Reluctantly I've now started to use Adblock+ on this site
 

I did try to hold out because I know that sites like this need to make their money somehow, and hosting advertisements is a way of making more valuable content available gratis. But during the last couple of weeks, a new species of ad has appeared up which is absolutely unacceptable to me. These ads, instead of populating the edges of the screen, pop up over the text you are trying to read, and they have no button by which they can be closed.

I come here to read the posts, not to read ads instead.

As Jeremy said here: logged in members with a few posts will never see ads. Now. Instead of just spilling your grievances could you perhaps be constructive and help Jeremy out with technical details? Since our ESP is way low only detailed technical information can help him decide if and what action to take. Thanks in advance.

I am continually intrigued by threads like this. When logged in I cannot recall ever seeing any ads - kudos to jeremy (and crew).

hazel, as mentioned you should never see ads when not logged in. Even when not logged in, there should never be an ad that you can't close (or that automatically opens, for that matter). Are you seeing ads while logged in? Can you send me a screenshot of the ad you aren't able to close? That will help track down the advertiser, so we can block them in the future. Thanks.

--jeremy

No, logging in removes them. But I often drop in just in passing, to see if there are any interesting new posts. Then I expect to see ads; as I said above, I don't object to that in principle. I object to the intrusiveness of these particular ads and the fact that I can't remove them to see the text hidden underneath.

I'll try and get you a screenshot next time I see one. Actually it isn't just this site. Just this morning I saw a similar unclosable advertisement on the LFS site, covering up the navigation panel, which made the whole site pretty useless. It's obviously some kind of new technology.

Do you (and Sundialsvcs, who has also complained about this) choose not to stay logged in between posts? I let the forum remember that I'm logged in, and I never log out.

You can do that? In Linux Forums, you got logged out automatically if you hadn't entered anything for a certain length of time. Besides, doesn't it mess up the site's statistics?

If you check the "Remember Me" box and allow cookies, you will be automatically logged in each time you visit LQ. It does not impact statistics in any way.

--jeremy

I've never had the attitude that I should "allow" ads for the benefit of freedom.

Yes, I skip commercials and block ads. I don't even look at billboards, except when Pedro says that I need to stop at South of the Border!

And ... what Jeremy said above. There are ways to allow the LQ site to have cookies and remember you. I have zero problems with ads, I really don't see them on LQ.

i have adblock+ set to DISABLED on this site and see NO ,zero ( 0 ) adds even when NOT loged in
now i also have "no-script" installed on seamonkey and "Privacy badger" on Firefox

hazel

one thing to look at is YOUR ISP and if they are injecting advertising ( they can and will do that )

please post screenshots of the advertising YOU see

I usually do a lot at home to dump ad's and all sorts of un-need stuff when on web. I generally have to undo restrictions to get it working. If I have to undo too much I just move on to different site.

Oops! It's started again. This time I got a screenshot. It's for a gambling site, and I vaguely remember that some of the earlier ads I saw were for gambling sites too. Maybe the same one. Well, you don't expect much social responsibility from people like that, do you!

People go places without script and add blocking(, :scratch: how about a firewall or maybe uninstalling preinstalled security features? Sarcasm, you got me! :p)

Thanks for the screenshot. I'll look into it further, but that is not an ad that should originate from LQ.

--jeremy

Hazel, is it possible that you have browser malware? A bad Firefox extension, for example?

I don't have any extensions except adblock and noscript. Both of them came from the Mozilla site.

Can you confirm that all 4 tabs under "Add-ons" contain nothing but what they should? I just checked: only one of those tabs is "Extensions".

There's also the "Plugins" to check... &c.

I thought I'd posted an answer to this but it doesn't seem to be here.

I have three systems on this machine. At the moment I'm in Iceweasel on Debian. Here I have the djView plugin, which I need for genealogical research. It's set to activate on request only. There is also a plugin called OpenH264 which Mozilla installs automatically. This is deactivated.

I'll check with Firefox on Crux tomorrow.

On Crux I have no add-ons at all except that Mozilla one, which I have now deactivated. Similarly in LFS.

it really looks like some sort of malware.
does it have to come from a firefox addon?
i even heard from linux users whose routers were somehow infected, constantly displaying pop-ups.

Hazel, you definitely have malware. I just whitelisted LQ in my adblocker (I use uBlock Origin), logged out, and refreshed a few times.

The result? No popups. All the ads stayed in the areas designed for them.