Slashdot Mirror
Next-Gen Pop-up Ads
bje2 writes "CNet has a disconcerting story about a new generation of pop-up ads that use a "kick through" technique such that you don't even need to click on the pop-up ad anymore, you just need to mouse over it...wow, can they make our web surfing experience any worse?"
In many israelian sites, there are flash commercials that cover the contents, and are very hard to close.
You surf peacefully, and suddenly the screen is filled with lottery ad and the computer shouts " 50 millions!!! " at you.
There are other things, like a anti-virus ad that looks like the computer has been compromised, etc, which are just plain agressive.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
maybe i missed something, but how will this increase revenue for the advertising companies?
so their websites get more hits. but since they are hits that are basically forced, or unaware hits, how will this increase sales for the product being advertised?
Use Mozilla or Phoenix or Netscape 7.1 and turn them off. Probolem solved!
my hosts file is already several KB long. Another entry is added everytime an advertiser annoys me. Like Robofind. Soon to be Orbitz, I'm sure.
Yes, I use mozilla a lot, but I still need IE for some sites.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
- use a quality browser : konqueror, mozilla, opera, phoenix block popups. The three latter are available on nearly any OS
- surf to quality websites only : google, nerd sites, tgp galeries, nearly any type of website has a version that respects the customers.
Problem solvedtypes of Ads and know the server they are originating from? Just curious would like to see one. I'm guessing it uses either javascript or flash?
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Pop-ups are by far the single most annoying thing on the web. I'd say that by this trend, we're only a step away from the pop-up ad that automatically installs GATOR and whatnot just by sitting at a keyboard.
What is disconcerning about these ads that it's the same thing as if you were watching TV, and there was a product on the screen. By glancing at the product, your channel is changed to an Infomercial about that product. If it's anything like other ads, changing back to your channel will give you 4 PIP windows that support that product and other products by that company.
I thought it was bad enough when I saw the anti-pop scripting that existed on a site I went to. I still use my trusty Pop-UP Killer (may it rest in peace), and was rather annoyed to be denied access to a site based on my software choice.
I am seriously starting to wonder about the legality of pop-up ads and internet spyware. I don't have a problem with things that function like a TV commericial (banner ads, or Advertisement and Click-to-continue at Gamespy), but I despise it when someone else tries to determine what I should look at, and hate it even more when someone decides to put something I didn't authorize on my system.
I say we gather up all these pop-up authors in room. Tie them all together, and make them run Windows Me on 386s. After that, we'll just send them to Equitorial Guinea to be humanitarian workers.
Have any exact urls? I was unable to find a page that gave me a popup.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
I tried the popup in question on espn.com and mouseovering took me nowhere...
Anyone with more success?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Go to espn to see this thing in action. I don't think this form of advertising is much worse than regular pop-ups, just slightly more annoying. I do wonder how advertising agencies will distinguish between eyeballs and click-throughs... since many people will click-through accidently on these things.
A favorite quote from the article: "There's an enormous segment of the population that are appreciating these ads". Eh, name one!
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
It could be worse... They could make it so that your browser crashed whenever you went to certain webpa...
Oh wait. They already do that.
Nevermind.
Bowie J. Poag
Perhaps I'm not the only one that is thinking that they should have put a couple of restrictions when they introduced commercialism on the internet.
And I swear I'll break the fingers of anyone who makes that 'In soviet Russia....' joke.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
This has started with things like disabling the blink tag and having pop-up blockers, and now we see that browsers should not allow certain actions to be triggered simply by a mouseover, and so on. Remember things like this the next time you see someone on bugzilla commenting about how the browser has to respect command X because it's in the standard!
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
The mouseOver part is not to open the add, but to follow the link on the add. E.G. The pop-up opens, and as soon as you hover your mouse over the add (probably reaching for the close button), it whisks you away to it's destination (probably hi-jacking the artical you're reading), just as if you had click on the add.
Ok, I see alot of "oh just use Mozilla or Opera or Pheonix". Well, what do you suggest I do when I want to access my bank account (www.netbank.com) and cannot because they have problems with Mozilla not always working right so just decided to disable it entirely? What about the flash-enabled pages I want to visit that, in IE work fine, but in Mozilla hang with a persistent "Loading...." screen? Or the plethora of other sites that don't work right?
Now I am not saying it's Mozillas fault, I'm sure alot of the offbeat layout problems are actually the designers screw up, but that doesn't change the fact that I cannot view the site. If adhering solidly to standardsmeans you cannot view more than just a few websites, then I guess I will have to use that "crappy" IE6. Another thing, I don't appreciate a piece of software that, after taking as long as it did to be released, makes my PC respond like a PII 400Mhz with PC66 RAM. God help you if you minimize Moz for awhile and do other things, you'd think it died when you restored the window! No other browser acts like that.
My point is, lets come up with solutions to this problem that are a bit more practical than "only use these browsers to view only these sites". Because that is NO solution.
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Maybe amazon should try and patent this type of thing, popup a window, when you mouse over it automatically purchase the book! Imagine the convenience, you no longer will have to even use the energy required to punch a single button, everything is taken care for you. And the best part is you don't even have to think about the purchase, the've already done it for you! Imagine getting the hottest book sells in the coutry delivered right to your door!
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Actually, the ad opened a new browser window to the destination; it didn't hijack an existing window.
Not much of a bother... I am already used to closing pop-unders by right-clicking on their task bar icon, and picking Close from the menu.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
But the same technology could someday be used on banner ads; the marketers are just pointing out what anyone who codes for the web already knows: if your browser will run any piece of JavaScript sent to it, any website can do whatever it wants to your browsing experience, including bringing it to a grinding halt, and if your machine doesn't have protected memory, crash it. Pop-up blocking is only the first step in what will have to be a shift from the creation of new languages and plug-ins to let content creators do whatever they want on the viewers' machine, to have browsers decide what is reasonable for a web page to do. Pop-up windows not initiated by clicking a link quickly became one obvious thing that pages shouldn't be allowed to do, but flash ads that take over the page and ads that load if you mouse over them make you realize that there are many more things they shouldn't be allowed to do either. But if alternate browsers keep innovating, and IE keeps doing whatever the javascripts and plugins tell it, this can only help drive people to the alternatives.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
How apt. Getting hit by all those popups can be very much like getting caught in a snowball fight.
