Only Thieves Block Pop-Ups

aurelian writes "It's official: using browsing the web while blocking pop-up ads and other such exciting website enhancements is theft. Anti-leech.com are offering to protect your site from browsers blocking pop-ups (or 'theft tools' as they call them) - just try stealing from them with your favourite pop-up free browser. (I picked this up on the phoenix discussion forum...)"

Comments

Just fine by me

[sjhwilkes]

If a site doesn't want me then they can %^&* off. There's no shortage of sites that haven't resorted to pop ups.

Re:Just fine by me

[Goldberg's Pants]

So rather than change an offensive, annoying practice that pisses EVERY web user off, some idiots are now making it so you HAVE to see the damn things... *sigh* Of course, it was recently declared that fast forwarding through commercials on your Tivo or VCR was theft as well... Some of these shitheads need to look up the word "theft" in the dictionary.

Dictionary.com defines theft as:

1. The act or an instance of stealing; larceny.
2. Obsolete. Something stolen.

Hmmm....

Remember when the web was actually about content?

Guess I need another list to go with the "Sites that insist I use IE" for sites that can go fuck themselves.

Re:Just fine by me

[Jucius Maximus]

"On the pages that you want to protect you only need to insert a few lines of HTML code to your website. This will present the below button that will test the visitors to see if the use any sort of blocking software."

I wonder if this special code can be cleaned before it reaches the browser by The Proxomitron or your favourite page-scrubber proxy. It might be a little annoying to disable javascript every time I run into one of these. (Perhaps the mozilla crew will make a nice interface for per-site javascript blocking.)

Re:Just fine by me

[fenix down]

I like the message. Especially the way the whole thing's in the URL. I can just have hours of fun with that.

I'm a fucker for pointing this out, but somebody would've figured it out anyway. look.

Be careful, kids. Get Phoenix and block images on a per-domain basis today!

Re:Just fine by me

[fenix down]

Replying to myself because this is horrible. I mean, damn. I can't try out Javascript because of the way those backslashes show up before quotes. That's a perl thing, right? I find this terribly ammusing.

Re:Just fine by me

[spike hay]

Non intrusive (like non animated gif or java) banners are a-ok by me. I recognize that sites do need to pay for their bandwidth with advertising.

I do not tolerate annoying java ads and popups. I block those. No site should need to resort to popup ads, unless the webmaster is simply greedy.

Re:Just fine by me

[Anonymous Coward]

(can't remember my password, damn)

JavaScript's no problem, you just have to link to an external script file. Something like this, in other words.

Re:Just fine by me

[Archie Steel]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to write them an e-mail saying that, when I see a pop-up, I am so annoyed that I actually make a point of not buying the product. Therefore, they are actually hurting sales (as far as I'm concerned) by forcing me to see those pop-ups. I'll also make sure to resend this letter to any web site dumb enough to use their product (and I'll tell them that, too!)

Re:Just fine by me

[Archie Steel]

Here's the letter I sent. Please feel free to copy or adapt it and send it to:

general@anti-leech.com

Whenever I used to see a pop-up ad, I was so annoyed that I actually made a point of not buying this product, and sometimes even went as far as to discourage those around me not to buy this product.

Ever since I've been using a browser that block pop-up ads, I have probably been a better customer. Your product will once again cause misguided advertisers to lose my business. I'll make sure to point this out to any web site I come across that uses your product.

Banner ads are the most that 95% of Web users will accept. Anything that "pops up" is found annoying by the great majority of Web users. The negative reinforcement can only be detrimental to business - you're only hurting those you want to help.

Also consider that, if you keep wantonly calling people like me thieves, you're liable to get sued for libel.

Re:Just fine by me

[Axe]

You wish. Most of them did just fine and have enough dough stashed away.

Those who jumped into stock craze in the late 99 and invested their retirement money are those who got fucked up. - if stock market lost 3 trillions - that means at least that much money changed hands. Into pocket of investment bankers, and yes, a fare share for those 24 year old MBA assholes..

Re:Just fine by me

[jonadab]

> Non intrusive (like non animated gif or java) banners are a-ok

Agreed. I have no problem with advertising per se. Ordinary banners
I don't complain about; occasionally, I even follow one. (So far, on
occasions that I've followed one, the ad has always been narrowly
targeted for the specific content of the page I was viewing; e.g., an
ad for shell accounts ("Panix" IIRC) on a website that provided
information about using Unix. Ads like that I'm not unhappy about
at all. Most of the ones on /. don't bother me too, although the
squarish ones that get embedded in the story are mildly annoying
because of the way they screw up the layout. But not annoying
enough that I'd actually _do_ anything about it, like block them or anything.) If you want me to see your ads, just present them as
regular ordinary ads. I have no problem with that.

Popups, however, are totally unacceptable. Until Mozilla added
dom.disable-open-during-load, I almost never surfed with Javascript
turned on at all, and just skipped most sites that required it.
I have other things to do with my time than close a bunch of extra
windows all the time. Mozilla doesn't send anything back to the
site when it ignores a popup, so they're obviously using some kind
of chicanery to determine that; whatever it is, the message is a
clear "we don't want you on your site", and believe me, with the
size of the web being what it is, I can find another site that will
be more hospitable in about the same amount of time it would take
me to check the little "popups" checkbox on my prefs toolbar, give
or take a couple of seconds. Guess which I'm more likely to do?

This is not an issue of rights; it's an issue of practice. The
site (assuming it's a private-sector site, which seems like a
reasonable assumption if we're talking about ad revenue) of course
has the right to refuse to serve me pages for any reason, even if
it's "we don't like the list of languages your browser accepts" or
"you are in the same subnet with a former employee, and we didn't
like the colour of his trousers". Hey, you want to block me, block
me; there's _lots_ of other content on the net.

