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Only Thieves Block Pop-Ups 1376

aurelian writes "It's official: using browsing the web while blocking pop-up ads and other such exciting website enhancements is theft. Anti-leech.com are offering to protect your site from browsers blocking pop-ups (or 'theft tools' as they call them) - just try stealing from them with your favourite pop-up free browser. (I picked this up on the phoenix discussion forum...)"
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Only Thieves Block Pop-Ups

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  • by Pflipp ( 130638 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:40PM (#4745896)
    Aside from the semi-FP issue (I bet I'll be post # 104 or so by the time I finished writing :-), I don't really see how this differs from M$ browsers (and Netscape 4.x) refusing to render my site correctly. So there.
  • So? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by haukex ( 229058 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:40PM (#4745897)

    What are they going to do if browsers just *hide* the popup windows/banners, still loading the ads in the background?

  • This works well... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Binestar ( 28861 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:40PM (#4745902) Homepage
    Click here to bypass thier test [anti-leech.com].

    Kinda funny, This browser had failed the test and been blocked from using the site. Found a direct link past the tester and was able to load up thier page.

    Just goes to show you, everything is just a measure that is able to be bypassed.
  • by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot ( 227666 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:41PM (#4745910) Journal
    ... the Internet was based on an open set of standards, and the only fee requirement for use is that which it costs to physically connect/route to it. I wonder if this will ever become a court issue, and if so, if this point will be made...

    I'd like to see the look on the faces of those suing because we are 'stealing' when the judge asks them where they get off attempting to impose requirements and fees upon a system that is designed to be open.
  • So?? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:44PM (#4745945)
    They are only driving away potential users.

    They need to understand that people just really hate popups. They aren't needed - use a banner ad if you must.

    Popups cause people to freak because they feel that they are losing control of their browser. Imagine if TV ads started messing around with your contrast and volume controls.

    These same websites probably distribute software loaded with spyware.

  • by Sexy Commando ( 612371 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:47PM (#4745981) Journal
    Just wondering... I haven't seen those nasty pop-unders for a while. Where did they go?
  • by FearUncertaintyDoubt ( 578295 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:47PM (#4745988)
    If they want to block people who are blocking ads, fine. Just come out and say that you want people to see the ads. Don't call me a thief. Don't say I'm leeching. I'd have a lot more respect for these guys if they would just admit they are trying to force people to watch ads and leave it at that, rather than accusing me of being a criminal.

    When sites put banners and say, please click on these links because it helps us fund the site, I usually do. Why? Because it shows respect, it's honest, and it doesn't treat me like a "leech" that needs to have measures taken against me.

  • Re:doh! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:48PM (#4745992) Homepage
    There has been no contact or agreement on my part to view ads in order to view the content of the site. Much like television commercials. Your entire argument is completely invalid for a number of reasons, but instead of listing them, let me ask you one question: how far am I, as a web site viewer, obligated to go? Many ad sites don't pay out unless the link is actually clicked. Should I click the link? If I don't, am I "stealing" content? Should I be required to buy something from the site? Am I stealing if I don't?
  • Who's the theif? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:48PM (#4746007)
    It seems to me that popping up unsolicited browser windows is both theft of bandwidth and theft of system resources. I've actualy been DoS'd by multitudes of pop ups each spawning it's own pop up children. Although I don't see what their test sight was supposed to do, I didn't get any pop ups and my pop up blocker didn't do anything out of the ordinary..
  • by brejc8 ( 223089 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:50PM (#4746026) Homepage Journal
    I do agree that advertising is crutual to the development of the internet. A few years back it looked like everything would be based on micropayment but we got over that.
    Also I think that blocking off adverts when you brouse someones website is a little like stealing. I dont do it and I think its wrong to.
    But Popups are designed to be annoying. I delibretly stop using brands which use popups.

    People who use popup ads should realise that they are overpricing their product. I cant put up with them so yes I do steal the websites content. I am happy to view adverts for good content but when they overprice themselves I resort to stealing. I also cant affoard some software and I also will steal that too. I justify this as I wouldnt have bought it anyway.

    The problem here isnt with the whole human behaviour but its with the people who think they can change they way people behave for a few measely bucks.
  • by Rob Kaper ( 5960 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:51PM (#4746033) Homepage
    Except for using the phrase theft, which could be considered libel, I see no problem with this.

    So I won't see the site.. not my loss but ultimately theirs as I can't/won't recommend it to anyone else. And sites might not show up in Google either using this kind of technology.

    The idea of the Internet is that ultimately someone will build a better site.. anyone can publish something. If there's no useful site on a topic, some freak will stand up and make one that is better and more user-friendly. I know I have done so and I bet many others with me.

    Or some browser developer might find a way to show the content after all. Not that I actually see people pay for this stuff to put it on their sites.
  • by mcwop ( 31034 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:52PM (#4746044) Homepage
    I have Comcast digital cable. I tried to order a movie last night, but it would not order. I called and got the "we will send a tech out in a week" crap. I asked the rep why I should pay $80 a month for digital cable when the movie ordering system never works. Well the woman on the other end of the line said I don't pay for the movie unless I order it. I had to explain to her that I do pay for digital cable so I have the ability to order a movie when I want.

    Needless to say the attitude of many companies these days is all wrong. Making you view popup ads. Trying to blame product shortcomings on the consumer etc. Well, I am cancelling my Digital cable, and I will not visit sites with obnoxious popup strategies.

    If you want to do well in business, don't piss on your cutomers or potential customers.

  • by vadim_t ( 324782 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:53PM (#4746059) Homepage
    I had this idea a while ago but never got around implementing it. Take a list of ads, and make a Perl script to load banners invisibly, of course faking the referer.

    I see it as less "evil" than blocking ads, because if I just block them the site doesn't get anything from the advertiser, but the advertiser doesn't really lose anything. This way the advertiser should have it pretty hard to figure out which ads are seen and which are not, and the site should be paid at least a bit.
  • Re:doh! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by retards ( 320893 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:57PM (#4746113) Journal
    Wow, what an argument. Of course we are thieves, it can't be the site's owners fault that he publishes his stuff in a medium that can't enforce ad-watching. I also steal everyday when I don't read every ad in the morning paper.

