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The Internet Chrome Firefox Piracy Security

Chrome and Firefox Block Torrent Site YTS Over 'Phishing' (torrentfreak.com) 34

Posted by BeauHD from the cease-and-desist dept.
Chrome and Firefox are blocking direct access to the movie download pages of popular torrent site YTS. According to Google's safe browsing report, YTS.mx is a "deceptive site" that may trick visitors into doing dangerous things. The warning is likely the result of malicious advertisements. TorrentFreak reports: While the site's homepage can be visited just fine, navigating to a torrent detail page throws up the following warning in Chrome. "Deceptive site ahead. Attackers on yts.mx may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information (for example, passwords, phone numbers, or credit cards)." Firefox shows a similar alert and also prevents people from going directly to the download pages. In both browsers, people can, however, accept the risk and visit the page they were looking for.

It's not clear what the exact problem is but the Chrome warning mentions that YTS was caught phishing. This is also reflected in Google's Safe Browsing report, which states the torrent site recently tried to trick visitors into sharing personal info or downloading software. Whether any of this is intentional remains a question. It seems more likely that the warning was triggered by some type of malicious advertisement.
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Chrome and Firefox Block Torrent Site YTS Over 'Phishing' More

Chrome and Firefox Block Torrent Site YTS Over 'Phishing'

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  • Does chromium also do this? Or is it time for yet another browser fork?
    • I imagine it does since Chromium also has a setting for blocking "malicious" sites.

    • If mainstream browsers block sites then what is to stop them from strong arming little players in the game?

      An academic google site I put together was DMCA bombed and after 8 weeks I still know nothing about what content was problematic, no issues removing anything. Businesses have been hit worse from what I've read.

  • I use the youtube app on android and more often then not there is a text advertisement below the video saying my memory is full click here....

    Its your app, Google, and your advertising network, Google, on your operating system, Google.

    Go fuck yourself, Google.
    • Go Ogle

    • Re:Google? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:53PM (#60108662)

      That's malware spreading, no phishing. I'm sure that marketing people at google will be happy to explain to you why former is acceptable while latter is not.

      • Re:Google? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @02:11AM (#60109126)

        I'll hold security information from marketing goons in roughly the same esteem as contraception tips from catholic priests.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Hashtag thatsthejoke.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Kjella ( 173770 )

          I'll hold security information from marketing goons in roughly the same esteem as contraception tips from catholic priests.

          Last I checked not a single altar boy has gotten pregnant, so is "gross but effective" what you were thinking of?

      • Malware is software that damages your system/data.
        Phishing is a method to get people to download something they didn't want to get.

        Often a Phishing tactic is used to get people to download Malware.
        Go to a gaming site, find a game that is notorious for bugs, but is a good game inspire of the bugs. Put a link to an unofficial patch, that suppose to fix the problem. Then there you go.

        Torrent isn't intrinsically bad, however it covers the malware makers tracks rather easily.

    • I've had people argue with a straight face that Google can't possibly control all its ads on its network, or that the ads "come from a different company". Meanwhile if you type Gong Fei [twitter.com] in hanzi your comment is automatically deleted.

      You know where their loyalties are.

  • I was able to get to the home page fine with Brave and Palemoon.

    Though now there's a lot of cop cars with flashing lights around my house... i wonder who's in trouble?

  • VMs are optional for Windows users.

  • it happens all the time. The Angry Video Game Nerd's site got taken offline for this once years ago. If you host anything but google ads this is going to happen to you, and even then it can happen it's just less likely (yes, people have been blocked in Chrome because they served up google ads).

  • Never heard of the site and now i know why. Its that stupid dick YIFY whoes releases with shit audio quality pollute the internet drowning out quality 5.1 rips.

    Go fuck yourself and your stereo sound YIFY!!! i accidentally download your garbage all the time.

    • I let you in on a secret: The reason why most movies suck isn't bad audio quality. If anything, bad audio quality lets you concentrate on the content a bit more because there's less distraction.

  • Just use NoScript and uBlock Origin (Score:3)

    by IonOtter ( 629215 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @09:48PM (#60108756) Homepage

    You will have to grant temporary access through NoScript for the YTS.mx domain in order for it to work. Don't grant a permanent white-list, because duh, it's a pirate site.

    Don't lower your shields in Brave, and do not disable uBlock either, the site works fine with all of those active and running.

    Don't try to use the quick search bar on the top of the browser, use the one on the page itself. That thing doesn't seem to work right, and I'm not interested in enabling anything that would make it work.

    It should go without saying, that you should not be doing anything in there without a proper VPN.

  • No problem accessing https://yts.mx/ [yts.mx] site with Firefox. Can browse site and save .torrent files. Some sort of mistake on the part of torrentfreak.

  • meh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @02:14AM (#60109128)
    when you go to sites like YTS or TPB you know what you are getting into, if you are dumb enough to click on any of the scams, phishing attempts or allow ads, bitcoin browser miners etc etc then really you got what you deserved. Don't really think there is much need for the browsers to flag these sites. If you can't navigate your way past these issues you really should not be on this part of the internet.

    • If you can't navigate your way past these issues you really should not be on this part of the internet.

      You are blaming the victim. If my grandmother can't surf the net safely, the fix isn't to let her get scammed to teach her a lesson. Only libertarian nutbars think that way.

      Toxic cesspools on the net need to be purged -- as quickly, violently and publicly as possible.

      Think about it: When cops find a meth lab in a neighborhood, they burn it down. They do not allow it to continue to ruin lives in the name of teaching people a lesson.

      So...no. Your attitude towards this issue is wrong. Demonstrably wrong.

  • The most common advertisers for these sites are penis enlargement scams, porn / prostitution scams, VPNs, bitcoin & other financial scams, gambling scams, and various trojan / malware. Sometimes a combination of one or more of these things. Some advertisers will even try to initiate a download of an executable or apk file without interaction.

    With all that, I'm kind of surprised that browsers haven't been putting warnings in front of these sites for years.

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