The thing is, there are two ways this can turn out, depending on
how many people find out how to block unrequested windows (which,
realistically, depends on whether any major browser ever ships with
them blocked by default). If almost nobody blocks popups, then the
resources a site expends checking everybody will dwarf the small
amount of resources they are ostensibly saving by doing the blocking.
That is the current situation. If a major browser (e.g., AOL) ever
ships with unrequested popups off by default, then the sites that
refuse to switch to other forms of advertising will be locking
themselves out of that much traffic and ad revenue. Either way,
sites that insist on popups are hurting themselves. And as far
as I'm concerned, they're _only_ hurting themselves.

There are other types of advertising I'm also unwilling to view,
too. Blatantly fraudulent advertisements (such as the ones that
try to pass themselves off as dialog boxes) are Distilled Evil, for
example, and if I worked at the FTC I'd try to go after them. It's
an offense worthy of jailtime, IMO. I'm not talking about mild
marketing optimism, but the outright fraud.

I'm also unwilling to view animations that don't stop. I allow
animated GIFs to play through _once_, but no more. Under no
circumstances am I willing to surf with Flash enabled.

Sites that require any of these things, I just skip. This means
perhaps one in a hundred sites that I was going to view I end up
not viewing, but I always find equivalent content on another site
(usually in short order) because the web is getting pretty big
these days. I think pretty soon there might be more than a million
sites, or something. (Ahem.)

I don't see how this is a rights issue, just plain old stupidity.

Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

A long while back, in a little debate here on Slashdot, someone called me a thief for blocking pop-ups ads. If I recall, I think I stumped them by asking if Lynx users were thieves since their browser didn't support pop-ups.

Anyway, I didn't sign any contract to view pop-ups, and there is no guarantee I will support any soft of technology when I browse the web, so they take a chance in using it knowing it may not work. Same with Flash, other javascript, or even images.

Re:Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[fferreres]

If I recall, I think I stumped them by asking if Lynx users were thieves since their browser didn't support pop-ups.

Short answer: no.

I think the problem is people using the fully featured website while trying to suvert the very means that makes the website stay online.

If a large percent of the people used Lynx, you could expect websites to start using text ads, as opposed to blocking people that try to block the income source of the publisher.

If there existed a way to automatically reformat a printed newspaper into a non-ads newspaper, they'd have to charge everyone more and due to reduced audience they'd also have to cut jobs and lower the quality of the articles. In the web, thing are the same or worst, because if you try to charge you reduce your audience to a much greater degree, being forced to severily affect the quality of the product.

So, the bottom line is it's ok for you to try to block adds, as long as you can recognize that when your favourite site closes you are part of the reason. And when a site is doing find and provides you of great pleasure or insight, you are not helping and are freeriding everyone elses "hard work".

Of course, it's mandatory that i know there are some limits to what means resonable adverticement. If the site wants to place 25 chained pop-ups and 75 flashing banners then I would disable javascript or avoid the site. The thing is the most usefull sites have decent advertizing schemes.

Re:Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[nhavar]

I get it but don't agree. The logic should be that as users bail out on advertising then it's either time to reevaluate the type of advertising you are doing or reevaluate the business model. If you don't do either that's when you shut down.

Many users are just burnt out on ads. It's been said time and time again. When every show, every channel, every magazine, every newspaper, every website, every shopping cart, every building, every movie, every music CD, every box of cereal, basically every horizontal and vertical surface that a person sees is covered with an ad you get burn out. When an hour long show contains 22 minutes worth of show (2 minutes of beginning and ending + 20 minutes actual plot and acting) and 28 minutes worth of commercials there's a little commercial zone-out going on.

Pop up blockers and similar technology in PVR's are just helping what the brain does automatically - block out the crap. In fact it might even improve some of the ads getting seen since the users aren't overloaded with so much some of it might actually register.

Marketers don't understand "reasonable" or "ethical". They understand marketshare, branding, and placement. If they looked to "reasonable" and "ethical" the economy might look a little better than it does right now.

Re:Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[SmallFurryCreature]

I like the fact that you draw in tv-shows. I ask you to consider the BBC. No-ads yet high quality tv. Of course they got to get the money somewhere. So people, all people who want to own a tv need a license to own one. This of course costs a certain fee and from this fee the station is paid.

In holland we had a sort of a cross of this system. Limited ads on tv, only between programs, and a license fee. Recently this licensee fee was dropped as it was realised that the collection was to expensive and it is instead collected through taxes since it is considered that everyone will watch tv or listen to radio no matter how little.

So youre point is wrong, without ads no ad sponsored tv, their are other ways. Maybe their should be other ways to run websites as well. I am not saying that these would work or that ads are all bad just that there are other choices.

Youre second point about forcing people to watch ads sounds highly dubious to me. How do you propose to do this? Chain people to their chairs during the commercial breaks? Make the page only available after answering a question about the popup ad?

In the real world advertisers have learned, had to learn to accept that people have no interst in watching their stuff. They get around it buy trying to make the ad as intresting as possible. Some companies are very good at this. On the web for some reason this has not happened. Only tv-ads I seen that equal the kind of crap that popups and banners are where parodies.

The web is no different from the real world, if people don't want to watch youre ad you got to make it attractive to watch, you can't force them.

Re:Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[fferreres]

Well, that's up to the channel owner. You see, some channels require the cable company to pay a high fee or they can't broadcast the content. Some others do not and are always there, but full of ads.

