Firefox...blocked?

[Austin25]

Have any of you found this (http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/) yet?
To be fair, I found it here (http://www.webmaster-source.com/2007/08/18/dont-block-firefox/).

[chessnerd]

Interesting. I wonder how many sites actually are redirecting their users. I would guess the number is very small.

Also, it's good to know that they recommend using Opera instead, especially since Opera has built-in URL filtering, which, with handy websites like Fanboy's Adblock List for Opera (http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/) makes blocking adds as easy as Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V...

[Austin25]

I guess I'll go back to using a text browser then.

[corrytonapple]

I doubt many use it. I will block IE on my site, but Firefox, why? You can turn off the extension. That first page is just insane. Firefox has made browsing history (in a good way) and IE has slowed it all down. So, as a web developer, I say I will have ads if I need them. No flashy ads, just text ads out of the way. If you have a problem with it, use Adblock. I don't care. I don't click on the ads myself, or even notice them nowadays.

[czr114]

Here's the solution - Firefox user agent switcher:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59/

This will stop such redirections so our ad blockers can remain intact.

The extension makes it a breeze to switch in a new user agent for the minority of sites which subscribe to such foolishness, and from which we can't simply move on elsewhere.

[corrytonapple]

Here's the solution - Firefox user agent switcher:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59/

This will stop such redirections so our ad blockers can remain intact.

The extension makes it a breeze to switch in a new user agent for the minority of sites which subscribe to such foolishness, and from which we can't simply move on elsewhere.
I already use it because some MS sites must have IE. I don't need nor use adblock. I just like fooling companies. LOL
:KS

[jcolyn]

Sounds to me like these webmasters are PO'd since they cannot force their intrusive ads on smart users.

[czr114]

Sounds to me like these webmasters are PO'd since they cannot force their intrusive ads on smart users.

They're simply ignorant. The marginal cost of the resources required to serve all FF users should be more than offset by the portion of FF users without ad blockers, as far as most sites are concerned. Besides, it's a nasty move, and unlikely to build bookmarkers or site loyalty.

File hosts might be the one exception to the profitability calculus, due to the gobs of bandwidth required.

Either way, it's their loss. Our privacy will remain intact, our screens uncluttered by propaganda, our RAM free of waste, and our bandwidth available for better uses.

[Austin25]

Here's the solution - Firefox user agent switcher:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59/

This will stop such redirections so our ad blockers can remain intact.

The extension makes it a breeze to switch in a new user agent for the minority of sites which subscribe to such foolishness, and from which we can't simply move on elsewhere.
Sure, but discriminating an entire browser over adblockers, something that allows you to opt-out of seeing what you don't want to or lines the wallets of those forcing you to view it in the first place? No. I will not tolerate any site that tells me to use a deficient browser becuase they can't make any money off of me while I am technologically more sophisticated than them.
</rant>

[hansdown]

That is interesting.

Thanks Austin25.

[corrytonapple]

If I see such a site, the "Contact Us" button on the site and a nice mail telling then to let Firefox in should do the trick. If not, then we need to get a group together. A BIG one.

[czr114]

Sure, but discriminating an entire browser over adblockers, something that allows you to opt-out of seeing what you don't want to or lines the wallets of those forcing you to view it in the first place? No. I will not tolerate any site that tells me to use a deficient browser becuase they can't make any money off of me while I am technologically more sophisticated than them.
</rant>
The webmasters may be ignorant or disrespectful of the open nature of content not behind paywalls, but that doesn't mean we have to deny ourselves something because of their ignorance. If there is something of value on the site, and you boycott it on principle, you're excluded and disadvantaged just as much as if there were no workaround for having chose to use a superior browser.

Of course, if there is nothing of value on the site to begin with, then why visit it in the first place?

The same could be said of any site which bathes itself in ads, expecting people like you or I to respond to embedded corporate propaganda, or just straight up BS. We could boycott every site without ads, or we could just clean up the pollution with ABP and NoScript and go on uninterrupted.

The work around is so easy. Staying one step ahead in technological sophistication is always fun, even more so when we can get what we're looking for without having to scroll through lies, social engineering, and general "blast the monkey, win a prize" nonsense. Knowing that ad networks are a major vector for malware makes wholesale exclusion even better.

Sometimes I wish they'd wrap what I came for in <meaningful content></meaningful content> tags so it can get straight to the point.

[czr114]

If I see such a site, the "Contact Us" button on the site and a nice mail telling then to let Firefox in should do the trick. If not, then we need to get a group together. A BIG one.
Don't bother with most of the sites that do this. The few I've seen tend to be worthless junk stemming from SERP poisoning or a link I wish I hadn't clicked on. They're run by idiots who probably won't listen, assuming the site had any useful purpose to begin with.

The last one I ran into that did this was some make-money-fast Internet marketing seminar that had been vomiting deceptive linkspam on blogs. I was using FF, and according to their obnoxious notice, I wouldn't be allowed to participate in the pyramid scheme until I returned with Internet Explorer.

