Hey hey! I finally got them! Now I can be part of the club!
ETA: Now they’re gone again. That’s weird.
For people having issues with the restricted web site fix in IE here is a more challenging fix.
It’s drastic and extreme caution should be used, but adding a line to your hidden hosts file typically under C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC works well.
The line I added was
127.0.0.1 media.chicagoreader.com
I right clicked the file and sent to notepad, if this is not an option, choose open and select notepad to edit it.
Again use extreme caution. Don’t delete any existing lines if you are not 100% sure of what you are doing. Remember kids, we’re professionals. 
At work you might not have access to this file however.
Jim
Ah, yes. I was wondering about those. I was vacillating as to renew or not as the SDMB has sort of gone into a death spiral over the last few years. This pretty much puts the nail in the coffin.
This will not work for me. If I try to add that it tells me…
“The site you specified already exsists in another zone. Please remove it from that zone before adding it”
I can not see it in any other zone. I assume it is added to the basic internet zone by default but I can’t tell how to go there and remove it so I can add it to the restricted zone.
I have tried clearing all cookies and temperary internet sites incuding offline content and I get the same error message.
I am really looking forward to banners with “Sapo sucks” or “God DOES exist” or “There was no lunar landing”
A decision was made, but the cojones were not had, so responsibility was not taken and the passive voice was used.
I can’t block them at work. I also can’t change my host file, so that avenue is out. Can’t download anything onto this computer (well, I could, but I’d be in more trouble than I’d be if I were actually caught surfing). About all I can do is mute my computer and hope I don’t get any huge pop-over ads…
jayjay got a USB port on that 'puter?
If so you could run PortableFirefox on a USB key drive!
CMC +fnord!
I share the feelings of those paying members who are hopping mad, but rather than saying Goodbye, Dope, I say, “I’ll fix them fucking fuckers by blocking the ads and we’ll both be happy.” It’s not a problem.
I feel sorry for those who can’t do this at a work environment, and doubly sorry for those who have to endure popup sounds where this could be embarassing. That kind of ad is REALLY over the line.
Perhaps the easiest solution would be for SDMB to implement a user CP option, “Turn off all banner ads”. Is that possible?
However, using an unblocked version of IE6, I now get an “errors on page” for every single SDMB page after it loads. This never happened before yesterday, so I suspect it relates to the banner ads.
Are you also locked out of the restricted sites option? Very possible with many work environments.
I am not but if you see my post above it claims it is already in another zone and won’t let me add it.
And thank you for that. Adblock is my new favorite thing and you are my favorite person.
Honestly, if the ads didn’t move or make noise, it really wouldn’t bother me much. But flashing/moving ads are really hard on my eyes and there’s nothing worse than a loud ad, especially when you’re at work.
One of these things is not like the others.
The listings are alphabetical. Scroll and look for media.chicagoreader… (There’ll be no http or anything.) Note that the method What Next? posted just above with the “hosts” file works just as good. In fact better, because it blocks it out altogether, irrespective of zones, by sending a call to that address to your local machine. I think WE was a bit dramatic with his cautions. It’s just a plain text file that controls where web addresses are pointed to, and nothing horrible would happen if you deleted everything in it. Just drop down to the bottom, start a new line if necessary, and type what he told you. (Note that the “hosts” file has no extension, not even “.txt”.)
You should be able to find it and remove it from the restricted list and then add it back as just http://media.chicagoreader.com/*
Jim
Yes, but I am a professional, I need to add strongly worded caveats. Especially if people are doing this “not at home”.
I like the restricted zone better when it works it actually increases loading time, the hosts file can add a slight increase to loading times. However, if restricted fails to work, hosts is a good way to go.
So far the restricted is working both on a Vista IE7 laptop and a Windows XP IE6 PC. For the IE6 I needed the asterisk and I get a single ad when I first load.
The hosts file stops all ads.
If your hosts file still has some legacy name resolution you can screw things up and then you need to call your IT guy who will be annoyed as he is goofing off doing something between compiles that he probably should not be doing, but enjoys too much.
Jim
This didn’t work for me … even after restarting IE. Do I have to reboot to see the effects?
I added many updates later in the thread.
Try it with an asterix instead and if that fails, try the hosts file fix.
Great point. Why is it again that the SDMB is not divested from the Chicago Reader, who apparently consider the forums a nuisance?
I’m a professional too. But what I said is that you were a “bit” dramatic (it was supposed to be both descriptive and a pun), not that you were overly so.