Is it me or has this site gone pop up crazy? OK, I understand the need to promote ‘Industries along the track’ and all the other Kalmbach publications, but just recently I’m getting 2 pop ups everytime I change subject on the forum. Then they go to the bar on the bottom of the screen and I have to close them off from there. Has the guy that writes this site just learnt how to do it? Is it necessary? I mean, we’re already a captured audience. We don’t think, ‘Oh yes must buy that!!!’ just because a pop up has prompted us. Come on, it’s getting really annoying. [V]
I’ve got to agree with you. I’ve been getting one each time I logged in (and I can’t even tell you which of their pubs it’s for because I continuously close it as fast as I can). Two days ago I mistakenly clicked on the ad for Industries Along The Track and now I also get a pop-up for that one as soon as I enter the site.
I agree with your logic too. I suspect that a majority of us here are probably already MR subscribers or occasional purchasers (I get Trains and Classic Trains too, plus all the Great Model Railroads and MR Planning special issues) and the popups are starting to annoy me to the point of rethinking the idea.
Regards
Ed
Pop ups? Don’t see any at all. Both my XP’s Service Pack 2 and Norton firewall stop them dead in their tracks. I believe there are other free ones out there too, like the Google toolbar. Might be worth a try/
Bob Boudreau
I use the Mozilla Firefox browser and all my popup woes are gone. Plus Firefox automatically imports your favorites / bookmarks / links automatically from IE or Netscape. And Firefox runs on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.
You can get the Firefox browser from:
I was a died-in-the-wool IE user until I discovered Firefox … now I’ll never go back because all my IE hassles (popups, spyware, viruses) are gone!
I use Norton Professional and a Yahoo pop-up blocker at medium as well as adaware and spywareblaster… along with SP2. Nothing hardly shows on my computer.
I also run “Shoot the Messenger” to deactivate ads delivered by that method.
I also scan for spyware and malicious code on my computer almost daily. I can safely say I have ZERO popups on this particular website… (Sorry MR… the Hobby Shop is enough advertising with the magazines and such)
And finally Mozilla 1.0 is good for taking care of that junk.
Remember everything that is popping up on your computer consumes resources and eats bandwidth and CPU time. Whatever you can do to block this stuff will ease your browsing load.
IF I hear a digital Sound equipped engine talk to me and say “Brought to you by…”
It will go into the trash.
I’ve been considering Mozilla for a while now - problem is downloading it on dialup would take about 6 months…anyway, now have broadband on the way so when it’s sorted I’ll probably download it and switch over.
P.S. Zonealarm is a decent firewall for all internet-connected PCs, not a big download, free, and catches pretty much anything, I’ve used it for about 3-4 years and never had anything nasty happen to a PC using it - hope this is of some use!
Googles ‘popup blocker’ is free and it works like a champ (1480 popups blocked in the past four months). Now if you could just get Kalmbach to cease nailing us with Commission Junction tracking / snopping / call it what you want / software, we’d all be better off. Commission Junction brags that Kalmbach (and Better Homes & Gardens) are two of their largest accounts. Kalmbach denies that they do this. Ho hum - who do we believe?
Pop up’s are going crazy for me.
I find them an annoyance, also. Why you would treat your customers in such a way, is beyond me!
Too bad MR wouldn’t include something on them in their reader surveys. Something like “Do you mind the endless pop up messages on the Trains.com site?” or “Do they annoy the crap out of you?”
Bob Boudreau (pop up less)
I’m using Netscape 7.1. It’s very similar to Firefox and works great for blocking pop-ups. I occasionally have to switch to IE for a very few pages that won’t load properly on Netscape.
Anybody else using alternative browsers?
Tom
I’m going to look into this problem. We had a policy of not serving more than one per page… I know that’s not being followed. We’ve had a policy about not serving more than a certain amount in a set time period. I’m not sure if that policy is being followed or not.
I’ll see what I can do.
Erik
Thank you.
Ed
I’m using Mozilla Firefox too and it’s awsome. I’m still looking for way to make the Internet more enjoyable and it’s going good so far.
Hi Erik
That’s really good of you. Thanks.
Dump your Microsoft crap and get a Susi Linux OS with Netscape brouser. Take control!