I could have used the web developer toolbar to edit out the offending <div> or its CSS, which were responsible for taking up the whole window on a high z-index, but the site was worthless to begin with.

[Dex73]

Consider this...
I usually don't mind all the ads they can throw at me, as long as they're not flash videos. They can use why to much memory on some sites!

It can make the internet a horrible place when there is a lot of random flash videos to load instead of text or a single picture type ad.

I think the internet will be seriously screwed up if we can't choose what we want to look at. Therefore adblock should not be a factor for getting onto a website.

[handy]

When I read a post & there is a link which takes to a page such as the New York Times, & they want info' from me before I can read the data, I just close their tab.

I'd be happy if the internet lost its marketroids. Anyone who is surviving on adverts in their web pages is unfortunately one of the many labouring under the insane paradigm that they were (usually) born into, of consumerism; which is currently ravaging our biosphere.

[jcolyn]

I believe people are missing the real reason these sites block Firefox. They get paid per hit that the advertisers record. If the ad is blocked by Firefox the webmaster does not get paid therefore he/she gets PO'd because of a loss of money..

[czr114]

When I read a post & there is a link which takes to a page such as the New York Times, & they want info' from me before I can read the data, I just close their tab.

I'd be happy if the internet lost its marketroids. Anyone who is surviving on adverts in their web pages is unfortunately one of the many labouring under the insane paradigm that they were (usually) born into, of consumerism; which is currently ravaging our biosphere.
+1 on that.

I might add that so many of these sites are clogged with ads because the content itself isn't worth tipping or paying to begin with. The ability to turn a profit by embedding consumerist programming propaganda has funded the proliferation of so much ill-thought-out junk. If it weren't for advertising, the results from search engines might be full of relevant, worthwhile content, not a bunch of bait designed to rank high and rake in the pageviews.

That's assuming we can even patronize certain sites in this day and age. The #1 impediment to me supporting a site I like is not wanting to give out personal information to the site or a Paypal-style processor, out of concern for how the marketing idiots will abuse the donor list, or how various agencies might datamine the equivalent of a library history chasing mostly nonexistent terrorist bogeymen.

Despite all our innovation, we still haven't innovated the digital equivalent of the good old-fashioned tip, in which a person reaches in their pocket, removes a five dollar bill, and gives it freely as appreciation for something of value. Instead, you have to pony up all of your personal information and banking data, then watch as all the personal information is handed off to any number of databases to be abused by marketers at will, or stolen by hackers looking for accounts to empty or subscribers to spam.

Even if I could tip a few bucks for a handy code snippet or useful article, the screwed up financial system would make sure only about half that reached the author.

Unfortunately, the marketing madness won't stop, due to widespread ignorance regarding human psychology and the darker aspects of the modern consumer culture.

[Spr0k3t]

I believe people are missing the real reason these sites block Firefox. They get paid per hit that the advertisers record. If the ad is blocked by Firefox the webmaster does not get paid therefore he/she gets PO'd because of a loss of money..

What many "webmasters" forget is the lesson of history. It's been proven time and time again that pay-per-click and pay-per-sessions are both bad money makers. More often than not I just close tabs that require advertising or forcing me to fill out information... I can get the information I want via other means still using whatever browser I choose anyway.

[lisati]

I don't use adblock: none of the sites I usually frequent have ads that are sufficiently intrusive to warrant the short time it would take to install adblock.

Edit: as someone else suggested, I might look into blocking IE. Wait...... the computers at work have IE & I'm not in a position to change anything. :D

[themarker0]

I already use it because some MS sites must have IE. I don't need nor use adblock. I just like fooling companies. LOL
:KS

I know the feeling. My laptops user string says i'm running windows 3.1 with IE 4. :D

[theraje]

Do the capitalistic thing: If a company does something you find irrational...

BOYCOTT! :D

[chessnerd]

Do the capitalistic thing: If a company does something you find irrational...

BOYCOTT! :D

It's pretty easy to boycott something when they say "you aren't allowed inside" right when you get there... :P

[weasel fierce]

1998 called. It wants Internet explorer back

[JT9161]

A blanket accusations of theft seems like a terrible way to attract users to your side, much less your site.

[ve4cib]

I laughed when I saw this part:


Demographics have shown [...] FireFox users [are] a somewhat small percentage of the internet

Especially when I then went and looked at this (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp).

Yes, Firefox is definitely a "small percentage of the internet."

[TheNessus]

Website owners don't realize how annoying their ads are, even if these make the websites viable.

They can switch to text-based websites, I don't mind those. But Flash ads must be boycotted.

[Khakilang]

The reason I use Ad Block is because of my bandwidth cap. They are not only annoying but take up my bandwidth. So I need to squeeze as much as possible from my bandwidth.

[-kg-]

You know, it's very interesting....

I regularly read on the Lockergnome website, and hated to do it because of the ads and all there. Even with a high speed connection, it would take forever to load the pages.

I just installed Adblock and Noscript, and now the pages load like lightning. There is definitely too much junk that I'll never read or click on. It just takes up my bandwidth and slows my connection down to a crawl.

