A lot of people have been emailing us about an issue we are having with one of our ads taking over OSNews. Thank you all for emailing us, the information provided is of good use to us. We are currently working on the problem, and will let you know once it has been fixed. We would like to apologise for the inconvenience. Update by DA: I think that I’ve tracked down the offender. Read more for details Update 2: This time I think we really fixed it.The lowlifes that are perpetrating this abomination, it seems, are somehow embedding the browser hijacking code into ads that are served up through Google’s banner ad program. Most of the Google ads you’ll see on OSNews are text ads, but they also have programs for graphical banner ads and, apparently something called a video ad, which I’ve never looked at.
Since Google’s AdSense ad program isn’t really very customer-service-oriented, I haven’t been able to talk to an actual person about it. Everything is highly automated, which is probably the reason that someone has been able to abuse the system like this. But I was able to ban the ads, URL by URL. But every time I banned one, it seemed that another would appear. The following were reported: Drivecleaner, Driverclean, Errorsafe, Systemdoctor and Winantivirus. After a while, I realized that there was a way that should put an end to the cat and mouse game, and I disabled the Google banner ads altogether. I won’t re-enable it until Google solves the problem. If anyone sees any recurrence of browser hijacking, please let us know.
Update
It seems I may have slandered Google. It seems that it may not have been the Google system that the offending parties had hoodwinked into running these spyware ads. It was another of my ad partners. They spent the weekend running an audit of all of their advertisers, and they think they’ve narrowed it down to one suspect, and the problem ads should now, finally, be gone for good. I’ll reiterate my earlier entreaty to let us know if you see any further instances of pop-ups, takeovers, or attempted spyware installs.
A Note About Advertising
While I’m on the subject, I thought I’d take a moment to address the issue of ads. I read all the comments on this topic with great interest, and appreciated the many kind comments that demonstrate patience with problems like this and appreciation for what we do here.
I also read the comments by people extolling the virtues of Adblocking mechanisms. As I am constantly reminding our advertising partners (who do all the legwork of selling and billing, etc, in exchange for a hefty portion off the top), OSNews readers are sophisticated technologists, and so our ability to serve advertising is dependent on their good graces. If the ads become too intrusive, OSNews readers are capable of fighting back. I consider my role as the main guy in charge of advertising to be the guardian of that trust.
It can actually be a tough balancing act. The reason that you see so many distracting and intrusive forms of advertising online is because the advertisers and their agencies, the ones spending the money, foolishly think that the best way to get their point across is to shove it down your throats. They’re constantly pushing for larger and more intrusive advertising. Consequently, our advertising partners, feeling the pressure, push on me to include these more intrusive ads. And I have to push back.
Long time OSNews readers would be able to recall times when we’ve momentarily succumbed to these pressures, but overall we have learned that the good-will that we lose from our readers is worth more to us than any incremental revenue we might bring in. We don’t accept pop-up, pop-under, page takeovers, text-underlined context link ads, ads that make noises, or things that fly across the screen, and definitely not browser hijacking, spyware installing ads. If you ever see ads like that on OSNews, let us know, and we’ll do something about it.
Since we do outsource the day-to-day handling of the ads, we do have to react to slip-ups when they occur, rather than heading them off beforehand. For that, we’re always sorry when it annoys the readers.
Revenues from our advertising efforts go to our rather substantial monthly dedicated server rental, bandwidth, and system maintenance costs, as well as providing a budget for covering OSNews’ staff expenses, including the occasional new laptop, various important gadgets and other office supplies, and travel to the occasional tradeshow or event, and every once in a while, travel costs of meeting with each other in person. OSNews staff is scattered across the globe. Interesting fact: I’ve been working with Thom Holwerda for a couple years now, and I’ve never met him in person. Hopefully soon, the OSNews advertising money will go toward flying him from The Netherlands to the US for a long-delayed job interview. There are no salaries. If we had to pay a market rate for all the OSNews editors and contributors, there would be no OSNews. We’d each have to make way below minimum wage (and keep using our old computers, because the hardware budget would go bye bye).
So thanks to everyone who doesn’t give us a hard time about the ads. They’re essential to our site’s continued existence. But I take that sacred trust seriously, and I think that those many readers who have emailed over the years to complain about a particular ad or blunder like this week’s can attest that we take those reports seriously and always try to do something about it. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any feedback about our ads or other partnerships like our price comparison search.
And hey, if you like OSNews, and want to support us, and to support the types of advertising that you find useful and not-annoying, click on the ads from advertisers that respect you as a consumer, because that click increases OSNews’ standing in their eyes. All our ads, except the Google ones, are paid per-view, so clicks don’t make us more money, but they do ensure that the advertisers keep renewing, and helps our ad partners see the wisdom in pushing back against intrusive ads.
On the other side, clicking on a Google ad results in per-click revenue for OSNews, so looking for interesting things in the Google ads can certainly keep the servers running at OSNews. Keep in mind, though, that a click on a Google ad also costs that advertiser money, so don’t click on them willy-nilly just to support us. That’s not fair to them.
And if you’re online shopping, using our price comparison search or our Amazon.com link brings us in a little each month too. Bookmark them, and we’ll love you!