This all sounds like nice possibilities for Mozilla (andother alternative browsers) to block those annoying ads in their default setup. Maybe M$ Internet Explorer might catch up one day, but I'm not waiting for that! ;-p
Hmm... Moz can't just block these kind of ads or all those javascript menus and other leditimate onMouseOver scripts that's quite common might stop working.
However, Moz could add a feature similar to "block images from this server", but "block scripts from this server". However, the scripts can still be on the actual web server which won't help much since it would again block *all* scripts from the server which we don't want.
A solution might be to tell Mozilla to "block scripts associated with images of this size".
That's the best I can think of now, since ads almost never change size and it's fairly unusual to have legitimate images in the same standardized size as advertisments.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Sure it's quite a harsh move (can we call it a "feature" ??), but I don't think it really matters. Just use a filtering proxy like Privoxy or Junkbuster and regexp out the involved events :)
In addition, there's a good chance that this will piss off even Joe L. User sooner or later...
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
The heck with ignoring them! Most companies pay to advertise and that payment is oft-times based on CLICK-THRU!! They put on the blindfold and walked right up to the wall, i say we PULL THE TRIGGER! Everytime you find one of the mouse-pop URL, give it to all your friends and spend a couple of minutes just reloading and mousing over and closing after 30 seconds. O*bitz and anyone else foolish enough to do this will soon be BANKRUPT! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!
Give this one a try.
simple javascript, surprised no one has thought of this before.
Weeeeee. We're in Surfin' Heaven! Nothin' like a B&W mono-spaced equally-formatted no-graphics page to inspire me...
Ok, maybe going a little too far... but these new methods of introducing dynamic content to an otherwise static medium actually CAN be useful, in the right hands.
In fact, all of them were developed with good intentions, and all can be used with purpose - it's just the few sockcuckers out there who take advantage of them that ruin it for the rest of us.
If more people contacted the websites that are running the really intrusive adverts, telling them why the ads are so annoying, and asking them to reconsider, then we'd stand a better chance of seeing the back of them.
As it is, we seem to be locked into an Arms Race of sorts - ad companies devise new ad format, ad blockers move to block them, repeat ad nauseum... Just blocking the ads will only attract the attention of the ad company, not the owner of the site displaying the ads.
-MT.
I found my cable modem has this long black thing plugged into it, and if I pull it out it completely and utterly cuts off all internet advertising... it's quite amazing.
Internet is a wonderful media, used right. It *could* also be a wonderful media for the advertising business.
t egies.
The reason the ads get larger and more annoying, is that noone clicks on them - because no one WANTS those ads. This is *not* going to change by making them more annoying, only the oppsosite.
No, the advertising business does *not* understand Internet. Had they done that, they would have done a lot more targeted advertising, to people who WANTED it, and perhaps even used some effort to build up interesting web-sites related to the field they operated in.
Take, for example, a sports chain. Would it be as annoying if a sports chain co-financed a sports news site, or an outdoor activities site? There could be a prominent, non-intrusive link on the front page, pointing to "shop". This is only one example of things that would be less intrusive but perhaps more effective.
Instead of buying ads, buy a part of a well-used website, make the commercial section well accessible from the front page, but non-intrusive unless you REALLY want to see it.
Another thing they could do, once having bought access to an internet site, is participate in talkback fora. Teach a person that task, and make him inform about general topics AND advice about products. What makes me like and want to buy from a shop, is *service*, *well-informed personell* and willingness to help.
In other words - contribute to the community, make your name known through *that*, and I think one would benefit in the long run.
There might be better ways than my examples, they're just examples of ways *I* think are better than push-your-ads-in-the-face-of-too-many-people-stra
But no, the advertising business hasn't understood the media at all. It's all about pushing annoying ads in the face of unwilling customers, in the hope of catching *one* willing customer more.
Doesn't some do that already? I recall cjb.net hosted sites doing this. Not because the hosted sites are evil of course, but because cjb.net adds some code to all of them.
In IE, you're asked if you wish to install a spyware (through a rather cryptic IE dialog about certificates for novice users) and then given the options OK and Cancel. I wonder how many "amateur surfers" click OK there.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Ask not how they can worsen our web-surfing, but how we can fight them back! They are stamping over our right to the "pursuit of happiness", not to mention privacy issues. Last I checked, newspapers don't contain popup ads (popup books are just scary!)... There must be something we can do. Hire a good cyberlawyer. :-)
The more annoying the advertisement, the more people that will try to find a way to block it. I'm sure with a little programming, it won't be a problem to do so...and it may not even need that.
I sit here and look at the ads on Slashdot while I'm typing away...I don't look for long and I'm not interested in what I've seen so far but the key part is that I am looking at them. If the ad popped up in my face or made me click links, etc I would immediately find a way to stop it and ignore whatever it says because I'm too irritated to care.
Bandwidth is expensive. If we were to take 20K slashdot users and have them try and go through the website as much as possible we could eat up thier bandwidth. Thereforth costing them more money without actually buying anything.
.jpg x1000 without it actually caching on my machine. though a jpg would only be 50K I am looking at it along the lines 50Megs but if I get some program that could do that on 10 machines at work have them eat up 500megs of bandwidth a hour would equal what 12gigs a day. 360gigs a month. If I can get them to download a larger gif perhaps I could reach 500gigs a month. Thats gotta cost them some money. Perhaps make them go out of business so thier add wont popup anymore.
I personally have been boycotting any company that uses a popup ad that I have run across. It doesnt appear to be doing much. But a boycott is something I can do forever while trying to get others to do the same.
though using up thier bandwidth sounds nice. theres gotta be a way to call for the download of a single
But that would be wrong too.
so boycotting it will have to be.
