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Yahoo Mail Forcing Ads Through Adblock?
egNuKe asks: "Like some people here, I use Firefox and Adblock. I've blocked the ads that Yahoo puts in my inbox, however the next time I opened it, I've found other ads, and blocked them too. This happened for several times, until I figured out that Yahoo must have some script that checks if the ad is displayed and displays another one, if it hasn't. This is no big problem, I just needed to add several rules to Adblock to block the several ad sources they use. Here is the problem: when Adblock is running and effectively stopping Yahoo mail ads, Firefox would freeze (all open windows and tabs) for about 15 seconds. Then the page opens and there is no ads. The script must be on client side, since it's the browser that's freezing and not the network. Turning off Adblock solves the freezing problem. Is there a cure for this?" This is a touch-and-go issue as it basically boils down to the user's priority (not seeing ads) versus the services priority (displaying the ads it needs to allow the user to enjoy a free service). It was only a matter of time before someone thought to try and work around ad-blockers, and all this will eventually lead to is open warfare (competing Javascript or browser code in the browser) on your machine. Instead of working around the workaround, why not consider another service that doesn't inundate you with ads?
I can send you a gmail invite. that'll fix it.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
My friend has this myspace page, and when I visit it in MSN Explorer, it freezes (I am using a Motorola modem). I read somewhere that Microsoft teamed up with CIA to block myspace.
Since Slashdot now offers free tech support, is anyone technically competent to explain this?
You could run a greasemonkey script to remove the script causing all this.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
One trick that worked in Opera was to find out which javascript function was creating the adds and overwrite it. Opera allows you to define a user.js file and any functions in it overwrite the functions in any page loaded javascript. I just created a function with an empty body and I was good to go.
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
If I had a website relying on ads and a reliable way to do it, I'd terminate accounts of people with an ad blocker right off the bat. You are using a free service in exchange of which they are putting a bunch of advertisement on your screen. By blocking it, you become a free loader, absolutely useless for them as a customer. If you don't like the business model, pay for your webmail.
I personally do have Adblock installed on my machine here, but I only use turn it on for sites that uses ads in a way that are obtrusive. Think of those lovely sites that uses flash to overlay ads that you have to figure out how to get rid of. Those sites, sure. But think of something like /. here. The ads don't get in the way. But they also let the service continue to be free for me. I won't block /. ads unless they start doing something to get them in my way.
Now, there is a somewhat person reason for this for me too. I am starting up a new gaming company that will depend on ad revenue on the site to survive. If people block it, we will die off. We won't ever put ads in the way, but some people just can't stand to let us make money for a free service to happen.
I just don't understand some of you.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
I have this problem with Hotmail as well. Google's ads are far less noticable, but far more creepy. Google is obviously reading my mail, as there's no possible way they could so consistently offer products directly related to what I'm writing about. But I think we're pretty much stuck with them like radio and TV telethons before them, as long as we want something for nothing.
Demented But Determined.
I use Firefox with AdBlock and haven't seen an ad on Yahoo Mail in ages. But I haven't switched to their new layout, either. Maybe that makes a difference (and if so, I'll never switch).
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
I signed up for a service that is paid for by displaying advertisments.
I am trying to avoid my side of the bargin by blocking the ads, however, the service provider seems to have prevented me from doing this easily.
Can anyone help?
The first thing you need to do, more or less straight away, is find a way to separate your email address from the place your email comes to rest. I have a domain AND an account with Spamgourmet. One is for fighting spam, but both are so I can hand out addresses that are independant from whatever service I choose to use to actually receive my mail. This allows you to easily leave crappy places that force ads on you or otherwise stuff up your mail. Start advertising your new address now, so that in a year or so when Yahoo pulls some new crap that pisses you off, you have the option of leaving them without any of your friends noticing. I also recommend setting up a bunch of IM accounts, then using an ad-free all-in-one IM client like Miranda IM and move away from email in general.
