If you're reading this, it is because you are subject to one of the banes of the internet. The dreaded popunder ad.
And that isn't even the worst thing you will encounter as you try to find what you're looking for on the internet.
It is no wonder that more and more people, especially those on dialup connections, aren't particularly
interested in the internet anymore. Advertising is destroying the world wide web experience.
I'm not talking about modest sized banner ads at the tops of pages, or discreet corporate support of various
websites. I'm talking about obnoxious, in-your-face, attacks on my privacy, sanity and time.
Internet Explorer Madness
Recently I spent 15 minutes browsing for information on a television show I was interested in. In those fifteen
minutes I was asked if I wanted to download Flash 5 14 times (I started counting after 3 - the websites worked
fine without it.) Take the hint, I'm not interested! I was also asked to ok an install of
Comet Cursor (spyware) as well as some form filling software (probably also spyware) and the Start bar (I was
using Internet Explorer) filled completely with dozens of popunder ads. It took 2 minutes to close all of those ads when I was
done. A few weeks ago I was using Konqueror on Linux, and literally could not browse because of multiple ad
windows popping up over what I was browsing 4 at a time. I had a shocking 23 browser windows open after just a couple
of seconds.
My wife spent a few minutes looking around the internet one afternoon, and from then on Internet Explorer
would always start on this one company's portal page. And if you changed it in the settings, it was changed
back on the next reboot. I had to dig into Windows' registry to purge that one. Half an hour wasted.
My brother-in-law's Internet Explorer home page has been changed, and the option to change it back
is now disabled in the settings. So he lives with it. My sister-in-law has the same problem. She doesn't
know how to change it. So she lives with it.
These are frustrating time wasters, you'd think the companies that perpetrate them would realize that
people are wasting their time having to disable all this junk. And that it doesn't get them any good will.
I don't know anyone who is happy to have their default home page changed without even a "by your leave"
or who likes closing dozens of popunders.
Obnoxious Advertising
If you click on a link in Yahoo Groups
you are treated to one of the newest, and even more obnoxious forms of advertising, the interstitial. These (usually
full page graphics) are inserted between you and the page you want to view. And they take ages to download. This
of course is in addition to banner ads at the top of every single page. Fortunately these beauties can be
blocked using the technique from a previous OS/2 eZine article.
Spying On You
Earlier this week, Comcast got accused of tracking every page their customers viewed
(they've quit doing that since due to a public backlash.) According to their terms of service, this is ok, since as a
comcast customer you agree to allow them to aggregate any information that they collect and sell it to advertisers.
You did read your terms of service agreement didn't you?
And although the most infamous spy organization, DoubleClick (my main reason for turning off Javascript most of the
time) has reportedly gone out of the ad-tracking business, it is funny how I'm still constantly redirected
to DoubleClick sites by places like Byte.
Most people I know are quite shocked to find out just how their activities can be tracked on the internet.
How many people do you know that have unwittingly installed Comet Cursor or at least one of the several hundred
applications on this spyware list?
Spammers
I read a report on what sort of results companies that use spamming get. One telephone long distance carrier
sends out over 14,000 emails per day, and gets a response rate of about 4 a day. Thank you for clogging up my inbox.
Take a look at JunkSpy if you have a spam problem.
Want to Get Rid of Popups?
If you don't mind losing the funky menus that change when you move your mouse over them you can turn off
Javascript in Netscape 4.61 by going into Edit|Preferences|Advanced and clearing the Enable Javascript checkbox.
In Mozilla 0.9.8 go to Edit|Preferences|Advanced|Scripts & Windows and you will be presented with a number of
options that are even better. You can disable "Open unrequested windows" and that should pretty much kill your
popunders while keeping the cool menus.
Occasionally you'll come across a site that requires Javascript, in that case you just need to go in and turn
it back on. Maybe someday they'll add a toolbar button that toggles Javascript on and off for me.
Long live Netscape, long live the ability to turn off Javascript
It is fortunate that by running Netscape with Javascript turned off most of the time that in general I don't have
to deal with all these interruptions and annoyances. I don't know how regular internet users can stand it. I do
take some solace in the fact that internet advertising as a revenue source is reportedly drying up. I
might miss some of the ad-supported sites, but I'll get over it.
P.S. If you didn't see this article, I hope you continue to enjoy your popunder-free browsing experience.
You're not going to see popunder ads or those obnoxious interstitials at the OS/2 eZine as long as I run it.
Oh, if you have cookies turned off and got multiple copies of this article, I apologize, this uses a session cookie
so that it is only supposed to appear once.