Kill the SPAM!!!! Please

IF this SPAM keeps up I will be moving to OCforums.....

http://www.ocforums.com/

I think it is "just" to say that we dont need it and there are other forums that dont have half as much spam and have quite decent reviews etc!!!!

If toms hardware is out there reading this please cut down on the amout of SPAM and advertising I think you have gone too far!!!

I know you probably make money from from the advertising but it really does suck...

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I agree and oc is a good place

Reply to gomerpile

I somewhat agree about the over-advertising on here. However, you have to make your money somehow so I can't really blame you. It seems to me that once the transition to the new website happened that the advertising tripled. Maybe I'm wrong but if nothing else, the way it's laid out is more blatant or something.

Still, advertising makes money so I'm not by any means trying to imply that it's unreasonable to see ads.

The only major annoyance is the completely retarded "Intelli-Text" crap that is in all the articles and forums. Can anyone tell me when they have actually clicked on one of those things on purpose? I actually have to consciously move my mouse around them just to be able to click on what I want to. That's a little ridiculous in my mind.

Edit: haha after reading my post I see that the words "website" and "mouse" are highlighted by intelli-text. Who the heck is sitting here reading then when seeing the word "website" thinks "ooo website! I want a website! I need to register my own domain name!!!" or even better..."oh man I need a new mouse, since the one I'm using to scroll down this page doesn't work right. I'm glad that I can click on this word 'mouse' and order a new one! Just think what I would do without people using the word mouse in their posts. Thank you Intelli-Text."

Reply to foshizzle

This is one of the only forums I've seen that has ads in between posts. I understand they need to make money, but I think it's pretty lame.

Reply to Gary_Busey

Oh and I may have never noticed this before but now it seems like every nth post is an ad or something. Did that just start happening?

Oh, I just noticed that inbetween clicking "Reply" and starting to type this that someone else just pointed that out. Oh well.

Reply to foshizzle

Just use firefox with adblock...

I don't see a single ad whilst surfing. If I would have todo again with ads; I'd quit for sure. And yes toms is one of the worst places with these agressive ads. Well I don't care aymore. Thanks adblock! :twisted:

Reply to Anonymous

If only I could use that at work

I've never heard of Firefox's adblock. I use Firefox at home though. Is that something that comes with Firefox by default, or is it an add-on that you have to download? If it comes by default how do you enable it? What exactly does it block?

I'll probably just Google it here in a sec but any other feedback would be appreciated.

Reply to foshizzle

In all honesty, I just tend to ignore them anyway. They just dont register with me anymore, so I cant really say they're a problem. Also, you can turn off the adwords. I cant recall at the time of posting, but the option is there.

EDIT - There we go. In the profile page, there is an option at the bottom for In-text links. Set that to off, and bye bye adwords. The post-ads will still be there, but they really dont get in the way.

Reply to Cabletwitch

one word FIREFOX. :wink: (With Script Blocker)

Reply to DaBigHurt

Nice! Thanks for that tip. Does this work for the articles as well?

Reply to foshizzle

Quote :

....The post-ads will still be there, but they really dont get in the way.

Not With Firefox :lol:

With Firefox

Without Firefox

Reply to DaBigHurt

Whoa, that's so awesome it's got to be illegal!

I'm sure someone must have a lawsuit in the works against this...

Reply to foshizzle

i have zone alarm and it has adblocking but i have to switch it off as i can't see some pics in a few of the reivews with it on. it happens in a few other sites as well though. i haven't played about with it too much to find a good balance as it doesn't annoy me that much.

the only thing that annoys me is that thge page is always forced down toi the advert at the bottom so it cuts the top off the last post and i have to scroll back up.

Reply to strangestranger

P2P like toms forumz are free programs this does not require money to operate, on the other hand their www.tomshardware they do but their ads on the page would cover all cost. They don't need to add the spying crap of ad ware on the p2p fourmz

Reply to gomerpile

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NAW Thats not annoying. not at all. I dont mind the adds soo much but the stupid hover adds are sooo annoying.. I have to be carefull i dont mouse over one or else it will block everything im tryn to read. :evil:
Tom hay you Tom... ya you! Can you stop with the Mouse-Over adds. Thanks.

Edit:
Holy cow. The second I posted this, all the mouse-over word advertisements went away. I just checked out 10 other forum areas and not a single highlighted linked word anywhere. The ones on this page are gone... strange.

Anyone else still seeing them?

Reply to CompTIA_Rep

Quote :

P2P like toms forumz are free programs this does not require money to operate, on the other hand their www.tomshardware they do but their ads on the page would cover all cost. They don't need to add the spying crap of ad ware on the p2p fourmz

Good point. Tom's uses free software for these forums. The only cost involved is the hosting, which couldn't be all that much. I'm sure the banner ad across the top as well as the ads along the sides should more than cover the costs. Spam posts though??? Come on.