Ignore what I just wrote. And do not use it for evil purposes.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
It's hard enough to make a screen reader work satisfactorily if your need one now; just wait until the screens change (new pop-up windows at the hover of a mouse).
:(
I really think this comprises harassment to PWD's.
Good point! I suspect, though, that the sites that are taking on this new breed of super-intrusive ad probably weren't too concerned with gaining the custom of visually-disabled user in the first place.
But we can use this as a lever to persuade other, more civil-minded sites not to succumb...
-MT.
It's the same numbers game that the SPAM mongers are playing.
Ie, if you can get even one half of one percent to buy something, with over 1 million people hitting your site, you still get 5000 customers. If each of those customers buy just one thing, the company is making money off of their "efforts".
Those who don't like it and don't buy are considered to not have wanted to buy in the first place.
The same is true of passing out flyers, sending spam emails, or going door-to-door. A numbers game.
Winged Power Photography
Why don't we use the power of Slashdot? Suppose all of us made a perfectly legit phone call to 888-656-4546, the contact number on the Orbitz site, and told them, "I just want to let your company know as long as you use pop-up ads, especially with kick-through, I will go to your competitor's site instead."
It's kind of like "Alice's Restaurant." If one of us does it, they'll think s/he's nuts and ignore them. If two of us do it....and so on. If several thousand people called them and voiced perfectly legit complaints about their method of advertising, and this went on to the tune of several thousand calls a day for a week or more, the costs would ad up and they just might feel they need to change their ways. It's a variation on some of the passive resistance tactics used in the South in the Civil Rights Movement.
Another possibility -- and IANAL, but I might be checking with a friend who is, would be to see if you can legitimately "sell" space and use of your computer. Specify that any banner ads are acceptable, but you are charging a company a fee of $100 per ad for each window that they open up on your computer without your requesting that window. Say you don't want their product, but you are offering them the chance to test their software and you will report all successful events to them when you bill them.
This is similar to the tactic a private citizen's group (I think they're called Private Citizen) has used to get many of their members off telemarking lists. They tell the marketers they may not call their list of numbers because their members don't want to buy their product. Then they make an offer for the company to test their telemarking system by calling their members, and the rate per test is $100 or more per instance. They also specify all a company has to do to accept this offer is to call their members. This has stood up in court!
Anyway, there's two suggestions. I think the first, if organized, like what people are doing to Ralsky for his spam, would have SOME kind of effect on Orbitz. I don't even know if the second one can be done legally.
Really? Care to point out a single constructive use of popups? (If I really want to open a link in a new window, I middle click it, period.) What about <blink>?
The web was designed for user control of presentation. Technologies that attempt to subvert this paradigm are *evil*. If you've got a good browser, you can only take what's good and throw out the rest (For example, in mozilla you can enable javascript but prevent javascript from opening popups). If you haven't got a good browser, switch.
or maybe it was me so I'll try again.
for (i=0, i<1000, i++)
wget someserver/somefolder/whatever.jpg > null
or something like that.
>
Not only would the repeated downloading eat up your own bandwidth too, but it would congest the network for others around the world. A better system would be to have your client download the ad reeeeeeaaaaaalllllyyy sssssssssllllllllloooooooowwwwwwwlllllyyyy. That way, you tie up the server for a minute say, for each connection request. This is bandwidth friendly and blocks only the advertized server from servicing other customers in the time you download.
Using a technique called the "kick through," advertisers can direct a person to another store if they simply kick their butt through the store entrance -- no walking is necessary.
"We're experiencing enormous success," said the company's VP of Consumer Compliance. "Excited customers just keep flying through the door."
The company's division of Consumer Compliance consists of only one employee, Lars Ulrich, former drummer of metal band Metallica and notorious anti-Napster advocate.
"BLOCKERS BAAAAAD! KICK THROUGH GOOOOOD!" exclaimed Ulrich as he pounded a confiscated MP3 player to pieces with his fists.
Click-through indicates interest on the part of the user. It lets advertisers engage with people who are interested while avoiding annoying potential future customers. Mouse-over does not indicate interest, so it's no better than simply popping up windows randomly, and advertisers can do that already.
I develop apps for handheld devices (PDA's and phones), and this stuff is anathema to us. There isn't the screen real estate to show these fancy new fangled "windows", so everything appears in the foreground. Consequently, our browser pathologically blocks anything that might interrupt the user.
As handhelds become more popular for browsing (and it is doable even on teeny screens with the right display paradigms) this is going to become a bigger issue. If you think popups are bad on your 1600x1200 monitor, try dealing with them on a sub 320x240 screen. Yuk.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
One would figure that most of these big-time players (who can afford to do something different than the small porn-sites popping up every day) would do it, if they want to keep the surfers there. Yet most of the time, the same annoying pop-up comes up each time I click on a link (e.g. next page).
One should think that these people would be smart enough to understand that after having seen the same lotto ad 5 times in a minute, and not even once clicked on it, that I don't care much for lotto. But no! The website in question will continually annoy me with the same intrusive add, time after time, with the only reasonable conclusion that I will leave the site, and surf somewhere else. Thus the company looses one potential web-surfer and ad-revenue income.
Damn it! Why are they so stupid? This is what cookies are for! They should track my browsing behaviour, find out what I'm interested in, and serve me those kinds of ads. At the very least, they should rotate the ads. And once they have my cookie, they should limit the number of times they will show me the same ad in a given period.
There is a reason that web-advertisements are not effective! Even when they have all the tools they need to track my browsing behaviour, profile my browsing habits, check which ads I click on, etc, they still keep pestering me with the same ad for the same product ten times in a minute! Even when they know the only outcome of this is that they loose the opportunity to sell me other stuff!
Obviously, I can take some steps myself for myself to get rid of the annoyance, such as pop-up blockers and so on. But that is not my point. What I do not understand is why even the big guys (content-providers) insist on giving the cheesiest advertisers the opportunity to drive customers away from their site. One should think that they would be smarter, but obviously they are not!
