I was playing a game on my iPhone when a pop-up ad appeared. I tried to skip it but ended up with a link that looked like Amazon in a Safari page within the app. I didn't stick around long, but when I hit back, I was taken to a blank screen filled with code and couldn't find a way to close it, so I just exited the app. I'm really curious if I could get a virus this way, especially considering that weird blank screen with the code—what could have caused that?
3 Answers
No worries, you can't get a virus just from a pop-up ad like that. It’s common to see ads on mobile devices, and most of the time, they’re just annoying but not harmful.
Pop-ups are pretty standard on mobile, but that blank screen with code is a bit odd. It could just be a glitch or a poorly coded ad. Your anxiety is probably making you overthink it!
Ad blockers are recommended these days since some ads can contain malware. Just by clicking on an ad, you could potentially expose yourself, but you need to interact more deeply with it for serious infections. Your device should be fine unless you clicked something suspicious. I use the Brave browser with JavaScript off for extra safety!
That makes sense! I accidentally clicked on the ad, and it opened a webpage, but I didn't go further. Do you think infections from game ads are likely or rare?
Haha, yeah, that’s probably it! But I’ve never seen an ad do that before, so it freaked me out a bit.