I just got one, despite being logged in to the SDMB. It appeared to have been served from the front page, not from the board, though (which means that it probably couldn’t tell that I was logged in).
Cool, yet another way to tell visitors that they really don’t want to hang around our site and join up.
No it just tried to give me one and I was logged in and going straight to a forum page.
I was just thinking “Hmm, the SDMB sure does have too many new users coming in and contributing, I hope they do more to scare them off”
Although to be fair, almost anyone who has the sense to be worth having on a message board is going to be blocking them anyway, so the actual effect will be fairly minor I should think.
I got one when I entered the site, it opened in my current tab, pushing the board to another tab.
Same thing. It was Zedo that did it. Easy enough to solve knowing that. 
yup - thats not obtrusive at all - no sirree…
It sounds like they are a form of malware. I don’t mind a few ads around the edges, but pop-ups, pop-unders, and other stuff that I have to explicitly deal with is malware in my books.
Yup. If this site hadn’t been recommended, and if I didn’t have an ad-blocker on the browser I use most often, I would have looked briefly at the site and decided it couldn’t be worthwhile.
We still haven’t been 'splained if a “leave-behind” is s’posed to be somehow dif’rent than a “pop-under”.
In particular, now we all wonder if this “leave-behind” uses some different web technique, such that it will not be stopped by all our browsers’ pop-under-blockers. (If that’s the case, no doubt there will be many posts in this thread to tell us so, Real Soon Now.)
This is true. When I find sites that use pop-ups or under or whatever, I ALT-F4 and leave, never to return. I simply don’t trust ads and despise ads that try to control my computer by adding new tabs or whatever. I’d never come back if I that was my first experience here.
Here’s a little more history on Zedo, the culprit behind all this.
I’m still not quite sure. What is the difference between a “leave behind” and a popunder? Google seems to only know about the latter–at least, with a precursory search.
I’m no expert but it seems like the popunder means ads that open in a new window under your current page. They are particularly annoying because you don’t know they are there until you get rid of the current window. The leave behind or whatever you want to call what is being used here opens a new tab so to get rid of it you just have to click off the tab without looking at the ad. I see this often with my local newspaper’s online version.
Sites have to pay the bills. I don’t object to some reasonable advertising. I object to pages that automatically run video with sound (several news sites that i no longer visit) and ads that interact too aggressively with my computer. Just an image is okay. Video can be annoying enough to drive me away. Ads that automatically open new windows make me worry what else they are doing, like installing permanent malware. I avoid pages with those.
The idea that anyone would think popup ads with a different name are a good idea is mind boggling.
They’re popups. Using another name or varying the behavior slightly doesn’t change things.
They are associated with sleazy sites and a great way to drive away people.
And, I just got another one. This one was definitely upon entering the board.
Just so we can pass the information up, did you enter the board directly or through the main Straight Dope webpage?
FYTE: I remain logged in to SDMB (via a cookie, I assume), and got the pop-under ad. Windows7, IE11 with it’s built in pop up blocker turned on, using a link to the main forum menu (Straight Dope Message Board - Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.) I placed in my favorites bar.
How come you get them so easily? In the interest of research, I have been trying to get spammed by a leavebehind, but no luck so far. I tried logging out, closing all SDMB windows, and entering SDMB as an anonymous lurker, and nothing popped up, under, or was left behind. Maybe Ghostery is blocking it? What am I doing wrong?
I always enter the board via the link on the main Straight Dope page.
And I don’t currently use any sort of ad-block, because most of the pages I routinely view aren’t too bad about ads (this is, of course, at least partly a selection effect).
Thanks for the heads up, Ed. Hopefully this helps keep things running smoothly!