Freedom from virus attacks and all the $$$$$$$$$ youll save will thrill you,…you can buy more trains.
Why should you change your entire OS to block pop-ups???
Dump Internet Explorer, download Firefox (made by the people who invented the Netscape browser) and it auto imports all your IE bookmarks and your set to browse pop-up free with google search built in in less time than the install takes.
Linux has a good thing going, (yes,I have tried it) but it is still not ready for the average/novice computer users.
I also am not ready to dump all my PC Games (MS Train Sim and Trainz as well!) in the trash. (yes, I know there is Wine for Linux)
Once Linux goes mainstream the Viruses will follow…look at cell phones…6 months ago cell phone viruses were unheard of now they are appearing more frequently as smart cell phones proliferate.
I don’t think reputable sites like this should use Pop-ups. Banner ads only are more appropriate and the MR site has more than enough space at the top and bottom of the pages for ads.
Pop ups are to direct the user to other web pages…not the webpage they are already visiting!
One of the biggest reasons for Popups on websites has to do with Spyware that is on your system and you do not even know it. There are, for lack of a better term, “companies” out there who have a large advertiser base that want you to see those adds. When ever you log onto a train related site such as this one their little program running on your computer notifies their server that you are there and sends you popups related to that site. This is why you get popups for train related sites on MR’s site. I can tell when my computer is getting loaded up with this stuff as I get the same thing once in a while when I log onto the Atlas site or this one. I also get financial ones when I log onto financial related sites. Symantic and norton will not catch this stuff as the code for it does not register as a virus so don’t depend on them to. I run Ad Aware.se from Lavasoft.de as well as Housecall from Trend micro to search out this junk and remove it from my system. I also use this on every computer that comes into my shop before I even start any work on them. 99% of the time this cures the problems anyway. The company I work for has some excellent firewall programs for it’s systems and just the other day I took over 1000 malware (dataminers and keystroke loggers) programs off of a computer (not mine) in my office. I am willing to bet that the systems that are getting lot of popups will have a lot of malware programs on them if they are scanned. By the way, the record for me on a cleanup is 1700 hits on a still functioning machine.
As a side note, I ran mine last Monday and again this morning. this morning I removed 5 of these little devils from my system.
I run AdAware’s ‘quick scan’ daily as well as SpyBot S&D 1.3, and weekly I run AdAware’s ‘deep system scan’. and those two seem to keep my sysytem running smoothly. When it seems to slow a bit, I just run 'em again, and gee whiz - there’s at least one, and sometimes 4 or five nasties called DataMiner lurking in there. Kind of like someone going thru your underware drawer when you’re sleeping.
I run Googles pop-up blocker, and am pop-up free. Installing McAfee’s ‘firewall’ and ‘virus blocker’ has helped keep CoolWebSearch from getting in as well. MSN claims to have improved their virus blockers and junk mail blockers, but I don’t trust what MSN says anymore than I trust AOL.
Check out Lurkhere.com to rid your system of the various CoolWebSearch nasties, esp their “Madfinder’” - a target word program that will drive you nuts if it gets into your PC. Check out Lurkhere’s CWS Shredder - it works!
FYI - there was a company called “Spy Deleter” that had some of the most annoying pop-ups that would take over what you were doing and literally crash your PC, then offer to find and destroy what was causing it. They were introducing the thingie that would crash it, and then claimed they could fix it w/ their product. Enough complaints to the FCC resulted in the Feds closing the doors of this Atlanta based company recently. Yeah !! There was another outfit - Prescriptions R-Us or something like that based out of Hialeah, Fla. They stupedly gave out their 800 # and email address, and I posted both on another Forum, and apparantly after them getting too many ‘pop-up angry’ phone calls - they have disappeared - or at least their pop-ups have. . .
And never open ‘Junk Mail’ emails from unknown sources, period. It should be renamed as ‘Stupid Mail’. . .
Moral of the story - most every tool I mentioned in this rant is FREE, and easy enough for this slide-rule generation non-techo type to install. If there is an an
s
Yes, the pop-up blocker on XP 2 is awesome. I never see unwanted pop-ups anymore, and I do not miss them…
Ron