Whcih ones to I watch most? The ones without ads. But not only because of the ads, but mostly because they have the content I like most (Discovery, Animal Planet, Movies).

It's nice to have choice though. Not every show can be financed in the same way. Some are better of showing ads and reaching a higher audience (there are some people that are unwilling to pay, or that couldn't pay if everything was per-view).

Re:Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[whereiswaldo]

Great comment.

Here's an idea: why don't the anal SOB's who want everyone to view their ads place a small "ads.txt" file similar to "robots.txt" which says to the browser or ad blocker "you must view the ads or you are not allowed to view this site". Then we could just tell our browser to not load sites with that file in place, thereby solving the silly "bandwidth theft" problem.

Re:Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[WolfWithoutAClause]

So, the bottom line is it's ok for you to try to block adds, as long as you can recognize that when your favourite site closes you are part of the reason. And when a site is doing find and provides you of great pleasure or insight, you are not helping and are freeriding everyone elses "hard work".

I don't agree. You have to wonder for starters why it's so easy to block these ads.

It's partly/mainly because the ads redirect you to another site. Is this necessary? No.

Also, why are they redirecting you to another site? It's because they want to track you across the web. I DON'T want to be tracked across the web. I call that spying; I find that deeply unethical, far less ethical than me turning off the advertisements.

I mean what you going to do? Visiting a website should not invalidate my need for privacy just because some idiot thinks they I owe them a living off stealing my privacy. This is every bit as evil, and far more insidious than spam- this is a real 1984 scenario happening in our lives.

Making money on the web should come from selling stuff. Not stealing my privacy. And no I don't care if the websites go broke. I don't owe them a living, just because they think I do. This is the real issue.

Fine, if they want to turn the site off unless I agree to spying- in that case, I ain't going to that site, and I recommend you don't either.

Re:Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[susano_otter]

The thing is without watching adds you'll have no...TV shows (except pay per view).

Exactly! And have you compared the quality of HBO's programming to that of the networks, recently?

Also, have you noticed that when a TV program doen't rely on ads to generate revenue, you get it on video a lot sooner? Have you noticed that 24 came out on video almost instantly? Even the broadcast networks are beginning to get the picture (so to speak).

Maybe advertising would have been a viable revenue model for the web, but the advertisers screwed that pooch right away. Instead of addressing privacy concerns, they began straightaway to abuse consumer confidence. That, combined with a wilful wrongeheadedness regarding the nature of web advertising, killed any chance targeted advertising based on aggregate data ever had.

My favorite part of the whole fiasco is that web-based advertising hasn't even been around long enough to become the "traditional" way of doing things, but already people are screaming at me for not doing things the way "they're supposed to be done". Put up a website, lose all memory of life prior to 1998, I guess. If only the other kinds of lobotomy were so cheap and painless!

Re:Hey! I got that label on Slashdot

[t1m0r4n]

Many users are just burnt out on ads... block out the crap. In fact it might even improve some of the ads getting seen since the users aren't overloaded with so much some of it might actually register

Too true! Now I work in the online porn industry. Most annoying spammers, popup artists, and what not, I know.

Recently did an ad campaign using free sites you find on link lists. Two pages of nudie pics, and the only ad was a single standard banner with the site name and catch phrase. 80% of the people who went to the free website visited the pay site. That is incedibley high, if you were wondering :P

My theory in the design was that either people would appreciate the ad free approach and visit out of appreciation (for lack of a better word), or that they would think the pay site was so good it didn't need to fill every pixel with some BS hype. Don't know what it was, but it worked.

I'm in the process of converting all my sites using this approach, and will definately use it more in future promotions.

FWIW I never did popups, "free" sites with hidden fees, or any of that other crap. Honestly got into the biz because I loved porn but hated what was offered :P

sure.. and let's not forget...

[jedie]

changing the channel when a commercial break starts is a major fellony too!

Re:sure.. and let's not forget...

[Turbyne]

Darn! I'm gonna hafta watch pr0n the old fashioned way: left hand on alt+F4, right hand on...

For any broadcaster that dares let their photons onto my property, prepare to meet the wrath of tresspassing charges. If you want to let your ads onto my property, I expect to be fully compensated for it at standard billboard rates (1 frame = 1 billboard). While I'm at it, I might as well sue Kiss-108 FM for giving me cancer due to their EM radiation, and deafness from their bad music.

Re:sure.. and let's not forget...

[Goldberg's Pants]

Any idiot website that insists on using popup ads when the entire planet hates them deserves to not get any revenue... If people were watching TV and halfway through your show a huge popup ad appeared over the screen you'd be pissed.

If sites that force popup ads shut down... Well boohoo...

Just maybe...

[unterderbrucke]

...we'll all slashdot the site, and we won't have to worry about idiots like them anymore.

can't believe this

[greenerx]

bandwidth theft?.. they're stealing OUR bandwidth by polluting our pakets with junk

Bad Business Model to begin with

[Anonymous Coward]

Telling me not to block pop-ups because the website needs the pop-up income is bad motivation.

No website is worth wading through hundreds of pop-ups.

If their only source of income is pop-ups, they aren't long for the web anyway.

Pop-up income is a bad way to "earn" money, and everyone knows it. (except classmates.com)

Re:Bad Business Model to begin with

[Moonshadow]

Anyway, back to my question though, how SHOULD people make money from their websites? Or should thousands of people in the world just work their butts off to give YOU stuff for free?

Anyone who has ever tried to produce something worthwhile, such as a website, in their spare time, in addition to having a full-time job, will probably understand these sentiments.

Note: reading my preview, this post sounds quite holier-than-thou - not intended at all. This isn't an attack, just the perceptions of a web developer. Now, on to the content!