Almost every executible GUI program we use today has many of these kinds of "pop-up" dialog boxes - some more complicated than others (from confirmation dialogs to config screens). And all of them serve a useful purpose.
I'm a firm believer that developing apps using HTTP/(X)HTML as an interface is a smart move, as opposed to writing an executible for a specific platform - since it is a true write-once, run-anywhere tech (well, access-anywhere, at least from as far as client access is concerned.) And there's no reason we, as web developers, shouldn't be able to use pop-up windows for web-enabled apps.
Just because commercial sites the world over have abused pop-(up|under)s, doesn't mean the technology itself is useless.
ps. - I realize Mozilla allows you to disable scripts from opening "unrequested" windows (ie. where any "window.open" call is ignored, unless it applies to link you just clicked), but for a complicated site with various domains (eg. secure/non-secure), or other complications, it still isn't a robust enough solution to those of use developing true web-enabled applications.
'Net marketers truly operate with a crazy paradigm. Why is it they think that by annoying people as much as possible, they get more customers?
Six sick
Phoenix has a pretty nice feature concerning this.
Whenever a window wants to pop up although you didn't click any link (so, most likely it was an ad), Phoenix will inform you that this has happened with a small exclamation mark in the left corner of the status bar.
Clicking on this exclamation mark will bring you to a window with more detailed information about the popup window, and the possibility to add this site to your list of sites that are allowed to open popups.
Sure, that goes with your warning that you might then also allow ad popups, while allowing the good, needed popups, but I think it does the job quite well. Had no problems with it.
Two Worlds - One Sun [Spirit]
OR one that validates user input (removing the slow interaction between server and client just to confirm they actually typed something useful into the text box)
You still need to validate the data server-side. It's not exactly smart practice to trust ANYTHING that is "validated" only from the client-side, especially with javascript. A malicious user could simply save your input page locally, remove or replace your "validation" code, and send something unexpected to your server through their newly-editted page.
For a first-line of defense, a JS form validator isn't bad - and it is a relatively quick way to tell someone "Hey, you forgot to enter your password"...but you still need to make the same checks server-side in case someone decides to "go around" your JS validator.
...wow, can they make our web surfing experience any worse?
Three words:
CowboyNeal bestiality ads.
I'm going to go scrub my brain with brillo now.
Perhaps google could offer a new service that only indexes sites that are bobby & w3 safe? that would help us all enforce good behavior on the WWW.
In all seriousness, these mouse-over events are a major pain in the ass for consumers that have accessibility problems. I'll be glad to route their advertisement servers to null. Anyone got a robust set of names?
-- Multics
These are all temporary solutions. What would be great is to have a user-defined javascript which could deny any action based on whatever criteria you want.
Then you wouldn't have to sit back and say "or how about matching originating host *and* image size?" you could just write the javascript for it yourself. (or someone else could, but the point is they wouldn't need browser-source-godliness)
Additionally, since there wouldn't necessarily be thousands of people using exactly the same method, it would be harder to write anti-anti-annoyance stuff.
The funny thing is, that companies that advertise like that then go on to claim that the hit count received by their website represents genuine interested visitors.
This of course is BS, but the sadly uneducated tech. media of today write an article about.
X10 did this, I got sick of reading in Computer Weekly etc. how X10 became one of the most visited sites on the Internet.
Visted???? Visited my pointed haired a***.
Slashdot them!
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
No, that would be just too intrusive. Instead, I'm guessing that we'll see more of
Just like ads in magazines, or commercials on TV.
Webwasher will happily filter out shockwave/flash animations and will allow them for sites you specify. They do make a Linux version as well, though it is kind of flaky compared to the Windows version.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Hmm... Moz can't just block these kind of ads or all those javascript menus and other leditimate onMouseOver scripts that's quite common might stop working.
Of course it can, in fact it even does so now:
Preferences> Advanced > Scripts & Plugins> Open unrequested windows.
I think it works by killing popups that are spawn by events like page loading and exiting, and allowing those that originate from user clicks. So it would work on these ads by dissallowing the evil popup in the first place.
The web was designed for user control of presentation. Technologies that attempt to subvert this paradigm are *evil*.
Oh, bullshit.
What, you're going to write a replacement for the style sheet we spent eight months developing? Give it up.
I remember about a year or so ago, there was a banner on one site which when the mouse rolled over it, it popped up another window as though I had clicked it. This confused me, as like I said, JS was definitely off. It turned out to be a flash banner.
-- 7 string electric violin + live loop samplers
Probably a good time to remind all the people forced to use Windows here of this little brilliant utility, which functions as a local proxy server and thus works with any browser, and can filter popups, the kind of mouseover events mentioned in this article, sounds, ads, everything. A must-have for Win32 people, in my opinion.
The winner of the 2002 Management Doublespeak Award goes to...(opens envelope)...Mark Rattin, creative director for Chicago-based Otherwise, for the quote:
"There's an enormous segment of the population that are appreciating these ads."
*cue music, confetti, and dancing girls*
Funny you should mention it. I installed Zope recently on one of my Debian boxen. I noticed it uses HTTP Basic Authentication, the "antiquated" (read: standard, universal) mechanism to which you refer. It also has a "Logout" button that works -- if you select "Logout", it returns a page with an authentication failure code, which a browser interprets as meaning that the (username, password) pair it is caching is invalid.
The fact that you, or your Web application developer, did not think of that indicates that the Zope people know HTTP better than you or s/he. It certainly doesn't indicate anything the matter with HTTP Basic Authentication. And there's a lot right with using the protocol's built-in authentication mechanism rather than writing your own: it is easier; it requires less code; it is standard and works everywhere, unlike JavaScript; and it is better tested than any new mechanism you invent, meaning that it is less likely to fail badly and let people crack your application.
Are the ones that are full screen and make you wait before you get a link to the next page of content..
:)
And you cant 'just use netscape' or something, as if you dont have flash up and running + popups, you dont get the link to the next page..
More like a tv commercial were you cant click it away ( talking live tv here.. not tivo )
I think it was salon.com where i saw the first one, though i could be wrong..
