Saturday, November 3, 2012

Other Ads Fail

I really wish there was a version of Safari that supports adblock and runs on my machine. (Or a version of TenFourFox that supports Flash.)

Because apparently every site I visit that requires plugins and uses ads has the most obnoxious ads there are. So far, I've seen:

An ad for a scammy lead-gen site that tries to convince people seeking insurance/mortgages/whatever to search through them so they can get a big affiliate commission. This ad features a creepy Uncanny Valley woman waving her arms, with a big flashing light on her head, so that it creates a constant seizure-inducing blinking rendering it impossible to concentrate on my actual email. The ad claims you can get, like, a WHOLE BUNCH of free money by clicking it; an actual spite-click revealed absolutely nothing beyond the usual "click these links to visit insurance companies/banks/etc so we can get our affiliate commission." The people who made this ad should be forced to spend eternity with an autistic child who constantly shouts "HEY! LOOK AT ME! LOOK WHAT I DID!" at them 24 hours a day.

An ad for something called "Wartune" which depicts Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game, with the caption "She has all the excitement you need!" This ad regularly shakes itself, creating distracting motion in the corner of my eye. The people who made this ad should be forced to spend eternity with a stamp collector, train spotter, or bird watcher (whichever they consider the most boring) who tells them that their hobby represents all the excitement they need and makes them do that whenever they try to do something they consider more fulfilling.

Several repeated ads for cruises. What part of "I Am Not A 'Cruise' Person" do they find difficult to comprehend? These are targeted ads, after all; despite making a big show to help escape regulation, it's not actually possible to opt out of targeted ads. The people responsible for this ad should be forced to spend a substantial chunk of their lives attempting to flirt with someone who is clearly not interested in them, except in all likelihood they already do, so I suppose wasting their money advertising at me is punishment enough.

A website trying to sell me some scam (I don't remember which) that I got paid to visit, and which when I attempted to leave, popped up a javascript-induced dialog box saying: "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO LEAVE? If you close this window, you'll miss out on this FANTASTIC OFFER!" I can't think of a cool and unusual punishment for popping up dialog boxes with sales pitches in reaction to people leaving, so I'll just propose the death penalty for it.

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