    For all companies that started up on hype and don't have a sound business model: please, belly up, like, immediately. That means you too, anti-leech.com...
  • by hector13 ( 628823 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:58PM (#4746120)
    You mean you didn't know? According to turner broadcasting it is illegal [anti-dmca.org].
  • by SourceFrog ( 627014 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:59PM (#4746132)

    So how should websites generate income, at the very least, enough income to cover the costs? Apart from the direct financial costs of hosting, to make a decent website requires a LOT of work. Should website creators just sacrifice hundreds of hours of their spare time, often almost ALL of their spare time, so that people can get stuff for nothing, and then still bitch about it like a bunch of spoilt brats if its not quite what they expected?

    I run a modest website with a few banner ads, no popups. I get maybe 200 to 400 visitors per day. The hosting costs me $12/month. I don't think I even make half that back from the banner ads. And that doesn't say anything about just what a huge amount of work it is to provide content for the website and keep it up to date. Basically spending many evenings and weekends producing stuff and giving it away for free. And then people still have the gall to bitch and whine about some little aspect of a freeware game of mine that sucked, or how much something else on the site sucked, or going ballistic if there is one small factual error in a free article I spent days writing. Yes its a minority of people, but god, what a bunch of spoilt brats.

    The vast majority of people don't even bother to write a small 'thank you' even when they've found the site useful. Some do though, which is much appreciated.

    Anyway, back to my question though, how SHOULD people make money from their websites? Or should thousands of people in the world just work their butts off to give YOU stuff for free?

    Anyone who has ever tried to produce something worthwhile, such as a website, in their spare time, in addition to having a full-time job, will probably understand these sentiments.

  • by Mister Transistor ( 259842 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @06:59PM (#4746133) Journal
    I went to the test page, got the blocked message (I'm using mozilla with selective image blocking) and just went back there and hit the stop button before it redirected me. How hard was that?!?!?

  • Re:doh! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by iie1195 ( 208357 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:00PM (#4746145) Homepage
    No it's not obvious. Regular ads are fine, but pop-ups is an annoyance, and who the hell clicks on any of them except to close anyways?

    And you cannot call it stealing. You choose NOT to view certain content. The main post is BS.

    Pretty soon, you'll be saying NOT downloading and installing Gator and Hunterbar and the like is 'stealing' from the sites too, huh?

    Not meant as a flame or anything, really.

    --iie1195
  • Re:doh! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Murdock037 ( 469526 ) <tristranthorn&hotmail,com> on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:01PM (#4746150)
    The stuff you browse on the web isn't exactly completely free of charge. There're bandwidth costs to be paid, servers... etc.

    If they didn't want to pay bandwidth costs, they wouldn't have placed their site online. That is an assumed cost of operating.

    Yes, we browse their sites for free, and it's perfectly within their rights to send us pop-up ads. But I agreed to no terms of service when I typed in their address.

    If they're going to recoup their costs, they're going to have to do it smarter. Salon [salon.com], for example, won't let you access their premium content unless you pay, and that's fair. They've implemented a system that doesn't make assumptions. It doesn't really work [newsmax.com], but it's still fair.

    ...all they're asking in return is for you to do your part and look at those ads... is it that big of an inconvenience?

    Whether or not it's a big inconvenience is a matter of opinion, a moot point, and not worth discussing. The issue is whether or not I'm allowed to block their pop-ups altogether.

    Wait, scratch that. That's how they want us to think. The issue is whether or not they are allowed to force me to see what they want me to see.

    I say no.
  • Re:doh! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chamenos ( 541447 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:01PM (#4746160)
    "how far am I, as a web site viewer, obligated to go? Many ad sites don't pay out unless the link is actually clicked. Should I click the link? If I don't, am I "stealing" content? Should I be required to buy something from the site? Am I stealing if I don't?"

    all you're obligated to do is to look at those ads. whether you click on them or not, is your perogative. if you don't click it, you're not stealing and no, you aren't required to buy anything so as not to be considered a thief. all you have to do is look at the ad.

    by disabling pop-ups, you're denying the company the opportunity to even have you look at the ad, and possibly click on the ad.

    look at this way: in return for having a 30% discount at blah blah steakhouse, all you have to do is attend a short sales pitch by a salesman about the latest bbq sauce on the market. its only right that you hear out the salesman. whether you buy the bbq sauce or not is up to you. you sure as hell can't just walk out on the salesman before he gets a chance to do his pitch.
  • by theBrownfury ( 570265 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:06PM (#4746205)
    Have a look at bug 181035 on Mozilla's Bugzilla [mozilla.org]. There is some good discussion on how to handle this. A pop-up window can't merely be hidden from view, because invisible windows are considered a security hazard. Maybe the sandbox idea will take off allowing pop-ups to have temporary play room.

    However as of now its an open issue at Mozilla with no clear solution in sight. This is going to be an arms race no doubt.
  • Re:doh! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by OeLeWaPpErKe ( 412765 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:08PM (#4746227) Homepage
    "look at this way: in return for having a 30% discount at blah blah steakhouse, all you have to do is attend a short sales pitch by a salesman about the latest bbq sauce on the market. its only right that you hear out the salesman. whether you buy the bbq sauce or not is up to you. you sure as hell can't just walk out on the salesman before he gets a chance to do his pitch."

    why not ?
  • Re:doh! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DJayC ( 595440 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:09PM (#4746233)
    The problem is that pop-ups are a terribly invasive way of advertising.

    In fact, it's down right obnoxious. God forbid you browse the web on a slow computer... you go to one site and you could grind your browsing to a halt as 10 pop up windows for Spy Cameras and porn sites explode over your desktop.

    Closing 10 windows when you enter and leave a site IS an inconvenience in that respect.