To those OSNews readers who use ad blocking: we still love you, and we welcome your contributions to the community. But repent! They’re not so bad, the ads we run. Honest!
To those OSNews readers who use ad blocking and are inveterate trolls incapable of engaging in civil discourse: stop coming to our website!
Thanks,
David Adams
Publisher
There are adverts on OSNews?
Not with firefox adblock and a 100Kb /etc/hosts file.
So when there’s no OSNews because you’ve made it financially un-viable, then where are you going to post your smarmy comment?
Well I also blocked pretty much everything too, not to defeat all adverts but to defeat really bad adverts that JUMP, FLASH, or generally insult my intelligence.
Some of these ads come from companies I actually respect, (Micron, Intel, IBM etc) but their ad managers still feel the need to shout at me or talk at me like I was an idiot.
Now adds that are passive, color bland, but otherwise interesting would likely be left alone but most advertisers feel the need to get in your face, too bad.
If these advertisers could get some sense of feed back for how much pain they can get away with before getting blanked, they might learn to tone it down and not get blocked.
We know that in the future ads are going to become more and more subversive and hidden in nature. I would personally prefer a banner ad, over a group of stealth gorilla advertisers posting in the forums, sneaking in product bias everywhere they can.
Although in the case of the OSNews community, I think we’d be surprised to find that all OSNews users are actually gorilla advertisers unaware that everybody else is too
gorilla = large ape
geurrilla = an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force by sabotage and harassment
lol. Sorry, I keep getting Microsoft & Sony mixed up…
Yes, because the ad revenue lost by one person admitting he’s blocking ads is going to tank the company.
I’m not sure where you went to high school, but I’d head off to the local community college and take some simple economics classes if I were you. Basic arithmetic might also come in handy.
Edit: Yes, I know you were being sarcastic. For the humor-challenged, so am I.
Edited 2007-07-28 16:21
Here’s a question for the OSNews-crew: What percentage of users are blocking adverts?
That would be an interesting statistic. I know that I do, but it’s not directed specifically at OSNews ads; I use all the standard filters for adblock (atdmt etc) which affects pretty much any news site I visit.
Might be easier to ask the users!
I block adverts because:
1, I wouldn’t click them anyway.
2, It wastes my bandwidth.
3, It gives them details about how I use the net.
4, I don’t care about 3,
5, but I do about 2.
Is it right to block? I can’t answer that.
(I had an OSNews subscription for a year or two, so feel no guilt)
This may come as a surprise to you, but once upon a time, folks used to actually pay for their hosting. No slimy ads all over pages or anything. If you wanted a web site you paid to have it, or you put a subdomain on a public server somewhere. If OSnews can’t exist without putting this trash all over their pages then they need to move off to a public server or shut it down. I have three sites that have been up for over 6 years and not one ad anywhere on any of them. That’s right, I wanted a web site so I got a f’ing job and paid for it. I didn’t rely on random ads exploiting my users to keep my sites online.
Err, we pay for our hosting too. Why do you think we need ads in teh first place? To pay for the company Aston Martin each of us has?
The ads are in place to pay for our hosting. Did you really think we would pay this out of our own pockets? Anyway, stuff sometimes goes wrong, even on websites like OSNews and Reddit. We are not gods, you know. At least we’re open and honest about it.
David has just emailed us that the issue is most likely fixed at the moment. If not, please let us know.
How much does OSNews pay for hosting ?
A lot.
Regarding advertisements, I would also prefer text-based or jpeg/gif non-animated non-javascript ads. But that wouldn’t fly with the advertisers.
OSNews and the associated websites (like gnomefiles, osgalaxy, and many more) use multiple dedicated servers in a dual homed data center. That’s not exactly a $9.99/mo hosting package.
Right, because Eugenia and Thom not only have to work for free, but they have to pay for bandwith out of their own pockets. A site like OS News wouldn’t last 5 minutes on a free host without exceeding bandwith limits. Moreover, if your sites had the hits that OS News gets, you’d be getting ads too, or charging for subscriptions.
As far as ads are concerned, I use adblock but don’t actually use Filterset.g or other lists like that that pretty much block everything remotely resembling an ad. I “train” my filter over time so that the most annoying stuff gets killed, but more benign, nonintrusive ads remain. It works pretty well. Browsing on Linux also helps with Trojans and stuff.
Right, because Eugenia and Thom not only have to work for free, but they have to pay for bandwith out of their own pockets.
David Adams himself implies bandwidth & server costs are taken care of by the revenue and even that part of the revenue is put aside for other things related to OSNews:
“Revenues from our advertising efforts go to our rather substantial monthly dedicated server rental, bandwidth, and system maintenance costs, as well as providing a budget for covering OSNews’ staff expenses, including the occasional new laptop, various important gadgets and other office supplies, and travel to the occasional tradeshow or event, and every once in a while, travel costs of meeting with each other in person.”
Ofcourse it is possible the teams still pay for OSNews’ bandwidth out of their own pockets, but unless they come forward stating so, I see little evidence to support your claim.
If I’m not clicking on the comments anyway, I guess it’s just a waste of real espace.
