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End Run Around Pop-up Blockers
An anonymous reader writes "The pop-up arms race continues, cnet has this article on how advertisers are responding to pop-up blockers." Can't wait for a full page of javascripted user-initiated pop-ups.
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If a user has specifically installed software in order not to see popups, why do advertisers think they will be inclined to click them if they do somehow get through?
It's aiming at the wrong targets - how many Firefox users will click a X10 camera ad just because it evaded their filter? I'd say alot more will simply take the address and add it to their hosts file pointing at 127.0.0.1 to stop the popup from returning. It's like putting MS ads on Slashdot - how many users will click compared to all those that chuckle at MS's wasted money on putting the ad there.
And this is good for advertising how?
If you are using a pop-up blocker, then you clearly ARE NOT going to appreciate the advertising and the money spent to bring it to you is completely worthless.
Another inane act from marketers.
If there is one thing that will make me leap from my chair and purchase your product it is annoying me with a popup. I'll be doubly interested if you specifically try to circumvent my implicit wish not to be disturbed by your adverts. Oh yes, you'll be sure to make me a customer for life.
This post sponsored by the Sarcasm for Life initiative
...pop-ups are dying. More and more people are blocking pop-ups altogether. If it doesn't work right without them, your site is "broken". Less and less legitimate sites use pop-ups. It'll be many more still when IE finally gets it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Why does anyone leave Javascript on? Its main feature is the ability to have pop-ups thrown at you, and its other features are about as useless and annoying.
But people insist on requiring it to use their buttons on their sites sometimes, so instead of putting so much effort into detecting when a pop-up is coming, I'd much prefer it if there was an easy way to turn scripting on or off. Like a tiny toolbar with two little radio buttons.
Anybody know off the top of their heads if that's do-able without waiting for Microsoft to do it?
That knife cuts both ways. You'll keep developing new ways to serve adds, and we'll keep blocking them.
I do think, however, that there are more people who dislike popups than who benefit from their continuing as a viable marketing option.
Advantage: Us.
Or does the whole pop-up/spam phenemenon remind anyone else, at least in it's probable lifespan, as just another tech fad? It's becoming a large issue because of its annoyance value, but as many people are saying, it's dying out...almost all major browsers have or will soon have (IE in SP 2 I believe) blockers, which will adapt just as quickly as the people creating the ads in the first place--and mail most mail servers and programs already handle spam (for the most part) extremely well, and will only get better at what they do.
If you're in the field of creating all this glut, I'd suggest a career change; not simply because I think you should rot in all 7 layers of hell for making computer harder on my mother than it already was, but because you'll soon be out of a job.
I know nothing
I don't understand why you would run a third party addon to IE rather than just using something like Mozilla.
I mean, the government is this way, but they are 3 years late to every party.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Contrary to popular belief, these ADs are not targeted at the ./ community, or anyone in general who can figure out the workings of computers. These ADs are targeted at Joe Normal who had his techie buddy build him a computer.
Every built a computer for someone with Windows on it? Did you put Adaware, or a pop-up blocker on it? Do you think the person you built it for knows what these things do, or even that they are there at all? Those are the people these ADs are targeted at, as those people actually might click on an AD and buy something as opposed to all of us who just update our AD blocking program of choice.
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
Marketers are increasingly becoming for the internet what ticks are to a dog.
Around 1996 or so, a friend was lamenting the increasing commercialization of the Internet. I remember thinking that he was maybe overreacting a bit, and that the trend was maybe even a good thing since it didn't take away any of the other uses of the net, but just added to it. And at the time, it was in fact quite benign, and often even positive. But now, spammers and web marketers are abusing and undeniably damaging the medium. When users have to criple features to stem the deluge of marketing, those features are rendered unviable for desireable uses as well. It isn't benign at all anymore. The cancer of Internet commercialization is now malignant.