I hate ads just as much as anyone else. I certainly hate being subject to "driveby" ads where you happen to visit a web page once in your life for no important reason (ie check out a story linked to by Slashdot), and I would stop at nothing to block those bastards. Yahoo, however, is offering you a pretty valuable service (free web mail), and I assume you enjoy the benefits of having it, so why not let them have their ads? Quid pro quo is not too unfair in this case.
If you really want to get the ads off of your Yahoo mail account, pay them. I have a premium account with Yahoo because my ISP partners with them to provide all the web services. I log in--no ads! It's not too shabby.
There is a big difference, as certain rules in Adblock will cause it to freeze or load pages slowly. Adblock plus works a little faster, but has the downside of not being as well coupled with filterset.G. Try switching to AdblockPlus and see if that does anything.
Or....just get gmail?
in addblock just click the radio for hide add instead of remove add, the add are still downloaded but you don't see them
I just had an ad come up when I clicked on this article. Not a popup, but one of those annoying things that layer across the content. It smacked up right in the middle of the web page and asked me if i wanted to take a survey.
I had a choice of hitting Yes, or I guess letting the ad sit there blocking my viewing the content.
There was no close option.
I don't mind ads, but what is the purpose of annoying me?
Move your email to a different provider.
I for example have been using Windows Mail Desktop which lets me consolidate email from several emails accounts from a couple of different providers in one single place.
Ads can be turned off in the program.
Yahoo is one of the largest competitors online. They have a email database and a yahoo groups data base both with ads. They have a lot to loose if the ads are blocked. But this unblocking of ads on their part will only cause a roller coaster ride for users, and for the makers of the ad blocker software. Most block the ads because of a few security reasons. Plus most ads are annoying anyway. It's hard to find a middle ground when most of the places that have ads keep annoying us with popups, and animated banners from hell. Find a less annoying way to display ads, and maybe the public wont block them. Screen whom you allow to sponsor on your websites, and people will trust you more, and your ads. Or don't show them at all, and come up with a better way to make your living online. The ads haven't changed in years, except for more of them. And less trustworthy. Time for a change folks.
im not sure how, but cant greasemonkey be used to stop whatever script they use?
I use the Flashblock and NoScript Firefox extensions to surf the web. I also use Greasemonkey with user scripts to clean up sites like MySpace. I've found the AdBlock extension makes the already slow and crash prone Firefox even more so. Also, I run my own web site, so I don't like blocking other's ads.
I block Flash and JavaScript because it uses my CPU time, and I'd rather have a smoother web experience.
I just ignore advertising anyways. I don't read or pay attention to it. Do the ads on Yahoo really bother you that much? If so, pay for web mail or use a service like Google with text ads.
Cthulhu Saves.
This may seem crazy, but if they want me to buy their product or service, maybe they should spend less money shoving it in my face and more money making it better than the alternatives.
Yes, because everyone blocking ads is just doing it to prevent you from making money.
My solution in situations like this is to build custom Stylish rules for sites like that. Even if they change the id a whole bunch, they're pretty much constrained to a certain number of xhtml structures, and I doubt they'll be changing that a lot. So do something like: #ad_space div>div{display: none;} (replacing the selectors with an actual path to the frustrating elements). There are also lots of scripts for stylish at http://www.userstyles.org/
-knewter
Thunderbird has some extensions that let you pull your email from online clients like Yahoo or Gmail to your local machine. Some people dont like this because they like being able to access old email from anywhere but the up side is no ads ever. I cant comment on Outlook but I would imagine there is some way to set it up so that you can do the same.
They are sending some of the ads through HTTPS which most ad blockers can't handle.
If you have a blocker that handles SSL ads, then let us know. I'd love to use that with Privoxy.
You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Sounds similar in "symptoms" (the freezing and the 15-20 second period) to this Firefox bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36684 9.
I take it that you can't reproduce the problem in IE or Opera?
What's they cpu usage? Does it freeze all firefox windows or just the Yahoo window?
I used to use Yahoo mail, I'm sure they do something similar. I set up a Yahoo account in England with an English Address and everything. I did not tell Yahoo about any other languages. However, I do use (attempt) to use another language that I am learning, and I got ads in that language for no reason that I could see except for that they parsing the mail.
