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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?
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.
Let me try to help you understand. First, consider that not everybody blocks ads. If you run a site that depends on
ad revenue, you will have some people downloading and viewing your ads, but you must accept that not everyone will.
Some of us really dislike ads, and some of us even believe that the web is a one-to-many publishing medium that exists
for people to express themselves with, not for people to try to make a go of business ventures that are so pathetic that
the only way they can survive is if everybody that visits their site views their ads.
Second, the way that some sites display ads is simply unacceptable. When I point my web browser at www.domain.com,
I am expressly downloading content from www.domain.com, and from nowhere else. If that site attempts to trick my
browser into requesting files from any other domain, it is pissing in the wind. I guarantee this behaviour with
any browser I use via a custom proxy, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Keep that in mind if you want to
embed ads in your pages. You had better plan on managing those ads yourself, because some people's browsers are
not going to fetch them from anywhere else.
Finally, you need to come to grips with the fact that some people believe that the web would instantly become a
better place if all sites that depended on ad revenue vanished. Granted, a lot of useful and popular sites would
disappear, but I assure you that equally useful sites would fill their places. There were excellent free search
engines before google, and there would be again.
If you cannot survive with web surfers exercising their ability and right to control what HTTP requests they do and
do not make, then kindly release your domain name as you die.