Well played. Oh wait, you mo…, nah, well played.
I tried the Tools/Internet Options/yadda yadda thing twice, and it worked for a few clicks, but then the ads came back, so I tried the fix in #302 also, and so far that’s working for me. So yeah, THANKS WhatNext.
Personally, I’d rather have (quiet) banner ads than pay extra, but I really hate the flashing ones, I loathe the ones that get bigger, and I ESPECIALLLY DETEST THE ONES WITH SOUND! That’s way way WAY over the line for a message board I pay to post on. Luckily I hadn’t gotten one of the sound ads and I hope this fix continues to work.
I’m paid up until May 2009, so I couldn’t make a statement by taking away my dollars for quite a while anyway.
Going to another board sounds good in theory, but I’d feel like a rank newbie butting in, anywhere else I went, even those board run by Dopers.
What a damned shame.
Oh and, while I’m here and in the Pit, FUCK YOU NEW READER OWNERS for completely changing the style of the Chicago Reader print version. It used to have 3 thick sections (well, it actually used to have 4, but it was reduced to 3 many many years ago), and now it’s one section, like an extra thick tabloid. While I feel less guilty about the amount of paper used when I put it in the recycle bin, the content has definitely suffered. What’s next for the print version? Going bi-weekly? Monthly? Getting rid of the movie section? Getting rid of Cecil?
Gah!
As an IT guy, let me put one word of warning about editing your HOSTS file:
When you save it, make darn good and sure that your editor is saving the file with no extension.
It should not be HOSTS.txt, HOSTS.doc or any of those things.
The file name should simply be HOSTS - nothing more.
I’d hate to see you fine people screw up your systems.
Your welcome, but its What Exit? 
Rico, good advice. Thanks for the add on. I’ll add that caveat to my notes. I have had many people Email or PM me and I am trying to add to my notes as we go.
Jim
OK, now I’m getting movement in the banner ads. I don’t know if I’m getting sound - I generally have my speakers turned off unless there’s something I specifically want to listen to. I just opened one new SDMB page with the headphones on (that’s the only way I do audio at work), and got no audio with the banner ad as it opened up.
“So what?” is still my reaction. I can scroll down two inches and not see the banner ad, and see all the text on the page: it’s not blocking my view, or distracting me in any way. I’m glad they’re pulling in a few more shekels.
Maybe if the ad revenue is good, the new CR owners will find that more eyeballs on the ads will likely generate more new revenue from ads than they’re currently getting from membership fees, and we’ll go back to being a free board.
Or maybe not. But at least they’re freakin’ trying new things.
Damn. That was my fault. Sorry. 
Hey! I gave that caveat first! 
Thanks for the warning. I hadn’t noticed when I saved the file so I just now went back to check and luckily, no, it didn’t save with an extension. whew!
Oh hells bells. I’m sorry! Teach me to trust Liberal. I just looked up at his post.
Dammit! This is so fucking typical of my luck right now… I pay my freaken money, and a GD week later the site is drowning in flash ads and bullshit.
Fuck me.
Oh wait, I think I just was.
Oh, what a surprise. You measure everything by its effect on you personally. Some people post in environments where flashing banners and screaming sirens are frowned upon. Or they don’t want to turn off their speakers because they listen to music while they surf. Others take a principled view that they have paid to post, much in the same way that they don’t want to see Tide commercials on HBO. You are drowned out here probably a hundred to one or more. But if it’s any consolation, you’d have made a great central planner in the USSR, watching the toilet paper queues through your bathroom window while you wiped your ass.
It should be easy to fix for most posters. What Op system and browser do you use?
Hey, I owned up to it. Whadda ya want, blood? 
Hey, watch it. People is looking for someone to blame. Don’t pin this on yourself when everybody is watching.
Ha, nah. I didn’t see your post when I posted.
Well, I blocked the adds, but I keep getting these giant grey blobs that cover portions of the thread… it’s not possible to move them, and they cover up some of the text. Not sure what’s going in with that.
Quite honestly, Ads with sounds should only exist (if at all) on sites with very valuable free content. (IMDB, cbssportsline as examples).
If you had read the thread, you would note people like to have their speakers or headphones on while they surf to listen to music. The banner ad with sound is a nasty intrusion for a site that we already pay for. I love the SDMB, but I would prefer not to see a bad decision like this drive off a bunch of posters.
Rather than just rant or rant about people ranting, I think it is better to assist people in getting their computer back under their control. This banner ad with audio is just a terrible idea. If it was just the banner ad, I would not care as I do scroll past it quickly. I would still understand posters complaints and not think the complaints were unreasonable.
Jim
What happens when you right-click on one of the blobs. Does a menu pop up? If so, what are some of its options?
Adding the asterisk and restarting the browser did the trick … thanks much 
Page loads are a lot slower, but what can you do?
Edited to add: whoops, spoke too soon. Ads are back … but it’s a sometimes-there-sometimes-not thing as I surf around the SDMB. Don’t know what the heck is going on 
As long as I keep the sound off (which I do anyway) and take care to avoid rolling over the ads, it’s not really an technical issue for me. Just a matter of principle at this point.
Maybe we can get them to try ads in between every post, of a whole column of ads down the left margin. Sounds like a wonderful idea to me.
It’s some kind of weirdness with the Google ads, for me it always goes away with a page reload.
CMC +fnord!