Yahoo Mail Forcing Ads Through Adblock? 291
egNuKe asks: "Like some people here, I use Firefox and Adblock. I've blocked the ads that Yahoo puts in my inbox, however the next time I opened it, I've found other ads, and blocked them too. This happened for several times, until I figured out that Yahoo must have some script that checks if the ad is displayed and displays another one, if it hasn't. This is no big problem, I just needed to add several rules to Adblock to block the several ad sources they use. Here is the problem: when Adblock is running and effectively stopping Yahoo mail ads, Firefox would freeze (all open windows and tabs) for about 15 seconds. Then the page opens and there is no ads. The script must be on client side, since it's the browser that's freezing and not the network. Turning off Adblock solves the freezing problem. Is there a cure for this?" This is a touch-and-go issue as it basically boils down to the user's priority (not seeing ads) versus the services priority (displaying the ads it needs to allow the user to enjoy a free service). It was only a matter of time before someone thought to try and work around ad-blockers, and all this will eventually lead to is open warfare (competing Javascript or browser code in the browser) on your machine. Instead of working around the workaround, why not consider another service that doesn't inundate you with ads?
Gmail (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Gmail (Score:5, Funny)
Yahoo = riding pure inertia (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a few reasons why noone should use Yahoo as their mail system:
Don't even get me started on GMail vs. Yahoo maps. Or GCal vs. Yahoo Calendar. Yahoo are not innovating; they are riding the pure inertia of their 1996 early start.
Oh, here's a word for those of you who are moaning about unethical users blocking ads: some of us are truly incapable of tuning out obnoxious banners and flash animations. It realy ruins our internet experience. Don't worry. The sheep will always be there to provide you with advertising revenue. As for the rest of us, if you want to win us over, use text ads only. You will get many more clicks from us, that's for sure.
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Ju
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Re:Gmail (Score:5, Insightful)
Got an actual source for that? All the hysteria I've ever seen has been fueled by people who misinterpret the Gmail terms of service to mean "we never delete anything" instead of "this stuff's stored on distributed redundant clusters, so sometimes there's a lag between hitting delete and the message disappearing".
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Whoosh.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes, anyone can sign up if you have a cell phone to receive a text message, but some people still don't, meaning they'll need an invite.
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GReasemonkey (Score:5, Informative)
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GreaseMonkey and NoScript do not cooperate. I wish they did since I love NoScript and want to get some good greasy love too. But alas, they don't and apparently can't since GreaseMonkey's context is the site itself, so you can't block the scripts at a site and simultaneously grease it up.
Re:GReasemonkey (Score:5, Informative)
Opera (Score:5, Informative)
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View the ads or find another webmail (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:View the ads or find another webmail (Score:5, Insightful)
I would disagree for two reasons:
1. That's not true that adblockers are complete freeloaders on the Yahoo network. Attached to every mail you send from Yahoo is an advertisement for Yahoo Mail. That's presumably worth something- very possibly more than the ads you're blocking (especially as the type of customer who blocks ads is not likely to click on them).
2. Yahoo simply can't do this. People would scream bloody murder if their email- their online identity- was terminated. Bad, bad publicity and a quick erosion of trust for very little gain.
Personally? I'd switch to gmail. They've never pulled any shenanigans on me.
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Re:View the ads or find another webmail (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats what gmail does for me, and why I use the web interface.
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That is truly bizarre behaviour. Can you remember when you started to develop that? And do you do it with any other products/services?
Re:View the ads or find another webmail (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it has something to do with a perceived disparity between GMail's pages vs. the 'average' web page in terms of (a) their elegance & simplicity, and (b) the usefulness of their incidental / extraneous content.
