Flash Video Ads - Block them

[Zed Head]

Anybody out there noticed a new type of ad that pops up in the middle of a column of text while you're reading and plays a little video?  Not on CZCC but other web sites, like the newspaper sites.  Over the last few months I've spent more time clicking the little X in the upper right corner than actually reading.  They seem to be everywhere.  Can't think of a more annoying way to advertise a product.



I blocked Flash in Chrome and they're gone.  It even stopped autoplay videos on ESPN, a massive bonus.



Edit - I knew this would happen.  They came back.  Never mind.  It's probably javascript.   The internet is messing with me.  ESPN autoplay is still fixed.  

Edit 2 - Disabled javascript and the ads stopped but so did a bunch of other stuff. Some sites won't even load up. It's like they're all saying **** you, you'll watch our ads or you'll get nothing. I'm going to run lean, no ads, and some sites not accessible and see how internet life changes. I'm betting it will be better. Those video ads were killing me.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Zed Head

[Captain Obvious]

I have the same problem... Websites are becoming so loaded with "features" to provide a better "user experience" or some bull like that. Problem is the websites that take advantage of those advanced features (like flash, etc) won't even load right without them. So the people who don't want to allow that kind of stuff are scrod.

I just want websites to load fast and work. I don't need videos. I don't need hover over. I just want fast, secure, and simple.

 

[Zed Head]

I couldn't even log in to my email account, Hotmail (aka Outlook) without javascript enabled.  It's just email.  I'm so tied to Hotmail/Outlook it's pitiful.  Outlook sucks and Microsoft knows it and they don't care.  'cause they got you.  Millions of people interact with Microsoft through email, and their email program is a giant steaming turd.  Seems weird that they don't shine it up a little bit.

[Mikes Z car]

I use TOR as much as I can, sometimes I get a notice that websites want to save a HTML5 canvas snapshot which is like a cookie I guess that can uniquely identify my particular computer.  I use adblock on Firefox which is a huge help.  I don't mind a few commercials since I don't look at them anyway but when they make it difficult to see what I am looking for I reach for an ad blocker.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Mikes Z car

[heyitsrama]

Anybody out there noticed a new type of ad that pops up in the middle of a column of text while you're reading and plays a little video?  Not on CZCC but other web sites, like the newspaper sites.  Over the last few months I've spent more time clicking the little X in the upper right corner than actually reading.  They seem to be everywhere.  Can't think of a more annoying way to advertise a product.



I blocked Flash in Chrome and they're gone.  It even stopped autoplay videos on ESPN, a massive bonus.



Edit - I knew this would happen.  They came back.  Never mind.  It's probably javascript.   The internet is messing with me.  ESPN autoplay is still fixed.  

Edit 2 - Disabled javascript and the ads stopped but so did a bunch of other stuff. Some sites won't even load up. It's like they're all saying **** you, you'll watch our ads or you'll get nothing. I'm going to run lean, no ads, and some sites not accessible and see how internet life changes. I'm betting it will be better. Those video ads were killing me.

Is there a chance that you have an adware package installed on the computer? 3/5 times my clients had one installed when they said their computer would get "pop ups", but I was working exclusively on OSX machines.


I've never really noticed a reason to stop JS on any computer that I'm using, primary is a MacBook from 2009, never seen performance degradation within Safari, chrome however tends to hog RAM down.

Opera Developer edition has a free VPN I thought it was pretty cool, unlimited use too.

[Patcon]

Zed I use Thunderbird for email and Firefox with an adblocker for browsing. Just recently had to add the ad blocker because the websites have gotten so ad heavy and video heavy it was really slowing my machine down

[Zed Head]

I'm no web programming wiz but if I "inspect" the video it shows as an HTML thing, with lines of code that say "js context".  Made an image of how the video just inserts itself in to the middle of a paragraph.  If you're moving down the page the text will all shift downward as the video ad shoves its way in to your life.  I might start sending nasty messages to the companies that use the ads.  One small blow to save the world.

By "adware package" do you mean what's commonly called malware?  Are you in advertising?  Are you part of this!!!

Anyway, I haven't found a plug-in or program that will stop just the ads but allow other desirable things to work.  

[sweatybetty]

i use firefox with the ad-blocker. i get nothing in the way of ads or pop-ups. not even the videos on news web sites will auto-play anymore

[Mike]

On 12/30/2016 at 10:39 AM, Zed Head said:

Anybody out there noticed a new type of ad that pops up in the middle of a column of text while you're reading and plays a little video?  Not on CZCC but other web sites, like the newspaper sites.  Over the last few months I've spent more time clicking the little X in the upper right corner than actually reading.  They seem to be everywhere.  Can't think of a more annoying way to advertise a product.

These are forced placement ads and I do not run them on our site.  It's a great way to bring in extra revenue but it really ticks people off.  I figured we want to keep our members happy rather than force an ad placement.  Only problem is, we have to rely on our members to help pay for the site which is not as easy as it sounds.

On 12/30/2016 at 8:00 PM, Zed Head said:

I couldn't even log in to my email account, Hotmail (aka Outlook) without javascript enabled.  It's just email.  I'm so tied to Hotmail/Outlook it's pitiful.  Outlook sucks and Microsoft knows it and they don't care.  'cause they got you.  Millions of people interact with Microsoft through email, and their email program is a giant steaming turd.  Seems weird that they don't shine it up a little bit.

Hotmail is a free service, I think they are showing all of the ads to offset the cost of providing the service to everyone.