Why I'm not allowed to have sound on my PC.

You mean like these ATS ones that seem to want to expand and take over the whole screen

Maki8ng it impossible to view the main thread page.

If you use chrome there is a addon on called mutetab.
It will let you find the source of the sound and mute all tabs but the one you're focusing on.
Mutetab

reply to post by wrabbit2000


I'm with you 100%. Here's a few steps to take:

first, adblock and noscript. Of course not when browsing ATS as outlined in the T&C, but every other website enable that stuff. Preferably use firefox or another browser that, until flash and java are secured, requires you to explicitly enable flash or java content before it runs.

Those two steps stopped all of it for me, including (which makes no sense) embedded ads on youtube videos.

That said, why is it when I watch the first 48 on A&E I might see oh, 4 commercial breaks, but when I play that same episode from youtube, it's got 7... 7 ads. Sometimes a single ad is 6 freaking minutes long. WTF.

phishyblankwaters
first, adblock and noscript. Of course not when browsing ATS as outlined in the T&C, but every other website enable that stuff. Preferably use firefox or another browser that, until flash and java are secured, requires you to explicitly enable flash or java content before it runs.

Those two steps stopped all of it for me, including (which makes no sense) embedded ads on youtube videos.

I think it's just the adblock that stops the youtube ads, never run noscript before (but thanks for putting me onto it) and never have to see those ads. I didn't even know they did them til I seen them on other people's computers.

you know.. when i first got a computer.. way back in '99 i remember clicking on a link someone gave me and the second i did there was literally about 100 IE browser windows that opened simultaneously and every window had elderly guy guy's in a sexual act and audio at 100% saying something to the effect to.. "hi, everyone, look at me i'm looking at gay porn!!" haha i was mortified but luckily it was late and my family wasn't around!!

the moral of the story is.. since that day i have never browsed without the audio being muted!! probably not according to the topic but it's definitely related.

reply to post by n3mesis


LMAO! I remember that one too. I got busted at work. Talk about awkward. It was a totally non-descript link too, I believe. I sent it to everybody I knew.

reply to post by wrabbit2000


I know!!!! Why does every other thing on the internet have to be a video nowadays anyway? If I'm reading interviews it has the whoole interview as a autostart video then a small paragraph that sums up the video..whatever just happened to reading things on the web??
I'm so lazy with these videos too because most of the time I am listening to music on the computer and I want to like..READ! the interview/news/whatever, but that's almost impossible in this day and age and it's tripping me out lol
Plus I just got a new badazz laptop now but just last month I was rocking this ooold laptop that would actually freeze and turn it self off just by putting on videos sometimes. Imagine the fun, you find something interesting, think to yourself "hey ima read that! " then you click the link & boom...blank screen, computer says no.
This auto-start video feature is pure evil imo, They should at least be polite enough to ask us if we even care to watch this video..
hehe, great rant btw!!!

reply to post by Sharingan


I hear ya on what your saying but my anger comes in simply from having to face this at all. Why should I have to choose between having someone else's sound auto-start and blast content without my consent OR desire on any level ..... OR ... I cripple my internet experience to the point that I'm seeing only a fraction of things a page intends, unless I select each and on each page I visit?

I won't do either of those things. Period. I do too much that relies on seeing what is on a page and not even knowing quite what I am looking for many times, until I see it. It sounds odd, but you'll have to take my word for the fact my research methods work well, even if I can't very well pass them on in a way that works for others.

So.. heck... I'll end up using something that will require extensive config and time to set up, one time, and let it simply strip and cripple those sites which choose to abuse my sound system because they think they can.

(There are some sites...It won't bother me a bit to help chop revenue on by outright disabling what makes them the money they operate on. Those who do these things? They deserve to go under by consumer action)

Originally posted by ObservingYou
You mean like these ATS ones that seem to want to expand and take over the whole screen

Maki8ng it impossible to view the main thread page.

As much as I would LOVE to blame ATS? (hey..I know a few people here..I wouldn't have to look far to find the ear to yell in...lol), they don't control that to my knowledge. If they are set up as sites I've worked with are, then the ad streams come within content guidelines and subject areas, but that's about the extent of editorial control for the site owner. The ad network or ad generator (Google for a large majority of the net these days) determines specific ads and ...unfortunately, slips some real nasty zingers in there from time to time, eh?

I know this may sound like a radical approach, but I surf with the sound off. Never once have I been bothered by obtrusive sound. I only turn sound on when there's something there I want to listen to. It's just a single button on the keyboard, pretty easy to find. Of course, it might be hidden on some keyboards and be a pain to use.

I understand about sites adding extra code at the bottom. I also find it annoying, but on the other hand, if I am copying something from their site, it's probably under copyright. They're just trying to grab credit for the text. I know that's terribly unfair for them to do this, but alas--it's their material they are attempting to control.

