As many people noticed, and quite a few emailed us about, the past couple of days OS News has been displaying a great number of pop-up ads. I’d like to take this opportunity to say that OS News thinks that pop-up ads are generally bad, and that we have stopped using the ad broker that was serving the pop-ups. They made arrangements to not display pop-ups at our request, but didn’t follow through on their agreement, so we have yanked them until they do. We’re sorry for putting our loyal readers through it, but rest assured that we’re trying to balance our need to make a little money and maintaining a good experience for our beloved readers. You may still see the occasional pop-up, but we’re determined to keep it to a minimum. By the way, if you’d like to provide support to OSNews, so we don’t have to resort to pop-ups and other intrusive advertising, there are two easy ways to do it that won’t cost you a cent: First, when you buy something–anything–from Amazon.com, use This Link and OSNews will get a small percentage of your purchase, without costing you more. Also, when you’re in the market to buy anything, check OS News’ Pricegrabber where we also get a little kick-back.
I didn’t notice. The Opera 6 browser kan turn pop-ups off. Sorry to disappoint the advertisers 😉
I use Popup Stopper, very effective, and you get a nice raspberry noise <G>
They don’t work with Net+ either, so the only time I see ’em is when I have to use IE @ Work. . .
when amazon and pricegrabber see this, they might not be pleased – i think amazon doesn’t like it if sites say stuff like ‘please click the banner’…
then jut turn off Javascript……no more pop-ups and the privilege of using the most standards complient browser on the internet.
They aren’t getting money from click-thru’s, note he said “when you buy something–anything–from Amazon.com, use This Link and OSNews will get a small percentage of your purchase” so I think OSNews is in the clear.
I hate those damn things…ads are one thing, but auto-triggering windows is rude – especially when you get one every time you hit the “Back” button… >:(
Proxomitron, Webwasher, Junkbuster, and Squid are pretty nice too.
Here’s another plug for Proxomitron:
http://proxomitron.org
This is the mother of all ad killers for Windows. If you know of a better one, lemme know, as I’d love to see it
Speaking of ads, there is something I’ve been wondering for a long time: Why is it that back circa 1995, the web existed without any ads at all. Then, all of sudden the commercial bastards find it and now no matter what the site is, it absolutely CANNOT exist with advertising! Has bandwidth costs gone up that much in the past several years?
Speaking of ads, there is something I’ve been wondering for a long time: Why is it that back circa 1995, the web existed without any ads at all. Then, all of sudden the commercial bastards find it and now no matter what the site is, it absolutely CANNOT exist with advertising! Has bandwidth costs gone up that much in the past several years?
It has to do with a lot of variables. The primary one is that most ISPs don’t permit self-hosting. Another is that the bandwidth and storage space for a typical site has increased dramatically in the last 7 years. Remember in 1995 most sites were still grey backgrounds with black text, maybe an image once in a while, and fairly static. Now you’ve got to deal with getting slashdotted if you have something that they find mildly interesting (and therefore your host bills you for exceeding your bandwidth allocations), dynamic content, and bulletin board systems are fairly common, as well (meaning that the more users you have, the more space you’re going to take up by storing their comments, and bandwidth used by displaying those comments to other readers).
“Remember in 1995 most sites were still grey backgrounds with black text, maybe an image once in a while, and fairly static.”
Yeah, I really miss those days
The pages were dull and rather ugly looking, but it least you didn’t have to wade through useless flash intros and tons of other crap to get to what you were looking for.
These days, I think a little CSS and sensable HTML formatting (hint: not using Frontpage) would go quite a long way to solving some of the bandwidth issues.
Thank God for OmniWeb! I like that disable function they added to the prefs.
Thanks David!
There is a level of support that can be more suitable for non profit activities. We find it happens quite a lot in sporting and other non profit organizations here in Aus. A company like ourselves can sponsor a non profit activity by providing funding in return for a formal recognition of that sponsorship by the NPA. We are more comfortable with this kind of targetted alignment with an NPA than with blatant advertising which people generally turn off to. It all dependson whether osnews.com is a profit making venture or not. Perhaps you can answer that question for me – I’m not entirely clear.