Google read my email too, but at least they are not fowarding my inbox to the Chinese government ala Yahoo!
My little Linux and tech blog
Without checking the code, it sounds as though Yahoo is getting stuck in a for/next loop for 15 seconds. It must do something like this:
Begin For loop
Attempt to load and display image
If image is displayed, exit loop
End For loop
By blocking the image you force Yahoo to keep attempting to load images until it finally gives up. The loop temporarily locks up Firefox.
The simplest solution is to dump Yahoo and switch to GMail. That or allow ads, and just rely on your brain to filter them out automatically.
I've actually found gmails ads' sometimes useful too. I GM a roleplaying game with virtual tabletop software, and some interesting things I had never heard about, but am interested in, show up in the sponsored links section.
Google's adsense is far more useful to users than regular banner ads.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
what if he doesn't want the ad to be downloaded at all? For bandwidth reasons ( hello Belgium, you poor saps :/ ) or just for the usual "they're tracking me!" reasons?
I find with Firefox 2.0 yahoo mail causes it to crash constantly. As in usually 3 or 4 times a day. likely ad related as it happens on a refresh or a page change. I don't use adblock though, I use flashblock (and hosts rules to block their particular ad servers).
So I switched to Adblock Plus, which:
Adblock Plus rocks. There's just no comparison.
We dont care if, or are in any way responsible for, your site making money? Is it really that hard to grasp?
Advertising is garbage for the brain and causes therapy. It is responsible for over consumption, driving consumerism and the general unhappyness of the masses. Advertising is a psychological disease that gradually and continually perverts, manipulates and conditions society. It creates an epedemic of distrust. You will have no idea of the effect advertising has on your life untill you rid yourself of it.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Only ad-blockers that works as proxies have that issue (Privoxy, for example). Firefox extensions and the like handle HTTPS just fine.
Few few bucks a month you can have your own domain with email. You are spending more effort whining about a FREE service and trying to recast it to your liking than the effort is worth unless you are 13 years old. Domains are portable between providers if your provider starts to suck and you can change registrars if your registrar sucks. Your domain can be with you for life. What are you going to do if Yahoo, google, etc. eventually decides that the FREE service is not worth the cost and terminates the FREE email account and storage. Maybe yahoo, etc. is purchased by someone else who is not interested in continuing the FREE service.
When I was young, I had to rub sticks together to compute.
You should probably be using NoScript anyway, so just don't whitelist Yahoo. Their no-javascript interface is perfectly good.
I always watch ads. How else will the people who want me to see their ads get me to see their ads? Also, they want me to buy their products, so I do. How else are they supposed to sell me their products unless they make me watch ads that tell me to? Also, they want to cover my town with ads: let them. How else are we going to see ads unless they cover the whole country? Also, they now want to put ads into movies and books -- good for them! How else can they really get mind-share penetration unless they completely bombard us, and trick us into thinking that our favorite actors and characters like their products? Also, they want to lie in their ads. That's OK too! If they don't lie, then how will we really be motivated to buy their products? Also, they want to pass laws that make it illegal to NOT watch their ads. Good for them! Why would anyone not want to watch the ads? It's for our own good!
Figure out what .js script is the culprit and block that script with adblock.
Personally, I can remember when Yahoo was a useful site. Of course, then the greedy and evil PHBs took over. Now, I won't go near the place.
Imho, most upper management people are selfish, greedy and criminal, and they should be held accountable for ripping us all off .
Best would be a proxy that a) downloads the ads, but b) does not display them or displays empty pictures. Shpuld not be too hard to do in a way the service provider cannot detect...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"Unless you click the ads, nobody has any more information about you than they would have if Google didn't do any analysis"
So ? Why is Google than doing that analysis ?
Or do you mean that now Google too has information about you that other persons/coorporations allready have is not bad ?
Like if wronging two persons is not worse as wronging just one ?
Any self-respecting geek should have his own domain. For less than ten bucks a year, you can get a domain with DNS and email forwarding (I use Namecheap, but there are others). Forward everything to a Gmail address, and use POP3 to make a backup.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Why do you use Ad Block Plus? It just bloats up firefox!
