Trojan in ad

that's why i block almost all ads on all sites... i understand they need it to get some money for server etc. but im not risking my system for that... years ago there was a flood of infected ads... :(

I doubt it is caused by the advertisement because it is a google one and as far as I know you can't include JavaScript in your google ads. The alert you got from avast is for a .js that is a Miner, a way of making the visitor of a site mine crypto currency in very small amount (with lot of visitors this may be usefull), this mostly won't do any harm to your computer. I hope you didn't get the alert on this site, if so you should check your browser for malware. If you think the advertisement is faulty and if you use chrome I would recommend installing Ublock extension, its a plugin that keeps the bad ads away.
Hope this will help you <3

for host file
https://github.com/greatis/Anti-WebMiner
https://github.com/greatis/Anti-WebMiner/releases

had the same issue but I clicked on the X and never want to see it again because im not intereseted ,so it never popped up again here .
[Have avast too]

I was getting a message saying I won a 1000$ amazon gift card and it would only pop up on steamgifts and only on the pages with ads...

It’s no longer doing that but did so for about a week or more...

See what happens when you use virus software?

First of all, a miner is not a trojan. A miner runs code in a website, just like a normal ad does for interaction or animation purposes. The difference is that a miner doesn't use the code for interaction or animation, but to harvest virtual coins (like bitcoin).

A trojan actually bypasses the webbrowser and operating system security measures and installs itself on the PC of the victim. The consequense is a trojan can do all kinds of nasty stuff: search for credit card numbers or passwords (either saved on your pc, or eavesdropping on the keyboard), encrypt a PC and ask for a ransom (which is called ransomware), or make your PC take part in taking down a website or server (a DDOS attack).

A miner doesn't evade any security measures, so it can't do nasty stuff. The only thing it does is steal some of the processor time in a PC, resulting in:

• a higher power bill
• slightly more wear of the components in the PC
• possibly a slower PC (probably not noticable on a higher end PC)

And a miner should stop working when you close a website (or browse away from it). A miner is "stored" on a website where a trojan is stored "in" the operating system of a PC (those "" terms are not technically correct, but they'll make things clear I hope).

I don't like both, but a trojan is a far bigger problem than a miner is.

The quality of served ads on sg is sometimes VERY bad (to say it nice).
This is sad for a site you want to support and does advertising the right way (I my opinion, 2 ads on the front is ok).

Sometimes the ads makes this site unusable!
Known workarounds:
delete cookies and cache regulary*
or use ad blocker
or become patreon supporter of sg.

*the ads you get served are usually because of your perceived profile to ad networks.

EDIT: added patreon option