P
OS News is not a non-profit venture, in that we don’t have offical non-profit status. However, in the first four years of OS News’ life, it made very little money and cost much more to run than in brought in. But I was happy to foot the bill, as it has always been a labor of love for me (and I have a real job that pays me lots of money). This year, mostly thanks to Eugenia’s work in increasing the amount of content and promoting the site, we have finally broken into the other side. We now make slightly more than it costs to run the site, although it’s all still done by volunteers. If we can earn enough money, we may buy Eugenia a laptop or something.
In Mozilla:
Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Scripts & Windows:
uncheck:
Open unrequested windows
Move or Resize existing windows
Raise or lower windows
and there – you’re all set for your pop up free surfing
If OSNews is non-profit, or at least not making megabucks, why not have a “donations” link? I would be glad to make a small donation, as long as OSNews maintains its current ethos (commercially impartial news, ads and links, but nothing intrusive like pop-ups).
Consider TextAds, like they invented over at kuro5hin.org –
One of the better ideas I’ve seen for a long time!
Popups are very annoyning especialy if you are reading…
And this is a reading place.
indeed they are, but nowadays you can stop them in both mozilla and ie, not usre about opera, but it would suprise me if they couldn’t shut the ‘feature’ off as well…
so there’s no problem really!
If I understand this correctly, you can block those annoying pop-up ads just using your host file. The info on how to do this is here: http://ssmedia.com/utilities/hosts/
because I like latest mozy, but I like the integration of AIM in netscape and I want to be able to use Mozy’s fine grained Pop-up control rather than just disabling Javascript which is a pain at DL sites…especialy since those sites have a lot of pop-ups
Could someone explain to me why there are ads on this site AT ALL? I don’t see the need for it. The excuse “to help fund the service you love” is a passe cliche. If the site is managed and run by individuals who want to “do something for the community” out of their kindness of their hearts, then surely they realise unsolicited web-based advertising (“web spam”) is *NOT* kind to the community. Doing something for the community means you pull up your bootstraps and you take what comes to you — including co-lo and bandwidth fees.
So, rather than succumb to forced advertising, why not get your provider to drop the costs of your fees? Maybe try rate-limiting. Or pick another ISP which charges lower rates (or work out a deal with that ISP (not involving advertising) that will benefit both parties? Your site could indeed bring them revenue!).
You’re willing to take a stand against “excessive pop-ups,” and state publically that you don’t condone pop-ups or spam, but yet you DO condone it by having it on your site!
Do something for the community — take a stand, get rid of spam.
[i]Could someone explain to me why there are ads on this site AT ALL? [i]
uh, dude, bandwith and servers are very expensive…
Dear  “Anti-popup” hypocrisy” guy: Why don’t you get your own web site? That way you can run it anyway you like, with or without ads. And you can give all of your naive schemes for covering costs a try and let me know how that works out for you.
<p>
An ad on a web site that you visit is not unsolicited. When you come to OS News, you know that there will be an ad there. If you don’t want to see that ad, install ad-blocking software or DON’T VISIT THE SITE. in other words, equating ads on a web site with spam is just silly, and it’s an insult to true spam’s evil nature.
Guidescope is similar to Junkbuster, but I think that it is easier to use. It allows you to filter out graphics and cookies from websites that you visit frequently. From my own experience, I’ve found that it works with Opera, Netscape, and IE quite well. Also, it attempts to hide you from those attempting to harvest your surfing habits. Every internet request (from the user) are routed through the guidescope’s servers. The websites that you visit thinks that the request is coming from Guidescope and not from you. Using Opera and Guidescope will definitely speed up your web browsing, especially if you’re on a 56K or less modem.
While we’re on the topic of making a little money… I like the idea of having a subscription service or tip jar type situation. I particularly like the model that Slashdot is moving to in the way of inexpensive subscriptions per page-views. Maybe you could work something like that out??
I’ve had it with ads myself. They are just a waste of space and bandwidth.
I’ve gotten more than double from sponsors that what I’ve gotten from banners on my sites.
Not to mention that it’s hard to get advertisers there days, and it’s even harder to get advertisers that pays per impression, which IMO is the only reasonable way to pay for internet ads right now.
As for server/bandwidth costs, it’s not impossible to find people willing to set up a server for free as long as it doesn’t require too much CPU/RAM/Bandwidth.
However, it takes time to update and develop a site, especially if youre on your own. It’s almost a full time job for some sites. So the money needs to come from someone, be it the visitor, an advertiser or a sponsor.