:)
Use Privoxy and force Firefox / Opera through the proxy on your localhost. It filters the ads for you!
Also, I just tested -- I created an account on Yahoo and tried regular Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Mail Beta.
I saw no ads. None. Nada.
Privoxy > Ad Block Plus in my opinion. I never see ads thanks to this. And it's less work.
Give it a shot guys.
True for yahoo.com accounts. You can use POP with UK yahoo.co.uk accounts. http://edit.europe.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=uk& .done=http://uk.yahoo.com/
That's what I use for my disposable ones... and if POP becomes billable, they get disposed of.
Not to long ago /. was displaying flash ads for Splunk, these ads would open pop-ups. I once left /. up on my worksation walked away for awhile and came back to dozens of Splunk windows, didn't visit /. for nearly a month after that. Now I block the ads and all flash content on /. So my question is has /. stopped this? Were they ever any better than anybody else? I don't know, but I can tell you I no longer view any of there ads.
Pepsi?
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Sorry for my ignorance, but it is a free ad supported service. You might actually see an ad to click on.
I agree on banning large flash ads, but a 15k banner never hurt anyone (ok sometimes it did), so I cannot really relate to this tragedy of not being able to block a free service's ads.
What about blocking them by the DNS / host file?
cheers
yimg.com/*/yad*.js
Swing and a miss...
Karnal
I have a technical question for the group.
Could someone please ignore it and give me a sarcastic, pseudo-moralistic entreaty to consumerism instead?
Thanks.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
There should be an official standard for advertising on web pages.
.....
Advertisers should adhere to it.
Browsers should adhere to it.
Webmasters should adhere to it.
Advertisers should ensure that the webmasters adhere to it.
Then...
have the contract you agree to when signing up for ad-supported services indicate that the site uses the official industry standard advertising method. Any attempt on the users part to block the ads is in breach of contract. The browser gets a certificate indicating that it must display those ads.
Regular sites like
can continue to use the current methods of advertising where it's a constant battle between the advertisers and the adblockers.
Some foolish site owners will get greedy and try to push the advertising certificate on their users starting at the home page. Their traffic will plummet.
Others will continue on as the always have with the regular ads and continue generate the revenue they're used to as if nothing happened.
Some people will change web-mail services to another site that their ad blocker will work on.
The majority will not really care and will stay with their current web-mail service.
Even many people that do care will consider the 9 years worth of messages and 9 years worth of handing out business cards with the same address that they have with their current service to be more important than blocking ads.
What do you think?
Lets start a discussion and get these ideas worked out implemented and standardized before CSS3 is out.
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These 2 plugins will stop any semblance of an ad from appearing. My pictures dont load up anywhere by default, imglike opera has filters . Try it out
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
Slashdot has ads?
The majority of the "free" websites no the internet make their money via adversitising.
/. article about it, get a life. Of course if you are blocking ads companies are going to try and find ways around your blocker.
If these websites can not make money they will cease to exist.
Certinaly some websites are far too obtrusive, but if you believe that to be true of a website, then don't use it. Simple. As for posting a
The company I work for runs a large advertising based website, and the ads the people using advertiser blockers get are far more obtrusive than the standard ads. It's a pain in the ass to get around the ad blockers, but it will always be possible. (Just expect the ads to be more integrated into the content than current ads)
Here's some data mining creepiness. I can't prove it, so take it as a for what it is worth anecdotal. I was once on some page and got some totally weird, unrelated google ads for that page. Nothing fit, nothing, not even close.. I went around to all my tabs I had open, again, nothing fit those ads. It was bugging me so I stopped to think about it, then I had an audio inspiration, a "can't see the forest for the trees-except now I can" epiphany. Want to know what fit those ads? A STREAM I was listening to from shoutcast, a talk station. What the conversation was about fit those google ads perfectly!
If you use Yahoo mail beta and Firefox, just add this userstyle --> http://userstyles.org/style/show/616 into the Stylish extension to remove ads. Also, I find that Adblock Filterted.G blocks Yahoo mail beta ads as well.