Oh, and ive seen the mouseover popups a year ago.. nothing new there. But still irratating
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Not really. Give me micropayments, so I can pay a little amount directly. Give me reasonable subscription mechanisms, so I can eat as much as I want for some time. Advertising, die, just die.
Instead, give me a distributed database of products that contain objective listings of product capabilites, third-party benchmarks as well as anyone's subjective reviews. When I want something, I would query the database and make my purchase decision.
Advertising as we know it really doesn't have any place in my world.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
- Any "yes/no/cancel" dialog - the cancel basically acts as a back button, but by having a pop-up you can prevent the user having to do a complete HTTP request/response cycle, unnecessarily loading down both the server and client.
- A pop-up explaining a problem with a users input in a form - it's a simple notification prompt, and requires only an acknowledgement (using a completely separate page is once again an
unnecessary request to the server)
- Glossary definitions, where a word, when clicked, links to a small description.
- Picture or short article viewer, where a thumb-nail/abstract list is displayed on the "main" page, but each click generates a small window with the full content.
As pointed out earlier these checks have to be done on the server end regardless, but web developers can eliminate a large percentage of extra "hits" on their server by having this check in a javascript pop-up, meaning their use has a valid purpose other than advertising.I'm the first to admit the majority of sites using javascript are doing so in an unreputable way (pop-up/under ads, maximizing the browser, having unnecessary alert pop-ups, annoying scrolling status-bar messages, etc.), but my point is that there are perfectly valid and useful ways to use javascript to enhance the functionality of a site.
But we're seeing the same reaction to javascript as we are to email now - spam has ruined the purpose for which it was intended. In the case of email, whitelists are becoming the only sure-fire way to eliminate it, at the expense of extra hassle on the user end. And in the case of javascript/pop-ups, most people in the know are turning these features off, forcing web developers like myself to disregard the valid usefulness of these technologies.
It shouldn't be that difficult to watch for this:
if(window.open() called && mouseLeft !pressed)
blockAdSpam();
or the equivelent. Normally the left button would still be pressed when the window.open() call was made on a legitimate link. Other than that, a whitelist of sites that should be allowed access to the window.open() method could be created.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
It is known that some spyware will install without the users permission by just surfing with IE. It is suspected that pages just accidently happen to use security holes in the browser or just low security settings, usually with ActiveX, to work around the problem of the browser asking the user about the install.
I can't find much on the topic, so take what I say with a grain on salt. However, I know people that actually have a clue (ie. they know IE is a flaming turd and not to trust anything it tries to install) complaining that a spyware somehow gets autoinstalled on their windows boxes by just web surfing.
Gator itself does autoinstall on computers that have their IE security settings set too low and is documented on the web as doing so.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Is it just me or could that last sentence be restated as: "We want to annoy you...but only a little bit."
God save us from clever programmers and clueless marketers.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
User: "What's this? My computer is too sl- AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!"
Doubleclick.net server: "Muhuhahaha..."
Glog!
Easy solution: If you run into a site like that, send an e-mail to them saying you won't buy their products because of it, and move on. If enough people do it, they'll get the idea.
Logout will require an extra request either way, since logout should be mainly server side -- you don't want to ask the UA nicely if it'll please delete your session cookie or whatever, because it's well within it's rights to tell you to go jump in a lake, and may even pretend it's done so without actually doing anything. Clients can not be trusted.
I hate the way modal dialogs are implemented in most UA's, though. They have no place in a browsing environment -- I want to continue browsing elsewhere and an always on top dialog that demands input and which steals focus SUCKS. Better would be to use JS+DOM/CSS to place an item on the page (maybe replacing the form) to do the confirmation.
Less compatible, but you can probably fairly easily get 90% of clients, with the other 10% getting a traditional extra request.
If the description is small, the title attribute is better. You can even use some DHTML to make it into a pseudopopup on click. Personally I'd just do a normal link with a glossary and let the user hit Back.
Probably the worst use. If they're articles and pictures, they're real content and I'd rather get them in the current page rather than screwing up my normal browsing reflexes and giving me a teeny browser window that may or may not even fit in with my environment.
Anybody who's done much Javascript can come up with plenty more annoying tricks, like hiding the close buttons, popping up a fake window, etc. Yahoo sortof does some of these with the DHTML ads. I guess the content providers wouldn't like it, but there's alot more annoying things that could be done. That being said, this is plenty annoying for me.
Zope uses session cookies (as do most sites - mod_session in Apache, for example), meaning they have implemented a clever but common work-around. The browser will send the username/password for every single page after using basic authentication, but since Zope knows the Session ID for the client (stored in a cookie), it will intentionally respond with a "404 - Authentication Required" error when the user clicks on the logout button (meaning the browser thinks the username/password was wrong, thus clearing its local cache of said information). The problem is that the authentication is really based on the cookies, not the "standard, universal" authentication. Zope only uses Basic Authentication to get the initial username/password, and then relies on cookies thereafter.
I'm all for standards, but when they lack in basic funcationality, other methods must unfortunately be utilized.
(ps. I'm no Zope expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong and there's some hidden feature of HTTP I'm not aware of).
A small text-only non-obtrusive add that -- most importantly -- links to a comment section where potential clients can comment on the advertiser and, glory be, some rep from that company is there to answer questions and address criticisms.
For example, this ad and comment page for Johncompanies helped convince me to get a virtual dedicated host with them.
It also has the added benefit that the advertiser gets a real-life feel for how effective the ad is, and doesn't have to rely on some easily falsifiable clickthrough or impression report from the advertising company.
Now, if you're peddling shit, I'm sure this kind of instant-feedback type ad is not going to be your cup-of-tea. Another reason why I like these ads.
D'oh! Figures - try to be smart, and screw up the link... Here's the correct RFC link (the RFC number 2616 was correct).
...I predict a lot more people are going to learn about Alt-F4.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I went to epsn.com - another "search engine" owned by domain squatters. They call themselves "megago" this time.