That said, I don’t make use of such ad-blocking sw, ads don’t bother me this much… unless they take over the whole website, of course!
If you want to dedicate your life fighting the add. Just so you can save what…
Time? Not really when ever a new add breaks threw your blocker you have to tell it to block that add. normally the adds (5 years ago adds usually hindered the loading of pages because they usually were bogged down severely) take 1/100 second to load it will take you probably on the average of 10 seconds to properly block that add perhaps 30 if you need to add it to your host file…. So in that time you blocked the add it would take about 1000-3000 adds from that one source to justify blocking the adds.
Inconvenience? On respected sites the worse they usually get is a title add, one add in the story and perhaps an add or 2 in the side bar. Granted that is a lot of adds but it is no means a hinderance (perhaps a mild irritation) from reading the information.
What really really need more then an add blocker but some way to determine the trust of an add. Just seeing an add on the internet doesn’t do it for most people because they don’t know if they could trust it…. If you have a real product at a good rate and you are trying to sell it on the internet it will only work if you have some good word of mouth advertising. Or you need to have an already well known name brand, for online advertising to work. So if we could find a way to have an online registry of the different companies adds and block or accept the ones that are from reputable companies with good marks that won’t end up spamming you scamming you or just sell a POS product that hardly does what it says (Well at lest that will block the Vista Adds!).
I am sure my way will have a lot less of a fight back then just the add blockers because most of the adds are from somewhat reputable companies (at least the big ones) the Add providing companies would probably be happier because and work with the software because they want to be trusted and get more revenue. The ones who will loose out are the jerks who are abusing the capitalistic system and trying to scam the public and make a buck no matter how.
“ad”-vertisement
Just so you can save what… Time? Inconvenience?
Many web sites (in general, not OSNews in particular) have GIF and FLASH advertisements that are constantly moving. Their goal is to get your attention–and they do.
The problem is that this motion is extremely annoying. I would rather breath cigarette smoke. We go to the web site to read the article and we are greeted with “Look at me!”, “Look at me!” off to the side.
As for time, some websites have intellitxt or kontera ads, which place double underlines under random words. The problem with these is that you have a double delay in loading the page, and the second delay is independent of your ISP’s pipe speed.
But on the bright side, OSNews is very kind to put a PriceGrabber panel of to the left side. I think that’s supposed to be an ad, but it’s awfully convenient, so I usually go there first when I want to buy something.
Intellitxt/kontera? My day was going quite well until you gave me indigestion with the mere mention of those two, thanks a lot!
I absolutely HATE Kontera and Intellitext with every ounce of my soul, because they have turned “getting in the way” into an artform. I’d almost rather deal with the annoying flash ads in the sidebar of the web page.
Edited 2007-07-29 02:36
Intellitxt and kontera are no longer any problem for me:
http://jackson.io/forums.html#double
“Time? Not really when ever a new add breaks threw your blocker you have to tell it to block that add.”
Nope:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1136
Just tell it to download in the background and never think about ads again. It really makes it alot easier to read websites without “hit the monkey” banners surrounding everything.
Personally, I didn’t start blocking ads until I started running into web sites with 2-3 popups per page, ads that jumped/flashed/made noise, and ads that covered the actual content itself. I’m sorry, but many people simply won’t stand for that sh*t, myself included.
In cases where the Adds are viral or annoying with sounds and popups is understandable. But some people will go on a quest to remove all adds from the websites they visit just so they can feel “Pure” from commercial influence. OS News is really good at stopping those type of adds from infesting its site. I remember I had a sound add in OSNews that played automatically and I complained about it and I have never heard of one again.
Ad blocking *does* save time, I think I established my set of AdBlock rules over a week as i browsed. Hell about 15 rules will wipe out 90% of ads. The hit count on */ads/* is over 20,000 here. and */adserver/* has about 10,000.
No if you want to get my attention then be creative with your ad uri’s. TV ads have to try and beckon attention in various ways. These guys aren’t even trying.
Heheh… I don’t know what you’re talking about.
…or if you bother to subscribe like some of us have.
I use adblock, *and* I subscribe.
I don’t agree with Eugenia on many of her viewpoints, but I support what OSNews does as a website. This is one of very few websites that I visit every single day.
The amount they’re asking for support is less than some people spend on dinner for *one* person in a single night!
The staff doesn’t make money from this website; what little revenue they get basically helps them break even on the cost of running it.
Edited 2007-07-29 00:19 UTC
Really? A 100 Kelvinbit /etc/hosts file? What’s a Kelvinbit? Jesus; proper capitalization is not that hard. Quick recap at a high school level:
K = kelvin
k = kilo
B = byte
b = bit
M = mega
m = milli
s = second
S = siemens
[/rant]
Wow… I’m not the person who typed that 100 “Kb” hosts file, but seriously… is the only thing you can do, checking capitalization? 😐
Seriously, that kind of “correction” is just disgusting. And I thought my teachers were bad, who were above me and yet had no idea WTF a kilobyte or megabyte was. 😐
Edited 2007-07-29 10:25
proper captalication off units is just as important as proper Grammar, Speling, and Punctation if you don’t do it properly you’re point gets lost and nobody noes what your tryin to say
knows…nobody knows.
