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"Intrusive ad hypocrisy"

Started 6/15/2007 by admin in Stuff Forum      (12 posts)  

1/18/2000 (2:26 am) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

Reader David Harrison had this to say about some of our comments on "intrusive" advertisements:

Your comments on intrusive ads on websites seems a little strange, considering your own is a classic example of a site top heavy with Important Announcements. However, there are some very good ad removers available. I use <A HREF=""> Adwiper</A> and although it doesn't get every ad, it certainly removes the vast majority. The sole price is a slightly slower load-up of web pages - and, of course, considerable annoyance from advertisers.
-David Harrison

There are people that believe a single banner ad per page is too much. I think back to some of my relatives that would hit the mute button during commercials while watching TV, which I found to be more disruptive than just tuning them out mentally.

I don't consider the advertisements on intrusive. We have to make money in order to provide users with more and better content. That's a very simple equation. We at live in capitalist America, not a futuristic Star Trek world where money is unnecessary and web servers can be created in the replicator. We pay over US$500 in hosting charges each month alone, not to mention that 3 people require to make income of we will starve.

I respect people's viewpoints that don't want to see ads, but I think that they are in the minority. I'm not saying that everyone craves ads. I'm saying that only so many people could stand an additional delay in loading web pages as information is censored from their screens. I don't like delays, and I don't like having a product determine what I see.

If an ad is too "blinky" or annoying, like those "click the monkeys" or blinking "Winner" ads that we have banned, then I just scroll it off my screen while I'm reading. I look at the pages all the time, and my own tolerance only goes so high.

In an ideal world, you'd see advertisements for products or services that truly interest you. We do our best to provide such advertisements, balanced with our own need for income.

Anyone want to come to our defense, or to jab us in the gut with more comments? Bring it on!


1/18/2000 (9:02 am) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

Truth of the matter? I don't mind ads on screen. Sure some may be intrusive (such as the types you mention above), most others are really quite helpful.

There are countless times when these ads actually do good things, such as lead me to a site i would never have thought of as interesting until i clicked on a banner (or two).

Just as there are good people and annoying ones, banners are the same and though i can't stand the annoying ones, the better banners are worth looking at.

And they help keep everything free and accessible to day2day surfers like me.

Just my 2c.


1/18/2000 (2:49 pm) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

I don't see any problem with top-of-the-page banner ads like those found at Actually, since the ad is on the top of the page, it is only actually viewable for a brief period until I scroll down the screen. And like F. Ouano said, I actually find some ads helpful. For instance, I recently purchased a nice cable modem router/firewall for $100 less than retail because of a banner ad. Without the banner ad, I wouldn't have even known about the product, much less the awesome deal on it.
If a website is important enough to you that you are spending so much time on it that the banner ads annoy you, you need to remember that these folks need to pay for the bandwidth and their time to produce the news that they are providing you for FREE. The ads that I do have a problem with are blinky ads, pop-up ads, ads that follow you as you scroll down a page, and ads from companies that are engaged in web-tracking (DoubleClick for example). But since my computers resolve as, I don't have a problem with them :-)


1/18/2000 (6:45 pm) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

I think the key idea here was pointed out by Rob when he mentioned that we live in a capitalist society.

The internet is one of the few free things left in the country, and it is being quickly converted into a money making machine. I think that the whole idea of advertising to keep content free to users is a great idea.


1/18/2000 (8:28 pm) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

Advertising is necessary. Banner ads are acceptable (except for "blinky" ads, that stupid "pull my finger" ad, and so forth). Pop-up ads are NOT acceptable, and I simply won't visit a Web site with pop-ups (for example, is in my hosts table as so I can't get to it even accidentally).

I don't recall ever buying something through a banner ad (usually I simply ignore them), but I have made decisions to buy *elsewhere* because of pop-ups - and I expect that eventually I'll see a banner that has something interesting to me. does a reasonable job balancing content and advertising. Many Web locations don't, and they get only one visit from me. Since most of my friends rely on me to keep their PCs running, they don't visit those Web sites either (hosts is SUCH a useful file ).

"Hey, I can't get to today."
"Hmmm. Maybe they went out of business."


