Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love. (from 2010)

Originally posted by toochaos4u
I encountered a problem with this site last night from a pop up site that automatically installed XP Defender Pro.

Logged-in members never receive pop-ups from our ad networks, and I've not seen anything like that in my own PC-based testing of our ads.

It's common for existing malware on your computer to initiate pop-ups while using a browser... could it have been that?

Ah I wasn't logged on and just browsed through to see what the topics were. My computer automatically scans for spyware, malware, every two days and I usually look at what processes are running to keep to a minimum even on a new machine. Dunno.

I'll turn off ad blocking once I'm logged in and give it a go. The only sites visited last night were deviant art, yahoo mail (through AT&T with no ads) and here. If it wouldn't have locked out the browsers I could have shown you the ad that popped up. Part of cleaning was dumping the browser temp files and history.

It looked like a bogus spy detector program that tries to scare the user into buying said program.

I am only new here, not sure what add block really is, but think all this is one big conspiracy on its own, And making me think more and more that this site is run by the CIA or someone high up with too much power on there hands. If this site was really worried about money, Why not to do the most logical thing, which most sites do, make a donating section, you will be very surprised on how many people will donate money to keep a good site open. And will get a lot more than any petty little adds. Yes it might help you people barley keep the site open, but donations are a far more logical choice, than banning people. I think by doing that, you are just creating enemies, and some could be quite powerful enemies, even enough to get sites shut down. So I would suggest a donating section would be the go. Just my opinion

Originally posted by canUhandlethetruth
...think all this is one big conspiracy on its own, And making me think more and more that this site is run by the CIA or someone high up with too much power on there hands.

I've been here for 7-odd years, and have seen the site go through all kinds of changes.

But the one thing that has never changed is the site's commitment to community - the owners' respect for their members, volunteers and contributors.


...I support using advertising over "donations" and/or subscriptions for several reasons - the main one being that the self-sufficiency road allows for more flexibility, responsiveness and constantly shifting business strategies. ALL qualities required to stay in business, especially in these times.

btw - I don't buy the CIA story. I've shot my mouth off here with regularity, trash-talked no end of sacred cows - and never been banned or censored.

I like that about ATS.

reply to post by La Vita Pacifica


WTF is this? Some sort of witch hunt?

Surely not...

EDITED POST: The Post I was replying to was deemed off topic.



[edit on 29-4-2010 by Rising Against]

Click here for more information.

**** REMINDER****

This is a discussion of Ad-Blockers.

On Topic please.

As a new user (this is my first post) who has browsed this site in the past for a couple months. I decided to sign up, allowed the ads so to be in compliance. I was prompted by a message at the top of the page to turn off my AdBlock and referred to this thread (which is what I did). I read the first few pages and the only concern I have with the policy is this:

I use Firefox with NoScript, AdBlock and Better Privacy for one reason and one reason only. To prevent malicious software from infecting my computer. I have no issue with seeing ads on websites and I agree with the logic behind having them. Nothing is truly "free" again I understand. I also understand and agree that if I dislike a websites policies I can simply choose not to use that site.

Various anti-virus and anti-malware/spyware programs that I use/used are simply not enough to catch everything out there now that is harmful to my PC. I have spent many countless agonizing hours over the years removing garbage from my PC. In more than one instance I have had to reformat. Sometimes I had backups other times I lost a lot of files that have never been replaced. Sometimes when infected with a really nasty virus recovering files was not an option.

So my problem is this:

Now that I intend to become an active member of these forums, if I do get infected is there a place on this site that will assist it's users in getting rid of the malicious program? See not all of us are security experts. It was stated earlier that we all know how to deal with X, its not big deal if you get infected blah blah. That is simply not true! I use those programs as an extra layer of security, not to "avoid" ads. Since using Firefox with those security add-ons I have had 0 infections and I really would like to keep it that way.

It is a huge problem to deal with these infections. It is time-consuming having to research what it is you have and how to get rid of it. The reason many of us use these programs is to avoid the damage to our computers to begin with. My time on this planet is limited so is my knowledge on how to deal with computer infections. Would it not be in the sites best interest to have it's users posting and contributing instead of fixing issues they got from some malicious software we got from some shady advertiser?

I have not browsed all the forums, but I sure do hope with this forced ad policy (that I have no problem complying with) that there is some type of tech-support sub forum in place to help it's users deal with any issues or damage to our pc's as a result of something that happened while browsing the site. I see the analogy of "if you are in my house you follow my rules" quite a bit, fair enough. But if I am walking down your steps and the staircase collapses or say you ceiling falls in and crushes me on the head on the head... I sure hope you have some good home owners insurance.

Cliff notes: If users are forced to reduce their security software then please be there to help us fix it if something bad happens to our computer as a result of the policy. ty

The news isn't all bad:

U.S. Online Ad Revenues Hit Nearly $6 Billion In The First Quarter

Is everybody rich yet?

I don't see adverts as the problom but it's the tracking that goes with it all and google is the worlds worst but i realy do object to being sent out to private add servers runing from IP addreses because they could be owned by anyone and some are used to redirect people to one of them 'You have a virus' pages.

The best tool in the world is Fiddler which shows all the requests.

ATS could relay the adverts to keep us all safe instead of leaseing out an IFrame that is past on to other add-servers in a long chain.

remember to delete your flash cookies and Index.dat files if your running IE and don't think FireFox is much better without plugin's because Google id giving FF a ton of money.

reply to post by Darby Crash


In my experience, malware or malicious software in general doesn't come to ATS very often, or at all.

(It's never happened to me.)

For most people they pick up somewhere else, while reading a source posted on ATS or something like that.

There is a section for you to report ads that give problems so that the staff can look into them and remove them if they are deemed harmful.

Tons of tek guys like myself to assist with any problems as well, I'm always willing to help somebody clean out their PC.

I too use all the programs you mentioned, I just white list ATS and ATS only.

~Keeper

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
The news isn't all bad:

U.S. Online Ad Revenues Hit Nearly $6 Billion In The First Quarter

Is everybody rich yet?

Well they don't make a dime off of me. I never click ads ever online. As a matter of fact I've been surfing the interwebs all morning. Many sites and I couldn't tell you the last pages ads that I was just on. I simply don't pay attention.

[edit on 15-5-2010 by SLAYER69]

Sounds like a reasonable request to ask it's users to follow the policy given this response. I agree that often times people will put the blame on the site they frequent most often, when it fact the infection could have came from a lot of places. Until I have reason to distrust the ads on ATS I will continue to comply with the policy. It's good to know there are folks willing to help out it's users with malware issues regardless of the original source of the problem.

[edit on 15-5-2010 by Darby Crash]

Originally posted by Darby Crash
It's good to know there are folks willing to help out it's users with malware issues regardless of the original source of the problem.

One place you might try for help in the event that you do have a malware issue is the BTS Computer Help Forum. Since you're a new member, I don't know if you've explored BTS yet. It requires a separate login for now (I think this is supposed to change once the new ATS 2010 format is ready) but the username and password are the same as for ATS so it's really not that big a deal