Perhaps I'm too accustomed to the "manual approach," i.e. avoiding links altogether, typing command lines & URLs instead of using bookmarks, typing search phrases instead of clicking search links, etc. By the intelligence of their offerings, Google has challenged some of my entrenched habits; for instance, I now search for addresses on Google proper & then click the resulting "Google map" link, instead of going to Google maps to type the address in. This approach adds a bit of address correction on the front end, I can type my text into a single search box instead of having to split it up into separate fields, and it's available right from [Ctrl + k] in Firefox.
I was also in the habit of copying UPS, USPS and FedEx tracking numbers & navigating to their respective tracking URLs to paste & track, and that for some time after Google started parsing those references & hyperlinking them automagically. That was a matter of muscle memory, most likely; in the back of my mind I *knew* Google parsed & linked those, but I would already be on UPS's site before I really became conscious of the fact that I could have saved steps by just using the link.
Maybe now I'm forming a new pattern of web behavior that's Google (or GMail) specific. I'm not sure, but after enough instances where the "Google way" turned out to be simpler than "my way," I'm starting to reflexively look for the "Google way" more and more.
I think that unlike most other companies -- who constantly try to find ways to jam more annoying bs into my field of attention -- Google has consistently surprised me with stuff that's actually useful & time saving. My old habits were borne of the former kind of web experience. So ultimately, I think Google's behavior has caused me to have a different (better) set of expectations regarding their incidental content.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find out if Nextag has Fourier transforms in stock & ready to ship...
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That was when I stopped trusting 3rd parties to hold my information for me. Now I use POP3. The interface might not be so pretty, but at least I know I can access my mail when I want
Re:View the ads or find another webmail (Score:5, Insightful)
POP (Score:2)
That's what I use for my disposable ones... and if POP becomes billable, they get disposed of.
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Adsense ads more useful and relevant than banners (Score:2)
Google's adsense is far more useful to users than regular banner ads.
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The math is nowhere near that simple.
You neglect one important factor - the network effect. It took a lot of eyeballs for a site like Yahoo to become successful, and it takes a lot of eyeballs to maintain that critical mass and stay successful - especially online where barrier to entry is low and users are notoriously capricious.
Every user of Yahoo's services tends to drag in other users - through popularity and word of mou
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I doubt it:
"Yes, we'd love to sell you some ad space. We have 20,000,000 users."
"Yes, we'd love to sell you some ad space. We have 20,000,000 users, and only 5,000,000 block ads."
Which do you suppose is the sales pitch closer to reality?
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I just don't understand some of you (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, there is a somewhat person reason for this for me too. I am starting up a new gaming company that will depend on ad revenue on the site to survive. If people block it, we will die off. We won't ever put ads in the way, but some people just can't stand to let us make money for a free service to happen.
I just don't understand some of you.
Re:I just don't understand some of you (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed there. If an ad interferes with reading the site, or blares audio without asking me, I'll block it. I remember one site that had a pair of interesting articles (about website usability, ironically enough) that had so many ads it was almost impossible to read. I blocked all the ads, read the two articles, then never returned to the site.
With most of them, it's just as easy to tune them out.
Oddly, the only ads I can recall clicking on in the last year or so are on a handful of webcomics that I read. I wonder if that says something...
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Re:I just don't understand some of you (Score:5, Interesting)
And yes, I even block google ads, even though they are the least annoying. I still won't click them, so why bother with them in the first place?
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So, don't waste your time trying to be reasonable. It's all some kind o
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To help you understand perhaps a bit more of the ad-blocking mindset, another reason for blocking ads that you didn't mention so might not be aware of is that the major web advertising companies set themselves up to track users movements across the internet. I personally have no desire to give Doubleclick any information about what sites I surf. Even Google, whose ads are less intrusive, gets their ads/scripts blocked since I don't really care to give them that much insig
Re:I just don't understand some of you (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't understand some of you.
Let me try to help you understand. First, consider that not everybody blocks ads. If you run a site that depends on
ad revenue, you will have some people downloading and viewing your ads, but you must accept that not everyone will.