    If a website is making its income from pop-up ads, warn the user first. "We can't find a better way to make money other than through pop-up ads, please understand our site is not free.. blablabla". That way we can all avoid it, and the company will go out of business anyway... pop-up ads are just sleazy. It's the equivalent of companies that purchase phone lists to sell storm windows or carpet cleaning. It's invasive and rude. Put a damn banner ad somewhere, and if we want to view it, we will.

    Final note: Most people still use Internet Explorer and have no clue you CAN block pop-ups... these users are the only people who may fall for the "spy camera", the "cell phone enchancer", the "computer monitoring software", or the "Oh my god your computer has porn on it! Click here to get it off" tricks, so they aren't losing their target market. My personal favorite is the pop-up ad asking you if you want a pop-up ad blocker.. bah..
  • Ads and ADS (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jedie ( 546466 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:09PM (#4746238) Homepage
    Some forms of advertisements are considered normal and acceptable (banners). But some ads are just hilariously blatantly unethical:

    • pop-ups that hide the window OFF the screen
    • pop-ups that produce other pop-ups
    • pop-ups that remove their button from the taskbar
    • pop-ups that go fullscreen
    • pop-ups that on unloading (closing the window) create more pop-ups
    • everything with the pop-ups, but with pop-unders
    • (usually) Flash banners that start moving all over the damn screen and render the site useless until you watched the entire ad

    now those my friend, are the true reason pop-up killers exsist. The worst part is when they start combining these "marketing techniques", which is almost always the case.

    There should be advertisment guidelines (just suggesting, not enforcing) on the internet about how advertisemnt should be on the internet. Perhaps a label you could place on your website:
    "This site is not a rotting cesspool of annoying pop-ups"

    (note: most of the malices usually occur in IE)

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:14PM (#4746288)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • TV Watching (Score:2, Interesting)

    by spanky555 ( 148893 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:25PM (#4746404)
    I used to have two house mates many years ago, and when watching something we were really interested in, two of us would hit "mute" when ad came on, and un-mute after it was over, and we'd usually gab about whatever during commercial, occasionally glancing to see if the show was back on. Commercials grate on the nerves.

    The other asked us why we do that...we were both speechless for a heartbeat, and then we had to explain how irritating we find commercials - they are louder, they are demeaning to the intelligence, they are lying, etc...he still didn't get it.

    When it was something we were only "marginally" interested in, we'd sometimes watch 3-4 shows...flipping back and forth, usually triggered by a commercial.

    I've always watched TV in this manner. And then, I got Tivo.

    I've spent most of my adult life not seeing (many) commercials on TV, and much of my childhood I didn't even HAVE A TV! Call me a criminal.

    When people say, "Didja see that commercial where..." I'm that guy with the clueless look on his face...pure, blissful ignorance.

    I find popups to be annoying, and over-use of flashing banners on the top, both sides, and at the bottom with 1x1 sq inch reserved for content. But casual use is tolerable, I suppose.

    Here's one thing to be thankful for, though: I haven't seen any that use sound. [Diety] help us all if that happens...
  • by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <chris.travers@gm a i l . c om> on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:26PM (#4746409) Homepage Journal
    1: Load the main add in the main page.
    2: Pop up a new window with requested content.

    Works for me :-P
  • Re:Workaround (Score:4, Interesting)

    by netsharc ( 195805 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:28PM (#4746434)
    I wonder if Proxomitron can fix it. Yahoo! Mail doesn't work properly on Opera, it recognizes Opera as an "other" browser and displays the screen with ugly 14 and 19 pt fonts, instead of 10 and 12 pt like in IE and Mozilla. So I wrote a Proxomitron script to change the JS variable "isMozilla" to "true", and this worked: the Javascript got fooled into giving Opera the nicer Style Sheet. I wonder if the sort of thing can be applied to this stupid trick. If the script asks "Did that window load?", then we can easily say "Sure it loaded"... well if I have more time I'll work out a hack.
  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:31PM (#4746461) Journal
    "On the pages that you want to protect you only need to insert a few lines of HTML code to your website. This will present the below button that will test the visitors to see if the use any sort of blocking software."

    I wonder if this special code can be cleaned before it reaches the browser by The Proxomitron [proxomitron.org] or your favourite page-scrubber proxy. It might be a little annoying to disable javascript every time I run into one of these. (Perhaps the mozilla crew will make a nice interface for per-site javascript blocking.)

  • by mattkinabrewmindspri ( 538862 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:31PM (#4746462)
    Imagine your ISP charged you $1 per GB for everything you downloaded(tiered bandwidth, like a lot of cable companies), and someone decided that they would misuse current technology, and make you download a bunch of stuff that you didn't want, like pop-up ads for things you would never buy or may already own, and the data that makes those ads pop-up.

    Now imagine that you could block that data, saving yourself money, and preventing the forced spending of your money(ie, theft).

    What these people don't seem to get is that we have no contract with them. They've simply put the site out in the open for anyone to access. If they want to charge for the site, go for it, but accusing people of theft when they've commited no such theft is just childish.

    It's the people that have pop-ups on their site who are the leeches. They're stealing our bandwidth, and I

  • by mosschops ( 413617 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:32PM (#4746463)
    My advert/popup filter shows:

    Adverts removed: 64,911
    Approximate bandwidth saved: 513MB
    Counter started: May 13, 2002

    That seems to be assuming a typical advert is 8K, which seems reasonably enough. I'm on broadband so it wouldn't have affected me as much, but I have sympathy for anyone on 56K dial-up.
  • Anti-HTML (Score:2, Interesting)

    by topace ( 456054 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:34PM (#4746489)
    Hahaha their Anti-HTML is funny... it redirects to a javascript page which loads another javascript page which outputs a urlencoded version of the page... a simple wget, and <?php echo urldecode($str) ?> gives their "protected" code very easily :) ... 25 seconds later i realize i've wasted another 25 seconds of my life... ugh.. :p
    ---- BEGIN Anti-HTML Example Code ----
    <font size=3 face=verdana>
    This HTML code is protected by Anti-Leech.com<br><br>
    With help of the Anti-Html system you can protect both parts of your page or all source code. We can even protect java scripts.<br><br>
    Take a look in the source code of this page for a better view of how good the protection actually is.
    </font>
    <br><br>
    ------------- teee heee -----------------
  • by zaqattack911 ( 532040 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:35PM (#4746501) Journal
    I think people (website owners and advertizers) need to sit back and realise that the dot com industry that once was, is no more.