I'm a pro web developer, and put up sites all over in my spare time just for the heck of it - not little pansy Frontpage sites, PHP/SQL sites that I've sunk a lot of time and effort into.

I have yet to ever put a single banner, popup, or paid button ad on any site of mine. Honestly, $10 or $12/month is quite negligible, and it gives you a presence on the web. If you don't like it, then get off. The way to make money on the web is ot through advertising, but by offering a service that people find useful, and charging them for it. If you expect banners and popups to pay for your site, let alone your next meal, unless you're generating thousands and thousands of hits a day, you're going to be disappointed.

The web is not there to serve pop-ups. It does not exist solely for people to make money from. I run my sites out of love, and a desire to sharpen my skills. If you dislike it, or it's costing you too much, stop doing it. If you're going bankrupt, set up a donation system, and if people truly think your site is worthwhile, they'll dontate.

Example: a lot of web comics. They develop large followings, and then start to be run into a hole. Their fans take up the slack, because they don't want to see it die. A high traffic forum I participate in recently lost webhosting due to bandwidth and space concerns. The members of the forum pooled together some $1200 to buy a co-lo'ed server, and things are plugging along. They get nothing substantial out of it, but they enjoy it enough that they're willing to take a financial hit to keep it running.

If you have something people truly care about, they'll pay for it. If you have nothing but average, run-of-the-mill stuff that they can get elsewhere, they won't. It's as simple as that. Donations, subscriptions, etc. are the way to go, because if you're serving quality content, people will pay for it.

Re:Bad Business Model to begin with

[Moonshadow]

Well, let's de-gray-ify it a bit.

Any legal site that is doing enough traffic to put a dent in the owner's wallet is obviously quite appreciated. People will pay to use it. The little small sites? Of course no one is going to pay. No one goes to them. However, they also cost almost zero to run. I can get free webspace at any of the bazillion providers out there to put up a page about my dog. If I want to do something dynamic, I can pay phpwebhosting.com $10/month for all the tools I need, and a dynamic website is probably going to generate a bit more traffic than your stadnard Frontpage hack job. If you actually have a job, $10/month isn't going to be a big problem. I'm a college student making $15/hr at my day job. In one 8-hour work day, I will have made enough money to run my site for a year, assuming bandwidth costs are negligible.

If it bothers you that people don't vigorously shake you hand for creating a site, then you need to reevaluate your approach to the web. Unless you manage to create the next Yahoo or something, people don't really care. Are they at fault for not sending you mail thanking you for your wonderful site? I'd hardly say so. Do strangers waking by your house stop by to say "Nice job on the lawn! That's really something! You must have put a lot of work into it!"? I've never experienced anything like that.

I have a girlfriend, a social life, school, a family of 5 other people to interact with, and I still manage to work 30 hours a week at the office and develop websites on the side. The "no time" is really not an issue. Take an notebook with you for a week, and write down everything you do with the times you spent doing it. At the end of the week, tally the gaps. I -guarantee- you there will be a lot. If my father, who works to provide for a family of six, maintains relationships with friends, practices and plays in the church band, and goes hiking for 4 hours every Saturday can find time to study for an MBA, then chances are most people can find extra time for the things they want to do, too.

If you want money from people, charge them for something. The idea that popups are the only way to make money on the web is faulty at best.

Tech fix

[Henry V .009]

Oh my. We're going to have to improve pop-up stoppers to defeat this technology.

Well, I'd better free up 45-50 minutes for coding sometime in the next week.

so...

[HillBilly]

What can I do on the internet that isn't illegal these days?

Soon there will be warning messages when connecting to the internet: "You have connected to the internet. This is in violation of blah blah blah. Disconnect now"

Re:so...

[Smidge204]

What can I do on the internet that isn't illegal these days? ...log off?

Seriously, though. There are a bijillion little ways to get around crap like this. I disabled javascript and Netscape 7 went right in with no problem (and no popup). IE 5 didn't, though... Oh well! One more reason to swap from IE to Moz!

=Smidge=

Standards incompliance == theft?

[Pflipp]

Aside from the semi-FP issue (I bet I'll be post # 104 or so by the time I finished writing :-), I don't really see how this differs from M$ browsers (and Netscape 4.x) refusing to render my site correctly. So there.

So?

[haukex]

What are they going to do if browsers just *hide* the popup windows/banners, still loading the ads in the background?

What about theft from me?

[solostring]

I've never worked out how much bandwidth popup ads have sucked out of me over the years, but until recently, I had to pay for 'x' amount of MB's over my monthly limit (crap monopolistic ISP).

The people that block popup ads are the same people who would *NEVER* click on a popup ad and purchase something, so I'm sorry, but I can't really see what their problem is. Surely we are saving THEM bandwidth?

This works well...

[Binestar]

Click here to bypass thier test.

Kinda funny, This browser had failed the test and been blocked from using the site. Found a direct link past the tester and was able to load up thier page.

Just goes to show you, everything is just a measure that is able to be bypassed.

Whatever

[Kris_J]

Since we've also recently been told that going to the loo when the ads are on is theft, this latest mob can go screw themselves. If a site doesn't let me view it through Proximitron (will test when I'm on my own PC) then there are plenty of other things I can be doing with my time.

it's your duty to block ads

[Anonymous Coward]

You must block ads, or avoid those sites entirely.

If companies and individuals go out of business because of blocking ads, that will lead to fewer, higher-quality companies like google that can come up with ways to make ads *work*, or sites that actually .. wait for it .. CHARGE MONEY.