I use Thunderbird to check email, and have noticed no ads, except the little text and hyperlink variety automatically attached by some (hotmail, yahoo!, etc.) services. I also use my SBC account as the SMTP service, and I get compliments and questions about how I removed those same types of ads. Apparently they aren't attached automatically? I'm not sure why this seems to be the case, but, hey, it works. At any rate, Thunderbird "sanitizes" your emails by default, blocking all kinds of ads, so this may be a solution to your problem (you may need a third party app to check Yahoo! The last good one I that I heard about was Mr. Postman, but I've never had to use it, so I can't vouch for it, personally).
I am not an animal! I am something worse!
What are these ads in Yahoo! Mail everyone talks about? I don't see ads on Yahoo! Mail or in email I send out from it.
Oh yeah, I forgot. I have Yahoo! Plus.
...a new, commercial free internet, well, a well used subnet of the main internet. Everyone pays for bandwith, servers* are relatively easy to set up. P2P software and bit torrent is out there. Just start promoting ad free content, by offering and sharing same. With that and some sort of alternative search features, we could just start ignoring and shunning the big commercial sites for the most part.
* support the proposed net neutrality legislation introduced into the senate this past week. It appears to restrict providers from denying you the use of normal hardware for legitimate purposes, or artificially throttling your bandwith based on legitimate use, ie, they cant say you couldn't run a server or force you to some ridiculous speed because you are torrenting or VOIP ing,etc, their claims notwithstanding. Once it is codified into law, we (US anyway) can do this people's internet deal with no ads and no spam and the corporates couldn't say boo about it if they wanted to still get the connectivity income. And they would have a hard time proving you needed "business class" rates if all you were serving was ad-free! Wikipedia proves it is possible to get a lot of content out there voluntarily, good, bad, mediocre-exactly same as the regular fulla ads internet, but *without ads*. And hosting is cheap for that matter, especially spread out and shared with other users, even if you are shy on hosting yourself, a hundred bucks a year will let you serve up a hella lotta pages if you cool it on the bling. And it requires nothing more exotic than getting content up there. We don't need alternative dns, just guaranteed click on a page in some "ad free directory" and it won't serve you ads. Miscreants get blackballed immediately, al la a digg-type system looking for lowlifes, they get dropped immediately from the directory listings. There's no karma level or degrees of "addiness" or not, it is pretty simple and black and white that anyone can see. A page has ads-or it doesn't. If the whole page is just some big ad, same deal, they get dropped.
I've blocked http://.yimg.com/*/jscodes/* in adblock as well as blocking the specific ad sites they use, which has stopped it from displaying ads without giving any delay on loadtime.
Thing is, they've got to run a script to see if ads are loading, if you stop that from loading, you can also stop the ads without giving the scripts delay.
ATM, the script I'm blocking on the main page is called ct_lrec_031016.js tho that of course would be suject to renaming.
Least I think this is what's going on & I'm blocking the correct thing, if someone else could confirm this it would be nice.
Yahoo mail seems to work fine for me, and always has with adblock installed. In fact, i find I actually get a massive performance boost when using adblock with the site since there are no ads. This is unusual since I usually found IE performed such Ajax heavy sites faster. (Though the real reason is probably because Flash is so horridly slow in Firefox that by disabling ads, I've disabled all flash and thus increased performance) Anyway has anyone else verified this or is this just one guy with some settings incorrect and he's the only one?
i DO hate yahoo mail. i am forced to use it because my college mates are stupid enough to use a yahoo group for our college related announcements and discussions. i like to use adblock as a voting button. I unblock sites i respect and wish to support. hotmail is a free ad paid service too , but they allow me much more freedom. they even allow me to access my "free" email account through outlook and outlook express (which is bundled in windows) , and hence i wouldn't even get near the ads area. btw : in yahoo mail , you don't get a 15k banner unless you have blocked the swf banners. the way i see it , they are holding my emails and email address hostage, and forcing me to see their ads in order to access them. my emails are rightfully MINE.i should be allowed to store them anywhere and access them anyway i like. both are my rights denied by yahoo.
