Slashdot Mirror
New Ultra-Intrusive Pop-up Ads Introduced
CrashRide writes "According to this story at AdAge.com, Unicast is attempting to introduce a new on-line ad format that takes over the entire screen of the PC for about 15 seconds and must be closed by the viewer. "The ultra-intrusive new format opens when a user is on one page of a Web site and clicks a link to go to another page on the same site. Instead of seeing that new page, the user sees an ad that fills the entire screen.""
Disable page moving, page resizing, and bringing page to foreground.
I use Opera anyway, with all my windows contained within one MDI container, so there's no way it could hope to take over my entire screen. Additionally, I have the browser set not to open pop-up windows I don't ask for explicitly by clicking on links.
;)
I think this mostly just affects the poor schmucks still using Internet Explorer out there.
This Program is fantastic for killing popup ads. and better yet, it's free. you can export your list so you can use the same list on other machines, and you only ad the popups that you want dead to the list. so, at first, you'll be busy adding them to the list, but eventually your system will kill a series of 5-6 popups just with pow sitting with its tiny footprint in the system tray.
I've been using this little app for the past 4 months. It has changed my browsing expeirence forever. I have never gotten an unwanted pop-up since.
It sounds like mainstream sites won't be using them. It would just alienate users too much. From the article here are quotes from guy at AOL and CBS MarketWatch:
When asked about the new Unicast full-screen format, Chuck Gafvert, AOL's vice president of ad technologies and sales engineering, e-mailed back that "we are looking at a variety of ad formats -- including Unicast -- that advance advertiser interests without in any way negatively affecting the member experience. We look forward to expanding our advertising offerings."
Scot McLernon, CBS MarketWatch.com executive vice president of sales and marketing, said: "We're still in discussions with Unicast about the full-page on how we want to best utilize it. We might use it as you enter into channel headers, but I don't want to interrupt the reading of a story."
Of course, they did go along with 1st generation pop-ups; anyone with half a brain could tell they would only annoy users.
Are you sure you want javascript completely disabled? You might find that you can't enter some of your favorite sites, preloaded rollover images won't work, and the drop down menus that many sites are using today will not work either.
Pop-up blocking works like a charm in Mozilla. When you visit a site that is trying to display a popup a little exlamation mark appears on the status bar. If you want to allow pop-ups (my company's intranet uses them) then you can allow them for this particular domain.
Mozilla already allows you to turn off all of those things.
Since they'll probably do this crap with flash..
How to Uninstall Flash Manually (for Linux users)
Direct link to Win32 Uninstaller
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
Unicast has their gallery of examples here. See the examples for "full-screen superstitials" -- Unicast's name for their format.
Unicast claims these ads will be *less* annoying than pop-ups, because, rather than open new windows you have to close, this ad format temporarily takes over the existing window, and people are used to this style (think TV commercials).
And, for those posters who wonder what types of sites would consider using this...Unicast has a list here.
I have memories of popups as well but Mozilla (or mostly Galeon in my case) deals with them so well that I don't even know of their existence.
Some time ago blocking popups wasn't always so succesful because some sites relied on users' ability to see popups. I remember one common use was a username/password popup but I think they have mostly disappeared. Because site designers know that they can't rely on popups to deliver important information or functionality, popups are nowadays used mostly for advertising or useless multimedia. So there's not much to lose if you block popups.
Forget popups, even worse are those Flash ads that pop up, make all kinds of horrible noise, and cover what you are trying to read. I almost stopped going to wired.com because of those. After a visit to CounterExploitation , I discovered the Proxomitron and tried it out...It has eliminated 99% of ads. It even lets the "good" popups though, such as when you are shopping online and your cart pops up. Sometimes it causes problems with legitimate sites that require certain Javascript commands to operate properly, but it's easy enough to temporarily turn off Proxomitron to see those sites.
It basically works by acting as a local proxy on your computer. As web requests comes down, it rewrites the http stream on the fly to get rid of objectionable commands (blink tags, status line scrollers, background midi music, popups, etc). All filters are 100% customizable, but the ones it comes with do a great job.
-R
This just makes me more thankful for Privoxy. As an example, here are some fun rules I created. (Note, the regexps should be all on one line, regardless of what your browser displays.)
Remove IGN interstitials: this skips them for the most part. I'm sure it can be modified for other places. (I pay for IGN Insider and shouldn't be subjected to this. Granted recently they've introduced a feature to switch off ads for insiders, but this is still a useful example.)
Just add +filter{ign} to your default.action.