Some of us really dislike ads, and some of us even believe that the web is a one-to-many publishing medium that exists
for people to express themselves with, not for people to try to make a go of business ventures that are so pathetic that
the only way they can survive is if everybody that visits their site views their ads.
Second, the way that some sites display ads is simply unacceptable. When I point my web browser at www.domain.com,
I am expressly downloading content from www.domain.com, and from nowhere else. If that site attempts to trick my
browser into requesting files from any other domain, it is pissing in the wind. I guarantee this behaviour with
any browser I use via a custom proxy, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Keep that in mind if you want to
embed ads in your pages. You had better plan on managing those ads yourself, because some people's browsers are
not going to fetch them from anywhere else.
Finally, you need to come to grips with the fact that some people believe that the web would instantly become a
better place if all sites that depended on ad revenue vanished. Granted, a lot of useful and popular sites would
disappear, but I assure you that equally useful sites would fill their places. There were excellent free search
engines before google, and there would be again.
If you cannot survive with web surfers exercising their ability and right to control what HTTP requests they do and
do not make, then kindly release your domain name as you die.
Don't you mr jones? (Score:2)
We dont care if, or are in any way responsible for, your site making money? Is it really that hard to grasp?
Advertising is garbage for the brain and causes therapy. It is responsible for over consumption, driving consumerism and the general unhappyness of the masses. Advertising is a psychological disease that gradually and continually perverts, manipulates and conditions society. It creates an epedemic of distrust. You will have no idea of the effect advertising has on
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I won't block /. ads unless they start doing something to get them in my way.
I won't block /. ads, unless of course I'm a subscriber to /.
Re:All ads are obtrusive. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, that's the "old" mode of advertising. Today, it's more about creating a feeling about a product and company - giving a sense of the community you could be a part of. For example, how many advertisements actually tell you anything about the product? There aren't many. Most are about the fun, good-looking, exciting, partying people you will be with when you use the product.
It's also about impresssions. Today you might not be in the mood for some shoes. But, someday you will be, and sadly/strangely/interestingly, there is a correlation between how many impressions of an ad you've seen and which product you actually get. So when you DO want a pair of shoes, the hope is the thought of the company that has the most compelling lifestyle to offer you will pop in your head. When I said "buy a pair of shoes", which brand did you just think of? Nike? Adidas? Asics? Saucony? Whichever one it was "won".
Anyway, look at the ads and you'll see few of them actually describe the product and how you'll use it. Many many more of them are about how cool you'll be, or how much better your life could be because of the product.
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1 person said "pets"
the other person said "food"
I said "Purina Puppy Chow".
I have 9 Cats.
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This may be true for "good" adverts (ones that aren't designed to be nothing but annoying), but the converse is true for me when I repeatedly see annoying adverts.
For example, when shopping around for car insurance, I never even bother to get a quote from elephant.co.uk because their TV ads are so unbelievably annoying. Yes, their advert made their name stick in my head, but sadly for them it was fil
Haven't noticed, myself (Score:2, Interesting)
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Dear Slashdot, (Score:4, Insightful)
I am trying to avoid my side of the bargin by blocking the ads, however, the service provider seems to have prevented me from doing this easily.
Can anyone help?
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In spite of what you were told, attempts to sell yourself into slavery are considered invalid - enjoy the free room and board, but it's not the Hotel California - you can indeed leave anytime you want - and you don't have to view the ads while you're there.
Your pal in non-slavedom,
Abby
Re:Dear Slashdot, (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't use Yahoo, but the way I've seen it work at other places is like this:
1. Offer useful, non-annoying service
2. Become successful
3. Make service annoying
4. Poor deluded users are stuck with it, or they can change providers (which often sucks or is simply impossible)
I had an account with mail.com many years ago. They had good webmail and lots of neat-o domain names. Slowly they started sucking until now it makes me want to die using their site on IE. Blinding, flashing, musical, interstitial, repetitous hell. That wasn't the deal. They changed the rules. They get blocked.