I would rather pay money to visit a handful of web sites, then to put up with this bullshit pop-up ad crap all over the place. In fact these days I don't even bother visiting more than about 5-6 web sites, since I'll just drown in ads anyway. And I paid for a /. subscription.

Don't take over my computer with your ads and javascript nonesense, and I won't hack into yours. Deal?

Remember folks: Advertising is not a god-given right. It just happens to work for TV and magazines. If they don't want me ad blocking, they should take down their sites.

Is it theft to get up from a TV commercial? To skip the big ad section in your magazine? No. Ads are priced by the eyeballs after the fact, you don't try and force the eyeballs to match your expectations.

Best Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we just replace the outdated WWW with X clients, and make eveyone run X servers? That way, web sites can draw whatever they want on your display. It would really eliminate all this slow javscript and HTML which requires a huge browser to interpret and render. Isn't mark-up just a kludge (tell a browser how to render pages), when you can simply render the pages directly? X is a much cleaner solution, IMHO.

Forum

[vicviper]

The test URL refrenced is here.

BTW the site works with no blockage in lynx :)

Theft? Offensive!

[Gary Franczyk]

Theft? That is insulting and offensive.

I guess you can consider these other things theft also:

Using the Lynx web browser
Any TV using Tivo or ReplayTV
Going to the bathroom during commercial breaks.
Coming to the movies a bit late for the commercials.

leech? theft? enough of the propaganda!

[FearUncertaintyDoubt]

If they want to block people who are blocking ads, fine. Just come out and say that you want people to see the ads. Don't call me a thief. Don't say I'm leeching. I'd have a lot more respect for these guys if they would just admit they are trying to force people to watch ads and leave it at that, rather than accusing me of being a criminal.

When sites put banners and say, please click on these links because it helps us fund the site, I usually do. Why? Because it shows respect, it's honest, and it doesn't treat me like a "leech" that needs to have measures taken against me.

I like this message better.

[banal avenger]

I think it would be more effective if the message it gave was this.

Re:doh!

[Sancho]

There has been no contact or agreement on my part to view ads in order to view the content of the site. Much like television commercials. Your entire argument is completely invalid for a number of reasons, but instead of listing them, let me ask you one question: how far am I, as a web site viewer, obligated to go? Many ad sites don't pay out unless the link is actually clicked. Should I click the link? If I don't, am I "stealing" content? Should I be required to buy something from the site? Am I stealing if I don't?

Who's the theif?

[xchino]

It seems to me that popping up unsolicited browser windows is both theft of bandwidth and theft of system resources. I've actualy been DoS'd by multitudes of pop ups each spawning it's own pop up children. Although I don't see what their test sight was supposed to do, I didn't get any pop ups and my pop up blocker didn't do anything out of the ordinary..

No objections per se, besides, it won't work

[Rob Kaper]

Except for using the phrase theft, which could be considered libel, I see no problem with this.

So I won't see the site.. not my loss but ultimately theirs as I can't/won't recommend it to anyone else. And sites might not show up in Google either using this kind of technology.

The idea of the Internet is that ultimately someone will build a better site.. anyone can publish something. If there's no useful site on a topic, some freak will stand up and make one that is better and more user-friendly. I know I have done so and I bet many others with me.

Or some browser developer might find a way to show the content after all. Not that I actually see people pay for this stuff to put it on their sites.

Similar to my Comcast experience last night

[mcwop]

I have Comcast digital cable. I tried to order a movie last night, but it would not order. I called and got the "we will send a tech out in a week" crap. I asked the rep why I should pay $80 a month for digital cable when the movie ordering system never works. Well the woman on the other end of the line said I don't pay for the movie unless I order it. I had to explain to her that I do pay for digital cable so I have the ability to order a movie when I want.

Needless to say the attitude of many companies these days is all wrong. Making you view popup ads. Trying to blame product shortcomings on the consumer etc. Well, I am cancelling my Digital cable, and I will not visit sites with obnoxious popup strategies.

If you want to do well in business, don't piss on your cutomers or potential customers.

Dangerous to development of the web...

[Zergwyn]

I guess that there are multiple sides to any story, though in the end I find the efforts of sites like anti-leech both amusing and somewhat dangerous. On the one hand, I do understand that serving a website can be expensive, and that as the recession continues many people are becomming more and more desperate to avoid going under. However, anti-leech is bad for at least two major reasons, one economic, and one societal.

1. Alienating your customers rarely makes for a solid business plan: As the RIAA and countless other harsh regimes(both in business and government) have learned, the more you clamp down, the more people squirm to escape your grasp. Companies forget that one of the whole points of the WWW is choice- and that includes the choice to go to another website if this one is treating me badly. I don't think I need to point out that long term business is built on repeat customers, but then again maybe I do. Repeat customers are ideal, because they are likely to spend more, and have a far lower cost of acquisition. You generally get repeat customers by building loyalty, a positive feeling towards the company. Loyalty does not generally follow from pissing people off.

2. Even more so then with programming, many people start learning their HTML by looking out how another site has done it. I now do a lot of website development, but I got my start when I was younger in part through liberal copying/tinkering with already built stuff until I figured it out well enough to do myself. This makes me concerned about their 'anti-view-source' offerings. While I suspect much of their stuff can be circumvented, the very people who might benefit most from looking at code are new to the web and thus might not know how to get around stuff. If such things became widespread, it could have a somewhat chilling effect on the learning that goes on for the general, casual designer, who might never have the chance to get bit by the bug and learn more(/me looks over at large pile of Mt. Dew bottles, not totally sure this would be bad ;).

