Picture this. You are enjoying a particularly interesting article in your DT over a cup of what is advertised as coffee at your local Starbucks. Just as you are digesting what you are reading, somebody comes by and plonks a BMW or a Land-Rover catalog right on top of the bit you\'re reading, and walks off.
How would you describe that sort of behavior? Variously, no doubt, but surely everyone would agree (a) bad manners and (b) hardly likely to make you rush out and buy one of their wretched cars. You would also quite likely be a mite irritated.
Yet this is the parallel scene on the Electronic Telegraph. Everyday one of these ghastly things manages to insert itself on the bit of the screen I\'m reading. When I click at it, instead of disappearing it opens up the blasted site it\'s advertising and then I have to go through the rigmarole of getting back to where I was or else it sits there immovably. My enjoable reading has been interrupted and I do not find this clever, amusing, nor even good psychology.
What p***** me off is the insolent assumption that you can get away with on the internet what you wouldn\'t do in polite company. Worse is the arrogance in attempting to control my attention in a default way, i.e. I have to do something about the message, unlike say an ad on a page in a paper which I can simply flip over.
Well if the dumb marketing seatwarmers who thought this one up thought they were clever they have their heads up their five asterisks and need to get a real job. They have succeeded in making me want one of their overpriced vehicles even less than I did already.
But today they out-clevered themselves. Hehe! The BMW site I got taken to apologised to me for being down for quote servicing. I think I\'ll flame them with their own medicine and say hey! I get a replacement carwhen you\'re servicing my BMW, why can\'t you provide a replacement site!
Somebody needs to get on to the DT\'s ad department and tell it to start behaving more like the Telegraph and les like the Sun and fire the kids who dream this stuff up before they alienate any more readers.
TGIF, and today my tag-line, to the point as ever, seems especially apposite....LOL
Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.
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Well to a degree the pop-ups have worked, in that you have told us all whose they are and you have provided some free, even if not totally favourable, publicity for them! Why not get a free programme, like Zone Alarm, which stops pop-ups?
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"Why not get a free programme, like Zone Alarm, which stops pop-ups?"
Zone Alarm Pro is not expensive compared to a lot of things, and really works.
Tomo.
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As you say, Growler - "Change is inevitable. Progress is optional", and I suppose that this irritating form of advertising is part of the price we pay for a "free" interent (is that right, with what ISPs charge?).
I put it in the same category as junk mail and unsolicited telesales calls. I have throw their junk mail away, and it pains me to know that trees are hacked down unnecessarily.
We did once develop our own game whereby we colected all the junk mail for a week and then sent back their forms etc (not filled in, you understand) in the wrong pre-paid envelopes. So, some double glazing Johnnies got back paperwork about haemorrhoid cream etc. At least the postmen were kept busy.
Also, as you say - TGIF.
Ian Cook
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Ian
I always send the junk mail back in the pre-paid enevlope. Can't say I recall any about haemorrhoid cream though.
GJD
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Growler
Couldn't have put it better myself. The sooner these irritating oiks learn the counter-productivity of what they're doing the better.
Terry
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I hate to say this, but I read somewhere recently that it was proving horribly successful, which is why they are becoming more numerous. I think it's the Reader's Digest 'carpet bombing' principle - even if you only get 0.001% response, it's still worth it if the overall number is big enough.
I wholly agree with the sentiments expressed - I only wish there was a way of returning the compliment...
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What p***** me off...
Oi, 10p in the sweabox please :o)
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sweabox
Oops, Swearbox.
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Do people really see these ads and think, 'Hmm, never thought of buying a BMW/Mercedes/whatever before, but perhaps I ought to try one?' Can't see it myself. Still, if it wasn't for pop-up ads there would be much fewer free stuff to look at on the Net than there is, so I suppose we should be grateful.
Richard Hall
bangernomics.tripod.com
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What p***** me off...
Where\'s Mark RLBS today then? Had I posted a URL link to a site that had the word \"p*****\" in it, I\'m certain it would have been moderated within minutes.
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>> What p***** me off... Where\'s Mark RLBS today then? Had I posted a URL link to a site that had the word \"p*****\" in it, I\'m certain it would have been moderated within minutes.
Mark, you took your time, you getting slow in your old age or something :o)
ps, no offence Growler, wasn't having a personal dig at you.
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Well, Mr Growler if you wish to continue reading the DT while residing a very long way from somewhere that sells it someone’s got to pay to deliver it to you. At the moment that bill is picked up (in part) by the companies that advertise.
The alternative I guess would to charge you for access, minus pop ups. Otherwise you’re just getting something for nothing while the people who cough up in the UK subsidise you. Are you relatedto the owner of the burger van referred to in another thread ?
Matthew Kelly
No, not that one.
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MK
If I read Mr Growler correctly, the point is not "why can't I get free stuff without the adverts that fund it?" but "why do these people think that advertising in such an annoying way is MORE likely to make me buy their cars?". By all means put an eye catching picture of your new car, complete with a link to you (hopefully fully functional) website, NEXT to the article I'm trying to access for free. But not over the top of the article.
If I read Mr Growler incorrectly, I aoplogise for misrepresenting his views.
