Dangerous Ad Websites Posing as Blender #98276

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I was helping a friend download Blender, and when they searched it up on Google chrome, these ad sites pretending to be Blender showed up above the actual site. I wasn't paying much attention then and neither were they, so they clicked on the site and downloaded the installer, we The download showed up as an attached disk. That's when we noticed the site was also wrong.

The "Blender" download site of these links pose as being the same as normal Blender. If the image is too tiny you can test for yourself by searching "blender" on Chrome.

Sorry if I posted this in the wrong section or if Blender can't really do anything about it themselves. Guess this serves as a heads up for anyone whose planning to access the Blender website through Chrome.

I was helping a friend download Blender, and when they searched it up on Google chrome, these ad sites pretending to be Blender showed up above the actual site. I wasn't paying much attention then and neither were they, so they clicked on the site and downloaded the installer, we The download showed up as an attached disk. That's when we noticed the site was also wrong. The "Blender" download site of these links pose as being the same as normal Blender. If the image is too tiny you can test for yourself by searching "blender" on Chrome. ![scam.JPG](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F13092281/scam.JPG) Sorry if I posted this in the wrong section or if Blender can't really do anything about it themselves. Guess this serves as a heads up for anyone whose planning to access the Blender website through Chrome.

Added subscriber: @WahooBahoo

Added subscriber: @pablovazquez

Thanks for the report. This needs investigation.

It's hard to get that same results because they vary a lot depending on where you are, login status, and your ads settings. Do they offer a way for you to report those ads? If so, is it a permanent URL you could share? (I mean if it doesn't look like it's attached to your profile or something, showing a token in the URL or similar)

Searching incognito on Google Chrome, ad-blocker disabled, from The Netherlands I get a different type of ads:

Tried with and without personalized ads, set in https://adssettings.google.com/ .
Anonymous ads settings are in https://adssettings.google.com/anonymous?hl=en

Thanks for the report. This needs investigation. It's hard to get that same results because they vary a lot depending on where you are, login status, and your ads settings. Do they offer a way for you to report those ads? If so, is it a permanent URL you could share? (I mean if it doesn't look like it's attached to your profile or something, showing a token in the URL or similar) Searching incognito on Google Chrome, ad-blocker disabled, from The Netherlands I get a different type of ads: ![image.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F13094036/image.png) Tried with and without personalized ads, set in https://adssettings.google.com/ . Anonymous ads settings are in https://adssettings.google.com/anonymous?hl=en

Added subscriber: @iss

@pablovazquez Should I confirm this report? And if so do you still need additional info?

here's the link I was planning to send

Sorry for the late response.

[here's the link I was planning to send ](https://www.google.com/search?q=blender&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS902US902&oq=blender+&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j35i39j0i433i512l4j0i131i433j69i65.1100j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) Sorry for the late response.

Changed status from 'Needs Triage' to: 'Archived'

Thanks for update, will close then.

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Dangerous Ad Websites Posing as Blender #98276