Reply to foshizzle

I absolutely agree. Maybe Tom's Hardware Guide should be changed to Tom's Adware and Spamware Guide. I have to say that the ads at the bottom of the posts are bad enough, but that highlighted word thing causing all the little pop-ups just drives me nuts! Man I hate that thing.
I have never seen a forum that is so filled with adds and crap as this one.

Reply to jitpublisher

Quote :

one word FIREFOX. :wink: (With Script Blocker)

YUP! thats what I'm using

Reply to santeana

does anyone know if they have turned off the intelletext stuff?? if they have then I'm happy as hell!!!

when its late at night and my vision is fuzzy, but i cant get off tom's.... i would always hover over those accidently.... AAAAAAHHHH i wanted to kill whoever the hell tom is for letting those stupid ad's on...

but there gone now, so i'm happy!!

Reply to dimwhited

The only ads that realy bug me are those text things (besides pop ups but I can close those) Anyone know how to block that ? Everything else doesnt bug me enough to bother blocking hmmm just anoying using your scroll wheel only to have some hunk of junk pop up in the middle of what your trying to read !

Edit: If you realy dont like those text pop up things the best way to eliminate them is to edit your HOSTS file just do a search and you will find it, open it with your favorite text editor and add this in !
I hope im not doing anything bad but if I am Mods please delete this !
127.0.0.1 us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 firingsquad.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 compnet.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 ign.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 guru3d.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 devshed.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 examnotes.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 experts.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 forbes.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 icentric.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 itxt2.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 lmcd.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 penton.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 rydium.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 toms.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 tribal.us.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 uk.intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 vibrantmedia.com
127.0.0.1 itxt.vibrantmedia.com
127.0.0.1 usads.vibrantmedia.com
127.0.0.1 usnews.vibrantmedia.com
127.0.0.1 www.vibrantmedia.com
127.0.0.1 text.burstnet.com

Reply to JonathanDeane

Quote :

Just use firefox with adblock...

I don't see a single ad whilst surfing. If I would have todo again with ads; I'd quit for sure. And yes toms is one of the worst places with these agressive ads. Well I don't care aymore. Thanks adblock! :twisted:

I downloaded AdBlock, but I don't really understand how you enter the scripts that you want it to block. Can you clarify?

Reply to angry_ducky

Just right click on the frame or whatever it is you want to block; chose adblock image or frame and then edit the link: For example: http://www.adserver.ads/adimages/a [...] 45434..... just edit this to: http://www.adserver.ads/* Then everything from this server will be blocked; You can chose to collapse blocked items so you wont even realise... It is a little bit of work initially but by the time you will get rid of all the annoying stuff...

Reply to Anonymous

Quote :

I absolutely agree. Maybe Tom's Hardware Guide should be changed to Tom's Adware and Spamware Guide. I have to say that the ads at the bottom of the posts are bad enough, but that highlighted word thing causing all the little pop-ups just drives me nuts! Man I hate that thing.
I have never seen a forum that is so filled with adds and crap as this one.

Too bad for you. I don't see most of the ads. You know why? I'm too 1337 for some punk a$$ ads.

I also don't see your sig 8) :lol:

Reply to joefriday

Hmmm, I turned mine off using the option mentioned above in your 'Profile' so I don't see them. Did they maybe get turned off for everyone? Perhaps the THG god saw this thread?

Anyone else (who didn't purposely disable them) notice if the intelliTXT is gone?

Reply to foshizzle

Advertising is everywhere almost everything we do today is advertised right? Constructive advertising, small flash at the bottom of the screen is acceptable but on the other hand, not in some annoying position on the web page. I kind of like a nice adverting flash style, demonstrating a new release of any interesting product. This process also gives the user good options but also is dangerous to run. Good advertising blocker, melwere product, safety precautions should be practiced. Pcworld has some real interesting topics and many more.

Ad Dishes Up Adware to More Than a Million PCs

Many MySpace users and others appear to be infected by a Trojan horse.
Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
Thursday, July 20, 2006
More than 1 million users of MySpace.com and other Web sites may have been infected with adware spread by a banner advertisement, according to iDefense, a computer security group.

Using a good set of nettool will allow you to see IP, s and domain names giving you valuable information on the computer, best defense is knowledge and what to do with this information. All software has a flaw and good coders and decoders can easily change a few codes and allow your ea password to be emailed to their msn or whatever. Make the ad’s fun in tomz forum. A good ad to me is the sincity one, or bugsbunny eating a carrot chatting to the roadrunner.

Reply to gomerpile

Nope; they haven't gone...

Reply to Anonymous

Adblock IS working on every single tom's ad; it just takes some tinkering and trying...

Just open the "adblockable" items list and wildcard-insert everything with a.blablabla..., ad.blabla..., pricegrabber and so on; and after all intellitext/link.
Just put intellitxt* or whatever it's called and it will vanish for good.