Here's another one that makes a certain site you might be reading look considerably nicer:
Of course, you should support any sites that you like. As I said, I subscribe to IGN, as they provide a great deal of extra content for insiders, in addition to an already great site.
But ads still suck.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
They call the Superstitial ads. They're very proud and excited about them. You can see them here.
Basically it looks like a full screen java script pop-up with flash content. Fortunately, Konqueror immediately complained about java script wanting to open a new window (I have it set to prompt), so it looks like these won't be much of a problem for the clueful user.
Still, the fact that a company is expending effort in the development of more intrusive advertising is reprehensible. Therefore....
Slashdot them here
Plus newer builds of Mozilla can block pop-ups on a per-site basis now, too (and enable on a per-site basis), so if your bank just INISISTS on opening up a popup for their site to work properly, you can let it and still have an ad-free environment. Wonderful stuff!
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
I'm still not sure if popups actually exist out there. I guess I have to go fire up IE and check it out sometime :)
Thanks, team Mozilla!!
Get yourself a copy of Privoxy (www.privoxy.org) -- it's Free, and it's really sweet. I've stopped using Mozilla's anti-annoyance features because privoxy does it better. I especially like the ability to disable links that launch new windows -- man, do I hate those.
Method of processing duck feet
There's *tons* more out there...
I suggest you check out http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers
They're currently blocking 971 FQDN's that are serving up ads. I'm using their list on my DNS... while I still see popups, it's exceptionally fun to see a DNS/no resolve error instead of an irritating flashing picture. ^_^
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Mozilla 1.3 has an option to play a user-specified sound when a popup window has been suppressed. It can also display an icon in the status bar (the default).
It's already possible, simply install a user stylesheet that turns off flash by default and turn it on for those(that?) page you want to use flash on, I use this one:
http://dion.swamp.dk/dl/userContent.css
Read a bit about it here:
http://dion.swamp.dk/stuff.html
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
I prefer to use Ad Muncher to block ads, as well as do a plethora of other web based security, privacy, and annoyance removal tasks. It works better than anything I have seen in a single browser, including Mozilla, and works on anything that initiates HTTP connections, even things like game patchers and web spider programs. It can block banner ads, textual ads (anything to, for instance, a linksynergy redirect page), and a host of other things. Hell, it even blocks the adware ads in the Main Bar of the adware version of Opera.
Note: Slashdot seems to put a space in between the 5 and 4 up there, there should not be one.
--Drunk as in Beer
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
Interesting story.
Ad-Aware has an option to backup files that you are removing. Did you do that or just permanently remove them? You could have restored the files in safe mode and that would have proven your theory beyond a doubt.
All of them MSIE addons and - with the exception of NetCaptor - avialable for free. Oh, and you get tabbed browsing and a load of other features, too.
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
It may work for some people. But not me. I've always been interesting in wireles cameras (for RC vehicals etc). But if I ever get into it. I will never get it from them. Hell, I'll never visit their site, because I don't want to show support.
weather.GOV is better than weather.COM anyway
I've noticed a lot of "good reason to go open source/Mozilla/etc" messages on this thread.. but you know, IE can be used, without 99% of the popups, with just a few simple steps..
/. and other "important" sites into
First - disable ActiveX, Javascript, sounds, movies, etc on all sites by Default.
Second - go back to normal ActiveX/etc settings for your "Trusted Sites", which you can put your
Now, you run hassle and popup free. No more annoying sites trying to play audio files, no more popups, and most sites run just fine. And if one of your favorite sites happens to not work for some reason, just put in in the Trusted Sites list, and voila! You're good to go.
Of course.. I'm sure this'll get marked as flamebait since it's claiming that IE can be used safely..
"37% lift in purchase intent" my ass.
/rant
I've worked in product marketing and know firsthand that such "research" can be highly misleading. Generally, these results come from focus groups where you bring people in (for pay) to evaluate an ad or campaign or whatever. When being asked to view an ad, then answer a series of questions, people invariably tend to be more favortably inclined because of the context of their experience--i.e. "I'm at a focus group to look at ads."
If they are on their own time, and attempting to access whatever content and are delayed by an unexpected ad which hinders them, the effect is almost universally negative.
And I'll only mention the psychological desire to please the questioner in passing (ever notice how they always pay for focus group participation and ply you with tasty goodies before showing you the "exciting new ads that our client wants to share with you").
If you've ever wondered why so much marketing seems so blatently stupid, a lot of it has a lot to do with the ubiquitous "focus group" system. it's a classic case of the "Emperor's New Clothes." Market research firms tend to wind up being supportive of the hypothesis as a simple matter of survival. They usually don't cheat the numbers per se, but they stack the deck ridiculously in their favor.
