I still get the emails every Friday with the older questions and answers. A few weeks ago a large almost blank popup would appear after I clicked on a story. The popup would appear within a couple of seconds after the Straight Dope page was opening. The first few times the popup had an “X” in the corner and I would click and close it. But, for the last two weeks the popup is missing the “X”; it can’t be closed. I’m enclosing a link to a screen shot I took this morning that I put on Google Drive. Note that the little icon in the top right corner of the popup does nothing when clicked. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DtpitgS2bhc3okv929ioyjSFS9KdqNEy/view?usp=sharing
I’d suggest you get a better adblocker. ABP sold out a long time ago. Upgrade to ublock origin + ublock origin extra.
And if you can afford it, you can also subscribe to the SDMB board to disable ads here.
Moved to About This Message Board.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I’ll direct this to management … is anyone else seeing this? This is the first complaint I’ve seen on this anywhere.
I am not able to duplicate this problem.
Den, where are you reading this? On what kind of device, on what operating system, on what browser? That information might help pin this down.
Reply, for your information there are currently no ads in the weekly mailing.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Thank you for your replies.
To Jenny
I’m no computer expert but I’ll try to describe my setup. I’m using a 2008 HP desktop, Vista OS, Chrome browser. I did find that if I repeatedly click the “X” in my browser’s top left corner as the Straight Dope page is loading after clicking on the email link I can halt that big pop-up from loading. I also found that if it does load and I try to “refresh” the page, no amount of “X” clicking will stop the pop-up from popping up again.
Addressing the other reply.
I don’t understand what “ABP sold out a long time ago” means.
He probably means that your adblocker is worthless (a common malady amongst such software, antivirus too).
Fan of Richard Corben I assume?
Welcome to the Dope in any event.
I don’t mean in the mailing, but once you get to an article, you do see those ads. The ones I see aren’t full-screen like that, but have similar visual styles.
His adblock is probably blocking some of the javascript but not some of other elements, hiding the images and text but rendering the popup uncloseable.
They made a deal to get paid to allow ads. Adblock Plus - Wikipedia
It’s also just not as good at blocking ads as ublock origin, which was created because of the failures of ABP. It looks to me like what’s going on in your case is an incomplete blocking of the ads. You shouldn’t be seeing the popup at all (I don’t see anything with ublock origin, but I do see ads similar in style to what you see if I use another browser with no ad blocking).
FWIW I’m not blaming the SD for this. Those ad networks are third party and often include annoying ads with bad code or malware.
Do you recommend deleting AB or leaving it in place after adding ublock?
Delete Adblock Plus. uBlock Origin uses some of the same blocking lists, plus more.
Also, as a stopgap, if you ever see something on a website you don’t like, you can push CTRL-SHIFT-C to open the Chrome inspector. Hover over the element you want to get rid of, moving the mouse around until the whole thing is highlighted. Then push the “del” key and it’ll be removed (until you refresh the page or revisit it later).
Oh, okay.
Yes, there are ads on the Straight Dope column pages as well as the message board.
If you are a paid Member of the SDMB you do not see so many ads on the board, but everybody sees all the ads on the column site.
The Straight Dope column pages have oodles of ads, including a recent video feed from the Chicago Sun-Times, our corporate parent.
Den., I suspect your problem is in the vintage of your operating system and the fact that you are running Vista. I would guess that what you’re seeing is your operating system’s inability to handle that video feed.
Another thought: the Straight Dope mailing has links in it that track what people look at; it is possible that those links – while not ad calls per se – are something your operating system just can’t hang with. Please try looking at the links through the mailing and then the website without the links, just call up the front page and click around.
I apologize for your inconvenience. Some people here swear by ad blockers; others swear at them.
I’m going to try a little experiment here. I’m going to give you Member status for a month and see if that makes a difference. As soon as I do that can you try looking at the column site again? Look at it through the mailing site links and then straight up. I would be greatly interested in what you find as you look at our sites.
All those older operating systems and machines are less and less able to traverse the various systems we use these days; it’s increasingly more difficult for people with vintage equipment and antique browsers to be able to use the sites. For instance, they choke on the registration captcha on the board, among other things. Some column pages don’t render properly. I have had feedback from quite a few new users that they could not complete their registration or navigate on the board until they bought an updated machine.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Thank you for your analysis. First off, even with “Member” status the pop-up remains.
But, I tried experimenting by turning off my Ad Block and my HTML Autoplay disabler programs. With those programs disabled the pop-up was able to fully load. It turns out that the pop-up is the video from the Chicago Sun-Times that you mentioned in your post. But there is still no way to exit out of that video screen. Thanks to another poster’s tip I have been using the “Ctrl-shift-C” method to delete the pop-up. I am going to call this post “SOLVED” because this work-around works for me. Thanks everyone. Den
Thanks for this. My browsing experience is much improved.
I find that uBlock Origin is not available for my computer’s version of Chrome. My computer will not run any newer version of Chrome.
You can update to a newer Windows version or try Firefox, then.