Any how, I hope that the concept embodied by antileech gets thoroughly trounced. Heh, and I haven't even touched on the whole rediculousness of the 'theft' thing, but I'm sure that will get pretty well gone over by others.

Cool.

[Wakko Warner]

Now there is something that will alert me when a website is no longer worth visiting. Thank you, Anti-Leech Dot Com! I am sure your IPO will net you hundreds of dollars.

- A.P.

Everyone wins except the actual advertiser..

[XaXXon]

If the window is loaded, but not shown, then everyone wins except the advertiser. As far as you're concerened, you saw no pop-up. As far as the web site is concerned, they get paid. As far as someone like doubleclick is concerned (or any other advertising-helper company), they pushed the impression and get paid by the actual advertiser. The advertiser loses, doubly, though. They have to pay for an impression that was never "impressed" upon the user.

As far as I'm concerned, this is fine. I don't like companies that would want pop-ups. This is like blocking spam as far as I'm concerned. I don't feel bad that the spammer paid for the bandwidth and I didn't read their spam. And in the same way, they're forcing ME to PAY for the bandwidth for getting their advertisement. It's not a big deal now, but what do I do when my I have a transfer limit on my broadband and actually start PAYING for downloading their ad.

I must say, that might be a *good* thing about this whole data transfer cap. People are going to get damn pissed when they start getting billed for receiving spam.

Stealing Webpages, what about advertisers

[smoondog]

You know this is silly. I bet that advertisers are pretty happy with this. People who block ads (I bet) are much more likely *not* to buy products related to those ads (if they saw them, of course). So advertisers are getting better views for their money. In reality, however, maybe the website providers should go after the advertisers, not the blockers.

That said, providers have a right to block access to people not requesting their pop-ups. I also have a right to avoid their page....

-Sean

That denial message is pretty harsh!

[oakbox]

When I read the 'denial' message here, I was pretty shocked. I can't believe that they think this kind of thing makes people want to come back to their site.

And how about foolishly allowing people to alter the URL and change the message? How stupid is that?

Oakbox

alias to 127.0.0.1 and then nothing loads at all

[corrosiv]

http://smartin-designs.com/

This guy is maintaining an /etc/hosts file specifically tailored to blocking ads. Alias everything to 127.0.0.1 and voila - banners are now broken images. I haven't installed it yet - I've been getting by with this list which I started before I discovered that guy (sorry Slashdot):

# hosts
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net ad.ca.doubleclick.net
doubleclick.net a.tribalfusion.com doubleclick.com ssads.osdn.com
ads.x10.com us.a1.yimg.com ar.atwola.com ads3.zdnet.com ads2.zdnet.com
ads1.zdnet.com ads.zdnet.com www.burstnet.com adfarm.mediaplex.com
altfarm.mediaplex.com s0b.bluestreak.com images2.slashdot.org
images.slashdot.org a.r.tv.com popup.msn.com sportsmed.starwave.com
advertising.com servedby.advertising.com ad.trafficmp.com fmads.osdn.com
media.fastclick.net popuptraffic.com www.popuptraffic.com log.go.com
games.espn.go.com sportsmed.starwave.com ehg-espn.hitbox.com
amch.questionmarket.com ads.forbes.com ads.enliven.com adj9.thruport.com
oas-central.realmedia.com ad.trafficmp.com click.atdmt.com
view.atdmt.com a1356.g.akamai.net

Re:doh!

[Mnemia]

No, I'm not stealing from them. There is no agreement saying I have to view the website the way they say I have to, and the Web was explictly designed so that publishers could not impose layout decisions upon browsers. I hate all sites that use popups and would never click on a single one out of principle even if I was interested in what they were selling. So I'm saving them bandwidth costs by not loading their ads which I would ignore anyway.

The more advertisers try to saturate our lives with forced advertising, the stronger the backlash will become. What has effectively happened is that due to the sheer number of ads the impact of each individual one has been reduced to near zero. They're really shooting themselves in the foot by using these invasive techniques.

Using Mozilla is not stealing; I see it more as a start to forcing sites to use more reasonable advertising methods by undermining the market for their invasive techniques.

Umm...

[jpt.d]

"Close your browser window, uninstall your pop up blocker and come back here to visit us."

How about I go to another site and forget about yours.

Re:doh!

[Murdock037]

The stuff you browse on the web isn't exactly completely free of charge. There're bandwidth costs to be paid, servers... etc.

If they didn't want to pay bandwidth costs, they wouldn't have placed their site online. That is an assumed cost of operating.

Yes, we browse their sites for free, and it's perfectly within their rights to send us pop-up ads. But I agreed to no terms of service when I typed in their address.

If they're going to recoup their costs, they're going to have to do it smarter. Salon, for example, won't let you access their premium content unless you pay, and that's fair. They've implemented a system that doesn't make assumptions. It doesn't really work, but it's still fair.

...all they're asking in return is for you to do your part and look at those ads... is it that big of an inconvenience?

Whether or not it's a big inconvenience is a matter of opinion, a moot point, and not worth discussing. The issue is whether or not I'm allowed to block their pop-ups altogether.

Wait, scratch that. That's how they want us to think. The issue is whether or not they are allowed to force me to see what they want me to see.

I say no.

Mozilla's stance on this issue...

[theBrownfury]

Have a look at bug 181035 on Mozilla's Bugzilla. There is some good discussion on how to handle this. A pop-up window can't merely be hidden from view, because invisible windows are considered a security hazard. Maybe the sandbox idea will take off allowing pop-ups to have temporary play room.

However as of now its an open issue at Mozilla with no clear solution in sight. This is going to be an arms race no doubt.