However, it dropped down a Mozilla warning field!! Your only options are "Cancel" or "OK." Obviously, "OK" is the default, so if you hit return, off you go to some other website. Now that is a bunch of crap.grr..
Screenshot here
is the flyer in the local paper from Best Buy and the banners at the top of slashdot and the vertical banners at penny arcade.
-
Can anything be done to make web-based ads more palatable?
Yes. You could make them match the content of the website the customer is visiting. Such as car ads if visiting a page comparing new vehicles or routers if visiting a page about the IT job market.
Make them take up a bit of screen real-estate while visiting the page rather than pop up in the customer's face.
Not difficult and not annoying. In fact, it could actually be helpful.
But why is the rum gone?
I wish I could when some dumbass sight designs it for 600x480 and I'm viewing it on my 1600x1280 screen.
turn off flash and javascript....
problem solved.. All they are doing are destroying a technologies that were useful..
Me, I dont have flash installed and have javascript turned off... if your site relies on either then you lose another customer because of your "bretheren's" actions.
dont like that I lump you all together? then start speaking out against it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You can find documentation and an example configuration at http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/
Lately, I've purposely been visiting lots of sites that send me SPAM, pop-up ads, and other annoyances. Usually, these sites want information from you and have a form to fill out. Simply fill out the form with junk data and submit it a couple times. If the company wasted some of your time, you are entitled to waste some of their time (not to mention diskpace).
Some sites might have a threatening message that says, "We have your IP and we'll contact you if you mess with us." If that's the case, simply connect through a free proxy server.
I recommend everyone try this. You'll feel better afterwards.
Browsing without javascript helped me to realize that the advertising community has hijacked javascript; it is time web developers realized that.
I get popped up on ONCE and only ONCE. You figure out my system...
Actually, I *do* prefer a B&W mono-spaced equally-formatted no-graphics page ... okay, so mine is set to black on grey, but the principle is the same. Want to keep me coming back to your site? Make it plain as dirt, thus fast and easy to read. And use context-relevant text ads that I can read or ignore as I wish.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I use a couple different databases for my hosts file, and I have disabled flash and javascript, only turning them on when I'm at a site that A) requires them, and B) I'm really really interested in.
Voila, I may get 5 ads a day through servers not yet in my hosts file, and they get added immediately.
There are ways to take back your internet experience.
Although Microsoft has most likely done reasearch on pop up ad's and are aware of their customers wanting such a feature, Especially when MSN competitors are touting Pop Up Blockers as a feature of their service, not to mention the deceptive nature of popups these days, Microsoft Will not do it.
Why you Ask? Because They will get Sued for Being a Monopoly or Stifiling Competition, and Lose.
Dont Believe Me? When Outlook Express 4 was in it's beta stages, It had a spam filter similar to the one that Hotmail and Outlook currently have. You dont see it in Outlook Express because a company that was sending newsletters sued them for being a Monopoly because the Spam filter would fiter the companies Legitmate E-mail. Even though Microsoft explained that it was the way they were sending the mail and there was an easy fix to it, they didn't budge, They won the case, and Spam continues to flow to inboxes.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
So now we are going to be thieves for not moving our mouse over certain areas of our own screens.
Lynx looks more attractive every day. It'll all go full circle I tell you.
No-click purchasing :>)
http://www.speedsite.com/~rattin/history.html
Tell Mark Rattin he's a bastard!
mrattin@otherwiseinc.com
rattin@xsite.net
These are some other company addresses.
pcanic@otherwiseinc.com
wise@otherwiseinc.com
dmtitus@otherwiseinc.com
marjohn@otherwiseinc.com
Here's the site of one of their employees. He keeps a blog.
http://www.matthewmercer.com
If you care to hack into their mail server, here's the portal to their web configuration:
http://66.107.28.184:3000
They're running MDaemon 6.5.1 which has no known vulnerabilities other than a weak password. The lucky guesser gets to screw with their email!
This takes too much work and it doesn't appeal to the advertising types.
Advertising types are more interested in flash (in whatever way you want to use that word), vivid images, loud noises, and especially annoyances (annoying works in advertising). Thats the kind of people advertising people hire and thats what they want to do.
They don't want to have to think. They don't want to have to work.
And they've sold this to too many of the companies out there that want to sell things - usually because they hire advertising types themselves. That other approaches might be effective and even far more so is irrelevant.
After reading your comments, we will be taking down all of our ads, popups and banners. We apologize for the inconvience, and hope that you will find our *new* ads less distracting.
These ads will override your monitors gain, and burn their image directly into your monitor's phosphor. No other content will be viewable.
We do understand that the world outside of the computer can be distracting as well, so in early 2003 we will be releasing new ads that should work directly on your eyes! These ads will blind you to everything but our message. No more popups!
Thanks for your attention; we wish you a safe and joyful holiday season!
jtflashmanager works for at least IE, Netscape, and Mozilla. Check it out!
http://www.jtedley.com/jtflashmanager/index.php
Speak truth to power.
"OR one that validates user input (removing the slow interaction between server and client just to confirm they actually typed something useful into the text box) " .. if you think that's acceptable. You still have to validate it on the server side. The only thing client-side JS validation should be used for is accelerating reporting of problems to the user. You still have to validate everything on the server side. To do less is insecure.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I say " show me one ". Not one person who has ever clicked an ad, or found something useful in online advertising, but somone who has "appreciated" these pop-unders or new "kick overs".
People (as I understand it) don't want this sort of stuff. They want something like a banner ad that is easily ignored unless it is relevant to them. About the only banner ads I click are the
While people say how wonderful IE is and how netscape/mozilla has lost the browser war, and that linux sucks on the desktop. I can't tell you the last pop up/under/flash ad I saw. I use a browser that most tend to ignore (yea yea, keep it under the radar), and if the stupid propriatary scripting does work, it is easily turned off (I either set popups to not be allowed or to open in tabs in the background, where I can close them without ever looking at them).
99% of plugins don't work with mozilla? Gosh, NO! No more gator activeX controls that offer to install on their own? I am so missing out aren't I.
