mweiss Posted September 20, 2006 Report Share Posted September 20, 2006 I haven't been on this forum for a while, but returned yesterday to browse some and was disappointed by the multiple pop up ads. With every page load, a new add pops behind and it is very annoying. Lending Tree, Regvista.com, Lending Tree, Lending Tree again, and something about George Bush "too much power?" What the heck? I feel like I'm visiting a 'free web host' site with all the popups. Not just one or two, but accumulating until the task bar is filled with multiple ads! I certainly hope this will not be a permanent situation here. I frequent many forums and almost none of them have pop up ads. Some have ads in the sidebar, but not the nasty pop behinds that steal focus so your touchpad stops working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted September 20, 2006 Report Share Posted September 20, 2006 With every page load, a new add pops behind and it is very annoying. Lending Tree, Regvista.com, Lending Tree, Lending Tree again, and something about George Bush "too much power?"The immediate cure is to download Firefox and use it; it squashes the popups, although it does get bogged down as it's doing battle in the background, so yeah, what the heck? But at least with Firefox, the site is usable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspector Posted September 20, 2006 Report Share Posted September 20, 2006 There are popups? /Firefox user Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groovenstein Posted September 20, 2006 Report Share Posted September 20, 2006 Umm, I use IE when browsing this forum and I have never had a pop-up ad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaVache Posted September 20, 2006 Report Share Posted September 20, 2006 Umm, I use IE when browsing this forum and I have never had a pop-up ad. Same here, I think you may have happened upon some malware Mweiss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psychotrope Posted September 20, 2006 Report Share Posted September 20, 2006 My dad had malware that took over his browser and kept feeding popups which were immune to pop-up blockers since the problem was coming from inside. We used BHODemon and Ad-Aware, but in the end I had to call in an expert to get rid of it using some of his expert tools since it was a really nasty one. Ad-Aware is always a good thing to use and BHODemon can help you figure out what programs are attaching themselves to your browser and allow you to disable unwanted BHOs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidV Posted September 20, 2006 Report Share Posted September 20, 2006 This forum has been hacked and infected with spyware in the past, but in this case I believe the problem is with your operating system or browser. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mweiss Posted September 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 I have not been back to this site all summer, due to a very intense project related to survival, but now that I have returned, and visited this forum a couple of times in the past few days, I am dismayed to find multiple pop-behind ads on every page load. I did a casual browse of topics to see if I could find a policy change, but could find no mention of switching to funding with ads, so I am writing this in the hope that OOL will find a less intrusive way to display adverts. Presently, I am getting two pop-behinds for every page I load in this forum. A better way would be to have a sidebar with graphical ads, or Goooogle ads, which are non obstrusive. These pop behinds steal the focus and cause my laptop's touchpad to stop responding. It makes browsing this forum a very slow and tedious process, compared to how it was in the spring. My response is to stop frequenting such places that utilize these most annoying advertising methods and stick with forums that use no popups. I post on scores of forums from a diverse range of fields and this is te only one that is producing this annoying pop-behind advertizing. I would hope that the management here considers some less obstrusive means of generating revenue. I know times are tough and OOL needs to fund its operations, but this is way overboard. It's right up there with Tripod.com and other free web hosts that seem to care not as to how many popups they barage you with. I'll return when I see that things have returned to normal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groovenstein Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 Umm, how is this different from the thread you started the other day, in which you have received several responses? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Felix Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 Just get firefox and that will kill all the popups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softwareNerd Posted September 22, 2006 Report Share Posted September 22, 2006 (edited) I got the this follow-up from mweiss Well they are back, on every computer that I try to log on here with. It's definitely not my browsers, as no other forums I visit have these popups. It's OOL exclusively,Want to ask if any other users have been seeing pop-up recently which visiting OO.net? MWeiss, Your best bet would be to download the Google toolbar for IE. The pop-ups will probably all be suppressed. Edited September 22, 2006 by softwareNerd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mweiss Posted September 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 22, 2006 I got the this follow-up from mweiss Want to ask if any other users have been seeing pop-up recently which visiting OO.net? MWeiss, Your best bet would be to download the Google toolbar for IE. The pop-ups will probably all be suppressed. Whatever the case may be, the pop ups are back, and not just on this computer, but on EVERY computer I've tried in the past two days. They only appear when I enter the FORUM pages. They are not on the OOL main page. Why should I have to download and install more crap to get rid of popups, when out of the dozen forums I frequent daily, only ONE forum has popups? The simple solution is for me to avoid this forum, at least until the admin (who seems