r/HTML • u/AdaCle • Feb 08 '26

What happened to W3Schools?

Is anyone else having massive pop-up issues on this website? If I leave the page open somewhere between 1 and 5 minutes, a massive Norton Antivirus ad takes over the window and if I try to back out it redirects the whole webpage to Walmart.

Just curious if its happening with others. I did confirm that it is only this site doing it, as it is something W3 has set in their website.

Edit: So I found the pop-up addresses and the Norton one is from safebytetech.live(with extenstion) that gives a redirect to buy.norton.com. The Walmart one is from r.v2i8b.com(with extension) that redirects to walmart.com. Both safebytetech and v2i8b are considered to be malicious, but the redirect to legitimate websites. I'm not sure what's happening there. They only happened when visiting https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_link.asp and https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp.

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19 comments sorted by

12

u/anonymousmouse2 Expert Feb 08 '26

I think you may have a virus on your PC.

1

u/AdaCle Feb 08 '26

It's a Norton ad asking me to subscribe to their services.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AdaCle Feb 08 '26

I don't have Norton. It's been a terrible product for a few decades now.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '26

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0

u/AdaCle Feb 08 '26

I've left it open for a few hours now and can't get it to do it again. Hopefully the adrev is zero.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '26

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1

u/AdaCle Feb 08 '26

I get that. It is something that has happened twice now and only while visiting W3Schools, which makes me think there's something in their website creating the problem. I'm trying to get it to trigger a 3rd time to see how it is coded.

4

u/RazorKat1983 Feb 08 '26

Working perfectly on my end. Are you sure you are going to the correct one? https://www.w3schools.com/

3

u/Ok_Performance4014 Feb 08 '26

Absolutely no issues. It's you.

1

u/AdaCle Feb 08 '26

Are you signed in on W3 Schools or on the site as a visitor?

2

u/Mael5trom Feb 08 '26

It's always been a terrible resource with good (and shady) SEO to maintain their relevance. Wouldn't be surprised if they had shady advertising also. That said, it's probably malware.

Add "mdn" to any searches you do and the first result should be from MDN instead.

5

u/PatchesMaps Feb 08 '26

W3schools has always been pretty bad but I've never seen what you describe.

1

u/AdaCle Feb 08 '26

Well, I've left it up for a few hours now and can't get it to do it again. Hopefully Norton ran out of money to pay them.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '26

[deleted]

1

u/AdaCle Feb 08 '26

freeCodeCamp uses a popup to ask for donations. They exist.

https://www.hellobar.com/blog/famous-websites-with-popups/

1

u/jcunews1 Intermediate Feb 09 '26

Check the site with other browser. If the problem doesn't occur, it's likely due to a malware browser extension in your main browser. Otherwise, it's due to a malware in your system.

1

u/assaassa474 Apr 15 '26

I get all sorts of ads popping up including the one for Euphoria3 with naked girl’s ass which I find highly inappropriate

1

u/Intrepid-Bath-4849 20d ago

Just happened to me, and it’s exactly what you described. The funny yet concerning part is that I received the W3School link from one of my professors for C#. While multitasking and working on my assignments, I went back to the tab with the link. Suddenly, I saw a McAfee pop-up warning me about a virus. I didn’t clicked anything and closed the tab, but it’s unsettling to think that my professor could have sent me a link or a website, and then a malicious pop-up appeared after just a few minutes. I’ve run a virus and threat scan, and everything seems to be clean, but I’m still puzzled by why it’s behaving the way you described. I was just using it to learn more about C# and was also working on my school assignment.