Couldn't sites use a less javascript requiring method to show ads? They could just do it internally and generate the html with the advertising, if they make their server download the image and host it for the user it will rather be pretty hard to actually block ads without blocking other images. They could also try using text for the ads. Why always the friging banners and popups? Be smart!
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
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> Firefox would freeze (all open windows and tabs) for about 15 seconds.
I have this problem every time I right-click "save link as", or a page loads an applet from a slow server, or waiting on a pdf to open, etc. Everything in Firefox is hung waiting on one tab. Nice multi-threading there guys (sarcasm intentional). Sounds like half of this guys gripe is with Firefox. But don't worry, version 3 will provide all these new features so you forget about all the other bugs that have been there since the original beta version.
My question is how do they make the money off the ads. Is it by clicks, by view or other, because if it is by click they are pretty much done for as the people that are blocking the ads aren't likely going to click on the ad in the first place, so no real lost there. If it by view, how are they figuring this out? I understand what yahoo is doing using a script to verify that it is displayed, but if they aren't using some sort of script how do they prove it has been displayed? At any rate boils down to how they make there money. If it is by click then i don't see the point and forcing the ad when it isn't going to be clicked on in the first place. And if it is on display could there not be a way to block the ad but say it was displayed? Personally I block all ads, I have not intention to click on an ad and be taken to the products website for a bias opinion. I personally do research on what i want so ads do very little for me. :shrug: sue me, and to note I don't use Yahoo or gmail, I have my own domain, with my own server. Problem solved.
TANSTAAFL! Yahoo has ads. Slashdot has ads. Just about every site on the net has ads. If you want email without ads, you can pay a real email hosting company that will provide you with POP3/IMAP/SMTP access for a fee. Heck you can even get that from Yahoo, I think it's 30$ a year or so.. if you had been looking at their ads you would know ;)
But if you want something for free, you have to pay with your eyeballs. Someone has to foot the bill for the web hosting, and the sysadmins, and the time and effort that go into building a site. Or are you one of those guys who gets HBO for free, spliced off your neighbor's cable ?
The ad blocking game is no different from copy-protection schemes, or product activation, or any other undesirable software trait. They're like human viruses; they start out as a minor nuisance (simple banner ads), then you develop antibodies (adblock), then the virus grows stronger (javascript detection), then come stronger antibodies (adblock++.Net 2.0 GT), and then finally the virus grows so strong and belligerant it just plain kills you (ad company buys out Mozilla and makes you watch 2-minute full-screen noisy ads every time you click, then forces you to complete a "short" survey before letting you read the actual page).
I personally don't employ any kind of ad blocking.. yes, it slows down page loads a little bit, but I don't mind it so much. An extra second or two won't kill me, I'm usually multitasking anyways. The sight of ads doesn't bug me, I just scroll past.. every now and then I'll actually see one that catches my interest and click through, because sometimes I actually discover something I like. The only gimmick I use against ads is FlashMute, because the last thing I need is for the neighbors to call the cops on me, from hearing those stupid screaming smilies pumped through my loud stereo.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
That sounds a bit harsh, for reasons others have already articulated. The motivation behind your comment isn't that far out, though, and if I ran a service that depended heavily on ad revenue, I would definitely look at other models than the currently-popular "client-pull" strategy for serving ads.
I know this would consume some server resources, but still: Why aren't ads proxied through the server side of things & served from the same URL as the resource in the first place? It's not like these services are running from static pages that *need* the ad-rotator links to be on the client-side... This would eliminate so many cookie, image & script-blocking issues that I can't imagine it not paying for the added server stress & behind-the-scenes bandwidth, yanno?
Pi Ran Out
Feel free to digg it up to the front page: http://digg.com/tech_news/Yahoo_Mail_Forcing_Ads_T hrough_Firefox_s_Adblock
As a fellow Yahoo user, I humbly recommend that you get over it. The reason that yahoo mail is available is so that they can make advertising revenue. If everyone starts blocking ads on sites that provide a useful service for free, those services will go away. Since Yahoo's ads are neither intrusive nor offensive, just let them show.