GJD
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Thank you GJD, you have grasped my point impeccably. The DT offered itself to me free, I didn't ask for it, and presumably it has no problem with that. When it doesn't and does a Sunday Times number then I and countless others across the globe will doubtless stop reading it. All newspapers carry adverts, I have no problem with that. But it is I and not some techno-jerk who can do fancy things with ads on websites, who will determine what I read and when I read it. This particularly applies to adverts, which may request my attention all they wish, but have no right to demand it. This is the guts of my gripe or the gripe in my guts, or...whatever.......
Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.
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Not about motoring, sorry. But those of you who are plauged with junk mail might like to consider regsitering with the "Mail Preference Service".
www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/html/default.asp
There are similar sections on the site for a "Telephone Preference Service" and "Fax Preference Service".
Hope this helps someone,
Kind regards,
Cyrill666
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plauged, Huh?
regsitering? What?
Plagued and registering respectively, sorry!
The worrying thing is that I proof read the message... It's Friday afternoon, that's my excuse.
Kind regards,
Cyrill666
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Easily done Cyrill
I offered to aoplogise to Growler before. I proof-read it too but I knew what I meant to say so I didn't spot it at the time.
GDJ
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I see I only got away with P*** for a short while and C*** always appears thus.
To keep this motoring-oriented, may I ask the following question (see joke about the blonde with the Jag): if I can't say c*** in the carburetor can I said Faeces? And since everyone knows what the asterisk-ed words mean, what pray, is the point?
I mean I don't care but I'm kind of a logical guy.
(That last statement is to allow a Moderator to save face by providing a potential opening for rapier-like reasoning in response :-)).
Today I saw my best bumper sticker in a very long time:
"For Feminine Protection Nothing Beats Smith & Wesson".
That's almost as good as "Guns Don't Kill People. I Do."
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You reminded me: "A Smith & Wesson beats four aces". Not sure if it's a bumper sticker though.
Agree with you about the asterisks. I assume they're there to protect minors, but it's only going to arouse their curiosity, surely? And what would they be doing here anyway..?
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An ancient innocent asks, how many four letter words are there beginning with "C", and how can a computer programme KNOW what badness was intended when only one letter is shown to it....?
(We are back to thw winter feeding season of coal, blue, great and long-tailed tits, by the way.)
I don't think we can expect total consistency.
Tomo
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All the minors I know are well aware these days of what it's all about by the time they've grown too old for the Nickleodeon Channel.
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Hi,
This is in response to an old thread I found after running a search.
Anyone have any suggestions as to what the best anti-pop up software there is available for free? All I'll say about them is that although I end up remembering the names, I get so wound up by them slowing down my connection (which can get slow when the Uni network is bogged down) and jumping into view when Im reading, that my first response is to close them! Last night, I didn't - just minimised each one. 35 explorer windows open after a couple of hours of browsing.
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www.panicware.com/product_downloads.html
Look for the FREE one.
Hey! and don,t tell any one that I told you.
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Or use the Mozilla browser which has built-in anti-popup software.
www.mozilla.org
Chris
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I use Panicware Pop up Stopper as described in a previous post, but it doesn?t stop the infernal video adverts that ?crawl? all over the screen, rather than pop-up.
They refuse to die, and you have to sit watching them until eventually, the ?close window? icon appears and you can send them in to oblivion.
Unfortunately, on many web sites, they appear to be triggered by certain common events, so within a few seconds, you?re waiting to kill another one.
Even when you get used to the advert, and know where the ?close window? icon is going to appear, pressing it early has no effect. Rrrrrrrrrgh!
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Opera (www.opera.com) is, in my opinion, a much better browser to use, and it kills pop-ups too. OK, so if you use the adware version you have to put up with ads, but at least you can configure it to show ads for things that you might be interested in.
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i started using opera because of that. I like the setting only show user requested popups. I've found some popup stoppers prevent normal sub windows opening
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I use AdSubtract Pro, not free, but very effective. No banners, pop ups or static ads.
It tells me that it has blocked 9 ads from this site alone today.
> www.adsubtract.com/
If you are feeling nerdy you could also cosider the hosts file.
This is a file in Windows that contains the URL of all web sites that are located on your company servers, so that you can access then direct. Some very clever person realised that you could add advertising site URLs to this file so that instead of the advert you get a 404 error notice where the ad should be.
Hope this makes sense, look at www.smartin-designs.com/
for a far more lucid explanation and downloads etc.
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Actually one of the reasons that I really like this site (apart from the conversation of course) is because it doesn't have many pop-ups, I'm a regular at Parkers as well and when on their site I get about one pop-up per page, it's put me off using it and I tend not to go there as often now...
I would actually pay to use this site though...
Blue
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I hardly ever get any pop-ups, even though I have no pop-up stoping software, and even though I use IE6 (and this was true with IE5 as well).
How do I do it? Simple - go to the Tools/Internet-Options Security and Privacy tabs, and select the options there to minimise intrusion to your privacy.
Look up the Daily Telegraph's
www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/index.jhtml or
www.connected.telegraph.co.uk/connected/index.jhtml
web site and go to the "boot camp archive" to find articles on how to do this.
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