Pop-up Ads!

It seems to me that the very annoying pop-up ads have become more intrusive recently. I didn't make a note of the timing, but possibly within the last week or two, I no longer have to actively click on them to open them. If my cursor inadvertently hovers for a few seconds over one, the ad opens "in my face" and I must close it. I much prefer to decide for myself whether I wish to open it or NOT. Has anyone else noticed this or am I imagining it?

I don't see any ads - I have an adblock extension on my browser and as a paid subscriber to DG, I have the option to turn them off. Can you tell us the ad you're seeing? We don't typically allow popups or pop-unders because they are annoying.

Currently Walmart.ca is at the top and bottom of my homepage. When my cursor moves over it, it turns dark and will open unless I immediately move the cursor off. Often Cottonelle is there, as well as several others I can't think of at the moment. Yesterday I disabled Adobe Flashplayer, which blocks them sometimes. My browser is Chrome and "block pop-ups" is enabled. Right now the icon is showing at the top of this page that says "Plug-ins were blocked on this page". Also on this page are 2 ads which are now grayed out and they say "Adobe Flash Player is not allowed". I cannot afford to re-subscribe so cannot turn off the ads on this site.

Thank-you for interest!

Just returned to my homepage and Kleenex Cottonelle is back on the top and Walmart is at the bottom. Another one on the right side is grayed out.

This message was edited Sep 2, 2014 10:20 PM

Sorry to be a nuisance. Now Cottonelle is on top and bottom of homepage, something called TransUnion, a Canadian credit score service, and Zulili are both on right side.

This message was edited Sep 2, 2014 11:32 PM

Thanks for your help Terry. Just installed an adblocker program and it has blocked 38 so far here after just a few minutes. I'll stick with this for the time being.

Thanks for the detailed update - and to confirm, these are popup-ads that open a new window and block all or part of the page...not just ads that have some type of animation when you mouse over them? (Both can be annoying to some degree, but we have allowed some major advertisements with animated ads.)

Speaking as a budget administrator, I am certain that the revenues from those ads far outweigh the revenues from lost memberships. I have noticed more ads on DG, but nothing like described by Vanillaman. My antivirus software does a good job of blocking pop-ups and ads and I think it's only a matter of time before advertisers find a workaround to these blockers.

I debated renewing my membership to DG last July. Membership has been declining alarmingly fast recently. If the ads get too obtrusive, I'll just join the legions of people who don't renew. Too bad, because I enjoy DG.

Sylvain.

I was having problems with ads and, per a DG Admin suggestion, tried running malwarebytes. I'd forgotten to install it on my laptop. It found quite a few things and as soon as I let malwarebytes quarantine the problems, my ad problems went away. I already had most ads turned off in my DG settings and had an ad blocker installed in Chrome browser but still had the problems. They weren't caused by DG! Even if they were, I'd never give up my membership. This site is way too useful and fun!

Thank-you Terry. My new pop-up blocker program is working now on DG and is continually blocking ads on every page I visit. There is a running count on my taskbar and when I start out on my homepage here the number increases by 2 every time. The Cottonelle toilet paper and Walmart Back to School were the 2 most consistent and annoying. I can live with animated ads and those were not the problem. The ones that were a nuisance opened a new window on top of the DG page just when I passed my cursor over them without clicking. The problem started a few weeks ago, so I thought maybe you had changed something which caused the change.

Thank-you SallieKr. I have been a fan of Malwarebytes for years and do a manual update and run every morning. It occasionally catches pups, which I don't like but other malware detection programs consider them harmless and allow them without giving notification.

At this point, things are resolved and I will carry on with my current blocking program.

Thanks for members' feedback!

We are looking into the ads you cited and hopefully we'll be able to cull them out of the lineup. Ads do help pay the bills, but annoying ads are not wanted by anyone :-)

Hi, all. I run Chrome and have noticed that it's built in pop-up blocker has been blocking pop-up ads on davesgarden. So it's not just animated ads, but ads opening new windows. Since they were auto-blocked for me, I can't tell you which ones were the offenders.

I did notice some ads started playing audio by themselves. With 20 to 30 browser tabs open, this is very annoying as trying to find the ad with audio is both frustrating and distracting. Otherwise it forces me to disable sound or turn off my speakers altogether.