Ads are killing the internet!!!!

[fun173]

Greetings,
I am disgusted at modern websites. The amount of flash animation and pop ups really makes me sick. I really think something needs to be done before the internet turns into a g*d dam billboard.

Today i was on boston.com and a huge symantec ad pops up covering the whole page! i had to reload just to get rid of the dam thing. I am disgusted what it has come too, do i need a quad core desktop just to browse?? because my SR macbook gets the beachball on certain pages even.

Yes i know there are add ons for firefox which i use and love but it makes me sick to know that you have to download stuff just to make a computer usable on the internet.

Now what really angers me is that some of my old macs are unusable, yes i know things get old and it is time to upgrade but it makes me sick when i have to do it because some ********** company wants me too see their new product.

What do you all think of the internet and its ads?

[Hrududu]

If it weren't for such heavy amounts of flash on the internet, I have no doubt many people would still be perfectly fine using MUCH older computers. Its insane how much the internet has "grown up" over just the past 3 or 4 years. I would bet that for most computer users, the internet has become the "application" with the highest system requirements.

[-Ryan-]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

I agree with you entirely. Ads have been getting more and more bothersome online in the last couple of years.

[eyefoniac]

Yes, I must agree. There was one I came across today (I believe for a free laptop, haha), it took up the entire screen and couldn't be closed just by hitting the "x" in the window. Once has to click the x, then hit two additional windows confirming one wants to close the ad. Not difficult in the least bit and I understand they pay to advertise. . . but c'mon guys!

[johnhw]

Get Safari Adblock (http://burgersoftware.com/en/safariadblock) It blocks all ads, MacDailyNews is fast without the ads. :D

I do agree though, ads just kill the internet.

[windywoo]

Unfortunately advertising is the reason you usually don't pay anything to read a website. However I don't think this is an excuse for them to plaster their obnoxious, animated, bandwidth eating bollocks all over the page.

With magazine advertising its static, and you can happily read what you like without being distracted. Web advertising deliberately sets out to stand out from the rest of the page, making browsing a more complicated experience than it needs to be.

[fun173]

At least Macrumors is ok, actually one of the better websites ad-wise,

and yes, add ons are a godsend because without them it would be much worse. One thing that also really bothers me is i cant browse well on my clamshell :p

[steve2112]

Ads? What ads? Try Firefox + AdBlock Plus. It rocks. It's the first thing I install on any install of Firefox. I actually didn't know there was something similar for Safari. I may have to check that out. I have also used NoScript for Firefox, which really kills ads. My gripe is that it also kills stuff I want to see. I hate playing "which one of these sites will actually let me watch this video?" with it.

But, yeah, ads suck and they are getting worse.

[fun173]

Ads? What ads? Try Firefox + AdBlock Plus. It rocks. It's the first thing I install on any install of Firefox. I actually didn't know there was something similar for Safari. I may have to check that out. I have also used NoScript for Firefox, which really kills ads. My gripe is that it also kills stuff I want to see. I hate playing "which one of these sites will actually let me watch this video?" with it.

But, yeah, ads suck and they are getting worse.

Yes! i use adblock plus on my macbook its awseome.

[rdowns]

No doubt, way too many ads are in your face, flashy and obtrusive. Sadly, a fact of life. We all want free content.

[instaxgirl]

Safari Adblock is a necessity on my 3 year old computer which can do everything else short of video editing completely fine. Pisses me right off. It's the flashing ones disguised as games which annoy me most, followed by the whole screen fiascos. Enough of them on one page and I have to force quit Safari :mad:

Then again I should be happy with what I have, tried to browse the internet on my parents' 8 year old PC last week. That was unbelievable.

[dukebound85]

ads? what ads on the internet?

Get Safari Adblock (http://burgersoftware.com/en/safariadblock) It blocks all ads, MacDailyNews is fast without the ads. :D

I do agree though, ads just kill the internet.

that add on is a godsend

[toxictrix]

I use firefox with adblock+ and NoScript. Adds are no longer an issue. Heck, I havn't seen an add in a looong time.

[fun173]

My grandma uses a 433Mhz celeron on dialup :eek:

I wish a law could come into effect that bans some ads but i sure dont want to pay someone to acess their webpage on top of cable fees

[LethalWolfe]

Safari Adblock is a necessity on my 3 year old computer which can do everything else short of video editing completely fine. Pisses me right off. It's the flashing ones disguised as games which annoy me most, followed by the whole screen fiascos. Enough of them on one page and I have to force quit Safari :mad:

Then again I should be happy with what I have, tried to browse the internet on my parents' 8 year old PC last week. That was unbelievable.
I regularly use a 7 year old G4 for web/email and aside from heavy flash sites or playing back h.264 video I really don't have a problem.


Lethal

[windywoo]

Click2flash would be another useful app. Flash doesn't even download until you click the link. Might be called clicktoflash.

[dukebound85]

Click2flash would be another useful app. Flash doesn't even download until you click the link. Might be called clicktoflash.

i use the flashblock add on

[windywoo]

Yeah I do too, but clicktoflash does the same for Safari.

[fun173]

i wish i had the skill to make a browser with all those included like an adblocking browser, that would be awseome!

[Heb1228]

Just downloading and installing them would be a whole lot less trouble and work!