It's like putting MS ads on Slashdot - how many users will click compared to all those that chuckle at MS's wasted money on putting the ad there.
You seem to assume that all or even most slashdot readers are clueful about linux. But even the most casual glance at the comments, even the highly rated ones, should show you that many/most of the posters here are indeed regular Windows users. They might be more aware of some of the benefits of using Linux or other FLOSS but they haven't bought into the full package. Microsoft is wise to attempt to FUDify them before they actually make the switch to another OS.
501 Not Implemented
I've installed pop-up blockers on all of the computers in our laboratory as well as the other labs on our floor. Thanks to an advertisement that managed to slip through, just last week I had a tech. come to me all paniced that there may be porn stored on her computer. She was very aware that her computer had a pop-up stopper.
I'm constantly amazed by how some of the same people who complain about pop-up and how no one ever pays attention to them, gunk up their computer by downloading pop-up suggested crap.
I find most of the pop-ups target computer illiterate individuals - "Your time may be wrong!", "Protect your computer NOW!!", "There may be porn stored on your computer!". You, my slashdotting friends, are not the target audience.
Besides, a lot of floaters only work on IE. I'm mostly safe w/ Sarafi or Mozilla.
AC comments get piped to
Which would be great if there would be some way for us humans to actually learn regexps...
The owls are not what they seem
1. I do use Adblock and have spent a lot of time
tuning filtering.
2. Adblock does not block flash, though you can
disable javascript that would load flash.
3. If you want to disable flash based on its content
then Adblock is useless. Ideally, you'd have an AI
engine analyzing the flash code and deciding if it
has a valid reason to be displayed. For now, YOU have
to be the AI engine.
4. If you were to decide what flash to allow it
would be nice to have an easy way to diable flash
after it is activated or to have a preview mode.
Otherwise you click on a sucker and get a pageful
of crap. Wouldn't it be nicer if you knew in advance
whether to click to view.
-
Windows opened from scripting are treated as children of the parent window. When the parent window closes, so must the child window. When the parent window is moved to the back or minimized, the child windows must do the same. (You can still minimize or dismiss the child window, of course.)
-
Windows opened by scripting should retain some visual association with the parent window. They
should overlap it at least slightly, unless the
user moves the window.
-
Windows opened by scripting have a user-settable maximum size. Anything bigger than this comes up with scroll bars.
-
Flash animations must be closeable and blockable.
Flash, and all other "controls", should run in a jail, permitted to talk to the screen and the originating site only. There must be right-click menu options to kill any "control", whether it likes it or not.
-
All windows have close buttons.
-
No script can open more than one window per user click.
We need to keep control of the browser GUI in the user's hands, no matter what the site tries to do.I have read many posts on this thread saying we can end the problem just by disabling this or that in the browser.
Ya know what? we could increase fuel efficiency in cars greatly if we just disable the engine!
Get the point?
- There are lots of ligitamate and good uses for flash, javascript, java, css, and so on.
Would the ones that promote disabling features really want to go back to the crappy featureless, tool-less, mostly text internet that we had only 7 or 8 years ago?
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
it is hard to tell navigation flash from ads.
Yeah, and it's pretty amazing/annoying how many sites that do use Flash for navigation don't at least have a plain HTML index or site map page.
Specifically:
- experts exchange. I never want to see you guys, I want links to the developer's website + mail archives (this one I block by having my own customized html form for google with the extra options)
- searching for a 'review' of any electronic product pops up screeds of reseller online catalogues, best price guides etc and never one fucking review. You have to add words which are likely to appear in a review, like 'sucks' and 'shiny' to find the real reviews.
- searching for bands gives the same shit - catalogue style interfaces purporting to tell me everything I wanted to know about the band, but in reality its one of a bazillion holding pages.
Can we install ad blockers on Google??!!
This probably has something to do with the fact that a large percentage of pop ups use deceptive techniques to get someone to click on them unwittingly.