And about that poor woman who gets fat ladies in thongs for her kids to see, well, that's just terrible. I wonder why I never get those? I surf with all filtering off, too. I get generator ads when I've been looking at generators. And I get travel ads when I've been looking at travel sites. I got a lot of Disney ads a couple of years ago after I went to Disneyland. And I know if I click on a "We can save you hundreds of dollars on your car insurance" link I'm going to be getting insurance ads for months! But I never ever get fat ladies in thongs. I wonder why that is?

Yep. Surfing is a jungle out there. Ya gotta be ever so careful or you might get yourself offended.

reply to post by wrabbit2000


you mean popupls like everytime i click a link on ats?

Originally posted by schuyler
But I never ever get fat ladies in thongs. I wonder why that is?

I think I see what your getting at, but if its a family computer it could have been anyone!

I use some creative router settings to take care of most of the rough spots on the web, but I agree the audio ads are the wost. I think my personal most hated were the mouse over "smiley" ads from a few years back. They were silent until you happened to mouse over them while browsing, and then they would shout some nonsense.

I also started surfing with the sound off because of it, but eventually discovered a way around it. If you have more than one sound card, you can direct all sound output to one (which you conveniently leave disconnected) and enable the other sound card manually in other programs. It's a convoluted approach, but it works. In newer versions of Windows it is even easier, as you can mute individual applications such as the Flash player or web browser while still listening to music in a media player.

Originally posted by finitedualities
This does bug me, but I've blocked most of those little vids through ad-block (just click on the little "block" tab above the vid frame while ab+ is running, and add filter)...what I DO hate are those sites that seem to disable the back button to get more hits (as the page refreshes when you attempt to do so).

edit on 20-8-2013 by finitedualities because: added how to block said vids

What I can't understand is why don't browsers have a "sound" menu.

I mean, the browsers practically LET others control your faculties! They don't let the user have FULL CONTROL of his computer.

There are many other oddities and weaknesses that I can't understand how people can not get angry about, like not being able to 'prioritize' your net traffic (like, browser would have full priority always, so it would be completely responsive all of the time, and whatever else is going on, would be doing its thing in the background with low priority, but no..).

But lack of control over your own computer and its sound system has got to be among the top 3 most annoying things I can't figure out how people accept. I wondered about this actually already in the 1990s! And yet, we still don't have a solution for this. If there was a program or "program type" sound allocation system (I think the newer, shinier OSes have something like this, but haven't used them enough to be sure), that I could use to "perma-mute" a browser any time I am not specifically using audio in it, or I could at least "perma-mute" one browser window, while using audio in another, or something -- then this wouldn't be a problem.

Thankfully, with some hard work and being careful about what websites you visit, doing regular virus and spyware scans, and so on, and of course, using the various ad-blocking programs, this problem is somewhat 'manageable'. Still, I'd like a "mute" button in the browser itself, or a setting that would allow the user to decide, whether he wants to "allow sound" or "not allow sound" to be played by the browser, OR a feature that would always at least ASK: "Do you want this program to use be able to use audio?".

It could work like Adblocker in a way - you could specify which sites are permitted to have audio, and no other site would ever be able to play any.

As someone said, our browsers are broken - we can't make intelligent security choices (either you have a) No cookies, which basically cripples your experience and the browser in today's web-world, or b) You have the browser ASK for every single cookie, which makes browsing a mouse-destroying click-inferno - or c) You accept all cookies from all sites, always - there's no intelligent choice d) where you have a meaningful option to choose), we can't control whether they play audio or not, what kind of scripts can run on them, etc. We have NO CONTROL.

Basically, the browsers let the website have way too much control, instead of the user, who SHOULD be in control of everything.

I never understood in the beginning of my HTTP-adventures, why I could configure pretty much every dang thing in the whole computer realm, but not my browser.. and frankly, I still don't understand it.

But one can dream..

Another pet peeve is rollover ads that expand when rolled-over.

Ive had a few of these on ATS lately, and they have been located squarely above the menu at the top of the ATS page, so any time I slide my cursor up to the ATS main menu and go just a little too far, the friggin' ad expands over top of the menu, covering the menu up.

I understand the fact that this website is a commercial/money-making endeavor for Skeptic Overlord and his partners (and there's nothing wrong with that), but I wish they could do so without expanding roll-over ads....

...Or, at the very least, if they want to have expanding roll-over ads, put the along the side bar rather than directly above the main menu, where I am less likely to inadvertently rollover it. Even the ATS site owners should appreciate the fact that I should only open an ad if I want to open an ad.

As far as annoying or invasive roll over ads - or ads that explode with volume deliberately set way too high - along with anything of questionable or offensive content - there is a thread here to complain about these issues.

Personally speaking, ATS is the only sight I've ever been involved with that has such a resource for the community - one that the owners take seriously and do watch for activity.

So... bookmark the linked thread and should rollover ads ever make ATS difficult to navigate? Complain!

Look man, why don't you get firefox and install some addons that will sort this out for you straight away, addblock plus, addblock pop up plus, and no script should remedy this, it's pretty simple, computing is like clay you can mold it any way shape and form to suit your specific needs.