If I were to set up an objective test for these ads, I'd tell the participants that the objective is to "read all the slashdot articles of interest to you" (or whatever) and then interrupt them with the ads. Although even this method is flawed (most people are savvy enough to know what's being tested), I would bet that the results would be different.
Most focus groups are a scam. They exist to cover Marketers' asses and rubber stamp their ideas because they're too gutless to innovate.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
There are places in the world where people pay for their Internet connection based on the amount of bandwidth they use. In other words, their service providers know how many megs of information was sent down that person's line and charge accordingly. Now imagine for a moment that you live in one of these places and you receive all kinds of ads. Not just web site ads, either. I'm talking about all ads... banner ads, popup ads, and even SPAM mail. Sure, your email program might be configured to erase SPAM mail, but it still has to get downloaded to you. Which leaves you doing what? Paying good, hard-earned money, our of YOUR pocket, because some jackasses in China or at some CBS site are sending you JUNK.
Online advertising simply sucks, especially when you can just go into Google and punch in what you're looking for. (Here at Harvard we do not end a sentence with a preposition. Alright, punch in what you're looking for, asshole.)
Why is this happening? Because too many people are sheep.
Yes, an enormous number of people are sheep, just following, unconciously, what the herd is doing. And guess what? Consumer mass-marketing is simply a science devoted to pulling sheep around by the strings. People are unconscious. See, in Spanish, we have a way of saying that someone is unconscious such that you would understand what I'm talking about... if you say that someone está inconsciente, you mean that he/she is medically unconscious, as when a big hammer falls on someone's head or something. But if you say that someone es inconsciente, you mean that he/she is unconscious as in Orwell's 1984, where the people don't think that the Party is unfairly controlling them simply because they don't think. The world is passing them by like some kind of television show and they're just letting it carry them along for the ride. This is the audience of sheep that we're talking about. There is such an alarming number of these sheep that it is going to reduce our world to a piece of shit. Legislation that doesn't really bother the sheep, but takes away real, useful rights of intelligent people like YOU. Television programming that sucks and is filled with commercials made for stupid people. So, you have technology that removes ads from webpages? Oh, well, we've already patented that (tomorrow), and we've already made it federally illegal with jail terms of at least 500 years (the day after tomorrow). And that pisses me off.
This is caused by shitty education systems that get people used to following directions and not thinking for themselves. Oh, there's an ad I have to look at for 15 seconds... oh well, maybe I'll buy their product so I can put it in my already cluttered beyond recognition house, so that my car has to be out on the driveway because the garage is full of so much shit.
SHEEP!
Hey dude, if you want the weather...
http://www.nws.noaa.gov
weather.com just recycles the National Weather Service stuff anyway. This way you can get it direct.
Unfortunatly the RTS with mail does not work. It ends up in the post office. Who then just recycles it (by law). Its part of the classification that bulk mailers get. Part of the reason they get a lower rate is the mail will not be returned. They 'sort' it and such and such. I do not agree with what they do or what the post office does to us. For they have to deliver it or die in a huge pile of mail.
:)
However some advertisers are kind enough to put a pre paid envelope
Here's a better user stylesheet rule that blocks all Flash but lets you click any blocked Flash animation to play it. It's compatible with your idea of completely unblocking certain Flash (so you don't even have to click)... I think "-moz-binding: none" will undo the binding.
The shareholder is always right.
His user stylesheet can be set in Internet Explorer as well. Go to Internet Options, Accessibility for the checkbox to use a user-provided stylesheet. I installed it tonight. Thanks!!!
1. Telephone sales:
- Leave person waiting. That is, first ansver, let him/her start up then say "oh, just a sec..." and go take a bath. I'm not talking quick shower here, take a real long soaker. Then go back and see if they're still there. I have actually never experienced a person calling back after this treatment. It also works great for busy people as you don't have to waste time on the phone.
- Blow off some steam. I know this isn't nice to the poor people on the other end of the line, but hey! They called me!
When I was in the states there a while ago I worked in an outbound call centre for a week or so. I should warn you that abusing the agent is probably the best way to ensure that you get more calls.
We had a database and when you called someone you had a call outcome thing to enter.
ie if the number was a dud you'd enter it as invalid, if it rang off you'd put down 'call back later' etc.
When ever I got abuse off a customer I'd always put them down as 'call back later'....
However, if someone politely asked me to take them off the list, then I'd be happy to put them down as a dud number.
Remember, telemarketers are humans too. They just so happen to be humans who are being exploited in a shit job.