From 'System Needs to Update, click anywhere in this window to Update your system', to 'Your system is not secure, click anywhere in this window to secure your system', to "Error Xb3t10-2, click anywhere in this window to continue", to ads that simulate windows and have their own 'close' buttons that are just part of the ad graphics, (Even I have accidentally clicked on those a few times,) there are myriad different 'strategies' that advertiseers use to trick people into thinking that the pop up is not an ad, but an essential message from their computer machine that they should obey.
Meanwhile, people have learned that 'click to win' banner ads generally aren't worth their time, and so they have stopped clicking on them as often as they used to.
With the current batch of viruses growing larger and more dangerous, there will be more people that know they should be worried abotu viruses,
As to floaters and various flash ads, browser makers and macromedia need to take some responsibility and provide options to prevent that kind of crap. Going to a website and then having a floating ad with motion and sound that I cannot close, or an ad that floats over what I am trying to read, is quite irritating, and I will never purchase.
For some companies that I normally buy from, I have sent letters explaining that their intrusive ads have caused me to lower my expenditures on their products. Generally I get back a canned response that places the blame on the advertising firm that made the ad. Apparently advertising firms are privateers now, that companies give payment and blessing to, and then take no respoinsibility for.
I know it's a nitpick, but "The Internet" is a lot bigger than just what you see in your browser. I agree that there are legitimate uses for javascript, css, and even flash. But all languages evolve. Just because a language goes from version 1 to version 2 doesn't mean it can only add bells and whistles, sometimes it's good to take away "features" which have proven themselves to be liabilities.
What the advertisers assume is that the site that I am visiting has such an appeal to me, that I will put up with the pop-ups etc to be able to view it.
:-))
Bzzzt. Wrong!
If a site goes to that much trouble to circumvent my blockers, well, I just don't visit it anymore.
Problem solved! Well for me anyway
Oh yes, I alwyas use the feedbak/comments page to TELL the site operators that they have lost my eyeballs.
If enough people would just stop visiting these sites.....
There are alternatives on the Internet.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
There are plenty of reasons. For instance, look at Dell's site where you customize a computer (don't know if that link will work, but it's there...). All the "Help Me Now" links down the right are popup links. Many, many other places do this, especially on form pages. The reason is that if you're halfway through filling out a form then need additional information, you can't exactly navigate away from the page because sometimes coming back to the original page reverts the fields to their original values. (I'm not quite sure exactly when this happens and in what browers, but it *does* happen, even in Mozilla, at least v. 1.4.) Also, some other sites seem to like to pop up new windows, movie sites in particular. Not quite sure why that is. Maybe so they can be sure that it is the proper size and not too small or too large. Then popping up trailers and stuff in a separate window is somewhat common practice.
What we have to remember is that it is the browser, not the site that has control over what the user sees. The web browser is what interprets the Javascript, and should always have the upperhand.
Eventually, advertising will get smarter and there will be "user" initiated popups via mouserover, or get focus, but I am confident that popup blocking especially in mozilla will improve to protect us from web marketers. I think the only popups should be on user click.
I have yet to see a popup on my mozilla/fire/bird/fox for either windows or bsd.
I've always thought that the best way to deal with websites that have advertisements (ANY ads) is to *click* on the ad links ...
Ok - before I get flamed, let me explain. The companies that are paying for ad space usually also pay a "per click" fee. Every time someone clicks on the ad, the advertiser pays the host site.
Some bright fool should write a web accelerator-type program that follows every link on the currently browsed site to at least one click deep. This should be done silently and in the background.
What it means is that clickthrough revenues for sites with ads would go through the roof, but no one would actually be reading and/or responding to the ads. The companies that are advertising would pay off like a slot machine and eventually go out of business because they would suddenly beleive that their internet advertising department is full of geniuses.
The central problem is that the advertisers are using the wrong metric to see if their ad was successful.
I'd buy the product for a $1.
Ravepunk