Re:hmmm

[seizer]

No, something more like this :-)

Something for nothing

[Badger]

Ok, so calling ad-blockers "thiefs" is stupid, and the odds of this thing taking off is something around zero. Some points, though:

1. There's nothing wrong with a site requiring you to view ads before viewing it. This isn't the best way to do it, mind you, but it's a reasonable theory.

2. Everyone is better off if websites know what advertising works. Pretending to view ads hurts everyone in the long run.

3. What we really need, at the end of the day, is better statistics on Internet ads. Radio and TV people can factor in bathroom breaks and channel surfing into their ad rates, but we're only beginning to get those stats for the Internet.

4. Somewhere deep inside of me, I suspect that people who refuse to look at (any) ads are the first ones to yell when their favorite sites go to a subscription model. Actions do have consequences, and your ISP fee doesn't subsidize the sites you visit.

Letter to their support address

[Hnice]

Hi,

You offer a much-needed service. As a future enhancement, you might consider simply releasing a list of your clients, so i can avoid attemtpting to view their pages altogether. I'd be more than willing to wwork on things on the server side to redirect free-loading http requests from a popup-blocker to a similar site which does not block access via your service.

Please let me know if you would like to collaborate, I'm offering my services for free, and I'll be sure to forward this same offer to any of your clients I come across, to prevent them from having to handle unneccessary traffic. In fact, it would probably be worthwhile for me to start collecting a list of your clients myself and making them available, along with lists of alternate sites with similar content. Please let me know if you'd like to help, as it should make your job a lot easier. If we can redirect all traffic from your client sites, you shouldn't have to worry much at all about blocking free-loaders. Thanks,

Henry Quinn
Brooklyn NY

Future of advertizing

[einhverfr]

1: Load the main add in the main page.
2: Pop up a new window with requested content.

Works for me :-P

Schweet!

[EchoMirage]

I'm an avid user of Phoenix, which of course blocks pop-ups, and this is great news to me! Websites that use this will now immediately inform me, "We don't want you to give us (or our advertisers) your money." This is a big time-saving feature from having to wade through a webpage for a while to determine whether or not it's crap. Now I know from the outset. Thanks, webmasters!

Re:Workaround

[netsharc]

I wonder if Proxomitron can fix it. Yahoo! Mail doesn't work properly on Opera, it recognizes Opera as an "other" browser and displays the screen with ugly 14 and 19 pt fonts, instead of 10 and 12 pt like in IE and Mozilla. So I wrote a Proxomitron script to change the JS variable "isMozilla" to "true", and this worked: the Javascript got fooled into giving Opera the nicer Style Sheet. I wonder if the sort of thing can be applied to this stupid trick. If the script asks "Did that window load?", then we can easily say "Sure it loaded"... well if I have more time I'll work out a hack.

Re:doh!

[barc0001]

"there're bandwidth costs to be paid, servers to be bought and maintained, and some of the information you read doesn't just appear there; someone had to do research and type it out."

OK. So, by that logic try this one on for size. Every time you walk into a store at the mall to browse and maybe talk to a sales clerk about this item or that, do you give them a quarter? After all, there's rent to be paid, a staff to hire, electricity, inventory costs, etc. These things aren't cheap, and if you're just going in there to look, you're wasting their time and energy. You're a THIEF!

Didn't think so.

This equates to the RIAA and MPAA arguments

[Khopesh]

if you ask me about this whole deal, it screams fair use; if i go to a burger joint and get a kids' meal requesting no toy, they should give it to me that way. if i forget to request no toy, and throw it out without looking, there should also be no problem.

are blind people all theives? they don't see ads!

what about stereo systems? they come with graphic equalizers, which let people filter music as they see fit. but hark! this means radio broadcasts and cds can be played without so much treble! the thieves!
this whole thing reeks of 'loss of potential sales' -- the same argument as used by the MPAA and RIAA. sure, it's a bit more far-fetched (and therefore more obvious), but this may help our case against the motion picture and recording industries.

hypocrits? not us

[fbg111]

I was curious enough to try anti-leech.com, with an unexpected yet illuminating result.

Load the page in Mozilla with "Open Unrequested Windows" disabled, and get a short message saying I'm not allowed to view the page b/c I'm using a pop-up blocker.

I disable Mozilla's popup blocker and load the page again. This time I get the anti-leech.com home page, along with the expected pop-up ad. Lo and behold, the popup ad is advertising Cable TV Descramblers.

So let me get this straight. They want me to stop stealing from them by using a popup blocker so they can try to sell me a way to steal from cable companies using a descrambler.

uhmmm, riiiiight. If you're going to be a hypocrit, at least try to be clever about it.

I hate popup ads as much as anyone, but

[PotatoHead]

I hate delayed content even more. Some hoser posted a good point followed by a lame link, so this reply really can't be under their thread.

They mentioned the salon system where you are basically forced to look at an ad for a time before getting the content.

The way I see it, broadband of any kind is a premium service. Why pay for it if the crap from the marketing folks reduces the quality of the experience to that of dialup? Think about it for a moment, if you use free Juno or something, what do you get? Ads --too many of them to make it worthwhile, so you upgrade service, but why? For a better experience of course! So, if the actions of the marketing people degrade this, does this not devalue the very service you pay extra for? Duh!

Personally, I like the ads that are intermixed in with the content. Most of the benefit of broadband is preserved, and the ads get eyeballs.

I can somewhat agree that browsing with popup support disabled somehow can be thought of as stealing, but what about malicious pages and such? How are users supposed to secure their machines without the freedom to reasonably define what their machine will and won't do for them?

Battling the customer for their attention is never going to work. It costs more money and generates more bad PR than good impressions, so why do it? You would think these types of all people would know this cold.

