New Online Ad Technology To Bypass Popup Blockers

RetroGeek writes "Falk eSolutions AG is claiming it can detect and defeat pop-up and pop-under ad blockers. The best quote is that when they detect an ad blocker they will 'replace a pop-up or pop-under ad with what are called "floating" ads, or ads that appear as transparent images over Web-site content.' As far as I am concerned they can place as many transparent images as they want. He probably meant translucent. It should be easy to defeat the detection, after all visit a web site, the pop-up blocker detects a Javascript command, then doesn't run it. Replace this with: the pop-up blocker detects the Javascript command, runs it, then places the result into a bit-bucket. Any Mozilla devs here?" WebGangsta adds "While this may ignite another round of online advertising purchasing, this news doesn't affect anybody who uses a customized HOSTS file to stop the majority of ads from appearing anyway."

Comments

Is this really a problem?

[thebra]

Maybe what they are talking about is different, but there is already software to block floating ads. Just search google and software such as this and this claim to block in-your-face floating ads. I have never used these and probably wouldn't since they cost money and google is doing a fine job for me.

Handy ad fighting URLs

[xTK-421x]

Free Popup Blocker:
http://www.mozilla.org/
http://toolbar.google.com (If you use IE)

Replacement HOSTS file:
http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html

Tiny HTTP Server to respond to all those HOSTS entries:
http://www.pyrenean.com/edexter.php

Flash Remover:
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/ts/flash7 /uninstall_flash_player.exe (Uninstaller)
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ (for Mozilla)

There are several ways to avoid ads

[sisukapalli1]

1) Intelligent popup blocking by mozilla (do not open any unrequested popups -- there is also enough customization).
2) "Block images from this server" -- blanket nuking.

These are the "extensions" to mozilla and firefox that are very powerful

3) Adblock -- block images based on a URL pattern. Very powerful and easy to specify what to block.
4) Flash block -- block flash elements (even something like flash click to view)
5) Nuke Anything -- if something comes up on your screen, you can remove it "after the fact". For example, if you want to read an interesting article on some celebrity with a stupid image, you can remove the image very easily using this.

At the end of the day, the end user should be able to see what he/she wants to read and view. If the sites persist in doing annoying things or refuse to serve some pages to people that have an advanced browser, I believe it is better to avoid those pages.

S

Re:HOSTS link?

[Anonymous Coward]

blocking ads by domains through Hosts file is the dumbest thing one can do, especially when you're on Windows. It's a resource hog

It's only a hog because of the "DNS client" service on win2k and winXP. If you disable the DNS client, everything goes back to normal. The DNS client service caches DNS requests to DNS servers. Win2k and winXP work fine without it.

Get over yourself

[CalCudahy]

Wow, what a troll! And moderated at a 4 no less. Hey I ain't no huge fan of marketing but to make such a blanket statement is moronic.

I happen to work in a bio lab and actually like it when the sales reps come by. I need their stuff and they're constantly filling me in on their new products. The new RNAi stuff that these companies are coming up with make my life a hundred times easier. The sales reps are knowledgeable about them and don't feed me bull about what they can do, but give me the facts.

There are also tons of moral ad guys who do pro bono work for good causes. I know a marketing guy who does pro bono work for a local wild-life rehabilitation center. That's a pretty sweet deal for the non-profit conservancy.

So stop being so fucking ignorant and realize that not all marketers are out to dupe and harass people.