To me, it looks as if a good many of these popups may be user PC based, opposed to being in ATS code. Especially with someone having WhenU.com as one.

As of the post you (S.O.) said that you were told by the one company you were dealing with to give it 24 hours, I have yet to have any popups (Firefox, popup blocker disabled, no 3rd party popup blockers). My machine is/has always been malware free.

NN

That's my expereince as well. I always us ATS with Safari and FireFox without disabled pop-ups... I've never received one since disabling all the pop-code some time ago.

I still get the flash ads occasionally, but everytime I try to get any information about it, as soon as I do anything they go away. Sorry SO, but I'm trying to get you more information. I ran adaware the other night and it found about 70 things, but it took them all off again, and I still got the ads. I'll keep trying to find a way to get more info for you.

I would like to take a moment to help clarify that this is not adware on someone's pc.

The ads that are being discussed are ads in the ATS/BTS page header/footer. They expand when a mouse passes over it. They are not random popups.

Since they are shockwave/flash, it is difficult to find their origin. You can't seem to get the origin from the view source, and most of them don't give you time or won't allow you to right click and select properties.

Below is a visual aid to help with clarity about the popups that are being discused. This particular AMEX ad did let me view its properties, and does resolve to C5.Zedo.com





c5.zedo.com... /OzoDB/b/2/178561/V1/amex_goldMR_728_2x_exp_SB_1.swf (plus parameters)

Just trying to provide some clairity. I will continue to try to find the path to the origin, or their destination to help out.

Thank you. Carry on & have a great day!


[edit on 6/26/06 by makeitso]

(Mod edit: Put URL tags on that humongous link to keep it from sporking the page width. Oh and thanks for the very detailed info. I couldn't have put it better myself -- and I'm glad I wasn't going crazy. --Majic)

[edit on 6/27/2006 by Majic]

Here's an IE browser plug-in that may help troubleshoot this problem. One of its greatest features in my opinion is the ability to show you the code of external _javascript and CSS files. Every web designer should have this program!

www.softsland.com...

Whether or not it can assist in fixing the layered ads, it is still a nifty little tool for people who use IE and are curious about how web pages are coded.

regards,

StickyG

Having emptied my cookies, and temporary Internet files I logged back onto ATS only, and after a bit got the AMEX advert again.

I went thru my temp Inet files, sorted by last accessed date/time and found the actual path to the Amex advert.

www.midtenmedia.com...

And

c5.zedo.com.../8;s=118;d=14;w=728;h=90

I cleared my cookies and temporary internet files again, but this time I decided to only opened the ATS header page, not the whole ATS page hoping that this would save load time, and help create an understanding that this is unintentionally coming from ATS not pc infested adware. This technique shows only the ATS header adverts, not the whole ATS page.

I refreshed the page until the AMEX ad came up again.





I will send SO the View source.


[edit on 6/26/06 by makeitso]

You can avoid those types of ads with Firefox and the Flashblock extension.

I absolutely hate those.

Edit: I see a lot of you are using MSIE. I'd recommend you drop it as soon as you get a chance.

[edit on 26-6-2006 by vinrock]

Many people using Firefox reported the same problem,

I use Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 and never had this problem.

Firefox is not the cure for this problem.

For some reason I can't see the url's no matter what I try short of clicking the ad to run. This morning it was not just expanding out of the box at the top of the page, if clicked directly to the end of a thread to see the last post it was floating at the bottom of the page.

I think the Blade ad is for a movie, but I'm not sure. So far tonight nothing has popped on me.

Oh, I also want to reinforce that these are ads from the ad space in the top of the page.

If you use Firefox along with Flashblock, it is.

Some of the FastClick/ValueClick ads were indeed expandable units and this appears to be the source of the current issue.

However, they report that none of their ads are being hosted from the "zedo.com" domain, and any pop-ups or in-page ads you receive from that domain are very likely the result of malware.

We have a block on our FastClick/ValueClick network account to prevent the delivery of expanding or "take over" ads, so in a few hours, this should be resolved.



And remember... please don't block our ads, they're our only source of income. Thanks.

For me, it's most frequently happening with the American Express ads.

I wonder if it's just a coincidence that certain people are being plagued with certain ads over others? Are they targeted somehow?

I haven't gotten the Amex one at all, it's almost always the Blade one. I'm almost insulted

If Flashblock blocks the ads (I do not know Flashblock) doesn't that go against the conditions with agree upon signing to ATS?

They may be targeted to people from certain regions, I do not have that problem and I use ATS from Portugal.

Or (this is a conspiracy community site after all) maybe this is one of those types of ads targeted to specific internet use paterns and you have been profiled.

Were you the kid who would remind the teacher when she'd forget to assign homework?



Flashblock supplies the ability to deny a certain 3rd party technology from executing at unexpected times or places. You have to click the flash application in order for it to execute with the plugin installed. It's purpose is not specifically to stop ads.

However, your point was enough for me to shut up from now on.

I havn't read all the posts here... I did not track the popup as It only happened once a small 2' rectangle over a post.

I posted because I know when it happened I was uploading a file to the ATS board and did not reenable my firewall. I did so after the pop up and have had none since

Don't know if that helps any

Just had one, if ya want.

30Jun / 0806

FF, and its popup block was still enabled.

Ad:
Congradulations ....... [snip] ....... Free Plasma TV

Click To URL:
media.fastclick.net...

Banner URL:
cdn.fastclick.net...

NN

[edit on 30-6-2006 by NoNik]

I forgot to turn on my secondary Pop-Up Blocker before visiting today. I got pop-ups immediately on nearly every page. The IE pop-up blocker was on. Guess we will just have to get used to it.

As to the ads at the top that are supposed to be there. I have been the "1,000,000th visitor" 3 times today. I think those type of ads lower the credibility of any site they are on. It might be good to review ads before accepting them if that is possible?