I understand the need to pay for all the content on the web. There's got to be a better way than to inundate us with junk that slows our connections down. It irritates me to the point that, if I find out who the offenders are, I wouldn't buy their product if my life depended on it and they were the only ones who provided it.

[Elfy]

I laughed when I saw this part:



Especially when I then went and looked at this (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp).

Yes, Firefox is definitely a "small percentage of the internet."

The dates for the pages referenced in post #1 range between 2005 and 2007 - hardly new ;)

[weasel fierce]

So.. .does IE have no adblocks available for it ?

[chessnerd]

So.. .does IE have no adblocks available for it ?

It does, but, unlike Firefox, it does not endorse such add-ons. Firefox endorses Ad-Block Plus by making it a "recommended" add-on for its users (in the Get Add-ons tab of the Add-ons manager and on its extension site). Also, the IE add-ons are harder to work with so fewer people use them. I installed one my family's desktop for a few weeks, but it caused more problems than it was worth, so I got rid of it.

[weasel fierce]

It does, but, unlike Firefox, it does not endorse such add-ons. Firefox endorses Ad-Block Plus by making it a "recommended add-on" for its users. Also, the IE add-ons are harder to work with.

so for those who use windows, visit the site with an ad blocker enabled, and email the web master each time, explaining that you just viewed his site while depriving him of 9 cents

[aysiu]

Well, the funny thing is that I use Firefox but do not use Adblock or Adblock Plus. I don't see why you would block all Firefox users when not all Firefox users have that extension installed.

[Lucradia]

Apple's HTML5 site blocks firefox from initiating HTML5 stuff, you can get around it by using a User Agent addon, but none of the HTML5 will work.

[tghe-retford]

UK broadcaster ITV did block anyone viewing their video content if it detects that user has an adblocker installed. However... when I visited not so long ago and just now, video is working. I think what they and Channel 4 now do is hardcode the ad breaks into the player so they can't be avoided if you play the programme through, even with an adblocker enabled.

So it's not just the one website the original poster pointed to, but more websites are appearing to do it or have tried it.

[Lucradia]

UK broadcaster ITV did block anyone viewing their video content if it detects that user has an adblocker installed. However... when I visited not so long ago and just now, video is working. I think what they and Channel 4 now do is hardcode the ad breaks into the player so they can't be avoided if you play the programme through, even with an adblocker enabled.

So it's not just the one website the original poster pointed to, but more websites are appearing to do it or have tried it.

People who use the hosts file (http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm) to circumvent adsites will be annoyed when they play abc videos, or videos from funny or die, since they're integrated into the player, but still require you to connect to said site.

[jcolyn]

so for those who use windows, visit the site with an ad blocker enabled, and email the web master each time, explaining that you just viewed his site while depriving him of 9 cents

I emailed the webmaster at http://www.webmaster-source.com/2007/08/18/dont-block-firefox/ (http://www.webmaster-source.com) the site cited by the OP. In his response to me this morning he claims to have no knowledge of his site blocking Firefox. He even says that Firefox is his browser of choice. I then sent him a .jpg screen shot showing the result. I have not heard back from him as yet..

EDIT:

It appears that my email may have gotten his attention. Now when I click the above link I get the sites main page without blocking.

[laurenbanjo]

This is stupid. If people want to advertise, do it in a clever way. Not an annoying banner or popups who when you click close just bring you to another site.

I've seen YouTubers be sponsored and once a video just mention their sponsor. This isn't annoying at all. I don't mind a "This website/video/post was brought to you by Company X" with a link to their website.

[Lucradia]

This is stupid. If people want to advertise, do it in a clever way. Not an annoying banner or popups who when you click close just bring you to another site.

I've seen YouTubers be sponsored and once a video just mention their sponsor. This isn't annoying at all. I don't mind a "This website/video/post was brought to you by Company X" with a link to their website.

Banners are better than disallowing a person to see content.

[laurenbanjo]

Banners are better than disallowing a person to see content.
It depends. I don't mind most simple banners, as long as there's not 290830283 all around the site. but I hate the ones that make noises and move, or the ads that when you click the X, it opens the other site. and popups/unders are a big nono.

[Frogs Hair]

I use a hosts file on windows , so content that is not part of the web page doesn't show at all . I suppose this is viewed as theft also . I chose a hosts file because IE has no adblock that I am aware of and the result is same.

[laurenbanjo]

I really don't think it's theft because they chose to make their ads something blockable. If they had text ads and links only, it would be better.

Plus, some people us NoScript, just to simply protect themselves. This blocks many ads, and they're not blocking the ads on purpose. They just don't want scripts from sites they don't trust.

[cgroza]

I laughed when I saw this part:



Especially when I then went and looked at this (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp).

Yes, Firefox is definitely a "small percentage of the internet."

Wow, the statistics tiped over. I like that!

[donkyhotay]

Thats the same argument used to try to kill the VCR and the cassette tape, etc. People can just record and fast-forward through the commercials. New technology, old arguments...