Let’s say.. if a site get’s 4 000 individual visitors each month and each visitor paid $1/month, it would be enough money to maintain the server and at least let a couple of people work part time with the site.
$1/month is cheaper than most magazines and it could give you more value for your money.
But would people be willing to pay for quality contents? I would, but I doubt everyone would, since they are so used to get everything on the net for free. Except maybe porn.
Wow, where do I begin.
First, I already do run my own service — I host a good 30 or 40 websites using two FreeBSD-based rackmount servers (2U and 1U, respectively). I pay $300/month out of my own pocket for their network uplink: a 1.1mbps SDSL line. Co-location is also presently outrageous in cost; sooner or later all the customers will pick up and go with SDSL and other technologies which are 4x cheaper and provide the same degree of speed and latency. We push an *AVERAGE* of 400-500kbit/sec (yes, seriously).
The best part of my service: not a single ad ANYWHERE, and I want to keep it that way. My users pay me nothing. So how do I afford it? I have something called a “full-time job.” The hosting is a hobby — I do it because I want to provide something nice to the public, for free. I want people to benefit from the information my users provide (again, for free).
If you don’t believe me, check out <A HREF=”http://www.parodius.com/“>http://www.parodius.com sometime.
If I can do it, so can anyone else.
Secondly, this is my first time visiting OSNews. I expected to see a site relating to operating systems, not anti-Microsoft propoganda ads (“CONVERT YOUR NT MACHINE TO A COBALT SERVER”).
The problem is not with me, the problem is with people like you who have become ACCUSTOMED to seeing unsolicited advertising on the web. You’ve become a victim, and you simply accept it rather than take a stand. It *IS* unsolicited advertising, since I didn’t *ASK* to see ads when visiting the site. That’s what *unsolicited* means.
The Internet was not founded on concepts like commercialism and capitalism. It was founded on concepts like freedom of information. I am one of those people who continues to support that concept, even if it costs me money out of my own pocket.
Looks like I forgot an ending quote:
<A HREF=”http://www.parodius.com/“>http://www.parodius.com/
What a mess.
As others have probably said, “I didn’t see it, Opera kills that shiat!!”.. But, I thank you for your consideration Eugenia. It’s nice when the people who provide cool services turn out to be cool people too!
>Secondly, this is my first time visiting OSNews. I expected to see a site relating to operating systems, not anti-Microsoft propoganda ads (“CONVERT YOUR NT MACHINE TO A COBALT SERVER”).
OSNews is about operating systems and we have nothing against Windows OSes. In fact, we support them pretty well on our site. This is an ad by Cobalt which we DO NOT and CAN NOT control. It comes from the TribalFusion ad server automatically.
>The best part of my service: not a single ad ANYWHERE, and I want to keep it that way. My users pay me nothing. So how do I afford it? I have something called a “full-time job.”
I am sorry, but I do not have a full time job. Therefore, the ads are essential to run this site.
The site belongs to David of course (he takes care of the ads and the bills that osnews has to pay), but David is a family man. If he had to pay from his pocket, there would not be osnews. And I don’t have a job here in USA, as I am not allowed to work.
So shut up your big mouth and get the facts straight before you start *your* communistic/libertarian propaganda. Nothing is free in this world. I do “work” for free over here, but I get some satisfaction on what I do. In fact, if there was no OSNews I would probably die out of boredom at home (thanks to your nice laws here at USA, where I can’t work). But the bottom line is that bills have to be paid. And I can’t pay them. And David does not have enough involvement or high interest on osnews to pay *for me*. So, SOMEONE has to pay or no-more osnews. So, that someone is the ads. The way things are over here, ads are essential and they are here to stay.
Live with it, and please do us a favour: do not come back to this site. Visit your ad-free ones.
Eugenia I don’t agree with your analysis.
I’m sure with a good coloc deal and some willing sponsors, this site could be run without the kind of advertising you insist it needs. If we’ve been able to get a good deal (and we are commercial) then I’m sure you could find something similar.
As a businessman, I can see the value of targetted sponsorship rather than in your face advertising, and I’m sure there are many other businesspeople who come to this site who would feel the same way as I.
Think about it. If you had sponsorship slots, I think we’d buy one, but you might need to be a little more open about what it really costs to run this site.
If you’re worried about editorial independence then you can still pick & choose your sponsors. Even so, you might get less flak than the current round of advertising has brought.
P