Clicking on threads is automatically downloading files to my mac

[ZeroFuchsGiven]

This has happened before a few years back.

It is randomly downloading files f.txt. followed by numbers, It is currently at number 34 so 34 files have downloaded so far.

Genuinely not being goady @Signalbox - but I've used an adblocker for years and years (the main one I guess most people use as an extenstion with Chrome on a laptop?) and I'm not sure what problems you are implying it might be causing? If there's something I've missed (I'm not the most tech-savvy person in the world, tbf 🙁) then I'm happy to be enlightened.

My main concern now is that from what Mumsnet have said they don't have much, if any, control over the adverts that appear on their site. If they did they'd have isolated the specific advert as soon as it was identified. As it is the actual advertiser had to withdraw it. I don't find that at all reassuring, though I expect most websites are tied into similar deals with a lack of control.

It's been this way ever since they swapped over to a third party ad provider, I really cannot understand why they persist in using it, as the ads it serves up are so mixed, some normal, but many dodgy ones, whether causing issues like this or a memory leak or downright spammy ads. I find MN makes my phone very hot in a way that browsing a website should not do, and I'm sure it's caused by rogue ads.

The only other sites that use this ad service are clickbait ones! It might be widely used but not on reputable sites.

For this reason I'll carry on using adblocker. I would happily whitelist MN if they drop adchoices. There are other sites that I whitelist because I want the site creators to get the benefit of the ad revenue. I don't mind ads, it's the dodgy ones I dislike.

I'm not that tech savvy either but my experience is that it causes problems with watching catch-up. Some websites seem to recognise you are running an adblocker and then block you from accessing content. It perhaps doesn't matter for most people but I don't have a TV and so my only way to watch anything is on my laptop.

I find MN makes my phone very hot in a way that browsing a website should not do, and I'm sure it's caused by rogue ads.

I've recently noticed that my phone keeps getting really hot. I was wondering what was causing it.

Is this just in the last few days again?

I first had it when MN re-platformed. Then it improved. Now it’s back again.

Seems to be do with the quantity of ad blocks given over to be populated by google ads etc.

I had a play about online and the only other website that replicates this is the execrable Daily Mirror website, that also carries too much ad space and ruins its functionality.

I've always had the phone getting hot thing on MN. (It's more easily noticeable when the weather is hot). I can identify the ads, but there's no point me reporting them because I'm in Germany and they are generally ads for German shops so the majority of users won't be seeing them and MN tend not to do anything unless multiple people complain, which is fair.

If adblocker causes issues with catch up, you can simply whitelist those pages and allow ads on them. I've always done this for sites I want to support anyway. I would definitely do that for MN, but I can't because the ads are so spammy.

So now this? Completely different to what was happening but again has just downloaded straight to my Mac from the MN talk home page! This actually looks a lot more worrying to me.

And yes to Mumsnet making my computer overheat constantly, it doesnt happen on any other site.

We're checking that out now, OP. We'll get back to you on that - thank you for the screenshot.

Can you talk us through the ads you saw on the page prior to this message?

I believe it was Vodafone.

It was advertising some sort of tracker.

If you want to prevent instant downloads, go click on Safari (top left next to the apple logo) > preferences > websites > downloads > and then set the toggle to 'deny' for MN.

And I'm still having my MacBook overheated because of Mumsnet 😡

We're looking into this now, thank you so much for the screenshot.

Within the last week. I thought my phone was on the way out and started looking at new phones!