[LINK] Fwd: Re: Unusable Web-Site

[Craig Sanders]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 03:45:51PM +1000, Roger Clarke wrote:
> At 15:11 +1000 16/7/07, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>> Other users might not see it as a problem, though. ...
>
> Is my taxis *really* worse than other people's? 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis
>
> A sample page from the site in question is here:
> http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6104

i don't see any animations on this page.  AdBlockPlus reports that it
is blocking 7 out of 42 items (images, etc) on this page, and NoScript
reports that it is blocking 15 scripts.

> The AFR ads bobbling around on it at present are bad - although not as
> bad as some that were hurtling around there a few days ago.

it was the start of animated gif advertising years ago (mid-90s, i
think) that motivated me to write my squid-redirector based ad-banner
blocker years ago. i still use it today (because i still use the squid
proxy, and also to provide banner and rudimentary javascript blocking
when i'm using iceape or galeon or anything else other than firefox)

i also use firefox with AdBlock Plus and NoScript as my primary browser.
this is a lot easier and a lot less hassle than having to write your own
banner-blocking scripts as i did years ago.

i pretty much don't see web ads. haven't for years. 

occasionally one gets through the filters. if it annoys me (i.e. if it's
animated), i add it to my squid-redirector rules and/or add it to the
adblock rules.


IMO, it's not worth worrying about - anyone who doesn't want to be
annoyed by web advertising has readily (and freely) available tools to
block them, easily.

i'm more disturbed by sites that *require* javascript for basic
navigation. that means i have to grant open access to the site operators
to run whatever javascript code they like on MY system just to navigate
around the site. i generally just leave the site. it's not worth the
risk.


craig

ps: since i installed NoScript, i don't have my browser crashing
all the time due to buggy javascript, java, and flash crap (esp.
spyware/click-tracking) embedded in web pages, either.

pps: i use other browsers occasionally when i actually want to run
javascript/flash/java without contaminating my main browser with unknown
code. e.g. when i want to see videos or slideshows on The Age website
without enabling javascript for their text pages.

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>