SITE ADMINS: Popup that closes the discussion thread you were reading/replying to ?

[The_Crow]

Ok I dont mind ads and popups I understand running a forum like this is expensive. However what is the point of having a popup on the site which actually closes the discussion thread the target audience of said popup is reading ? I have had this come up at least once every time Ive been on these forums in the last 3 months & no its not something installed on my PC or anything like that.

You will be reading a thread or posting a reply when you are suddenly (with no actual user interaction) sent to this link:

http://media.fastclick.net/w/safepop.cgi?cid=29328&mid=86103&sid=19086&c=20

This link forced your current forum topic to close automatically with no warning (if you click my link it at least wanrs you its trying to close the window your in) it then drops a minimised IE window in the bottom right of screen and shoots one of those lame "your registry may be damaged" please download program XXXXX to repair it. If you say no the program attempts to continue anyway and takes you to the products website.

No matter what you do it has closed the discussion thread you were reading/replying to and if you just finished typing a long reply to a thread it is particularly infuriating.

I hope someone can please look into this & either get rid of this if its a hijacker on the site or if it is legit advertising please change the way it works so it opens in its own window or something.

Please look into this as it is really really infuriating.

 

[Seano]

I've been having all sorts of problems here this week. I use Firefox too so don't suggest that.

I run spybot weekly and between this week and last, I picked up 96 "problems."

 

[The_Crow]

Actually I have just had the exact problem I describe twice in about 10 minutes. Once on the forums & once trying to read the article about marvin eastman on the sherdog page:

http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles.asp?n_id=4708

The way it works has slightly changed now, instead of closing what you are looking at when you cancell installation it instead send you to the error safe homepage & you can then click back to go back what you were reading so I guess thats at least something.

I also run Adaware, spybot and several other bits and pieces including some active solutions so Im sure this is nothing installed on my computer, it has to be something on the site.

 

[Seano]

I'll keep this thread going. I check lots of sites as does my girlfriend and this is the only site where I get shit like this.

 

[The_Crow]

I'll keep this thread going. I check lots of sites as does my girlfriend and this is the only site where I get shit like this.

Well both my home machine & work machine show this popup and I tried the site one a laptop from work which has never been connected to the internet before & after opening 3 or 4 threads on here bang up came the popup I describe.....

 

[heyseuss]

yeh pop-ups went absolutely illegal here a while back.

 

[oyaji poi]

the mods advice was to buy a premium account, or to use mozilla/firefox. i switched to firefox and it is still happening. there's still threats from the popups that my computer will crash so i have to download their product, as well they tried to run an activeX. one of the popups, the most frequent one, automatically tries to download without asking.

thanks for the advice mods!! either pay money or your advertisers will close every sherdog window we open!! slick marketing strategy guys, either pay for a membership or the popup ads will try to download malware onto our computers with an activeX or whatever else. great site, what happened to integrity?

i guess the other option (besides paying for a membership) is to just not come to sherdog. because every time we come to sherdog, the ads here are either really annoying (HELLLOOOOO!!!), or they close the windwo and try to instal malware on our computer. sweet setup you got here.

 

[Seano]

^^^
Firefox used to work for me but no longer. What is this? A way to get people to buy a membership?

Fuck it. This site has become unpleasant with the freeze ups and popups every 30 seconds or so.

 

[The_Crow]

Well the popup I reported has changed slightly yet again today. Even if you close the initial popup now and close the website it takes you to (as clicking to go back to what you were viewing appears to no longer work, you just get into a cycle of the same popup) it will still go to a third directly related popup and then keep asking for permission to install some crap or other.

Really godamn annoying still because it closes the window your looking at, like I said in the begining I dont give a toss if the webpage for that crap opens in a new window so long as it doesnt mess with what im trying to read or reply to !!!

 

[pyr0]

as well they tried to run an activeX.

Firefox does not run activeX natively, and in fact, requires a seperate plugin that you have to install to run active X controls. If you did this, then you basically circumvented the protections Firefox has in place against active X exploits.

I suggest doing the following:

1. Set up your hosts file to block the offending website. Tutorial here: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

2. Download and install the latest firefox client. www.mozilla.com

3. Download and Install Adblock extension found here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/10/

Once this is installed, you can right click on any ads you see and block out the entire frame. If they happen to be flash ads, you need to refresh the browser until a regular .gif add appears, and at this time, you can block out the entire frame from ever showing up.

I haven't had any problems.

 

[oyaji poi]

i was using explorer when the activeX shit came up. since then i've switched to firefox. the popups still happen, but at least the page doesn't change so much