Site fights back against adblocking

[Haven]

Ok so just had an interesting experience at tweaktown when trying to view the following url:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1481/1/sapphire_radeon_hd_4870_in_crossfire/index.html

I got the delightful message:

Hello, I noticed that you’re using an Ad blocker program to block our ads. We ask you to please disable Ad blocker for our site. By doing this, you are helping us to pay for the hosting cost and for the time and effort we put in to this site. We strive to bring you quality reviews and news on the hottest products. You will continue to see this message, if you do not disable the Ad blocker.

If you are not using an Ad blocker and feel you received this as an error, please contact website support via contact us.
Thank you for supporting us,
TweakTown Staff
If you are not using an Ad Blocker

So I did what any respectable person would do ... I blocked javascript on their site using noscript and carried on reading their review.

I'm wondering if this will be a trend ... I'm sure you can get around the issue with greasemonkey also but I simply cannot be bothered right now.

I also use hosts files to block spam/crap/ads as well as a rather stringent squid proxy so I doubt I would have seen the ads even without adblock, but its interesting seeing them try to counter it.

 

[thatbloke]

I know ads are annoying, and some do go way over the top.

But the simple fact is that by viewing their site you are costing them money (as you would know) and therefore they have to get their money somehow... right?

 

[Haven]

Yup agreed on the costings, but how far should they go ? Will they start trying to disguise adverts as editorial or psuedo-articles. Will they go the "toolbar" approach to embed themselves in your browser. Or will they just try and deliver adds in a format that is hard to block (sorry folks I use flashblock also ).

If enough are prepared to block their adverts then surely they will have to consider alternatives. Seeing them try to counter the block is more of an arms race approach hence I felt it worth a thread

Keep them thoughts coming.

 

[BiG D]

The solution is simple, really. Site owners need to approve each ad by hand, to make sure that a) it isn't fucking annoying and b) it is something people who view their site would be interested in. If they'd do this, there would be no need to block anything. As it stands, though, most subscribe to some automated service that fills their site with not-quite-relevant annoying flashy things.

I use adblock, but I don't use the option to prefill it with a ton of rules. If I see an annoying ad, I block it. If I find myself blocking from a specific adserver often, I block it as a whole. People who screen their ads by hand (and hopefully host the images locally) will tend to have their ads get through.

 

[Wol]

If they are complaining about hosting costs, then why don't they just charge people to view their site? Oh wait, then noone would use it, and thats pretty much useless for them.

I've never seen other websites complaining of not enough people clicking on their ads to actually start disallowing access to those who are sensible enough to keep pointless bandwidth down. Is there any particular reason why these guys think that theyre different, and that their ads are worth not blocking?

Yup, javascript block it is then . Or some FF addin for anti-adblockplus-block-plus? .... heh

 

[BiG D]

I just saw an ad for Age of Conan that required the user to enter their birthdate before the ad would display. Can we push to apply this to all ads?

 

[Angelic]

Lol