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The Successor To Popunder Ads?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the testing-your-patience dept.

Croaker writes: "So, apparently, boston.com is trying out these new ads called "Shoshkeles" (the marketeer who came up with that name was on crack, no doubt). The result is an incredibly annoying experience of having crap run around the page you are reading, along with sound. And you thought banner ads sucked. The company responsible for the technology, United Virtualities says these are 'browser driven, platform agnostic, sound enabled, free moving forms that marry total creative license to a whole new level of effectiveness.' Effective in annoying, I guess." The site says "the ads only appear when using an Internet Explorer browser," though. Darn.

7 of 510 comments (clear)

  1. Re:NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! by SpiritualRemains · · Score: 5, Informative

    The best way to kill them is to go into your IE security settings and change Download Signed ActiveX controls, Download Unsigned ActiveX controls, and Run ActiveX controls and Plugins from Enabled to Prompt in the Internet Zone.

    Spiritual Remains

  2. Re:origin of "Shoshkele" by trb · · Score: 4, Informative

    it's a diminutive form of Shoshana, which is the Hebrew name that Susan is derived from. So Shoshkele is approximately the same as Susie.

  3. Here is a good practice for IE users by weave · · Score: 5, Informative
    Go into Tools -> Internet Options, click on Security tab, then Custom Level. Scroll a wee bit down and change "Run ActiveX Controls and plug-ins" and "Script ActiveX controls" from enabled to prompt.

    It not only kills this kinda crap, it also protects you from the malicious IE/activeX hole of the week.

    Now, since all plugins are installed as an activeX control of sometype (including java and flash), you need to say Yes when prompted for those. You'll quickly learn when to say yes and no from practice. You can't make a mistake since you're basically always saying yes by default. If you say No and some page functionality you WANT to see is lost, reload and answer Yes.

  4. Re:cool! by popupcop · · Score: 4, Informative

    Could this be because Mozilla does not support Flash? Or the JavaScript statements "setTimer" and "setInterval"?

    This type of ad can be implemented without Flash, using only DHTML and transparent GIF's.

    I would be careful before declaring complete immunity. It looks like this particular advertiser chose to target only IE users.

    For an intelligent and mostly accurate discussion (with examples)of the technology, called "DHTML Flying Ads", go to the DoubleClick site: http://richmedia.doubleclick.net/floating/dhtmlfly ing.htm

    I really like this sentence: "However, because they command so much attention, there is the potential for a negative user reponse -- to help prevent this, campaigns should be run in short flights or with frequency caps."

    Judging by the activity level here, they sure got that right.

    I have detailed knowledge of the techniques because I am the author of PopUpCop, a shareware add-in for IE 5 and above that can block this type of annoying web site behavior, if the user turns of script timers and Flash autoplay....

  5. Umm, folks, wtf? Why is this a problem? by Kasreyn · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apparently ever /. weenie sees this as a golden opportunity to crawl out from under their rock and scream about IE sucking. Here's a tip for you clueless wankers:

    Tools | Internet Options

    Security Tab. Click Custom Level. Select everything under "ActiveX" to "prompt" (or "disable").

    Click Ok. Click Apply.

    Enjoy your Shoshkele-less surfing.

    Sheeeeesh.

    -Kasreyn,

    who is tired of /.ers knocking IE for being Evil without acknowledging its strengths.

    P.S. Since Boston.com were so nice about carefully commenting what their HTML does, I should have my "Kill Shoshkeles" rule for the Proxomitron written in about 20 minutes.

    --
    Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger /. flamers since 1999.
  6. Re:mozilla default settings by Hal-9001 · · Score: 5, Informative
    That might be a good idea if ads were the only reason to use popups.
    Fortunately, the Mozilla team is one step ahead of you and has created a specific parameter for disabling new windows from popping up on page load or exit, which pretty much can only be used for ads or unsolicited redirects. From the Customizing Mozilla page which every Mozilla user should bookmark or know how to find (it's as easy as going to mozilla.org, clicking "Search", and searching for "Customizing Mozilla"), here is the appropriate line to add to prefs.js or user.js :
    // More important, disable JS windows popping up a new window on load
    // (as lots of porn and spam sites do):
    user_pref("dom.disable_open_during_load", true);
    --
    "It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
  7. Persistent problem with Slashdot by crucini · · Score: 5, Informative
    Attention!
    1. The 'demos' are shockwave.
    2. The real shoshkeles are DHTML, not shockwave.

    A lot of the comments have been based on not understanding this. People post "it works in $browser on $OS."
    More fundamentally, this is a persistent problem with Slashdot. Neither the story submitter nor the editor takes the two minutes to dig up and answer the most obvious question or confusion that will arise from the provided links. Therefore instead of an informed discussion we get lots of people blundering around in the dark, powered by misconceptions.