Slashdot Mirror
Gator Will Replace Ads On Sites
Bill Dimm writes "This CNet article says that a new version of Gator, a browser plug-in for managing passwords that also can display pop-up ads for competing products when you visit web sites, is being developed that will launch its own ads over top of the banner ads on the sites you visit. The software achieves wide distribution by bundling (much like TopText) with file-sharing utilities, with over 18 million installations of the current version claimed on their web site."
Being a linux user, you don't have to vew ads NOW. There are a myriad ways, from junkbusters to /etc/hosts manipulation to block ads in Linux. I don't use any of them, since I don't find banner ads that intrusive, but I may have to if everyone starts following the lead of Cnet with those huge, distractive ads in the middle of the story. But for now, I only disable Javascript popups, which annoy the hell out of me.
Gator? Heh. In this respect, you do have a valid point. If all the advertisers decide Unix users are too few to be worth the effort, and start designing ad technologies that only work in Windows/MacOS, maybe we will get ad-free web surfing by default. I already get it to some extent, i.e. I don't see Flash ads since I haven't bothered to install the plugin. Now if only some advertiser organization would do us a favor and declare Flash the standard for web ads...
Web sited that make their money through banner advertising have got to be unhappy about this development. Which leads me to wonder: what are they going to do to ensure to their customers (read: advertisers) that their banner ads will not be gator-substituted?
Blocking web browsers that are Gator-enabled? Probably not the best idea, but if enough important sites band together, this could put Gator out of business.
Lawsuits against Gator? This might not be a bad idea, although I have no idea how it would go through.
Hacking Gator to get around banner-ad substitution?
Offering text-and-hyperlink-only ads, Google style?
What I'm really hoping to see is Gator offer a "subscription service" to web sites..."pay up or we'll substitute your ads." That would lead to a most interesting fight indeed. And to a lot of lawyers making a lot of money.
Finding God in a Dog
Also, with IE and Mozilla/Netscape now offering password management, is Gator relevant anymore?
In my opinion, Gator is a virus. It is attached to the software installations for other products, and it usually installs itself on user's systems without their permission. When you try to remove it, it creates a copy of itself so it is not deleted.
It also interferes with the running of your computer. When I go to a website, I want to see that website, and view the ads that paid for that website. Gator changes that, and thus in effect is altering content without my permission. It uses up my computer's cycles and bandwidth to alter the contents of my computer's memory.
So is Gator only legal because it is a company, and has corporates paying them? Gator does appear to be a protection racket as well - pay us money, or we will take away your business (by showing competitor's ads on your page).
Christ, someone set the FBI onto this company. IMHO, of course.
The problem is that the users don't know what's being installed. Gator is a program that silently piggybacks itself on other popular programs like Gozilla. It doesn't bring up its own screen saying "Now installing Gator." The only indications that Gator is installed is a blurb buried deep in the fine print of the twenty page click-thru license agreement, and Gator showing up in the Add/Remove Programs dialog. Worse, when you try uninstalling Gator, a piece of it still remains that continues to perform stealth advertisement hijacking until you uninstall it as well. Most non-computer-geeks won't have the time or inclination to figure this out.
Gator is almost virus-like in its attempts to conceal itself from the user, do things without their consent, and spread itself to more machines. It includes only the bare minimum required to make a paper-thin claim of ethical behavior. With Junkbuster, the user knows exactly what's going on. Gator does its best to make sure the user doesn't know it's working.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Firstly, I use Mozilla on both OSes. I configure it to ask permission before loading images, and remember the choice. This quickly populates the database of junk image sites. Same is done with cookies, of course. Animated GIFs are set to never loop.
Secondly, I use Squid + Junkbuster chain on another computer. It acts as a caching/filtering proxy to block ads and cookies that slipped through Mozilla.
Thirdly, the firewall is configured to direct all traffic to/from known Evil Sites (tm) to where it belongs. Input packets are denied, outgoing are rejected. Doubleclick and friends are all there, as well as some "legitimate" Web sites that have questionable privacy policies (like Real). This blocks a spyware traffic from apps like RealPlayer - which require 15 minutes to properly set up, otherwise they send everything they can to an unknown 3rd party.
Fourthly, though I haven't done that yet, you can disable outgoing traffic through your firewall, except the proxy server. This makes the whole Web accessible only through your proxy.
If you want to "sponsor" some Web site and give it an ad image request without actually seeing the ad, you can use Mozilla's CSS hacks. Then the image will be downloaded but not displayed. This is also necessary in SSL mode because the proxy becomes transparent and can't block images for you; then only Mozilla itself can help.