Most obnoxious flash ad ever?

December 15, 2001 6:39 AM

Most obnoxious flash ad ever? Wired News just lost lots of hits from me since I used to read it twice a day and linked to it often.

"Used to" being the operative term.

The flash ad fad is starting to fray my nerves.

(I wanted to post this to Metafilter, but I thought I'd get chewed out since it probably isn't linkworthy by some readers standards.)
posted by zeb vance to MetaFilter-Related at 6:39 AM (10 comments total)

MetaTalk is not the place for second-string MetaFilter posts.
posted by gleuschk at 8:12 AM on December 15, 2001

Well, since it's already here...

I'm confused. I refreshed several times and got no ad other than the banner at the bottom of the screen.
posted by Su at 12:19 PM on December 15, 2001

Gosh, you can't put up with seeing a 5 second animation before being able to read FREE content? I feel for you. Really.
posted by skwm at 1:00 PM on December 15, 2001

Thanks for understanding. Exactly what I'd expect of this place.

Su, this morning there was some pop up Tetris style flash ad for Palm that ran for about five seconds and than disappeared. It seems to be gone now.

Still it pissed me off enough not to link to that page again.
posted by zeb vance at 4:34 PM on December 15, 2001

Remove the plugin:



Unfortunately JavaScript is too useful to disable just to prevent pop-up/under ads.
posted by joemaller at 5:50 PM on December 15, 2001

joemailler, use panicware's pop-up stopper. I like it so much I bought the company!

I use my ad blocking hosts file and pop-up stopper for mixed but decent results. I don't care how free your product is, if your ads are interfering with the content you only have readers to lose. I'm certain that the big flash ads are hurting more than they are helping. I've really been enjoying the onion's print edition which doesnt have an ad that covers the text I'm reading.

Sure the sites are free to do what they want, but there's a price to be payed and it may not be worth the $924 check from Crown Royal when your readership has gone down 10%.


posted by skallas at 9:19 PM on December 15, 2001

I dunno. Given the current state of the dot-conomy (sorry!), I think bitching about pop-up ads is, like the ads themselves, in pretty poor taste. Peoples gots ta eat! And the extra revenue Palm paid for that obnoxious flasher is keeping a poor shmuck like you or me working. I'd rather deal with a few annoying ads than lose a site altogether.
posted by jpoulos at 9:17 AM on December 16, 2001

Oh, and MetaTalk is not the place for second-string MetaFilter posts.
posted by jpoulos at 9:19 AM on December 16, 2001

Previously discussed here
posted by riffola at 11:01 AM on December 16, 2001

no flash=no problem.

I don't have it, and I'm living a happy productive life. You only think you need it. It's a psychological addiction. See what happens when you give into peer pressure? You see?
posted by fuq at 11:13 AM on December 16, 2001