Be Excellent To Each Other

I just dropped by one of my favourite websites, imdb.com and was confronted with something that looked familiar, but resized my browser, froze and loaded 2 (count 'em) full screen adverts.

Oh despair! They have 'got' imdb

No ads for me on IMDB.

no UPS 'widget'?

Nuffink. Maybe you have a virus.

For some reason, news.bbc.co.uk thinks I'm outside the UK when I access it from home, which means I get a facefull of flashy scrolling adverts which take ages to load and delaying the page updates. Still, it remains better than most other news sites, with the notable exception of the Daily Express.

hmm, it's not doing it now. Maybe it was the combination of movie search and actor click that triggered it.

IMDB has been a horrible ad-ridden mess for quite a while now. A decent adblocker keeps most of it under control, but they keep pushing the boundaries to get around it.

Websites have adverts now?

My bosses know the guy who started IMDb, he made a killing when he sold it to Amazon. He was a Cardiff Uni PhD student.

Edit -- also, IMDb is a great site that must cost rather a lot to run. I don't begrudge them a living.

But, but, but... full screen pop ups with full frame flash? Forced browser resize? I don't begrudge website owners their living, but if they force this shit on me, they can get the fuck to fuck

It could have been a glitch, I've been on IMDb recently and not seen this. If it's real, it's a commercial decision by them that will (I suspect) fail and be withdrawn.

They should initiate a real-life cull of their 'reviewers'. I'd pay to use the site if I knew it was going towards the brutal slaughter of the only serious rivals to youtube commenters.

Especially as a great deal of the content was donated by fans of the films for free.

If you are using Firefox then Adblock plus combined with the Filterset.G Updater is a great combination.

I have not seen any Ads for months.

Do you not think this is bad for the web in the long run?

I understand obviously that web funding has to come from somewhere, it's just that adverts on the web are usually so hugely unpleasant (and frequently a security issue) that I find adblock essential. The web is going to have to find some other way to survive I guess. I don't know how that is. More government funding?

More government funding == more government control. No thanks.

The Adblock Plus folks actually recommend different filtersets nowadays rather than Filterset.G. I just choose the USA set when I first install it.

Amazon could make some money by chargin- (BANG!)

There'll just be an ads/ad blocker arms race. Besides, most people don't know what they're doing online (particularly the sort of people who are ever going to click on the annoying adverts instead of fucking them off instantly on principle), so they'll still make a net gain as long as ad-blockers remain add-ons, which they probably will.

Speaking of which, how do I get an ad-blocker on Chrome? I've tried dragging a javascript link into the bookmarks as it says, but nothing happens. Hmph.

Hmm. So if I ever put adverts on here (which I won't, but stay with me), would you consider it fair to 'fuck them off'?
I know Jonarob gets annoyed when people block the ads on his site, too.

Hmmm, what if someone has absolutely no intention of clicking on those ads? Does it make a difference whether they can see them or not? Do you get money for people just seeing them on the screen?

You can. It's rare, most are click-through at the very least, some only pay if the user ends up buying something.

So if I wasn't the sort of person who clicked on adverts, you wouldn't be losing out on money by me blocking them? I'm just trying to get an idea of how it works.

Of course, a lot of people click on ads by accident... I know I have when they pop up on the screen and you're not expecting them to. That's kind of cheating, no?

That's right, it's very unlikely.

I can honestly say that ads don't bother me on websites as long as they're small, don't take up too much space and are relevant to the website in question.

I never click on them mind, but I don't begrudge someone making money out of their hard work.

Ruined byyyy! Fucking adverrrrts,
Ruined byyyy! Fucking adverrrrts!


Maybe one person will get that.

The only reason I haven't installed adblock on here is because I've jhad to reformat and reinstall so much for the last few months that I can't be arsed. That and almost all the sites I go to have minimal advertising and as I can't really afford to pay the difference, I can just about tolerate them as a necessary evil. Depends on the adverts, too.

Basically, it depends mainly on my mood. RPS I put up with, although their current set of adverts are very annoying and take about six times longer to load than the actual content. And even if I didn't block them, I have never, ever intentionally clicked on an advert on the internet, and never will. So it depends again on whether blocking them affects the site owner.

I am also wary of sites becoming dependent on ads, and therefore the whims of advertisers, particularly given the nature of a lot of what I read, being a dangerous subversive islamofaszhiszt.

I don't run any ad blocking, but I do run flashblock on all my Firefox installs (and it was lack of a flashblocker that drove me back to Firefox from Chrome). Graphical ads don't bother me, I have a 100% effective mental filter for them after 15 years on the web. Flash ones do though, with stuff flying around the screen, getting all up in my face when I rollover them by accident, or making noise.

You have all set your opt-out cookies, yes? Considering the geek quota of this forum, I'm sure most of you have.

When I've been on sites that I've found useful or interesting, and they've got Google Ads, I give them a few clicks to put a few pennies back to the site maker's pockets.