    RUNNING A WEBSITE WITH ADDS WILL NOT KEEP YOU AFLOAT!

    Once people get that through thier 1998 skull, they can start using the web for what it was originally intended for... sharing information, research, and communication. (ok and a little online gaming as well :)).

    These idiots don't seem to want to accept that the market has changed. just look at salon.com .

    --Finger me
    ouch... not hard, yeah.. that's better.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:38PM (#4746531)
    I am so glad you brought up Google. First off, Google is one of the most useful sites on the net (IOW they have real content). Second, they don't use popups or burn your retinas with animated GIFs or embedded Flash. And what does this all mean? It means that the only ads I ever click are those on Google's website. I'm sure I could easily write a filter in the Proxomitron to block them out, but with their excellent content and respect for their users, why would I want to?
  • by PotatoHead ( 12771 ) <dougNO@SPAMopengeek.org> on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:46PM (#4746631) Homepage Journal
    I hate delayed content even more. Some hoser posted a good point followed by a lame link, so this reply really can't be under their thread.

    They mentioned the salon system where you are basically forced to look at an ad for a time before getting the content.

    The way I see it, broadband of any kind is a premium service. Why pay for it if the crap from the marketing folks reduces the quality of the experience to that of dialup? Think about it for a moment, if you use free Juno or something, what do you get? Ads --too many of them to make it worthwhile, so you upgrade service, but why? For a better experience of course! So, if the actions of the marketing people degrade this, does this not devalue the very service you pay extra for? Duh!

    Personally, I like the ads that are intermixed in with the content. Most of the benefit of broadband is preserved, and the ads get eyeballs.

    I can somewhat agree that browsing with popup support disabled somehow can be thought of as stealing, but what about malicious pages and such? How are users supposed to secure their machines without the freedom to reasonably define what their machine will and won't do for them?

    Battling the customer for their attention is never going to work. It costs more money and generates more bad PR than good impressions, so why do it? You would think these types of all people would know this cold.

    This sort of thing just limits the usefulness of the Internet just a little more for nothing but the profit of the losers selling this service.

    Salon is going the wrong direction by holding content until the ad is viewed. These folks are just as bad. How are the people who place ads in a reasonable way doing? For that matter, how about the /. ad system? Google? Are these working? I do not mind either one bit because I get to choose the nature of the experience. Seems to me the most valuable impressions are those where a user CHOSE, not was tricked or forced, to follow through that particular ad. In that small moment, you have the holy grail, you have a potential buyer actually interested in your product seeking more information.

    To everyone considering foolish schemes like this:

    How the hell are you going to get this by forcing the issue? Really, tell me how, I want to know!

    Know also, I don't have to get the content.

    This means more than you would think. We are all being attacked more and more in this new age of information. This will backfire and when it does, where will you be then? Consider your answer again after you remember also that everyone gets to talk about it --a lot and for a long time.

    Right now, there is more content presented than I can reasonably view. When I seek to meter my Internet time, guess who won't get the attention?

    Remember that when your stats go down as interested visitors don't come back after being treated like criminals. Our time is valuable too, why not create an experience that rewards participation rather than the opposite? It can be done though it takes work. Isn't that what we are supposed to be doing to make money. Isn't money made by adding value where you realistically can?

    Maybe there is some hope left though. If we feedback (which is what they really want anyway) our negative experiences, marketing people will begin to seek those who are actually working at providing an experience that people will come back for.

    Tell 'em what you think people, it is the only thing that actually matters in the end.

  • Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:47PM (#4746639)
    The only way they can tell you are blocking ads or popups is because your browser stops requesting them, right? The easy solution is for browsers to go ahead and request those images, go ahead and request the source for the popup pages, as if the broswer was going to display everything, but just don't display it. On the server side, everything will appear to be exactly as if you were not blocking anything. Am I missing something?
  • Re:doh! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:47PM (#4746641)
    First, I agree with the sensible half of all of you who are saying that pop-ups are annoying. And I throw in my cheer with the people saying the pop-up spawning pop-up are worse and that pop-up spawning more pop-ups on unloading (especially when they create circular references to eachother) are nothing short of the seed of satan.

    Now to the point of all this...
    "I'd like to see some serious statistics on banner ads vs. pop-ups."

    Thought about this for a bit. I think you're on to something here. I want to see these statistics too. Banner ads work on me. Sure I tune them out nine-tenths of the time, but I do actually intensionally click on them now and again. A few of Salon's adds have been intriguing enough to get me to follow them and the odd one on slashdot is as well (though I can't say that I've been enticed by the VStudio ads yet). The only time I remember actually following a pop-up was when an Orbitz popup was one of those extra evil ones that don't require clicking, mousing over them is enough follow the link. Given the potential and evidence of abuse of these things I'm surprised that popup blocking isn't turned on by default as a security feature in a lot of browsers these days.
  • by Nick Number ( 447026 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:53PM (#4746685) Homepage Journal
    I use the Proxomitron and have been very happy with it, but can someone explain why their website has pop-up ads? Not only that, but it tries to load a Gator (spyware) applet. It seems a tad ironic.
  • by ryepup ( 522994 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @07:54PM (#4746694) Homepage
    >And no TV without advertising? Would that be a bad thing? I think so. Cable costs around 30 a month for basic stuff, and that is all subsidized by advertising. Its not stealing to mute ads on TV, and it shouldn't be stealing to block pop-ups, but if all TV was commercial-free, your cable bill would be many, many times higher. Advertisers are taking a risk when they take out an ads on a website, TV, or even a newspaper. It doesn't matter the medium, there is no gaurantee that people will actually pay attention to the ad, and the advertiser knows this. What I am waiting for is on-demand TV with a commercial option. You can watch the superbowl for $1 with commercials, or $30 without. That way, people could still pay around $30 a month for their commercial ridden cable, and folks who watch less frequently can pay $30 a month for their particular shows, commercial free. To be at all practical, the commercial free version would probably have to air after the commercial one, so the current production could stay the way it is, with a little addition. Ok, I'll stop now, unless someone want to give me venture capital. Actually, even then, I'm done.
  • by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:02PM (#4746776)
    I think the problem is people using the fully featured website while trying to suvert the very means that makes the website stay online.

