Spot the GDNet Advert Easter Eggs

Smells like spyware to me too.

I dont think it's spyware since I see it too. The main problem I have with these ads is that they slow Firefox down when loading the page.

I also just started seeing em, if you go to the "What's this?" you can disable them

I'm getting them as well... :(

It's not spyware (unfortunately); I've seen them on other sites (AnandTech is really bad). Intellitxt seems to be the most common, but I've long since added *intellitxt* to my AdBlock rules.

Meh. If I click the "What's this?" then the page it tries to go to is blocked. Probably my über hosts file at work.

That's another hosts entry for me! :)

We're doing a month-long trial with them to gauge their effectiveness and user response. The ads won't be appearing on most of the forum pages, including within threads themselves. Since the links show up in completely different colors, I don't see why people would be bothered by them, but if you click on the "what's this?" link, you'll see another link that will cause them to be disabled for you.

I think it's more annoying than the banners (which aren't that terrible) because it breaks your concentration on reading what you are trying to read.

Although I guess it's not as annoying as the green slime. =P

Quote:

Original post by skittleo Heh joking, but personally I always find myself clicking on the damn things because they look like links. Anyone else have this problem?

It happens to me on other websites. It's annoying because I keep thinking that they linked to it in order to give me more information, but then it turns out to be an ad.

The ad-links are in the GDNet articles, or at least the printable versions of them.

Understandable. As I mentioned, we want to see how people react to these ads. Advertiser demand for them has been VERY high for over a year now, but we've resisted because we had a lot of reservations about them ourselves. We only decided to do this trial now because we were approached directly by Vibrant Media, who have been very flexible, and because the ads have started to see wide use on other reputable sites.

Btw, they're now disabled for GDNet+ members (they should have been initially)

Quote:

Original post by Myopic Rhino Understandable. As I mentioned, we want to see how people react to these ads. Advertiser demand for them has been VERY high for over a year now, but we've resisted because we had a lot of reservations about them ourselves. We only decided to do this trial now because we were approached directly by Vibrant Media, who have been very flexible, and because the ads have started to see wide use on other reputable sites.

They lag my browser -- unless I can click away very fast it locks the damn thing up for about a second as it grabs the in-page links and shoves them in there.

I just tossed *.intellitxt.* in Adblock and left it there. I feel better now. [grin]

I hate those things! They really screw up Firefox (which, of course, is a fault of Firefox, but still) and it's BS that they try not to look like regular links, because people don't instantly realize the different color is not a link. I mean, all links are different colors in that most websites use a different color for visited links than unvisited ones, and of course each website uses different link colors than others.

I've never clicked one, but I do find myself often mousing over them to see where they point to, and then I see that pop-up and realize it's just an ad. Advertisers like them because of exactly that -- people don't realize they're ads at first.

But what I hate most about them is that they're consistently off-topic. Rarely do they really relate to their keyword in the way a user would expect when they click it.

That said, I haven't yet seen GameDev's implementation of them, aside from screenshots by others. Maybe I'll log off and subject myself to the horror of them for a bit. :)

as if gdnet was'nt enough of a ram hog, here's some more.

Well, when I was getting them all the ones I moused over were trying to sell my compilers: MSVC and Delphi mostly. So I guess they are at least a little more relevant than the ones I've seen on other sites.

They annoy me as hell.. and clicking on "What's this" bring a blank page.

Add another to the 'annoying as hell' vote count. Firefox issues. Also, the mouseover seems to kick in just as I'm trying to click the forum link, but since the ad popped up, I click on the ad instead, despite having absolutely no interest. Frustrating.

I'd be rather happy if these went away.