If you’re going to correct someone, make sure you don’t screw up like they might have.
Trying to lecture someone while using “you’re” when you mean “your”.
Very ugly…
Y’know, 100Kelvinbit sounds way cooler..
just turned off adblock – osnews has ads! Never knew….
ads? fvck your ads, why should I enable adverts when I’m vulnerable to script injection? Adblocker stays on!
I dont actually ever click ads when I see them out of principal so you’d not make any money from me. I believe that if a product is worth using you shouldn’t need to spend that much on advertising for people to hear about it and when I want to buy something I go do a little reading.
The argument about OSnews going away, maybe that’s a good thing? no offence to OSnews, but the internet has went seriously down hill in the last 10 years spurred by venture capitalists thinking they can turn what was fertile educational roots into another television.
The majority of sites, before they are bought out are worked on by people who care, who actually like doing what they are doing because of that and not because they can make a quick buck. Once we run out of decent free as in beer websites THEN we can talk about a subscription model. With that in mind, I’m going to maybe donate some money to OSnews for the times I’ve surfed their site but in general I hope that advert based websites die a very quick painful death.
Just for the information, the same problem appeared on reddit.com recently.
Just for the information, the same problem appeared on reddit.com recently.
The problem might come from… Google. We can’t really tell for sure though, but it would explain the same problem occuring on Reddit, a website completely unrelated to ours. Ads is mostly David’s business, and he’s working on it best he can
.
Problem is Google or some other company who provides ads. This same problem happened also in local newspaper site (hijacked Firefox window and showed Drivecleaner ad). Really pisses me off that Google, or whatever the ad company is, doesn’t seem to have any control checks on stuff they put up. I have nothing against using ads in site but atleast they should make sure they aren’t spreading viruses, worms or hijackers.
Last week i was confronted 2 times with the main page of a piece of software junk called Errorsafe when trying to browse OSNews, I as starting to think how my machine could have been compromised this way…
after quick googling, it appears that this software is considered malware by at least one AV editor, mainly :
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2006-01…
If Errorsafe is/was an official OSNews advertiser, then it’s about time for a review of the ads policy…but if you tell that problem could be related to Google, then there’s a security risk of quite another scale…
Edited 2007-07-28 12:12
The “Job Database” or the responsibles thereof also seems to have a problem.
It’s… empty. Might as well delete it imo.
I don’t understand what’s happening or what platform it’s happening on.
If an ad is taking over OSNews, does that mean it expands to fill a large size? Or replacing content?
Is if using Flash? ActiveX? Ajax?
Does it ever happen in a Firefox browser? Ever on Linux?
Yes, this nasty ad shows up on Firefox/Linux, too.
The main browser window minimizes and a dialog pops up (Ok/Cancel). After clicking any button a page opens in the OSNews tab. After leaving this page (entering osnews.com in address line) another dialog pops up – only after confirming that you can go to the real osnews page.
Edited 2007-07-28 12:37
It doesn’t happen on Konqueror, but I do get an annoying popup asking me if I want to open some bogus text file. Digg does the same crap, I have to constantly hit cancel so these scum bags don’t get my share of hits.
That is the way I think it should be done, The company listen to its users. and fixes the problem dealing with the add agency to make sure the sites experience is optimal for maximum profit and maximum usefulness.
I don’t know for the other readers, but I really HATE it when I can’t read an article because there is an ad trying to get all my attention by whizz and banging. Honestly, I wouldn’t have AdBlock installed if all the ads where served as simple text.
Ditto. I have no problem with advertising except when it gets in my face, then I feel more than inclined and entitled to block it–if the advertising is in-your-face, I’m not going to click it on it regardless.
Sadly, that’s the case with some of the advertising programs OSNews uses, so their most of ads are automatically in my hosts file. It’s not an OSNews problem; it’s a problem with their advertisers promiscuously accepting bad ads. If they’d clean up their act, I’d gladly remove them from my hosts file.
I still see the HiMobile and Pure Mobile ‘verts on the left side, but they don’t bother me at all. They’re unobtrusive, have a small filesize, and aren’t Flash. I’d actually be inclined to click on those if they struck my fancy.
OSNews isn’t bad on the ads and its owners have apologized.
I’ve seen some sites which are crippled and totally useless.
Personally, I like `mild` product placement. Not the reach out and grab you by the cojones and screw your computer system type.
I boil this down to piss-poor-planning on the content/ad ratio. Some dip-slip admins forget there is a tolerance level in their audience for sheer and utter stupidity by marketers.
Edited 2007-07-28 14:32
Modern business is based on contempt for customers. Name me an example where that isn’t the case?
Firefox AdBlock is a godsend for sites like OSNews that show Microsoft’s “highly reliable times” and other kinds of ads.
this is the complete url to this annoying ad:
http: //www.drivecleaner.com/.freeware/?p=22&ax=1&ex=1&ed=2&aid=which95k&lid =intl&affid=&aid=which95k&mpt=%5BCACHEBUSTER%5D&aid=which95k_r dt
Edited 2007-07-28 16:03
Note from OSNews Staff: This link attempts to install a spyware executable on your PC. We highly recommend you do not visit it if you are running Windows.