(and if somebody wants to; I'll happily provide my adblock list... Just PM me...)

Reply to Anonymous

Of all the advertisement strategies, I despise flash the most. While harmless and semi-entertaining on a modern desktop computer with a high-speed internet connection, flash-based advertisements make it nearly impossible to surf the web on dial up (which, btw, at least half of the people in the US still use). It also takes a surprising amount of cpu power to ran flash ads. My K6-2's cpu cycles become entirely consumed to run a flash advertisement, making it difficult to do any sort of multitasking when a flash ad pops up on the screen.

Another example is for notebook computers. When I'm using my notebook's battery, I want it to last as long as possible. When surfing the internet, the cpu usage of the notebook rarely tops 10%, and that's when loading a page, but when a flash advertisement is on the screen, the cpu usage ups to 30-50% JUST TO RUN A FLASH AD! The cpu is a 1.3 GHz Celeron M. The extra power draw by the cpu and fan having to turn on more frequently to cool off the cpu definitely have a negative affect on battery life.

This is why I block all flash-based advertisements on my computers. I just find Prozac's sig annoying.

Reply to joefriday

Yes Joe

You pointed out an important thing there. The flash ads are annoying, distracting and power consuming on older puters. Their pop-up versions are even worse.

On one hand I understand that lots of forums and portals couldn't be maintained without ads. This is just because there are a lot of dedicated people running these domains on their own; privately. They put in a lot of effort and yet are not able to cope with the bandwith-costs otherwise. Take toms. It must cost a small fortune to run that.

BUT

There are some things that really need to be considered.

Toms for an excample was very frequented before they introduced most of the agressive advertisement. I guess it covered their work. Which was at that time (2yrs ago) very dedicated and solid.

For me as a regular reader, the obious has changed.

More ads have been introduced, less dedicated and worthful things have been put in.

So I do not feel to bad when I use Adblock.

Reply to Anonymous

Yes I agree but that is why I said a small at the bottom of the screen, I cant stand one that pops up after reading the head line covering up what I am going to read and wont bug off untill I close the frigger. Funny thing is the thing will linger around and as soon as the pointer is moved it moves to the pointer following it around annoying that is . I think that is as bad as the oldlady nagging on pms week.

Reply to gomerpile

Quote :

Yes I agree but that is why I said a small at the bottom of the screen, I cant stand one that pops up after reading the head line covering up what I am going to read and wont bug off untill I close the frigger. Funny thing is the thing will linger around and as soon as the pointer is moved it moves to the pointer following it around annoying that is . I think that is as bad as the oldlady nagging on pms week.

You have to find the origin (the naggin server it comes from) and then either Ad-Block it or enter it in in your hosts file (loop it back to your own machine as depicted earlier)...

Reply to Anonymous

Thanks for the tip fluff your name reminds me of huge fluffy cloud

Reply to gomerpile

Quote :

Thanks for the tip fluff your name reminds me of huge fluffy cloud

Well; talking about huge.

I can provide you with a huge adblock list...

All you have to do is ask.

Reply to Anonymous

I can't really complain about all the advertising if it means they can hire more people to do more research and write more articles. I do HATE the text ads though. :x

Reply to TheTallGuy

Quote :

I can't really complain about all the advertising if it means they can hire more people to do more research and write more articles. I do HATE the text ads though. :x

If they HAD hired more staff to do more research it would be ok for me.

but?

Reply to Anonymous

Just a thought, why not use the 'Readers Survey' to relay to THG that these aggresive ads pee us all off.

Only answer question 6. :twisted:

Peace

K.

Reply to kablex

Quote :

If only I could use that at work

I've never heard of Firefox's adblock. I use Firefox at home though. Is that something that comes with Firefox by default, or is it an add-on that you have to download? If it comes by default how do you enable it? What exactly does it block?

I'll probably just Google it here in a sec but any other feedback would be appreciated.

Use the Portable version of Firefox from HERE.

Save it to your Thumb-drive and take it everywhere with you!
Or, save it to your "My Documents" folder and get a faster response....

Reply to passing-thru

Did you managa to get all flash plugins to work correctly with this version? I didn't because the plugins don't recognize this version...

Reply to Anonymous

Quote :

Did you managa to get all flash plugins to work correctly with this version? I didn't because the plugins don't recognize this version...

I got Java, Flash, Shockwave to work with it.

I'm also using the "Noia 2.0 (eXtreme)" theme with "Fasterfox" Extension installed.

I installed the plug-in by using the "Install Missing Plug-in" button which shows up whenever a required plug-in is not found.

Just make sure you install all plug-in using your home PC where you have administrative rights.

Reply to passing-thru

Forum Overclocking : General Discussions - Kill the SPAM!!!! Please

Please mind