I respect that web sites which provide content for free need advertising in order to keep themselves afloat. For the longest time, I was a hold-out against using ad blockers because I felt that it was right to put up with the annoyance if this is how the providers of content I wanted to see expected to make their money.
But tonight, the line has been crossed. Over the last few weeks, despite my using a paid-for anti-virus program (AVG) and frequent scans with MalwareBytes, my browser has several times been hijacked to scam sites, the kind that pop up a dialog box with a number to call. It finally dawned on me that this has only been happening from SDMB pages, and only since they started increasing the ad saturation of the pages…first it was a strip along the bottom, then more recently they added one on the right side of the page. I’m almost certain it’s scripts within those ads that are making that happen, and I’m putting that to the test by finally installing AdBlocker.
So a hearty fuck you to the assholes who are running these scams to get gullible people to believe that they have to call your damned number to fix their computer. Fuck you sons of bitches who write the scripts that hijack other peoples’ computers to these scam sites. And fuck you to the ad services who don’t vet the stuff that you push out to sites that partner with your services for revenue, I hope a steep drop in revenue from people like me teaches you a little something about ethical ad-peddling.
And I hope the SDMB, which I love, has other, better means of revenue.
don’t feel bad about 5 months ago a ndating website popped up on the side of the dope and I clicked on it but didn’t know the odd extension in the address and it killed my ms edge for months I had t oreinstall win 10 twice because of it
When you mention that most reasonable and obvious answer, I think you become an elitist or something. I understand that not everyone can afford the roughly buck and a quarter each month. If this place would make gift memberships a possible thing, I wouldn’t mind sharing. Shit, I offered to pay for someone’s membership once, and it was not possible to accomplish. So, I pit that part.
(ETA response to hajario’s post.)
Pitting people depriving the board of income + complaining about ads + dropping that you spend money on AVG + '99er who isn’t a member = parody threads go in the Pit?
If you’re seeing that sort of problem, the admin seriously wants to know about it. Mention in in ATMB or send one of the mods a PM. It’s not in the SDMB’s interest to run malicious ads.
Says the guy with the Charter Membership and personalized text.
It’s the same with all the other begging letters from newspapers and websites: *no-one *can afford to pay off all of them.
You may wish to give to every poor wretch crying: “Pity me, piiity meee” on the cathedral steps, but you have to prioritise and give — if you can give — to merely a few. Not even by any invidious formula of morality, but merely by thrusting money out and running away from the rest of the journalists’ sticky hands and shrill plaints.
Not that I have the remotest sympathy with journalists. They have none for the poor, merely spouting the condescending hatred the rich prefer. “Dey turk err jurbz”: all well and good until graduate media jobs fall.
“Nice computer you have here. It would be a shame if anything bad was to happen to it. I can give you protection. It only costs 15 clams a year. Everyone else on the block is taking advantage of my offer. It would be a shame if you didn’t, too. Anything could happen. Anything.”
I am not complaining about ads. I’m complaining about BAD-BEHAVING ads. The ones that redirect my browser to scam sites. And the ad services that are pushing these out without some sort of gatekeeper to make sure they’re not spreading scams and the like.
I was, and am, totally fine with seeing ads if they simply advertise.
And I know that AVG has a free option, but I work from my home computer, and I have an obligation to my employer to not cheap out on cyber-security. So yes, I pay for the full-featured version of AVG. I don’t see why that reflects badly on me.
What could help would be approaching a high-end respectable professional bespoke Ad-Broker who might take more but in return guarantees only the very best, most discreet and unannoying internet advertisements — expensive bijouterie, $100k cars or handmade rifles, French chateaux, rare wines, etc. etc., ruthlessly excluding riff-raff like a butler at one’s town house.
There must be such people, even if only accessible by personal reference and heavy monetary pledges in advance, otherwise we live in a world of Cheap-Craporama.
Yeah, I get that, but I’d subscribe anyway. I also donate to Wikipedia and archive.org. I can afford it and I’m one of those weird people who feel that it’s the right thing to do.
I run AdBlock on my PC and don’t have any issues. I check the SDMB on my phone and 8-out-of-10 times I get hijacked to some “You Already Won A Walmart Giftcard!!!” page that won’t let me back out and forces me to close the tab.
I’ve no idea what you’re all bitching about. Those ads have netted me roughly 15 million bucks, two smoking hot girlfriends, a set of pecs you could grate nutmegs on and a penis roughly the size of a fully-grown dachshund.