“Netscape (Machintosh) detects a possible vulnerability that may send your private information using the integrated Windows Mail client.”
LOL
Hehh, I don’t think I want to know anything about a site which has “drivecleaner” in its name
Anyway, the address was already in my adblock, which means sometime in the past I’ve already run into them…
i went to that site and it reported 456 cookies
i didn’t know it could read my cookies.txt file that is linked to /dev/null
LOL
Interesting! Safari in Private Mode detects 456 for me too!
Seriously, what does it take to get a post deleted? I can understand leaving the many troll-posts and allowing the community to knock them down with mod points, but when a post has a link to a malicious site, doesn’t that warrant special consideration? By leaving it standing, aren’t you helping google direct users there?
I can appreciate the integrity of not moderating posts on subjective consideration, but isn’t there a line that could be drawn?
Malicious site ? Check the domain name in the url: this was not trolling.
It’s one of the actual pages you would end up on instead of OSNews because of the “problem”. The link was just kindly disabled with a warning…
I believe the ad could have been run by Pointroll or DART Motif. Their ads don’t check for Linux (which expandable Flash ads don’t run on). My employer should show static gifs instead on Firefox/Linux.
i dont like the diversions these ads make, i rather just see the content
Microsoft. It’s people ready.
1. Ads are payed per 1000 impressions, not per click
2. Decent providers don’t load the ads until after the page is fully loaded
(We call it polite download)
3. Most providers do not leave cookies, at least not the one I work for
4. Yes, we (EyeWonder http://www.eyewonder.com ) use JavaScript to serve our ads (which are based in Flash), this is so that we only serve the ad if your computer can handle it.
5. Most providers serve only what your bandwidth can handle, and only after the page content is fully loaded (window.onload ftw!)
6. No EyeWonder-served ad can use more than 10-15% of the CPU when not interacting with the ad, or be larger than 40 KB when served. This is mandated by most websites, as well as our internal Quality Assurance team who ensures that the ad doesn’t annoy or harm the end-user experience.
7. If you have any questions/concerns about specific EyeWonder-served ads, you can email me directly at [email protected], and I’ll forward it to the appropriate person.
8. BTW, blocking ads is really bad. Even then, the rich media vendor’s don’t serve their ads off */ad/* anymore, so ya.
2. Decent providers don’t load the ads until after the page is fully loaded
(We call it polite download)
Unfortunately, most providers are not decent and this is exactly why I installed Adblock two months ago. The ads never bothered me.* I simply got tired of staring at a blank page while my browser was “Waiting for adserver.whatever.com…”
*) With the exception of that buzzing mosquito flash ad
Here’s some decent providers:
1. EyeWonder
2. EyeBlaster (most ads at least)
Here’s some so-so providers (at least if you’re not running Linux or if the ad isn’t an expanding banner):
3. Pointroll
4. DART Motif (formally known as Klipmart, now a subsidiary of DoubleClick)
5. Atlas Rich Media (part of Aquantive)
“8. BTW, blocking ads is really bad. Even then, the rich media vendor’s don’t serve their ads off */ad/* anymore, so ya.”
My computer, my decision, my rules.
Is it ok to change channels on the TV when the commercials come on? Is it ok to go the bathrooom at that time?
10-15% of the CPU when not interacting?! That’s outrageous. Even 1-2% is too much for me. 10% warrants an immediate ad block.
Boots up Firefox – huh, what do you know… What I get for using Opera with an adblocking user.css I guess. (or don’t get as the case may be)
Edited 2007-07-29 01:55
I really hate that mentality. Ads are your form of payment for this and other websites and services. Its what makes it so they can afford to pay their employees, pay for the servers, and a big part of what makes the world go round without you having to pay for each site individually. While some people may be willing to pay $10/month out of their own pocket for owning a website, many others are running a website and don’t want to have to pay for it themselves, for understandable reasons (it can get expensive).
Is it better for this site to be around with ads, or not to be around at all? People like you who block ads has already hurt a lot of OTHER people. I remember the days when there were free ISPs that would give you dialup service, no charge, in exchange for some real estate space on your screen. They ended because people decided “its my screen” and my free ISP can’t tell me what I need on my screen while I’m using the internet. Of course, the free ISPs could have stayed around and paid for the service out of their own pockets, but they obviously decided not to, and now if you temporarily need dialup service, you’re out of luck.
Now you all are helping to kill more websites that are offering free services and information. Instead of using adblock, why not just avoid visiting sites that have a free, advertising supported revenue stream and restrict yourselves to websites that don’t display advertisements. You can still visit OSNews without ads by subscribing, and if you don’t think its worth the price of A) your screen real estate, bandwidth, and other related costs of displaying the ad, or B) the cost of the subscription OSNews offers, then you ultimately are stealing the website’s content, and you should just stop, and go somewhere else without advertisements for your information (don’t ask me where, not that many people maintain a site like this at their own cost and time).
So when a website serves up ads that make my browser slow down or otherwise annoy the living fornication out of me, aren’t they “charging” me more for viewing the site than other advertisers? How is that fair, or right?
Others might see a different non-annoying ad while I’m subjected to the annoyware version, so we are effictively “paying” different “prices” to view the same content.
