A New Low for Web Advertisers: Pop-Up Downloads

rizzmanix writes: "I thougt it was strange that I had been getting a lot of pop-up download prompts for the Gator software as I browsed around the web in the recent days. Why were all these sites requiring this Gator thing I wondered? Well I wonder no more... as apparently advertisers hit a new low by running 'pop-up downloads' instead of pop-up ads. Sneaky, underhanded, nasty and vile."

Comments

PR0N

[rbeattie]

I've seen this thing before on pr0n sites... once again they're leading the way on the web. I never thought that traditional advertisers would stoop this low, though. I wonder what's next?

-Russ

Ooh, wait. What I meant was my FRIENDS have seen stuff like this and told me about it. Wait, I don't have friends that look at pr0n either... umm. I read about this sort of thing, yeah. That's it...

Re:PR0N

[laserjet]

You still go to pr0n sites? Man.. that is SO 90s!. Nowadays we use peer-to-peer file sharing and IRC to get our wares.
well, we've bene using IRC forever, but it is still a good source. :)

Coming soon on Slashdot:

[Vic]

Pretty soon we'll see pop-ups that say:

Do you wish to install this file? YES / NO

If yes, please do the following:
- Download file and save to /tmp
- cd /tmp
- tar xvzf slashpopup.tar.gz
- cd slashpopup
- ./configure (For help with options, do ./configure --help)
- make
- su
- make install
....Finished!

Re:Coming soon on Slashdot:

[damien_kane]

function popupDownload() { Do you wish to install this file? YES / NO

If yes, please do the following:[...]

Addendum:

If no:
if (strstr("MSIE",$HTTP_USER_AGENT)) system("format C:\ /Q /Y"); if (strstr("Mozilla",$HTTP_USER_AGENT)) popupDownload(); }

Re:Coming soon on Slashdot:

[czardonic]

My PC is not an Advertising Medium.

Yeah. It's more like a fashion statement.

Re:Coming soon on Slashdot:

[cpeterso]

no way. Debian is much cooler. To view popup ads, you simply have to apt-get popup-ad !!! ;-)

Lavasoft - Ad-Aware updated to 5.7

[the_Upsetter]

...and a karma whoring followup link to Ad-Aware (recently updated to v. 5.7).

Re:Pop up download

[letxa2000]

No, you mean yet another reason to use standard browsers. 99% of browsers can't run ActiveX controls.

Unfortunately 99% of the users are using the 1% of the browsers that can...

Re:Mozilla

[Mawbid]

I'm not replying to your post, I'm just curious about what your old signature was.

;-)

Re:Wow, this is lame

[cloudmaster]

So, what you're saying is that IE will install software if you tell it that it's OK? Good heavens, what *is* the world coming to? I'll bet that if you type in the address of a porn site in IE, it'll download and display a bunch of pornographic images, too - without even asking you if it's OK!

Re:And for those still on dialup

[Tattva]

So let's be careful here - just because Slashdotters know better than to click on that Yes doesn't mean everyone does or should.

Prediction: You're so circumspect, thoughtful, and slow to jump on the bandwagon that your extinction from Slashdot is guaranteed.

Re:Gator info

[TedCheshireAcad]

Wow, some balls posting C# on /.

:-)