This sort of thing just limits the usefulness of the Internet just a little more for nothing but the profit of the losers selling this service.

Salon is going the wrong direction by holding content until the ad is viewed. These folks are just as bad. How are the people who place ads in a reasonable way doing? For that matter, how about the /. ad system? Google? Are these working? I do not mind either one bit because I get to choose the nature of the experience. Seems to me the most valuable impressions are those where a user CHOSE, not was tricked or forced, to follow through that particular ad. In that small moment, you have the holy grail, you have a potential buyer actually interested in your product seeking more information.

To everyone considering foolish schemes like this:

How the hell are you going to get this by forcing the issue? Really, tell me how, I want to know!

Know also, I don't have to get the content.

This means more than you would think. We are all being attacked more and more in this new age of information. This will backfire and when it does, where will you be then? Consider your answer again after you remember also that everyone gets to talk about it --a lot and for a long time.

Right now, there is more content presented than I can reasonably view. When I seek to meter my Internet time, guess who won't get the attention?

Remember that when your stats go down as interested visitors don't come back after being treated like criminals. Our time is valuable too, why not create an experience that rewards participation rather than the opposite? It can be done though it takes work. Isn't that what we are supposed to be doing to make money. Isn't money made by adding value where you realistically can?

Maybe there is some hope left though. If we feedback (which is what they really want anyway) our negative experiences, marketing people will begin to seek those who are actually working at providing an experience that people will come back for.

Tell 'em what you think people, it is the only thing that actually matters in the end.

Re:Theft? Offensive!

[fferreres]

Theft? That is insulting and offensive.

I guess you can consider these other things theft also:

* Using the Lynx web browser
Lynx is 100% fine. It works perfectly and is not blocked for a reason.

* Any TV using Tivo or ReplayTV
The day everyone has TIVO, you'll see that the advertizements start to get buried INSIDE the show, or that that show you loved in no longer supported. All you can access for free will be propaganda supported stuff or pay-per-views. I'm nt looking worward to that day :)

Going to the bathroom during commercial breaks.
Nobody requires you to look at the screen when they display an add last time I checked. Not even to stay on the channel. Most websites are not asking people to click the banners nor asking you to pay carefull attention to all the banners.

* Coming to the movies a bit late for the commercials.
They couldn't care less, the fact is some people enjoy those commercials, and for the movie you have already payed a ticket wich is the way you supports the creation of movies.

if they don't like it, they can get out of town

[g4dget]

I think the problem is people using the fully featured website while trying to suvert the very means that makes the website stay online.

I don't see a problem. If they don't want to put a full featured web site on-line for free, they don't have to. Nobody is forcing them.

If there existed a way to automatically reformat a printed newspaper into a non-ads newspaper, they'd have to charge everyone more and due to reduced audience they'd also have to cut jobs and lower the quality of the articles.

Tough cookies. Technology makes some good business models go bad and eliminates certain categories of jobs. It happened for farming, it happened for manufacturing, why should newspapers or content providers be exempt?

So, the bottom line is it's ok for you to try to block adds, as long as you can recognize that when your favourite site closes you are part of the reason.

The fewer sites that are created with commercial motives in mind, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Companies and advertising already dominate newspapers, television, and radio. I think it would be great if such business models simply didn't work on the Web. So, please, go ahead: block all you can.

Re:alias to 127.0.0.1 and then nothing loads at al

[LordHunter317]

Aliasing to many things to 127.0.0.1 isn't a very smart idea, it can break your resolver code.
Better thing is to place them in your firewall with a REJECT (not block) rule.

Defeat anti-leech.com by...

[Burning*Cent]

... disabling javascript. It's funny how impotent the anti-leech system is when something that simple nullifies it.

What the phoenix and mozilla projects should add is a javascript manager, similar to the cookie and image managers. That way you can let specific sites run javascripts and block all others or block specific sites' scripts and run ones from sites that haven't been added to "the list".

They should also add an animation/flash manager. I really hate flash ads.

Whu?

[Safety Cap]

I checked out their site, and notice that they boast "anti-theft" technology. Supposedly, they can prevent you thugs from stealing webpage source code and images.

So I ran their example, and checked it out. Sure enough, they block right-click, shift-f10, and the right-click key on the keyboard. Next stop, my browser's cache. Whoops! All the files and images are in there. Do'o!!

Website access denied

[Phroggy]

Is this what it's supposed to say?

Re:Sue Them...

[fishbowl]

"This makes pages un-readable for some visual disabled who use text browsers to get to what they need and read it out on a braille-board or via software that simply reads the text out- load to them."

Don't sue -- bring criminal prosecution.

The one guy with the case against Southwest Airlines really didn't have a case, because SWA actually was making it possible for him to purchase tickets. Here, the situation is different. Not only is this company actively and agressively forbidding access to the blind, the spokesperson for the company is accusing these disabled individuals of being theives. I'm likely to get modded down as a troll, but I honestly believe there is a potential for litigation here.

Don't some of the larger internet providers distribute pop-up ad blocking software? AOL? Isn't that the sort of kindling for being a target of one of those lawsuits that bankrupts you just by being sued? You know, the kind of suits that "Everybody" is afraid to make the slightest contraversial move in busines because they're so afraid of being sued?

This would be a terriffic time to show me that's not a myth.

Re:very funny!

[cicatrix1]

I like this one.

Everybody please re-read 1984

[Malcontent]

As George Orwell made so abundantly clear those who control the language control the world. This is why you are called a thief and a bomb that wipes out villages is called the daisy cutter.

It's all double plus good.