Even if mozilla becomes a target for advertisers, it seems that mozilla is actually listening to the users, and implementing the types of options that they want (pop up blocking, spam blocking) as opposed to IE, which makes it just that much more diffucult to have an online experience that is ad free (and therefor company unfriendly).
Hey IE, why is it so easy to allow plugins yet so easy to not? Where is the "never allow" (for gator activeX esp)? I see there is an "always allow". Why doesn't the cookie more information button save state properly? Hate to piss off those big corporations that you're brownnosing up to.
Free software will be the reason that people never see this shit. Made for the people, and by the people.
I use the internet for information: how-to's, pictures, articles, file downloads, etc. ALL javascript, activex, etc. is disabled on my machine. Why? Because no matter what I'm looking for on the internet, if it is on a page with that crap on it, I can ALWAYS find it somewhere else that doesn't use it. I have NOT gotten one popup ad in two years, and, while it may take me just a bit longer to find a driver, picture, etc. I have NEVER had problems finding the content somewhere else. (No, I don't bank online, or belong to any 'exclusive' passworded sites.) I have clicked a few banner ads, as they link to something of interest to me, but there is NO reason for "content" providers to use anything but HTML. The internet was/should be about free exchange of information, NOT about exclusivity. If you want that, use mozilla's source (or something else) and write an exclusive app for connections.
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
I think your web browsing experience is regulated solely by the browser you use.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
When I get popup ads (or whatever) that annoy me too much I just visit the web site sponsoring the ads, and the web site doing the advertising after setting my referrer to a message like "popup ads are annoying and ensure that I wont buy your crap", and my user-agent similarly.
Hmm, you're assuming, of course, that they'll read this message from their web site logs... how likely do you think that is?
I do this because I can't always find an email address, or a complaint page without spending more time than I really want to.
Fair point, but that might be explained by your statement below...
Of course, I dont really want to see the results so I use wget or curl to actually fetch the pages, and just to make sure the message gets seen I do a hundred or three fetches. With delays, of course, as I don't want to do a DOS attack.
And you wonder why the ad firms are a bit reticent about giving out an e-mail address? Behaviour like that will only harden their attitude.
-MT.
Now, it's possible that I don't have quite all of the Flash/Schlockwave plugins reinstalled correctly since the last time I installed a new rev of Phoenix :-) I'm running 0.5, and I've had some problems with some plugins not working, since their installers seem to want Real Netscape, but most are ok, and about:plugins claims that I've got Shockwave 6.something installed.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This isn't a popup blocker you're installing - those are for those poor suckers using IE who need all the protection they can get. This is just choosing the option that implements or doesn't implement popup windows, telling it you don't want the things. Works real fine; the last time I was on a machine that didn't have Mozilla, I was really appalled at what IE users have to put up with.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The main problem with 127.0.0.1 is that if you're also running a real web server on your machine, the requests for blocked sites will be sent to it, so your system will have to respond in some appropriate manner, and your browser will have to display the response appropriately. Some operating systems don't seem to have the clue that 127.0.0.2 is different from 127.0.0.1 :-) I haven't installed a web server on my main work machine since it got upgraded (?) to Win2000, but older Windows used to be a bit fuzzy about the distinction.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Uh, people are still bothered by pop-up ads? Time to upgrade your browser to Mozilla. I haven't seen a popup in months.
If it's a problem that can be solved at your end, with minimal hassle, then what's the story?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Perhaps google could offer a new service that only indexes sites that are bobby & w3 safe? that would help us all enforce good behavior on the WWW.
Actually, I was thinking of something like this recently. There are a few really common bits of recycled code on the web. If google would look at the JS on the sites they index and determine if it is one of the common scripts which intends to spawn a popup onload (and even worse if that popup has onmouseover JS) they could put a little frowny face or exclamation mark icon next to the listing in their search results. If you saw that flag then you could just open the Google cached page and not have to worry about the evil popups.
I user Mozilla and Phoenix so I'm unbothered by all of this but I think it would be a great service for google to offer. If it was controversial then maybe Google could launch it among several similarl new "flags" for search results. They already have page size. They could add to that "image intensive", "not screen-reader accessible", "plugins used", and any number of other useful bits of information that I'm sure they could develop the technology to harvest when they index sites.
--Asa
If these things catch on, they'll kill the pop-under market.
In the meantime, I recomend picking up a little program called the Proxomitron. An excelent pop-up, java, flash and other web elements blocker. Any code you find annoying, you can simply tell it to block. You can create new filters, modify old filters and customize it right down to which sites which filters can apply to. Very nice program.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The "overlay" type Flash ads only work with the ActiveX version of the flash plugin. If you're not using IE, they're not an issue.
DNA just wants to be free...
(ok, ok, I've been playing with PHP lately ;)
Maybe it's under my threshold or something, but if you haven't installed Privoxy as a local proxy yet, you're n-v-t-s nuts..
Works great in Linux, and OS X from personal experience, and it's supported on just about anything.. Though I have a bug with Mac IE on OSX and Privoxy, which doesn't really bug me (Chimera works perfectly)..
Privoxy works under nixes and win32. It allows on-the-fly rewriting of web pages to eliminate all the nasties. It's fast (a few tough sell converts were amazed ... it is instantaneous).
... yet not missing any of that junk!
Plus, you can configure it easily via its web interface. I have it set to allow some friendly but fragile sites, and replace the checkerboard blocked ad images with a transparent one (ads just magically disappear!).
Used in conjuction with Mozilla (cookie manager, allow images from site only) and the web becomes useful again.
Last time I checked the privoxy stats, I was blocking 17% of all requests
Well, I'll be f'd...It does to :) Now if only MS could tell us why the hell "Ctrl+W" doesn't appear besides the close command in the file menu like every other keyboard shortcut does :/
This is a rapidly changing business, and the one thing that everybody's sure of is that
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This is not going to be the next-gen popup ads. Webmasters have to balance between what their users view to be acceptable ads, and making money. There is a very fine line. Most Internet users (read: not /. users) are not terribly bothered by popups - they can live with them. When you cross the line into the unacceptable area, these people will simply stop going to your Web site.