    I don't see a problem. If they don't want to put a full featured web site on-line for free, they don't have to. Nobody is forcing them.

    If there existed a way to automatically reformat a printed newspaper into a non-ads newspaper, they'd have to charge everyone more and due to reduced audience they'd also have to cut jobs and lower the quality of the articles.

    Tough cookies. Technology makes some good business models go bad and eliminates certain categories of jobs. It happened for farming, it happened for manufacturing, why should newspapers or content providers be exempt?

    So, the bottom line is it's ok for you to try to block adds, as long as you can recognize that when your favourite site closes you are part of the reason.

    The fewer sites that are created with commercial motives in mind, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Companies and advertising already dominate newspapers, television, and radio. I think it would be great if such business models simply didn't work on the Web. So, please, go ahead: block all you can.
  • Google selling out? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:03PM (#4746784) Homepage
    I always loved Google because of their advertising methods, as well as their prioritizing pages that has the most pages that link to it. But lately I'm seeing more and more commercial sites pop up at the first page of links, obviously because they're buying the listing from Google, and I have to dig way down deep for the pages that have the content I am really looking for. Yes, it's great that they are keeping their layout simple, but I think this type of advertising, perversion of links, is a worse form than banners or pop ups. On the other hand, it could possibly be the only way for sites to make everyone see their ads. If they can successfully inbed ads in their content, sort of like Maxim magazine, without ruining the content, then more power to them.
  • by Goldberg's Pants ( 139800 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:03PM (#4746786) Journal
    The shrinking of the screen they stole from the sports channels. It was irritating then and it's VERY irritating now.

    TNN have a CONSTANT black bar at the bottom of the screen telling you you're watching TNG or whatever. Of course rather than chop the bottom of the image off, they show it in fabulous squish-o-vision...

    WORST surf logo I've seen was a station up here called Country Canada. I was taping Twin Peaks (cutting the ads out... WOO! I'm a thief!), and there was a HUGE blue logo in the corner of the screen telling me the station. I wrote and bitched about it to the network CEO and he wrote back saying, amongst other things, and this is a DIRECT quote, "the logo provides a source of comfort to our viewers". Seriously, that was what he said. He then went onto say they were going to make it less intrusive (so read that and his prior statement as "we want our viewers to feel LESS "comfortable"..."). Last time I checked, which admittedly was when the 6 month free period ended, it was still the same.

    Oh, and on this same note, on SOME Global channels up here, in the middle of shows we get a sponsor logo in the left corner and then... the weather forecast in the right. TOTALLY destroys the atmosphere of any TV show. Was watching "Band of Brothers" recently, and it was a case of "We're in 1944... OH WAIT! It's snowing apparently" and being bought crashing back to reality.

    I've since stopped watching channels that do that.
  • by georgerajor ( 628915 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:03PM (#4746789)

    People universally hate pop-ups anyway. Low End Mac [lowendmac.com] did an Annoying Web Stuff [lowendmac.com] survey. According to the survey, "98.6% of those surveyed dislike popups and pop-unders, 83.8% strongly dislike them, and over one-third (34.5%) avoid sites with them when they can." That was more annoying to the survey participants than regular ads for gambling and porn!

    An ad may grab the viewers attention if it's annoying, but how many of us actually buy products based on annoying ads. I, for one, would avoid GM cars ("nothin' beats nothin'") and AFLAC insurance because of their obnoxious ads *alone*

  • Whu? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Safety Cap ( 253500 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:07PM (#4746821) Homepage Journal
    I checked out their site, and notice that they boast "anti-theft" technology [anti-leech.com]. Supposedly, they can prevent you thugs from stealing webpage source code and images.

    So I ran their example, and checked it out. Sure enough, they block right-click, shift-f10, and the right-click key on the keyboard. Next stop, my browser's cache. Whoops! All the files and images are in there. Do'o!!

  • by jd142 ( 129673 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:25PM (#4746971) Homepage
    your cable bill would be many, many times higher

    But what if I only paid for the channels I actually watched? That would be the capitalist ideal--channels would have to actually put something on that people would pay for. Instead, you have to take a package that includes crap like TBS, TBN, a bazillion espns, etc. I could easily get by with about 10 stations at the moment, plus 4 broadcast stations that fall under the must carry rule. SF, TNN, CNN, CNNhn, BBC, TLC, Discover, Animal Planet, Showtime and HBO, Fox, WB (our local station carries Buffy and Enterprise because we don't have a UPN affiliate).

  • Re:Theft? Offensive! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:33PM (#4747031) Homepage
    The day everyone has TIVO, you'll see that the advertizements start to get buried INSIDE the show, or that that show you loved in no longer supported. All you can access for free will be propaganda supported stuff or pay-per-views. I'm nt looking worward to that day :)

    This is why I want the penultimate filtering technology: the glasses from 'They Live,' rigged to filter out any advertising you happen to see, even in real life.

    My God -- they'd be glorious.
  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Reece400 ( 584378 ) <Reece400@hotmail.com> on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:35PM (#4747048)
    I'm using opera 7 beta, it forwarded me, and i just hit the back button, and it stayed there! lol :)

    Reece,
  • it really is.. wow. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by VValdo ( 10446 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @08:52PM (#4747154)
    Seriously, this system really is a method of copyright protection, isn't it? It's "a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work" the web page or whatever).

    As lame as it is, any discussion about circumventing the protection scheme could conceivably be prosecuted under the DMCA [eff.org].