If sites need to resort to pissing their users off in order to satiate their advertisers then the pendulum has already swung too far in the direction of the advertisers and website owners who recieve kickbacks for subjecting us to annoying drivvel surrounded by mock window facades and flashing backgrounds.
Yes, some websites charge more then others. Just like when you purchase an iPod with 40GB its likely to be cheaper then one that has 80GB. They clearly think their site is more valuable, and you don’t have to pay the higher price (more CPU time, space, annoyance), just don’t buy their product (visit their website) anymore, at least until they cut costs (make advertisements less annoying).
No I’m not talking about different prices for different content, but random prices for the same content. (where two visitors to the same page end up getting “charged” differently).
That is obviously, and blatantly unfair. It also divides users roughly along class boundaries, where richer people have larger higher resolution screens, faster computers and internet connections so are penalized less for the same content. Also obviously, and blatantly unfair.
This is not a case of “if it costs too much, don’t buy it”, it’s a case of “sometimes when you buy this thing, you’ll open the box and find an elephant inside that you have to look after, feed and house”
You don’t always see the same advertisement when you visit OSnews, sometimes you get served a gif and sometimes you get served flash, which means waiting not only for the content to load, but also for another program which runs inside your browser to start up and run a highly intensive script.
If you’re on a slow computer with a slow connection then the flash content is going to “cost” an arm and a leg. There are still a hell of a lot more people in the world who are lucky to have even a dialup connection let alone a fast computer to render flash ads on.
I’m not saying that the entire world should cater to the lowest common denominator, just that maybe we should cut people a little slack when we hear that they use something like adblock plus, it’s not a black and white issue.
I suspect that most of those who say we should never ever use ad blockers are those on the faster side of the digital divide (like me). and most of those with more charitable attitudes toward ad blockers are on the slow side.
My laptop is over 5 years with a pentium 3 in it, my desktop has an early pentium 4 in it. Any computer that is under 5 yaers old should be able to view the ads without any significant slowdown. There are some sites that go crazy with it, so I just don’t visit them. I don’t feel I’m missing out, as I don’t think any of their sites are worth all of the ads.
And yes, there obviously is going to be a different experience for everyone with ads, since they pay per view. That doesn’t make it less fair. I know on TV, I get different ads then people leaving a few blocks away from me, and I think the set that I get tends to be more annoying. I understand that is part of the price to pay for TV.
I only think the line is crossed is when they are trying to be deceptive about where the ad is coming from, the biggest example of that being pop ups and unders, those are purposely designed so you won’t know which site gave them to you, but we’re talking about ads that are integrated into the site, clear ads that are served with the content. I run a pretty large website myself, and it helps a lot of people out finding what they need, but its difficult to afford a server that is the correct size to handle the needs because my site has a very large percentage of users adblocking, and no, I have no interest in spending $150/month or more of my own month to help people out when I’m already dedicating plenty of my own time already. Because of all of the adblockers, everyone has to have a slower website, so in the case of my own website, the adblockers didn’t speed up the experience anyways as it prevented the correct power server from being purchased.
Exactly what methodology are you using to check your users are using ad blockers? How do you know your advertising partner is being honest with you?
Have you considered that you have too many advertisements (seems likely since you’re complaining that a large proportion of users are using ad blocking software on your site – which is not something I can recall anyone reputable site or any of my hosting customers complaining about).
I think it’s at least equally likely from what you’ve said that you’re encouraging your users to use adblocking software on your site, by plastering it with so many ads that the content is compromised. Meanwhile those who don’t or won’t run ad blockers just left in disgust, leaving you with an apparently high proportion of users with ad-blocking software.
No, I have few ads, no more then two per page and they are gif/jpgs/pngs, no heavy flashing or flash. Its a rather tech oriented site and most of the users use Firefox (over 70%), and I serve the ads myself, so I doubt I’m getting screwed, its just the default filter filters out my ads… The problem has gotten so bad that I’m planning to move it over to a different subdomain that doesn’t contain “ads” in it so less of the default filters will block it.
I think I see the problem now. Since Firefox doesn’t have any kind of “default filter that filters out…ads” or any other kind of ad-blocking built in, your ads must be being blocked by Firefox’s popup-blocker.
I very seriously doubt that 100% of Firefox users are using ad-blocking software and 0% of IE users are, which is what you seem to be implying.
As for not serving ads of a server that doesn’t contain “ads” in it… Champion idea. I support your right to subvert ad blockers just as much I support the use of them.
What I was trying to say is that it’s not a black and white issue, I have adblock plus installed, but I use it as an annoyance remover rather than as a matter of course.
I doubt OSnews has ever lost any money because of me, since I’ve never blocked any ads from this site, or had cause to call on my other trusty friends greasemonkey, noscript, or flashblock either. It’s nice to know that they’re there to filter crap out if it’s obscuring the text on the page or being annoying.
The last time I used adblock, it was to block a legitimate image served up by nytimes.com because the text flowed underneath the image.
Yes, some websites charge more then others. Just like when you purchase an iPod with 40GB its likely to be cheaper then one that has 80GB. They clearly think their site is more valuable, and you don’t have to pay the higher price (more CPU time, space, annoyance), just don’t buy their product (visit their website) anymore, at least until they cut costs (make advertisements less annoying).
