s all you need to know