    The law says:

    No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--

    `(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;


    It looks like a circumvention method was just "offered to the public" for the purpose of circumventing a protection measure.

    Wow.
  • by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @09:05PM (#4747222) Homepage
    So, the bottom line is it's ok for you to try to block adds, as long as you can recognize that when your favourite site closes you are part of the reason. And when a site is doing find and provides you of great pleasure or insight, you are not helping and are freeriding everyone elses "hard work".

    I don't agree. You have to wonder for starters why it's so easy to block these ads.

    It's partly/mainly because the ads redirect you to another site. Is this necessary? No.

    Also, why are they redirecting you to another site? It's because they want to track you across the web. I DON'T want to be tracked across the web. I call that spying; I find that deeply unethical, far less ethical than me turning off the advertisements.

    I mean what you going to do? Visiting a website should not invalidate my need for privacy just because some idiot thinks they I owe them a living off stealing my privacy. This is every bit as evil, and far more insidious than spam- this is a real 1984 scenario happening in our lives.

    Making money on the web should come from selling stuff. Not stealing my privacy. And no I don't care if the websites go broke. I don't owe them a living, just because they think I do. This is the real issue.

    Fine, if they want to turn the site off unless I agree to spying- in that case, I ain't going to that site, and I recommend you don't either.

  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fenix down ( 206580 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @09:14PM (#4747294)
    Replying to myself because this is horrible. I mean, damn. [anti-leech.com] I can't try out Javascript because of the way those backslashes show up before quotes. That's a perl thing, right? I find this terribly ammusing.
  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by spike hay ( 534165 ) <blu_ice@vioEEEla ... inus threevowels> on Sunday November 24, 2002 @09:17PM (#4747316) Homepage
    Non intrusive (like non animated gif or java) banners are a-ok by me. I recognize that sites do need to pay for their bandwidth with advertising.

    I do not tolerate annoying java ads and popups. I block those. No site should need to resort to popup ads, unless the webmaster is simply greedy.
  • by 706GL ( 172709 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @09:32PM (#4747434) Homepage Journal
    I first found this website from a link on the website where you download Kazaa Lite, Kazaa with all the ad-ware and banners taken out. I think it's hilarious that a site that provides software with the ads hacked out thinks people who block pop-ups are stealing.
  • Evil bastards (Score:3, Interesting)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @09:34PM (#4747449)
    What bugs me is not so much the pop-up issue, but the fact that the "access denied" page is one of those irritating Javascript jobs that you can't Back-button out of.
  • by Qender ( 318699 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @10:17PM (#4747744) Homepage Journal
    The best part is, I was blocked from that site. I was blocked from downloading kazaa lite. Not because I run ad-blocking software. But because I have advertising sites blocked out in my hosts file. The host file that comes with kazaa lite.

    Technically speaking, if you install kazza lite correctly, you get blocked from their webpage.
  • by t1m0r4n ( 310230 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @10:23PM (#4747784) Homepage Journal
    Many users are just burnt out on ads... block out the crap. In fact it might even improve some of the ads getting seen since the users aren't overloaded with so much some of it might actually register

    Too true! Now I work in the online porn industry. Most annoying spammers, popup artists, and what not, I know.

    Recently did an ad campaign using free sites you find on link lists. Two pages of nudie pics, and the only ad was a single standard banner with the site name and catch phrase. 80% of the people who went to the free website visited the pay site. That is incedibley high, if you were wondering :P

    My theory in the design was that either people would appreciate the ad free approach and visit out of appreciation (for lack of a better word), or that they would think the pay site was so good it didn't need to fill every pixel with some BS hype. Don't know what it was, but it worked.

    I'm in the process of converting all my sites using this approach, and will definately use it more in future promotions.

    FWIW I never did popups, "free" sites with hidden fees, or any of that other crap. Honestly got into the biz because I loved porn but hated what was offered :P

  • DONT DO THIS (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24, 2002 @10:26PM (#4747802)
    From time to time I've become irritated at the fact that websites and webmasters seem to feel that it is their right to popup windows on my screen or do other things that annoy me (does any site really need 9 cookies to load a single page?). But then, of course, they dont answer email or comments submitted or anything.

    So I've used something like the following from time to time just to vent my frustrations. It uses curl to fetch URLS from a site and embeds nice messages in the URL, the UA field and the referrer field. The idea is that a responsible (!) webmaster will notice this in the logs. Of course it is not likely to go to the people who actually need to get the message. Just to make that more likely that it be noticed by someone (anyone!) the messages sent are intermixed with random fortunes. I doubt it will teach the sleazeoids anything interesting, but maybe they'll at least get a chuckle out of it.

    There is a delay programmed in so this won't just hammer a site (which would be a DOS and illegal).

    Of course I've since seen the error of my ways and sold my soul, so I will recommend AGAINST every considering anything like this - after all it might be considered a theft of service in that it actually takes up the webmaster's time.

    Still, it was fun to write and run once or twice.

    Python code follows :

    import string, re, os, random, time
    replpat=re.compile(r'[^a-zA-Z0-9.?!_,:;-]+')

    host="http://www.anti-leech.com/"

    def getmsg() :
    m = os.popen("fortune", "r").read()
    return replpat.sub("_", m)

    while 1 :
    cmdstr = 'curl -A "%s" -e "%s" %s/%s -o /dev/null'
    ref="Oh_go_away_you_vendors_of_intrusive_software _however_you_might_justify_it_given_that_you_are_b eing_only_subserviant_lackies_to_your_corporate_ma sters"
    ua ="I_ll_use_a_popup_blocker_when_I_want_after_all_i ts_my_computer"
    suburl="its_you_who_are_the_leeches_not_us"

    if random.random() < 0.5 :
    ref=getmsg()
    if random.random() < 0.5 :
    ua=getmsg()
    if random.random() < 0.5 :
    suburl=getmsg()

    cmd = cmdstr % (ua,ref,host,suburl)

    print cmd
    #
    # DO NOT UNCOMMENT THE LINE WITH "os.system" below !!!!!
    # this script is only intended for its amusement value
    # do not actually use it

    # os.system(cmd)

    time.sleep(5) # dont want to do a DOS - just make sure the message shows up in the log files
  • Re:Theft? Offensive! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by delstar dotstar ( 593915 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @10:32PM (#4747841)
    iirc, the glasses from "they live" didn't filter out advertising, they reduced it to its base message. so instead of seeing a billboard for jooky, you'd see simply the word "CONSUME." it's been like 15 years since i saw the movie, though, so let me stress the iirc part.
  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1&twmi,rr,com> on Sunday November 24, 2002 @10:39PM (#4747892)

    It used to be that Freedom of Speech was a protected thing, it still is. But the best quote I ever heard about Freedom of Speech came from the Supreme Court.