I used to sit through the ads. I didn’t like it, but they were there, and they at least didn’t bother me that bad. Sometimes, if something interested me, there might have been a chance that I’d click it (although rarely). That was years ago. Just plain, simple, gif picture ads. Thank advertisers for not only merely trying to “get our attention,” but now also:
-Annoying me with Flash ads that take up a ridiculous amount of processor cycles, literally slowing the computer down at times.
-As if those Flash ads weren’t bad enough, there are ones with sound. These ones literally drive me up the wall… or should I say, did. Nothing like sitting at the computer at night, tired, peace and quiet… and all the sudden… instant headache as you scramble for that volume knob. Or all the times I just want my computer to STFU and play my music, and more crap starts playing. Sorry, but this is my computer–and if these ads start annoying me even past the web pages they were intending to fund (er, distract you from), they’ve gotta go. And they did.
-Pop-ups, pop-unders, floating ads, etc. Thankfully the pop ads have been done for in most major browsers for years, and thank noscript for getting rid of those wretched ads that follow you as you scroll down the page. And those ones that appear when you highlight certain words in articles, only to pop up some crap that in reality is 100% pointless. Both of these also usually guzzle lots of pointless CPU cycles.
-Commercials. Literally, commercials. From the site that really pushed me over the edge into using Adblock in the first place years ago, IGN, who has every obnoxious ad in the book… now they’re starting to put ****ing commercials up that you have to sit through and watch/listen, before watching one of their videos. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way around these yet, so I just refuse to watch them at all. Plus, I try to shun the IGN sites whenever possible in general now.
Sorry, I used to play fair. Advertisers have pushed me too far, and continually come up with even worse methods to piss me off instead of fairly try to sell me something. Unless they start coming up with *less* obtrusive methods instead of *more*, I will continue to block all their ****. I don’t see that happening any time soon… as long as there’s money to be made, they’ll only get worse. Just look at TV (which I also refuse to watch) and DVDs (which I don’t buy if you can’t skip the trailers at the beginning).
Also–if I had the choice between cheap 8-15 dollar 56k Internet access years ago, and ad-supported free access… there’s no way in hell I’d settle for the free ad-paid version. I’d pay up before I allow my ISP to install ad-showing crap on my system just to browse the Internet. Fortunately , 56k is dead now, unless you happen to live in an extremely rural location or a country that’s technologically behind.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way around these yet, so I just refuse to watch them at all. Plus, I try to shun the IGN sites whenever possible in general now.
Yes, when a website is displaying so many ads that viewing it becomes too much of a pain, stop viewing it. If enough people stop viewing it, the website is likely to rethink the position of displaying this type of ads, as very intrusive ads that no one views make a lot less money then non-intrusive ads that tons of people view. I encourage everyone to stop visiting websites that display insane, extremely annoying ads, as I do so myself. If they take a hard enough hit, its not going to pay for them to continue showing the ads. That is the whole point.
>> I really hate that mentality. Ads are your form of
>> payment for this and other websites and services.
You know, I’d love to be young, dumb, naive and willing to trust online advertisers, I really would.
Unfortunately I don’t trust the average click-through advertising link-whore as far as I can throw them – I am SHOCKED this is the first time an advertiser has been a ‘problem’ for OSNews all things considered given what total sleazeball piles of filth RUN these online advertising firms.
To me, a good ad block is as important a part of my computer as a antivirus, antispy, or making sure that Java is NOWHERE NEAR my machine. (I don’t trust that pile of crap either – probably because my machine has been raped by rogue java crapplets TWICE now… Never again). It is as important as disabling “raise/lower windows, change status bar, set window position” and all the other CRAP they let javascript to that it should NEVER have been allowed access to…
Adblocking has reached the point of being a necessity for ANYONE who needs their Windows based computer to work 24/7 and cannot make the jump to so called ‘safer’ operating systems due to the lack of basic functionality involved in actually getting work done or hardware incompatability sending you back on functionality to 1992.
If these sleazeball advertisers want to blame anyone, they should be looking in the mirror, not at the users who are smart enough to block their crap.
Edited 2007-07-29 06:38
I really hate that mentality. Ads are your form of payment for this and other websites and services.
Unfortunately, ads are something else, a security threat. Any Web site a person visits can be potentially dangerous. If the site isn’t malicious, there is also the possibility of someone taking elements of it over, the better to capture at least some of the site’s readers.
The risk increases when you add third party content, as each third party offers something to commandeer. Images can have Javascript in the tags that call them. The images themselves can be used to trigger buffer overflows. Many ads are loaded via Javascripts from third party servers. Flash adds and cookies offer significant privacy concerns. Flash also has had some major security issues on all platforms.
Microsoft frequently responds to a security issue in Internet Explorer by suggesting we visit only “trusted sites.” Unfortunately, as OSNews has learned the hard way, any Web site that makes use of third party content cannot be considered trusted.
The OSNews staff may already have asked the question: Does the revenue they receive from advertising offset the risk of multiple visitors suing them for infecting their machine? The continued presence of ads from Doubleclick indicates at least a tentative “yes” for now, but if the staff isn’t nervous, they should be.