not terribly rational in his insistence that his board could not possibly have popup ads) decides to investigate this in an unbiased manner. I don't have malware on my PCs. I don't visit porn sites, or warez sites. I only use the PCs for work and for occasional browsing of BroadbandReports.com and this site, as well as other industry forums like PSW Sound Reinforcement, SonikMatter, Musician's Forums, etc. And none of them have pop up ads. If I were infected, then EVERY site would have ads, and even when no web browser was loaded, ads would be popping up, as I've read about with some people's PCs when their children use them for a short time. And this is a problem observed on any PC that I use. Now my wife's laptop has Google Toolbar, and hers reported 21 popups blocked in a short period spend on OOL. That's a lot of adverts. Instead of getting all defensive and in denial about it, why not take the RATIONAL approach and look into it? Treating your educated users as if they were ignorant sluts is rather offensive, in my not so humble opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groovenstein Posted September 22, 2006 Report Share Posted September 22, 2006 Why should I have to download and install more crap to get rid of popups, when out of the dozen forums I frequent daily, only ONE forum has popups? The simple solution is for me to avoid this forum, at least until the admin (who seems not terribly rational in his insistence that his board could not possibly have popup ads) decides to investigate this in an unbiased manner. . . . Instead of getting all defensive and in denial about it, why not take the RATIONAL approach and look into it? Treating your educated users as if they were ignorant sluts is rather offensive, in my not so humble opinion. David hasn't asked me to defend him, but I wish to. His was a reasonable conclusion based on the fact that no one seems to be having this problem but you. If you want his and others' assistance to resolve this problem, it would behoove you to change your tone. Also, I don't know about malware or spyware or whatever it's called. I'd never even heard of the former. So thanks for calling me an "ignorant slut" because I don't know something about computers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted September 22, 2006 Report Share Posted September 22, 2006 I just want to butt in and point out that there is, in fact, a plague of unwanted crud cluttering up this site; Firefox does suppress the popups, but still it makes the operation of the site very jerky, since links suddenly move. This has been going on for maybe a couple of weeks -- it's annoying, but nothing fatal. I long for the good old days when this problem didn't exist, though I can manage with the new system, if needs be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidV Posted September 22, 2006 Report Share Posted September 22, 2006 Ok, David sent me the source and I figured it out. After the forum was hacked, I removed the ads from the main skin, but not from the IBP 2.1 Default skin. So only people using that skin saw the ads. I have now removed the ads from that skin as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted September 22, 2006 Report Share Posted September 22, 2006 Sheesh. I was about to say that I figured out it was a skin-related thing. Man, those variables are slippery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softwareNerd Posted September 22, 2006 Report Share Posted September 22, 2006 (edited) The simple solution is for me to avoid this forum, at least until the admin (who seems not terribly rational in his insistence that his board could not possibly have popup ads) decides to investigate this in an unbiased manner.MWeiss: Drop the impolite, demanding tone. Feel free not to visit the site. I could understand if you were paying in some form: money or ideas! Sheesh! Both Davids: Thanks for tackling the problem. Edited September 22, 2006 by softwareNerd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mweiss Posted September 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2006 Ok, David sent me the source and I figured it out. After the forum was hacked, I removed the ads from the main skin, but not from the IBP 2.1 Default skin. So only people using that skin saw the ads. I have now removed the ads from that skin as well. Thanks for solving this annoying behavior. All's well now. I knew it couldn't be a problem with ALL of our computers. I see it was a deep-rooted and complex problem that hid its tentacles in various hard to reach places. I'm glad I could bring this matter to your attention and that it was promptly dealt with. As I explained to one of the admins privately, I may have off a bit brusque in these posts and that's the result of working 16 hours a day to keep the tax man at bay. I've been under a tremendous amount of stress lately and as such, I've not got an abundance of patience. Sorry if I ruffled anyone's feathers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bold Standard Posted September 25, 2006 Report Share Posted September 25, 2006 I use Firefox, and I'm getting popups now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted September 25, 2006 Report Share Posted September 25, 2006 I use Firefox, and I'm getting popups now.You're using the arobase-en skin, right? Try a skin transplant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejohngaltline Posted September 25, 2006 Report Share Posted September 25, 2006 (edited) Hmm, I'm getting them too, now, and I use Safari. I'll try switching skins and report back. EDIT: Worked like a charm. Thanks! Edited September 25, 2006 by thejohngaltline Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidV Posted September 25, 2006 Report Share Posted September 25, 2006 (edited) OK, I removed it. If you want to permanently block the nasty site, Click Start, Run, paste this: notepad C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts add this line: 127.0.0.1 regvista.com and save. Your computer will now block access to the site. Edited September 25, 2006 by GreedyCapitalist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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