Yahoo did the same exact thing, I can guarantee it. They got wise to the getting blocked part, and now they're trying to ruin that too. Fuck 'em. I finally moved away from my mail.com account. I got tired of having to whip up a greasemonkey script every few weeks to deal with their latest retardation. It sucked. I've had that email for 10 years or so. I'll probably lose some important stuff in the future such as forgotten registrations, long-lost friends, etc.
We don't owe these bastards anything. If they can change the rules so can we. Eventually some honest company will come along with a sustainable business model instead of this bait-and-switch bullshit. I'm so sick of having something useful and good grow ad-fucked time after time.
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A small sig with a text ad is acceptable. Simple text ads are OK. Once you go to hideous flash or animated banners, you've crossed the line.
I think it's pretty easy to come up with reasonable models. Google has made billions offering non-terrible ads. I don't know why anyone does it the
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What do principles of open-source software have to do with charging money for a service? Isn't that in fact the very core of most open-source businesses? While I consider myself somewhat of a open-source proponent, I have to admit I really don't see a problem with someone charging for a service. In your examp
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If I'm understanding you correctly, I disagree with your idea of "the principles of open source". I think that charging for a service is much more in line with open source principles than supporting it with the use of ads.
Re:Dear Slashdot, (Score:5, Informative)
It's in section 2.
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The submitter really is griping because Yahoo is taking measures to make sure that their ads (the only source of revenue to support their free mail, at that) are getting displayed. And the complaint that when all the ads are being blocked, the page will start loading, freeze for 15s, and then finish loading? That's probably JavaScript, or whatever they're using to make sure the ads are displayed, running through its myriad adservers for
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So there's no commitment and no obligation on either side. So he's got no call to complain if they work around his work around, and they've got no call to complain if he asks a thousand hackers for help working around their work around of his work around. :)
Dear Slashdot, (Score:2)
Could someone please ignore it and give me a sarcastic, pseudo-moralistic entreaty to consumerism instead?
Thanks.
Get your own domain and/or an aliasing service (Score:3)
seconded (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why not allow it (Score:5, Informative)
If you really want to get the ads off of your Yahoo mail account, pay them. I have a premium account with Yahoo because my ISP partners with them to provide all the web services. I log in--no ads! It's not too shabby.
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Yes those servers are free, damnit. Who pays for bandwidth and development time, these days, anyway. Get out of the past.
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Me? Capitalist? Never! Just think of me as a very practical socialist...
Use the options (Score:5, Informative)
blocking ads vs not seeing them... (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting, considering... (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a choice of hitting Yes, or I guess letting the ad sit there blocking my viewing the content.
There was no close option.
I don't mind ads, but what is the purpose of annoying me?
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Yes, its annoying. But the geniuses in marketing deparments think that annoying ads correlate to good sales.
I agree with Cliff here (Score:2)
I for example have been using Windows Mail Desktop [live.com] which lets me consolidate email from several emails accounts from a couple of different providers in one single place.
Ads can be turned off in the program.
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Adblock just isn't worth it to me. (Score:2)
I block Flash and JavaScript because it uses my CPU time, and I'd rather have a smoother web experience.
I just ignore advertising anyways. I don't read or pay attention to it. Do the ads on Yahoo really b
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You just noticed? (Score:2)
If you have a blocker that handles SSL ads, then let us know. I'd love to use that with Privoxy [privoxy.org].
Only for proxies (Score:3, Informative)
related to bug? (Score:3, Informative)
I take it that you can't reproduce the problem in IE or Opera?
What's they cpu usage? Does it freeze all firefox windows or just the Yahoo window?
Crashing (Score:2)
Watch ads (Score:2)
Fool them... (Score:2)
Privoxy is the solution! (Score:3, Interesting)
Use Privoxy and force Firefox / Opera through the proxy on your localhost. It filters the ads for you!