For the users, it’s a question of minimizing risk. At the very least one should browse with third party Javascripts blocked. Unfortunately, Firefox with Noscript is the only way I know to do this gracefully. I use the Adblock Plus extension with element hider, and Flashblock. I also throw in a huge hosts file for good measure. I subscribe to updatable block lists.
No, OSNews’ ads aren’t all that annoying, but I don’t block ads because they annoy me. I block because they are a security risk. Browsing is a potentially dangerous activity, and the safety and security of my data comes first.
Is it better for this site to be around with ads, or not to be around at all?
I hope there there are other alternatives. I’m not sure what they might be, but having enough other people expose their computers to potential attack so I can view OSNews content isn’t very satisfying.
I keep my browser up to date, and I never have had ANY security issues. If your current browser has security problems, use another one. I’m not saying click yes to the security dialogs for viewing an ad, and if necessary, increase your security level in the browser. If an ad needs more privileges, you have every right to say no.
Cry me a river. Too bad for advertisers, they poisoned the well with spyware, viruses, popups, etc. long ago. Hey, I don’t mind the ads that come up in-frame and don’t take a noticeable amount of time to load. But any ads that take a while to come up, I block the whole domain of the ad source, that way they don’t slow me down in the future no matter what sites I go to. So if they can keep their servers fast, they don’t get blocked.
All I ever see is a banner at the top and one to the left which never gets in my way. Is this browser based? I use IE7 on Vista or FF on Linux
I do have adblock installed, but not because of your site. Your ads were never really that intrusive. It’s the 90% from other webpages around the net that really cause problems.
Okay, I’ll give it a shot. I’ll disable adblock on osnews. I will do this because I visit nearly every day, and find value in the site. As others have said, osnews’ ad content was never that annoying to me compared to many other sites out there.
But if I experience something like that described in this piece, it will be going back on again, and I can’t promise I will be conscientious enough to write an email and complain first. IMHO, webmasters who choose to prop their costs up with ad revenue (which I totally support in principle) should treat the respectability of their ad-partners just like any other QA factor such as valid HTML/CSS and accessibility. If it’s broke, you should know it’s broke. Don’t you look at your own site?
Then you turn the responsibility back on the ad partners: if their content damages your site’s good name, you and anyone who listens to your word-of-mouth will not touch them again. Television and print advertisers are held to account by legislation and public regulators (in the UK at least); until this can be said of Internet advertising, the webmasters need to do that job to some extent.
A code of conduct regarding content and technical methods, which could be invoked in all contracts between webmasters and ad partners, would be a step in the right direction.
Sunday afternoon, Firefox on Mac, just checking for news on OSNews.com, no AdBlock installed (yet!), and I was immediately greeted with a nice warning… Well, you know what I’m talking about. I was under the impression that the problem was solved?
But anyway, what should I do? I like to occasionally read OSNews. OSNews needs the money the ads bring. If everybody blocks the ads, then OSNews will have a problem.
But 20$ for a membership, for me that’s just a bit steep for something I don’t really need. And I don’t want another membership I have to remember and think about.
Can’t I make a small donation to OSNews? No strings attached, just to show I like this site?
One free solution to show support, without need for donations, is mentioned in the article too:
“And if you’re online shopping, using our price comparison search http://osnews.pricegrabber.com/ or our Amazon.com link http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=osnews-20 brings us in a little each month too. Bookmark them, and we’ll love you!“
Advertisers need to learn how to adapt, especially if its target, as David Adams said, is “sophisticated technologists”.
In Santa Fe, signs, billboards, and other marketing shingles are regulated so it does not take away from the beauty of the surrounding environment.
I’m sure there are cities and sites around the globe which do the same. Last time I checked there are no golden arches above the la Tour Eiffel or la Basilique du Sacré-Cœur.
Marketers and ad people will, pardon my use of words, *%@#!, moan and complain about it. They have learned the community is behind it and their objections fall on deaf ears.
Edited 2007-07-29 14:48
Adblock and NoScript go long way to protect you from the scum on the internet.
“Max takes care of things… All kinds of things…”
Hi,
it is 29th July 20:19 CET. I just had the drivecleaner ad again, when I opened OSNews. This time the ad did not open in an extra tab, as it did before, but in the same window, so I had to click the Back button to return to OSNews.
I’m using Safari
Anton
Thanks Anton, noted.
The only problem I have with OSNews’ website is that the default font is way too tiny for my failing eyesight.
The most annoying ad servers are ads.doubleclick.net and tribalfusion, with tribalfusion being by far the worst. In fact, the reason I started blocking those is because they were causing OSNews to use 15+% CPU time on a 3GHz Pentium4 just so they could hover over the text that I’m trying to read. I don’t block any others, just those, and I do sometimes click on the other ads, but doubleclick and tribalfusion are both permanently blocked due to annoying monkey syndrome.
Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful comments on this post, and to all the people who reported seeing the offending ads. Sorry for the false alarm, but I’m hopeful that we’ve really taken care of it now. Please let me know if you see anything objectionable, whether it’s these same guys or something else in the future.