    "You have the right to swing your fist, but that right ends at the tip of my nose."

    Similarly advertisers have a right to freely display their advertisements. However, their right ends at my computer as it is the virtual extension of my nose.

    They have a right to advertise. We should have the right to look away, fast forward, step out, and even block. Otherwise we have little choice but to ostracize those sights to prove these efforts to be ineffective and potentially counter-productive.

    For me, if someone demands that I view ther ads or be unable to view their content, I will leave and never come back. The internet is really getting screwed by the commercialization of the web.

    I spend most of my bandwidth on email, IRC, and other person-to-person tools and less and less each day on web pages. Web pages are too costly in terms of advertisement, CPU load, spam generation, registration requirements, deception of content, and manipulation in general.

    Ten years ago the Internet was awesome! Five years ago the Internet was still pretty darn cool. But between the problems of cross-linking, deep-linking, spam, forced advertisements, and such it's actually becoming worse than Cable TV or regular broadcast television

  • by Bilbo ( 7015 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @10:47PM (#4747947) Homepage
    > Blocking pop-ups is like ripping out and discarding the advertisements in your personal copy of a magazine

    The DMCA never said its applications had to make sense...

    Actually, you are displaying modified content and circumventing a mechanism designed to protect the integrity of that content. I'm not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if they took a shot at this.

    It's not like it's the most far fetched application of the DMCA I've ever seen...

  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jonadab ( 583620 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @11:17PM (#4748110) Homepage Journal
    > Non intrusive (like non animated gif or java) banners are a-ok

    Agreed. I have no problem with advertising per se. Ordinary banners
    I don't complain about; occasionally, I even follow one. (So far, on
    occasions that I've followed one, the ad has always been narrowly
    targeted for the specific content of the page I was viewing; e.g., an
    ad for shell accounts ("Panix" IIRC) on a website that provided
    information about using Unix. Ads like that I'm not unhappy about
    at all. Most of the ones on /. don't bother me too, although the
    squarish ones that get embedded in the story are mildly annoying
    because of the way they screw up the layout. But not annoying
    enough that I'd actually _do_ anything about it, like block them or anything.) If you want me to see your ads, just present them as
    regular ordinary ads. I have no problem with that.

    Popups, however, are totally unacceptable. Until Mozilla added
    dom.disable-open-during-load, I almost never surfed with Javascript
    turned on at all, and just skipped most sites that required it.
    I have other things to do with my time than close a bunch of extra
    windows all the time. Mozilla doesn't send anything back to the
    site when it ignores a popup, so they're obviously using some kind
    of chicanery to determine that; whatever it is, the message is a
    clear "we don't want you on your site", and believe me, with the
    size of the web being what it is, I can find another site that will
    be more hospitable in about the same amount of time it would take
    me to check the little "popups" checkbox on my prefs toolbar, give
    or take a couple of seconds. Guess which I'm more likely to do?

    This is not an issue of rights; it's an issue of practice. The
    site (assuming it's a private-sector site, which seems like a
    reasonable assumption if we're talking about ad revenue) of course
    has the right to refuse to serve me pages for any reason, even if
    it's "we don't like the list of languages your browser accepts" or
    "you are in the same subnet with a former employee, and we didn't
    like the colour of his trousers". Hey, you want to block me, block
    me; there's _lots_ of other content on the net.

    The thing is, there are two ways this can turn out, depending on
    how many people find out how to block unrequested windows (which,
    realistically, depends on whether any major browser ever ships with
    them blocked by default). If almost nobody blocks popups, then the
    resources a site expends checking everybody will dwarf the small
    amount of resources they are ostensibly saving by doing the blocking.
    That is the current situation. If a major browser (e.g., AOL) ever
    ships with unrequested popups off by default, then the sites that
    refuse to switch to other forms of advertising will be locking
    themselves out of that much traffic and ad revenue. Either way,
    sites that insist on popups are hurting themselves. And as far
    as I'm concerned, they're _only_ hurting themselves.

    There are other types of advertising I'm also unwilling to view,
    too. Blatantly fraudulent advertisements (such as the ones that
    try to pass themselves off as dialog boxes) are Distilled Evil, for
    example, and if I worked at the FTC I'd try to go after them. It's
    an offense worthy of jailtime, IMO. I'm not talking about mild
    marketing optimism, but the outright fraud.

    I'm also unwilling to view animations that don't stop. I allow
    animated GIFs to play through _once_, but no more. Under no
    circumstances am I willing to surf with Flash enabled.

    Sites that require any of these things, I just skip. This means
    perhaps one in a hundred sites that I was going to view I end up
    not viewing, but I always find equivalent content on another site
    (usually in short order) because the web is getting pretty big
    these days. I think pretty soon there might be more than a million
    sites, or something. (Ahem.)

    I don't see how this is a rights issue, just plain old stupidity.
  • by Blue Lozenge ( 444566 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @11:17PM (#4748111) Homepage
    Here's a better idea: Why don't these anal SOB's place their ads inline!
  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jonadab ( 583620 ) on Sunday November 24, 2002 @11:32PM (#4748214) Homepage Journal
    > (Perhaps the mozilla crew will make a nice interface for per-site
    > javascript blocking.)