+1 for Safari Adblock (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26171/safari-adblock) and ClickToFlash (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/30682/clicktoflash)

[fun173]

is there anything toblock the banner ads that dont move? like on facebook even to block the frames all together

[techfreak85]

for FF, adblock plus. for safari. safariblock. done. ;)

[talkingfuture]

Got to say that recently I have started to dislike the adverts everywhere. Some websites are ok but others go way over the top. I used to think any adverts were great as long as the content was free, now I am swinging round to the idea of paying for stuff I really want (like TV and Films via iTunes) rather than being bombarded with ads (YouTube or Hulu etc).

When it comes to sites like this or newspapers, I would rather look at ads than pay a subscription. I just hope they keep them tasteful.

[LizKat]

/snip/
Then again I should be happy with what I have, tried to browse the internet on my parents' 8 year old PC last week. That was unbelievable.

yah when I was without DSL for two months last year I thought I would lose my mind loading news sites on a 56k dialup. I put NoScript into super lockdown mode and just removed bookmarks to sites that wouldn't show me a news article without flash. I was :mad: :mad: :mad:

Eventually I couldn't take the slow crawl. Fortunately around then Frontier had backed off their idea of implementing a 5GB per month cap on DSL accounts, so I went back to it on a promotional discount, but -- looking at you flashy advertisers here-- I didn't ever go back to those sites that I had dropped while I was on dialup!

[D A]

The title of this thread should really be "Flash is killing the Internet". It's the biggest piece of **** ever created. I wouldn't surf the net without AdBlock and NoScript. Those two extensions make the net a lot more usable.

[fun173]

The title of this thread should really be "Flash is killing the Internet". It's the biggest piece of **** ever created. I wouldn't surf the net without AdBlock and NoScript. Those two extensions make the net a lot more usable.

LOL and yea flash is what chews up your cpu, hence the older computers choking on all the flash its pathetic

[Jeanbon]

i disagree. ads are what makes the internet grow.

ppl launch websites and work hard on them cos they would like to make some money. if the websites cant make money they will close and webmasters will go get a job at the macdonalds and we will revert to the boring ignorant era of tv where everything is controlled by mega-corporations that brainwash the peoples mind...

[rdowty]

If it weren't for ads the internet today would be radically different. I agree they're annoying and I really wish you could opt out and pay a fee in some cases. The overuse of ads is also troubling.

Every web site you view takes someone time to create and unless the site itsself is a giant ad for a company or product there's no financial incentive for someone to create it unless there's an ad revenue. There's also the cost of hosting, bandwidth and hardware. If there were no ad's at that would be left would be online stores, company presence websites and politicians websites. All the news sites would be charging a fee like a magazine.

[Dagless]

^ Thing is free newspapers, paid newspapers, paid magazines all have adverts in too. There's no escape no matter how much you pay.

LOL and yea flash is what chews up your cpu, hence the older computers choking on all the flash its pathetic

Absolutely. On my 1.5Ghz Powerbook everytime a flash object appeared on a site the fans would kick in. You really couldn't watch Youtube on it.
And stuff like that means I need to recharge more or use up more power when plugged in - therefore costing me money. I think not! <ad voice>Which is why I use Adblock Plus!

But seriously. Ads suck. I record all my TV and watch it 10 or so minutes after the show has started so I can just fast forward through adverts.

[anthemus]

This Space for Rent.



Seriously if there weren't advertisers on the net you would have to pay to see every site. Just like television, the net is mostly run by advertisers and subscribers.

[dmmcintyre3]

i wish i had the skill to make a browser with all those included like an adblocking browser, that would be awseome!
OMNIweb has a ad blocker built in and internet exploder does too (you just have to play with IE to get it to load on startup and add the adblock lists

CPALead is horrible. Cannot get rid of it without closing the page. Who would use such a bad "ad" service. It's more like a "I will let you read my site, but you must read 3 others first" type thing "or pay to get past me."

They use this to redirect you when you don't have javascript on

<noscript><META http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://cpalead.com/nojava.php"></noscript>

EDIT: Bypass instructions for cpalead: http://1.00.im/170

[Apple Genius]

I'm branching off: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8778281

[Apple Genius]

i disagree. ads are what makes the internet grow.

ppl... I stopped reading at "ppl".

[neiltc13]

Flash is fine on Windows. I guess that means we all know what the problem is here.

[GSMiller]

The ads wouldn't be so bad most of the time if they were just better implemented. Flash is way overdone in ads nowadays, half of the time a simple .gif file would do. Whenever I install a fresh copy of Windows through Boot Camp or Parallels, I always hold out as long as possible on installing Flash Player so the ads won't play while I'm surfing the internet.

[Hellhammer]

Anybody ever heard of adblocker?

[Shadow]

You could also try GlimmerBlocker (http://glimmerblocker.org/), I've had better results than with SafariBlock and it works on your entire machine (which means Firefox, Camino, Opera, Chrome etc) instead of just Safari. Plus, it doesn't bork with each Safari update.

[Bennieboy©]

totally agree with the OP, ad's are a headache, i hate them, if someone wants something then google is there for a reason, wish they stop with whoring our bandwidth trying to peddle crap.

[dmmcintyre3]

I don't mind a simple text ad here and there. But what is the worst is when I go to a "Low End" Mac site (EX: PPC G4 and under) and see 3 flash ads and then those stupid mouseover things with more flash in it I just hate it. 100% CPU = Flash or AppleVNCServer on my PB G4.

links where I click them and it redirects me to the actual product while paying the site owner are nice too. Site owner gets paid but the user never sees an ad at all
totally agree with the OP, ad's are a (literal) headache, i hate them, if someone wants something then google is there for a reason, wish they stop with whoring our bandwidth trying to peddle crap.
(Bold = ME)