1/19/2000 (5:29 am) by Anonymous    

(1082 Posts)

Query: Would someone mind 'detailing' the creation of a "host file"...and how it is used to reduce/eliminate "banners", etc.?

Some banners are "ok"...many are obtrusive...



1/19/2000 (2:33 pm) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

By default, Windows and Windows NT both have a hosts file named hosts.sam, for Windows it's located at c:\windows and for NT it's located at c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc. The hosts file is used to associate a domain name with an IP address without using DNS. It can also be used to "block" access to certain domains by redirecting it to a different IP, which is what we want to do here. Open hosts.sam with a text editor and you'll see a few comments and a single single active entry of " localhost". This is the format that your new entries should be in, keeping the same space between the IP address and hostname (a single TAB). Wildcards do not work in the hosts file, so you'll need to include the entire domain name. For example, one of my host entries is "". By using the local IP address of, your browser will look to your computer for the banner ad server, but it obviously won't be there, so no banner ad loads. Some companies, such as, have several servers pumping out banner ads, so you'll need to add each entry separately. For, I have,,,, and Once you're done with your entries, save the file as "hosts" with no extension in the original location. It may not become active until you reboot. Hope this was a fairly clear explanation. By the way, I don't use this for all banner ads, just to block annoying ads or from companies that violate privacy rules (Doubleclick). Be sure to support your smaller web sites by not blocking their ads.


1/19/2000 (2:41 pm) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

Under Win9x, you create/edit a file named "HOSTS" (no extension) in your Windows directory (not the system directory). The file is an ascii text file which can be created with any text editor. It uses the following format:

So a sample hosts file might look something like this: localhost

Any time you computer attempts to look up one of the names listed in your hosts file, it uses the associated IP address in the hosts file instead of asking the name server for the information. This has 3 quick benefits.

You can create aliases for certain hostnames so you don't have to type out the whole name (i.e. you could associate with the name "gk" and then any time you wanted to visit you could just type "gk" in your web browser).

If a host name's IP address doesn't change very often, you can reach the host quicker by putting its address in your hosts file. This way your computer doesn't have to ask a nameserver for the address every time you visit the site. It just looks it up in the hosts file (which is faster, sometimes by a few seconds).

If you don't want to get data from a particular host at all, you can associate that host's name with the address or These ip addresses are not reachable, so if you associate one of them with a banner ad hostname (the example above was then any time a banner ad from that site appears in a web page, it will be unable to load. You can usually determine the hostname that a banner ad is coming from by right clicking on the ad and choosing properties.


1/26/2000 (11:19 pm) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

In my honest opinion, I think subtile, non agitating, yet interesting advertisments are a plus to a website. I even occasionally laugh at an ad with a good joke [all though a rarity]. But I believe the bottom line is this: If you dont need them, dont use them. Sure they create profit, but why, if [and I repeat "If"] you started a page as a hobby or a fansite then why do you need banners? It's a hobby and thus it's a service you pay for, which is very little, because you enjoy it! When you begin to cross over the "profit" line, like sites that provide great services for free, they need to make profit, [Like UGEEK], and ads that are 'clean' if you will, are a definate plus! Well, that's my 1++ cents [programmer joke...].
Brandon D.
Chief Programmer -- MegaThink Web Desing


1/27/2000 (11:43 pm) by Anonymous    

(1082 Posts)

Here's the URL from DoubleClick to opt out of their (so called) value added process:

(for some reason, this board will not allow the full url to be clickable... the #optout (the most important part) is not being added...)

<A HREF="" TARGET="_top"></A>#optout


2/20/2000 (3:58 am) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

Thank you for the tip about using the c:\windows\hosts file to point to a bogus IP Address.

I have nothing against advertisers paying to get their message out, and sometimes the ads are useful, but I despise companies like doubleclick that try to invade our privacy.

If everyone used this technique, wouldn't doubleclick be out of business? Their product would be useless.


2/21/2000 (7:46 pm) by admin Staff    

(24314 Posts)

If you want to see the most incredibly irritating site ever as far as advertisements try this one:


Go ahead and try it. It is laughable that such a prominent site could possible think that their site strategy is anything but irritating. Try it. It is funny.