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There seems to be an issue occurring with mobile browser apps on Android and iPhone being redirected to advertising sites. This is interrupting the browsing experience.

The problem:

  • A user visits a website on their phone in a current and up-to-date browser such as Chrome for Android or Firefox for Android, and a mobile ad is displayed
  • The ad causes a redirect from the currently displayed website to spaces.slimspots.com
  • The slimspots server seems to check if Javascript is active and then redirects to another ad, such as a competition webpage

Many users have reported this, both on the Chrome product forum and on the Apple forums, (links in the pastebin below) but nobody seems to understand what is actually occurring. People are doing unnecessary factory resets on their phones and complaining to various webmasters about the ads on their forums.

The behavior can be replicated in a desktop browser by changing the User-Agent to a Nexus 4 and reloading a forum thread on a website (eg. xda-developers) until an offending ad appears.

Since I can't create more than two links here without gaining more reputation, you can find some useful content in this pastebin.

Can anybody provide advice on how to suppress these redirects, without resorting to a non-stock browser?

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  • Related, but not the answer to this issue.
    – Andrew T. ♦
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 6:54

5 Answers 5

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First of all: This kind of advertising should be reported!

Can anybody provide advice on how to suppress these redirects, without resorting to a non-stock browser?

It looks like they use a bug in JavaScript. Maybe report to ad provider or app owner for blocking.

How to reproduce this issue:

  • If you use the preinstalled browser in Android, the ad site opens "Google Play Store" and show you each time a different App.

How can I sandbox untrusted user-submitted JavaScript content?

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  • Thanks Stefan. Yes, I agree that this type of advertising should be reported and have done so through the AdWords complaint page. However, I think these ads are delivered through Doubleclick's network and I haven't found where to report abusive ads on that network. The role people have in this problem is as end-users; browsers of the internet on Android (and iOS) devices. I don't understand your clarifications, sorry. As explained the browser is redirected from a page that is being viewed to an advertising page.
    – ajGold
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 9:49
  • @ajGold I'd say that this is a limitation of most mobile browsers which don't support extension, which make it vulnerable to this attack. Unfortunately, I still can't say anything if it's possible to prevent this generally.
    – Andrew T. ♦
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 10:51
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I'd almost guarantee that neither is the router infected with malware nor has its DNS setting been changed/hacked.

I have eliminated this issue on sites where we have a MikroTik router by using a Layer 7 protocol filter as shown below. This doesn't help the devices off the WiFi network (obviously) but at least gives them some reprieve when they are connected to home and/or work WiFi networks.

Firstly, create the protocol definition:

/ip firewall layer7-protocol
add comment="Frigging javascript redirects on chrome browsers" \
    name=Javascript_Redirect \
    regexp="^.+(spaces.slimspot.com|mostawesomeoffers.com).*\$"

Now, to actually filter this traffic out

/ip firewall filter
add action=drop chain=forward comment=\
    "Block and log Javascript_Redirect L7 Protocol" layer7-protocol=\
    Javascript_Redirect log=yes log-prefix=JSredirect_

Other firewalls that have Layer 7 filtering capacity could also block these redirects in a similar way.

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There's nothing wrong with the phone or browser, it's the wifi router. It's infected with malware - the DNS settings are changed to redirect to the malware sites.

  1. Try visiting 192.168.1.1 wirelessly - you won't be able to.

  2. Connect router via LAN cable

  3. Hard reset the router

  4. Manually setup the router (consult your service provider if you don't have the details handy)

  5. (Important) Change the router admin password from the default "password" to something else. That's how the malware got hold of router.

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Install Ad block plus browser, it will solve the issue in Chrome as well. This is the only thing that worked for me

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  • Link of the app and some details about the app would help
    – Manu
    Commented Oct 20, 2015 at 16:07
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I don't know if it would be of any help for previous posters, but I found a workaround for the numerous redirect I was facing while simply trying to watch videos. You simply disable JavaScript and enable manually only the websites you want to access to. That way I am only getting one opened tab redirecting me to a blank page easily closed instead of dozens of consecutive page asking me if I really want to leave or telling me my phone is infected. It is somewhat time consuming to add exceptions for websites I visit that use JavaScript, but if you are as annoyed as me about redirections it's a small price that greatly improved my browsing comfort. Just remember that if a page isn't loading you probably have to add an exception in your JavaScript site settings.

Just so you know I am nowhere near an expert in computer so this is only a solution I tried when I read here that it was a bug exploit in JavaScript.

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