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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."
One of the many things we learned about the advertising idiocy during the dotcom boom was that you can't just spew your message everywhere. Random, untargetted advertising is what gave us Spank the Monkey and Win $20 (someone feel free to bring up the Microsoft ad I'm looking at now, not touching that one with a 10-foot stick).
These people are trying to serve ads to people actively trying to block them. Oh yeah, that's brilliant.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
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.
I have an easy way to defeat their technology.
Every time I see a pop-up that defeats my pop-up blocking, first I'll for damned sure never buy that product. In addition, I will never go to the hosting website again. And I'll make damned sure they know why.
There is no topic on the internet that can be served by only one site.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
When you outlaw popup blocking blockers only outlaw popup blocking blockers will block popup blocking blockers.
http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/
Here's an example of this style of anti-popup-blocker advertisement. This site, which is very useful by the way, will not "work" if javascript is not enable or ads are not shown.
I haven't tested this in other browsers, but this system is pretty neat (awful?)... it changes itself so its hard to detect the functions and block them.
It works for the same reason spam works. Ads are more expensive than spam, obviously, but still not too pricey alot of the time. They're almost certainly cheap enough that one purchase per hits is enough. All it takes to get rich without making anything good is to track down those stupid enough to buy your crap - the easiest way to hit alot of morons is to saturate the web, you'll piss off millions, but still hit thousands willing to give you money.
For a moment I thought you were linking to some great new software that stopped lawyers ... now THAT'd be a great new product!
Sue them under the DMCA claiming that they are bypassing a security feature that you installed to block ads?
Free Popup Blocker:
7 /uninstall_flash_player.exe (Uninstaller)
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/flash
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ (for Mozilla)
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
If you encounter one of these ads, send feedback to the people who run the site. Play dumb and pretend your web browser choked on them. Say that you tried to look at their site, but this huge ad appeared covering the text and you couldn't read anything or make the ad go away, and tell them that you gave up and left and won't be coming back in future if they can't make their web site work.
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
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 and doesn't accomplish half of what can be done with Privoxy or Proxomitron.
Don't touch the Hosts file.
Are you influenced by commercials on the TV? Of course you are.
If you could choose, would you choose to have the commercials disabled? Of course you would.
With this reasoning advertisers can safely assume that even annoying ads pay off.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Sit there and complain about it, but the reason you're able to do things like read news for free online, perform fast google searches, and even use some software without paying for it is because companies pay for these services with advertisements. Remove the advertisements and you can kiss all of this goodbye. I'm not saying we should support the more obnoxious approaches to advertising, but our demand for "free software" and "free services" requires that the people running them find a way to make a living. Obviously I'm not a supporter of spam, I'm talking about something entirely different here. We live in a material world and I am a material girl...or boy.
That explains it. The spams I've been getting lately are less and less legible. They can't possibly think they are doing marketing anymore. As far as I'm concerned, it's no better than harassment or vandalism.
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
it kind of just happens to some of the weaker willed and morally challenged
marketing is a career that one chooses once one has graduated college and realizes one has no other skills companies want
I dislike these arguments of moral superiority, which lend greater importance to these issues than they truly warrant. You are being annoyed by pop-up ads, not seriously harmed. You are free to avoid any site that uses them.
I don't think it follows that needing a salary so that one can feed one's family is equivalent to being morally challenged. I'm not sure if you have children or not. But if you did, would it be moral of you to turn down a marketing job in a tough economy?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
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.
W.h.y. d.0.!!!y.0.u....T.H.1.n.k..t.h.3.y. @.r.e. t.r.y.i.n.g. t0 g3t t.h.r.o.u.g.h. y.0.u.r. s.p.4.m. f.1.1.t.3.r.z.???? ;-)
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The big problem with this war is that there is so much collateral damage.
With each measure people take to block the popups and other types of advertisement, they also end up blocking content and applications that they need.
Once, people thought the browser will become the "application environment". The latest W3C inventions makes that more viable every day. But, now look what we've _removed_ from the environment:
1) Dialog Boxes: Gone. You can usually still use a javascript alert, but you can't prompt the user with a dialog box anymore, a primitive UI component.
2) Random things broken: "Adblock" css and stuff like that, which blocks images and iframes when the relative path to those things starts with "ad"? So, if slashdot's preferences were called "adjustments", that would get killed.
Sure, people can sometimes turn these things off, but more and more often, people are having these things installed without even knowing they're there (like millions will when XP SP 2 comes out).
This whole situation is rapidly making the web a much less hospitable environment for applications.
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.
"I think the U.N. is going to find that the blame lies with all the Sudanese rap music that glamorizes genocide."