; ">
Any sites that use this technique (which is just a simple javascript command), will find that the people that once visited their site will no longer be there, and their site will simply die out from lack of traffic.
If I was an advertiser, I would not want this method of advertising done. I want to know how many people were genuinely interested in the ad, not how many people happened to move their mouse over the ad on the way to the X button.
I don't think advertisers OR publishers will go for this type of system. C|Net is just building hype on something that is not there.
Personally, I run a Web site that gets around 2 million pageviews a day, and I would never use a system like that for the ads.
BTW, the code for the popups would be simple, such as:
<IMG SRC="blah.gif" onMouseOver="self.location='http://slashdot.org/'
Personally, I'd actually click on a pop-up ad that read:
Click here to never see a pop-up add again.
$G
-- $G
A distributed "5 minute crusade" of phone calls does get their attention. They might choose not to care, but it'll have to be a choice on their part- and later on that choice may come back to bite them (or not, perhaps we aren't as big of a group as we think. Can't know until we try, though).
I use Chimera Navigator for Mac OS X, a free browser tha suppresses pop-ups quite nicely -- I don't know whether it would do so for these spring-loaded buggers. But it can also suppress pop-ups you want to see.
I think Opera has anti-pop-up tech, right? Others?
Wouldn't it be cool to have a DMCA for Web ads, where circumvention technology would be banned? Just kidding. (Can anyone name the science fiction story I recall where in a world of compulsory advertising everywhere, even on toilet paper, people get hauled off for "treatment" if they attempt to escape? Bradbury?)
You can also turn off Javascript, but that's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Javascript occasionally does something useful.
Any site that pelts you with ads should (1) be avoided and, if you care, (2) get a complaint letter. Vote with your feet.
I haven't seen a popup in months and months thanks to good popup blocking in Opera and Mozilla.
I haven't seen a banner ad in months as well thanks to Bannerblind.
I always delete the flash dll mozilla uses so I never see flash ads either. (Occasionally it is required so I use opera for that.)
This is all highly necessary because I can only get 28.8 where I live (not even 56K) and damn flash and other banners slow you down so your surfing is impossible.
Seriously the only ads I ever manage to see are those text ones on google and they tend to be relevant and non-annoying so I sometimes click through.
I find that pop-ups are used quite constructively on many e-commerce sites. For example, if you are on the page where you type in your credit card information and you don't know what the "Card verification number" is, you can click 'help' and a little window pops up showing you how to find it.
This avoids the problem of redirecting the current window to another page and then losing the currently entered contents of the form. If also avoids clutter on the form.
"There's an enormous segment of the population that are appreciating these ads."
OK hands up those people...
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
My point is that as more and more people turn JS off, a useful feature of modern browsers is removed.
I'm sure they are wondering about the same questions. And the only way to really find out is to go ahead and test it. This and many other versions of online ads. It may work, or it may fail. Eventually they will bump into a model that works pretty well for everybody.
And that day Slashdot will be full of posts from people who had known all along that that was obviously the way to do it...
Use the pop-up blocker.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Exactly. My comment was not about the marketers stupidity (because they are not). It was about people with actual websites selling ads to those marketers. Shure, today there is an established way of doing that, but it's entirely on the marketers terms.
Why would a website allow ads that drive more surfers away then generate revenue for the site? It's not that the marketer would care, once he has destroyed one place, he can buy ads somewhere else and destroy that too... But content-providers, (free) webhotels, etc... should really consider when it would be wise to do what the marketers want.
Now, I understand that your average mom and pop business can't do that. But why do the big players also who can actually dictate their own terms also use so annoying and stupid pop-ups/unders/whatever?
Moz can't just block these kind of ads or all those javascript menus and other leditimate onMouseOver scripts that's quite common might stop working.
.
Yeah, i've been to sites which had relatively benign mouse-over navigation that i couldn't use because i had jscript off. (you shouldn't need it to navigate, but that's beside the point).
I think one interesting thing would be like a distributed rating system- have the browser ask before it executes a script, then ask if you are happy with the result (hopefully in some unobtrusive way TBD later). These ratings go to a clearinghouse, and then in the future the browser can check there and say 'oh, the majority of legit users who allowed thie script to run were satisfied with the result, so i'll just run it'. Of course you could set prefs for 'ask before running bu ttell me how many people liked it', 'run if over X% liked the result', 'ask the user before checking online' (privacy) etc. You also need a way to validate the opinions which are submitted, maybe with a karma like system. Could also of couse be used with images, email, etc.- anything where user opinions are likely to be similar
Come to think of it, this would have some similarities with a mouse-over page rank indicator that tells you the quality of a link before you folow it.
Even so, if 100,000 d.net machines just sucked down the ad content once a day without looking at it, it would put a dent in the advertisers pocketbook. Most d.net systems connect to the d.net key server, directly or via an HTTP proxy. That gives them the path to hit the 'evil ad engine of the day'...
You could also use the <abbr> tag, which will associate a tooltip with a chunk of text. HP is one site that uses this tag frequently...as an example, hover over the underlined "PCs" in the "PCs & workstations" link on their homepage. A tooltip that says "Personal computers" will pop up.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
This would be insufficient for my previous example because they use a couple of nice little pictures in the help display.
Also, on the Paypal site, (aside from their shady business) they use one of those little popups to explain the use of typing in what you see in the image and also provide a link to an audio version of the code so the visually impaired can see it.
Hmm... Moz can't just block these kind of ads or all those javascript menus and other leditimate onMouseOver scripts that's quite common might stop working.
I can think of no legitimate time when a user expects to have an action taken because (s)he moved their mouse over an image, link, or button; actually, it is often the exact opposite. People may move the mouse over a link while deciding whether to follow it or not. Clicking == action, not mouse motion. If Moz blocked all redirects or pop-ups based on mouse overs, I strongly doubt that it would interfear with any but the most annoying scripts.
Thomas Galvin