    Actually, if I'm not mistaken, a nice interface is all that's
    lacking. If you want to mess with capability policies, you can
    do that now. However, it's not worth the trouble; it's easier
    to just find another site. When AltaVista's advertising got out
    of control (more than four animated banners per page), I switched
    to Google, which I've been using since. I _could_ have used a
    proxy to block the ads, but it would have been a waste of time;
    switching to Google accomplished the same thing without taking
    up any of my time maintaining a block list.
  • by pdboddy ( 620164 ) <pdboddy@@@gmail...com> on Sunday November 24, 2002 @11:46PM (#4748310) Journal
    How can they get away with this?

    Can you say class-action libel suit??

    "A website cost time and money to run. Every time you visit a website you will cost the webmaster behind that website money as they have to pay for the bandwidth you use when downloading images, information etc."

    Ok, and by popping up images, information, flash movies, etc., you're saving bandwidth *HOW*???

    "If you start trying to block that income you will still cost the webmaster the same amount of money as before, but the webmaster won't earn any money from advertsing to cover the expence."

    If you are going to call us theives, please at least spell expense correctly. Aside from nitpicking their spelling, do they honestly expect we all get *FREE* access to the internet? And that we all have extra time to read and close all the popups that? Our bandwidth costs us too, and our time is money too.

    As I browse their site, I have closed at least 7 ads, AND a popup for that stupid Gator spyware.

    Heh, they offer spam protection. But, if you follow their logic, blocking spam email is theft. Those spammers take all the time and effort (download list, slap into mass emailing program, hit enter, go read a Tom Clancy novel while the email zips off to inboxes unknown..) to email us with viagra offers, penis enlargers, and 19% credit cards. All that bandwidth they use, and the email lists they have to buy, and we're stealing by not reading their emails.

    Heh, here's a blurb on cookies, "What cookies have to do with all this might be hard to understand at first, but blocking cookies can also cause major problems for webmasters. Many sponsors use cookies to track from which site a sale came from. E.g. if you visit a specific site, click an ad and chose to buy something the webmaster of the website you first came from obviously should earn some money from that. When blocking cookies that revenue could be lost..."

    Sure, but they don't just want to track what website you came from, what you did at their site, and where you went to next afterwards... since they seem to be buddy-buddy with Gator, they want to know what you're doing on the web, at all times...

    And, as seen in previous [slashdot.org] /. articles, spam is only going to get worse. As seen here [freep.com], there is a new breed of spam/popup on the horizon.

    "Ralsky, meanwhile, is looking at new technology. Recently he's been talking to two computer programmers in Romania who have developed what could be called stealth spam.

    It is intricate computer software, said Ralsky, that can detect computers that are online and then be programmed to flash them a pop-up ad, much like the kind that display whenever a particular Web site is opened.

    "This is even better," he said. "You don't have to be on a Web site at all. You can just have your computer on, connected to the Internet, reading e-mail or just idling and, bam, this program detects your presence and up pops the message on your screen, past firewalls, past anti-spam programs, past anything.
    "

    So, taking Anti-leech's [anti-leech.com] arguement to the logical extreme, blocking these invasions of privacy would be theft.

    Ain't technology grand?
  • by GiMP ( 10923 ) on Monday November 25, 2002 @12:07AM (#4748435)
    Google should have a feature to exclude sites with popups... now, that would be neat.. much more useful than their catalog search :)
  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Monday November 25, 2002 @12:17AM (#4748488)
    A cool trick is (if your not running a web server) is to grab the httpd python demo script, mod it so it always serves the same image no matter what the request, and like drop in your favorite buffy the slayer ,anime or pr0n if your inclined that way as the image. combine with host file and amuse yourself as all banner ads turn into buffy.
    The 'vampiric' banner ad machine Slain!!!!!!
  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25, 2002 @12:28AM (#4748544)
    Since they're throwing the word theft around so lightly, can I accuse such sites of theft simply because they're stealing my metered bandwidth by forcing me to watch their bloated animated ads?

    btw, the anti-leech theft monitor didn't detect my popup blocker (webwasher [webwasher.com]). It sounds like another snake oil scheme to me.

  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Ykant ( 318168 ) on Monday November 25, 2002 @03:58AM (#4749517)
    Just an alternative to seeing all those broken-image icons:

    For those folks using a Microsoft OS, there's a little proggie called eDexter [accs-net.com]. Basically, it works in conjunction with a nice HOSTS file, and sets up a teeny-tiny server at 127.0.0.1 - it fills all HTTP requests to localhost with a 1x1 transparent GIF, or an image or your own choosing.

    There's also a Mac version available, but I've not tried it.

    Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with the creator of this software.
  • Re:Just fine by me (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FarmerDuck ( 628798 ) on Monday November 25, 2002 @11:31AM (#4751368)
    I don't know about in your countries, but up here in Canada, most broadband providers are now putting caps on their service, and charging extra when you go beyond that limit. eg. $59.95 for basic service (5G up/ 5G down), and $7.95 / G used after that. So, in fact, I am no longer purchasing a service, but purchasing a set quantity of data. This really does change the nature of the contract I have with my ISP. Now if someone sends me a Pop-up that I did not request, or at least have the opportunity to accept or refuse, THEY ARE STEALING MY BANDWIDTH just as surely as if they called me to solicit on my pre-paid cellphone time.
    THEY ARE THE THEIVES!!! JAIL THEIR ASSES NOW!!
    I wish, and lock up the spammers too.
  • Re:Almost there. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by &y ( 105210 ) on Monday November 25, 2002 @04:19PM (#4753522) Homepage
    True, it's easy for anyone mildly technically proficient to get around it, but the method used to get at that code is so cumbersome that it will serve its purpose 99% of the time. There have been many instances where I'm at a website and wonder to myself, "hey, that's neat, I wonder how they did that..." If I right-click and find that the right-click context menu has been disabled I just get annoyed and open a new window with "view-source:http://blahblahblah" ... but if the source code was actually encrypted, it really wouldn't be worth the time to actually get in there and extract it. I'd just move on...

    But that doesn't change the fact that anti-leech is claiming that their method is secure. Buncha hosers, they are.

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