Also, I just tested -- I created an account on Yahoo and tried regular Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Mail Beta.
I saw no ads. None. Nada.
Privoxy > Ad Block Plus in my opinion. I never see ads thanks to this. And it's less work.
Give it a shot guys.
Then maybe allow ads? (Score:2)
I agree on banning large flash ads, but a 15k banner never hurt anyone (ok sometimes it did), so I cannot really relate to this tragedy of not being able to block a free service's ads.
What about blocking them by the DNS / host file?
cheers
daydreaming (Score:2, Insightful)
Advertisers should adhere to it.
Browsers should adhere to it.
Webmasters should adhere to it.
Advertisers should ensure that the webmasters adhere to it.
Then...
have the contract you agree to when signing up for ad-supported services indicate that the site uses the official industry standard advertising method. Any attempt on the users part to block the ads is in breach of contract. The browser gets a certificate indicating that it must display
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Re:daydreaming (Score:5, Funny)
* Konqueror will support it, but 90% of the ads won't show because KHTML properly handles CSS errors but the authors assume a laxer CSS parser. There will be an option to turn it off.
* Opera will not support it because the users don't want it.
* Internet Explorer will claim to support, but there will be the usual embrace, extend, extinguish, and all ads will be replaced with MSN ads.
* Lynx will put a note in the man page that the next version of Lynx will support frames.
Touch and no go. (Score:3, Informative)
But if you want something for free, you have to pay with your eyeballs. Someone has to foot the bill for the web hosting, and the sysadmins, and the time and effort that go into building a site. Or are you one of those guys who gets HBO for free, spliced off your neighbor's cable ?
The ad blocking game is no different from copy-protection schemes, or product activation, or any other undesirable software trait. They're like human viruses; they start out as a minor nuisance (simple banner ads), then you develop antibodies (adblock), then the virus grows stronger (javascript detection), then come stronger antibodies (adblock++.Net 2.0 GT), and then finally the virus grows so strong and belligerant it just plain kills you (ad company buys out Mozilla and makes you watch 2-minute full-screen noisy ads every time you click, then forces you to complete a "short" survey before letting you read the actual page).
I personally don't employ any kind of ad blocking.. yes, it slows down page loads a little bit, but I don't mind it so much. An extra second or two won't kill me, I'm usually multitasking anyways. The sight of ads doesn't bug me, I just scroll past.. every now and then I'll actually see one that catches my interest and click through, because sometimes I actually discover something I like. The only gimmick I use against ads is FlashMute, because the last thing I need is for the neighbors to call the cops on me, from hearing those stupid screaming smilies pumped through my loud stereo.
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Let's try that again (Score:2)
Well, yeah, this is pretty well-known. I still have a screenshot of ads for divorce lawyers next to a nasty conversation with an ex-girlfriend. I was quite amused, and impressed. But I don't see why you think this is "creepy". Google's not sending your emails t
Yahoo reads your email too (Score:2)
Google read my email too, but at least they are not fowarding my inbox to the Chinese government ala Yahoo!
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Now in a few moments your doorbell will ring. Do not be alarmed. The system merely wishes you to understand the benefits that Google offers. The nice people will not take much of your time. You love the Google, and the Google loves you
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Very is a big word for something that has only been around a few years at most. So what is wrong with Filterset.G? What are these modern alternatives?
>If you're still using it, you're still in the dark ages.
Note that technologies on the whole do not become obsolete, just complemented. I have a computer but that does not mean that I
Filterset.G suckage explained (Score:5, Informative)
So I switched to Adblock Plus, which:
Adblock Plus rocks. There's just no comparison.
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http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions [adblockplus.org]
I am a former Adblock/filterset.G user and was just trying out these as a basic starting point, expecting to need to upgrade to one of the more advanced subscriptions after awhile but have been quite pleased with how they worked.
BTWhttp://adblockplus.org/en/faq_project#filterset
Re:related issue (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, some good news about the War on Terror!