This is a touch-and-go issue as it basically boils down to the user's priority (not seeing ads) versus the services priority (displaying the ads it needs to allow the user to enjoy a free service). It was only a matter of time before someone thought to try and work around ad-blockers, and all this will eventually lead to is open warfare (competing Javascript or browser code in the browser) on your machine. Instead of working around the workaround, why not consider another service that doesn't inundate you with ads?
Because eventually they turn from providing a free service to inundating you with ads? Just like yahoo?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Possibly from around the same time, it crashes Firefox when I am trying to type an email. Especially when I use control key movements like Next Word (Ctrl+Right) or if I hold the shift key down to make a selection.
Given my overlong posts, I am guaranteed to crash my browser every time I try to type an email.
I've taken to writing them in TextPad and the pasting them back in when I'm done. Wish I knew if it was GMail, Firefox, some extensions, or my whacked computer. *sigh*
Here's a few reasons why noone should use Yahoo as their mail system:
Don't even get me started on GMail vs. Yahoo maps. Or GCal vs. Yahoo Calendar. Yahoo are not innovating; they are riding the pure inertia of their 1996 early start.
Oh, here's a word for those of you who are moaning about unethical users blocking ads: some of us are truly incapable of tuning out obnoxious banners and flash animations. It realy ruins our internet experience. Don't worry. The sheep will always be there to provide you with advertising revenue. As for the rest of us, if you want to win us over, use text ads only. You will get many more clicks from us, that's for sure.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why even bother with any of this? There's countless posts right now suggesting ways around a problem, but no one's said anything about the claimed problem either. The thing is, the summary seems to be ENTIRELY WRONG!
I've been using yahoo mail as my primary email for like 10 years (can't be bothered to move to gmail or anything). I've never had such problems. Actually, I'm logged in right now, using FF and Adblock (non-plus) and Filterset.G. Guess what? No ads, no extra ads I've been fored to block, and never froze either. I see no such ads-forcing client JS either (I've looked). I can't believe anyone didn't mention this yet... And yes, I've also tried their new mail beta thingy (which DOES suck very badly, and takes even longer than gmail or google maps to load)
I don't know if the submitter is on crack, plain lying, imagining these problems (recreational drugs?), are being caused by something else (other buggy extension), spyware, or if it's some kind of tactic to try to get ppl to switch away from yahoo mail to other services (conspiracy theory of the day!)...
I don't know how this could even make the front page really (yeah, I must be new here, right?)
The only reason I can see myself switching from yahoo mail isn't ads (I don't see any), it's their new beta mail piece of shit thing. Force this slow and bloated useless trash on me, and I'm over to gmail SAME DAY and NEVER COMING BACK! There better be an option to keep the "classic" mail app. All I want is a fast loading, lightweight and simple page (click to view inbox, click on message to view, hit reply, etc) - NOT some javascript bloated useless thing (drag this and that? WTF for?) that takes a minute to load. If I wanted a very slow and feature-rich client, I'd be using outlook, not webmail. Thinking of it, outlook opens faster.
I don't follow your argument against what you call "driveby" ads. Websites where you read articles are providing a service too: they're hosting content, and quite possibly paying the author of the content.
I block ads pretty much everywhere, but I don't think it's justified.
I don't get it. Why would anyone use a javascript capable browser out of free will?
Do not. Touch. Down.
One solution that I've seen as a preference in some ad blocking programs would be to download but don't display ads. I doubt that Yahoo detects whether the ad is actually displayed, but more likely whether it was downloaded.
I remember the days of the ARPANet. There were no advertisements. The internet was created as an exchange of information. Adverts do not belong on the net. The Advertisement age of the internet lead to the creation of intrusive models (popups, viri, adware, ect) all designed on the premise of getting money.
And what does it do? It leads to bogging down the net with needless exchanges of packets that most do not want. As a NetOp I know I wouldnt want my bandwidth consumed by this garbage.
Time to take back the net from these money grubbing advertisers.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
"Is there a cure for this?"
Yes: don't visit Yahoo sites.
