New ad series starts Monday, 4/4/16

[kopek]

@hajario

We have an Ad Department?

I know what you mean. Just finding out we still have an Ed Zotti was shock enough!

[septimus]

I use Chrome’s ad-blocker, but suddenly get frequent “This page has become Unresponsive: Kill or Wait?” messages.

Are these related to the new ad series, or should I start a separate thread?

[Loach]

@septimus

I use Chrome’s ad-blocker, but suddenly get frequent “This page has become Unresponsive: Kill or Wait?” messages.

Are these related to the new ad series, or should I start a separate thread?

I have no idea if it is related but I’ll send the info up the chain.

[wellanuff]

I also got a front window pop-up from “beenverified.com” (legitimate or not, I don’t know, but that name alone makes me want to run a viruscscan right then and there) as soon as I arrived at the dope yesterday and today. Very obtrusive. Would prefer that this did not happen. I am dim, but sooner or later I can be trained not to come here by these types of ads.

[Der_Trihs]

@wellanuff

I also got a front window pop-up from “beenverified.com” (legitimate or not, I don’t know, but that name alone makes me want to run a viruscscan right then and there) as soon as I arrived at the dope yesterday and today.

Checks.

BeenVerified is a background check company that provides consumer initiated criminal background and people search services through its website “BeenVerified.com” for profit as well as its mobile application “Background Check App.”[4][5] The company also launched additional mobile applications including a reverse number look up called NumberGuru[6] and a registered sex offender tracking app that uses augmented reality to locate sex offenders.

Seems legitimate, unless you are seeing one of those scam sites that uses a slightly altered name of a valid one to trick people.

[aceplace57]

I’m logged in (by cookie) and I’m getting the pop up ad.

this sucks.

[Jackmannii]

I am not using an adblocker on this computer and I am not seeing the ads.

Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha!

*That’s probably the kiss of death…

[Doug_K]

I’m logged in, I don’t go in through the Straight Dope page. When I got home from work today my browser was already in one of the fora from this morning. I clicked on a thread title and got a popup. I don’t know what it was, because I killed it immediately. There’s no way I’d let it load.

[aceplace57]

does it make a difference how you enter?

I have this link bookmarked
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/

[BigT]

@Loach

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.

In modern browsers, new tab and new window are pretty much the same thing. Unless you have a weirdly set-up browser, the stuff that used to open in a new window actually opens a new tab. I have a bookmarklet that I wrote using the code to open in a new window, and it launches a new tab (as I intended). The only way I’ve ever had a new window is to explicitly launch one from the browser menu.

So it sounds like it’s just a euphemism. I’d thought maybe it worked by only launching when you left the site, and was only “sitting the the background” figuratively, with code waiting top launch until you closed or left all pages from the same site.

The only popunders I accept are the ones that are from surveys, and even then, only if they explicitly ask you if you want one before launching it.

[Spiderman]

Just tried it on another browser. Got to the main page & when I clicked on a forum (IMHO), a new tab opened & the existing tab was now an ad. Any site that does this to me gets immediately closed as I don’t like hijackers. I agree that it’s going to push away the potential new members.

@CarnalK

I don’t see them but I mostly visit news sites. Plus porn and pirate video sites, of course.

Is that pirated porn or porn of pirates? Kinky Rule 34 subject, BTW

[Chronos]

All of the ads I’ve been getting (Firefox, OSX) have been in separate windows. They show up in the foreground for a moment before slinking back to hide, and the boundary of the window is different from that of the parent window, extending to the left enough that I’ve been easily able to reach the red button to close it.

[Johnny_Bravo]

When I go to the boards on my android phone, despite being logged in, I get a “popunder” ad that opens in a new tab and redirects me to a different site.

Incredibly annoying and invasive.

[ftg]

I just tried this using Vivaldi browser.

It was definitely a pop-up overlay on top of the page I went to when I left the Dope. There was even a bit of delay so as I started to read the page- pow - something else assaults my eyes and makes it hard to resume reading where I left off.

Also: since it wasn’t a new tab but an overlay, you can’t do middle click on the tab or Control-W to kill it, as that kills the tab you actually want. You have to play “Find the tiny little X.” to get rid of it.

This is Bad Web Design 101: How To Drive Away People.

Who knew that web ad companies would lie to sysadmins? :rolleyes:

[Jackmannii]

Yep, I spoke too soon.

@Ed

When the user leaves Straight Dope and closes the tab, the ad will be visible.

I signed in at the Dope, went to a forum and clicked on a thread title. I was switched to a non-Dope page with an ad.

Oddly, I did not feel at all inspired to buy what they were selling.

[Ed_Zotti]

I’ve gotten popovers myself. I talked it over with John our tech guy just now, and that’s not how this is supposed to work. John thinks it might be specific to the browser. I’m going to clear cookies and try different browsers this afternoon to see if I can isolate the problem. My apologies for the inconvenience.

[Sailboat]

I’m signed in via cookie and getting them.

I do not use adblockers out of some combination of laziness and website owners’ desire to monetize; I just ignore SDMB ads but do not block them.

I do wish the pop-unders more formally introduced themselves – something like “this advertisement provided by the Straight Dope website” or some other language to reduce the malwarey ambiguity.

[Kron]

I have not yet received any popunders/popovers/popups/popdowns, on Chrome (latest version) on Windows 10. I am always signed in and go directly to the boards (not through the SD main page).

[Ann_Hedonia]

@Jackmannii

Yep, I spoke too soon.I signed in at the Dope, went to a forum and clicked on a thread title. I was switched to a non-Dope page with an ad.

Oddly, I did not feel at all inspired to buy what they were selling.

This is what happened to me on my iPad.

Edit… And it happened AGAIN right after I posted this, still signed in, less than 5 minutes later. So they are lying about the once a day thing

[Morgenstern]

@Kron

I have not yet received any popunders/popovers/popups/popdowns, on Chrome (latest version) on Windows 10. I am always signed in and go directly to the boards (not through the SD main page).

underlining mine.

That’s why.