What the heck is AdMedia?

And why did it appear on my site?

[shallow]

Because of my schedule, I haven't worked on my site for several months but got back to it today. I happened to double click on a word on a page and all of a sudden a strange window pops up. The info tab in the window says ads by AdMedia. I never even heard of AdMedia and have no formal relationship with it as I do, say, AdSense and Amazon.

It's a guessing game how to close the window once it opens. Unless you figure it out, site visitors would be inclined to quickly click away from my site.

I have no idea how long this has been going on but am wondering if it's one of the reasons (besides Panda) that my Adsense earnings are so low. There was also something about intextual.com but you get a Server not found message when you try to visit the site.

I checked in Chrome and IExplorer but these ads didn't show. I then checked the Firefox add-ons and removed some that were strange to me, that I never knowingly installed. Once removed, the ads/search features no longer show when I click on a word in Firefox.

Can someone please tell me what the heck was going on?

Thank you.

[incrediBILL]

Without knowing what add-ons you removed it's kind of hard to guess.

Sounds like you installed something that had some adware attached.

[shallow]

Thanks, bill. Unfortunately, I don't remember the names of the add-ons I removed. They were strange and I have no idea how they got there. I am quite cautious when I install things, which I don't do a lot. I recently had to have a new hard drive installed, and start loading all programs from scratch.

fwiw, here is a screen shot of the pop-up:

[picasaweb.google.com...]

I tried to call the AdMedia company and, as expected, got a voicemail run-around. I am not convinced it's legit.

[shallow]

So, no one else has had this experience? Or heard of AdMedia?

[LifeinAsia]

AdMedia is a PPC company. I believe their ToS explicitly prohibit sneaking their ads into any plug-ins, although I could be wrong.

If you knew which plugin it was, you could have complained to AdMedia about it.

[shallow]

I could kick myself for not taking a screen shot or remember the names of the extensions that I uninstalled.

I wish Firefox kept a history of what's been installed/uninstalled like Google Play does for my Nexus 7.

I now know that it was browser specific, rather than a problem at my site. Surely, though, I can't be the only one that has been affected/infected like this.

[SevenCubed]

If you are really desperate to know what the plugin was you might be able to get them back by doing a Windows System Restore to the date prior to removing them from your system. Then you can undo that restore once again to remove them.

[shallow]

If you are really desperate to know what the plugin was you might be able to get them back by doing a Windows System Restore to the date prior to removing them from your system.

Thanks for the suggestion but I tried it this morning and it didn't work.

I'll check if there is a way to contact Firefox developers and tell them about it.

[dstiles]

It may still be in the config file with a simple "disabled" or similar.

In the browser's Location field put
about:config

Accept the warning about dragons and search for "extensions" (without quotes!).

[piatkow]

I am quite cautious when I install things

I have noticed that a lot of legit software now gets toolbars or plugins bundled with it. You do have to pay closer attention than used to be the case to the installation options if you buy or upgrade something

[shallow]

You do have to pay closer attention than used to be the case to the installation options if you buy or upgrade something

I always do an "advanced" install to check if there are any addons such as toolbars. I'm really unsure how this one got in. I hadn't installed any programs though did update some firefox extensions and the browser itself which required a new theme.

It's gone now.

[shallow]

In the browser's Location field put
about:config

Tried this; nothing jumped out at me.

Bottom line, at least it's gone now but I do regret not writing down the name of the add-on before removing. Live and learn.