And this how we supposed to surf!
g */ebay*/ a/gi/*
*/yahoo_search/*
*yahoo_hotjobs/*
*yim
*yimg*swf*
*yimg.com*/adv/*
*yimg.com*
*yimg.com*/i/us/nt/ma/ma_mai*
Not a single AD in Inbox.
Informative, I'd say.
Personally, I don't mind static ads, but I hate animated ones, especially flash.
Your best bet is Google-style text ads. I never block text ads; I can always ignore those. But animations are annoying and hard to ignore, so I filter them out.
And by the way, I hope you have some other business model, in case this one fails.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I've had to install the following.
Adblock Plus
Noscript
Flash Block
To alleviate the problems of enbedded media instead of d/ling
DOM Inspector
I use the KISS to web browsing. If you force the most complex methods of showing me text, post routines or handling access to media. I will automate around it.
If a significant number of sites with ads start checking to see if you've downloaded the ad, then the ad blockers will simply be changed to download the ad but not display it. So they'll lose bandwidth without actually gaining anything (well, they might gain if they're paid per ad displayed, but presumably the rates paid per ad will eventually drop a bit to match).
Answer: Adblock Filterset.G Updater
http://www.pierceive.com/
Adblock blocks the specific ad. It doesn't block the ad location. Look at the URL before you block it next time, and you'll probably see a LOOONG string of seemingly random characters at the end. Delete those and they'll probably go away.
Or just purchase Yahoo! Mail for $20 a year, and never use their webmail service and throw it into a client reader, or even setup up a little website where you run a POP mail reader. I mean $20?
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
Your first mistake is using Yahoo for your web mail. Gmail FTW.
i use the flashblock addon, simple and nice - a good tool that does one job well
AdblockPlus works..
i use the flashblock addon, simple and nice - a good tool that does one job well
more generally, I really don't understand why you need a free email account - don't you get an email from your ISP ? you do need to pay for an isp; I use comcast, it is bundled with the cable, and if you want cable, the extra monthly cost is not that much.
why is it that there are so many of you using these free emails (and, i have to say, anyone who uses a free service and whines is a bit of a schmuck)
I suppose one option would be to implement fine-grained script blocking techniques. Identify the system calls Y! (or any other) codes up (which will change) and block at the script level... or, block scripts from certain hosts. That would potentially render the site unusable (web 2.0 "features").
Greasemonkey comes to mind, too... make Y! think the ad was displayed. Or, figure out what return code they get from Adblock and fake it up. Change the code.
I don't want to seem like a Yahoo fanboy, but.... I just checked the Yahoo homepage, and checked my Yahoo mail account, and there's not a single ad in sight.... I'm using Adblock and Filterset.G updater to automatically block unwanted ads... Perhaps you're just blocking the individual ads instead of the entire host of them? I don't know. I also don't know what you're talking about Re: ads appended to e-mails. Sure, stuff from Yahoo Groups has that, but just regular e-mails? Not in my experience.
It should be noted that I'm using the Yahoo Mail Beta (AJAX interface) and have a Premium Yahoo account (came with Verizon DSL service), so maybe that makes a difference.
Cheers
Mike
I have 2 Yahoo email accounts and I've never had any ads placed in my inbox on either account. On the other hand, all of the boxes on my Yahoo Mail Marketing Preferences Profile remain unchecked. Perhaps this is the reason I don't receive any ads.
I suggest that you go into your Yahoo Mail Marketing Profile and make sure all of the boxes are unchecked. This may solve your inbox ad problem without having to resort to the use of special ad blocking software.
Of course there is such a thing as a free lunch, technically it is known as "YNUWAP", which means "Your Neighbor's Unsecured Wireless Access Point."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The really amazing thing is that we get amazed when a company use "treat your customers with respect" as a business method, and it works.
You downloaded Adblock Plus (which is not the same as Adblock). On the page where you downloaded it, there is a warning; "IMPORTANT: If you experience CRASHES ON YAHOO MAIL, please read http://adblockplus.org/en/npYState for a solution." RTFW ;)
Apples, a healthy alternative to stabbing yourself in the eye.
Hey, cool - they were blocked by referrer for a while. Maybe the new mod_perl bugzilla can handle the load?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)