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Author Topic: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.  (Read 8676 times)

Deozaan

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Yet another reason why I'm never ever ever ever ever disabling my ad blocker:

For the past few weeks, Forbes.com has been forcing visitors to disable ad blockers if they want to read its content. Visitors to the site with Adblock or uBlock enabled are told they must disable it if they wish to see any Forbes content. Thanks to Forbes’ interstitial ad and quote of the day, Google caching doesn’t capture data properly, either.

What sets Forbes apart, in this case, is that it didn’t just force visitors to disable ad blocking — it actively served them malware as soon as they did.

Read more info at the link below:

http://www.extremete...mptly-serves-malware

wraith808

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2016, 03:44 PM »
I can't see it with ublock and disconnect enabled.  And after your bit about forbes, I'm not disabling my adblockers to see the site. :)

Deozaan

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2016, 04:27 PM »
That's weird. I'm running AdGuard and uBlock Origin and NoScript and the article loads for me.

Try this:

https://archive.is/n0gIV

wraith808

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2016, 05:46 PM »
That's weird. I'm running AdGuard and uBlock Origin and NoScript and the article loads for me.

Try this:

https://archive.is/n0gIV

That worked. And it was a lot faster loading something, than the original site was at loading nothing.  Go figure.   :huh: ;D :Thmbsup:

4wd

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2016, 06:08 PM »
Like wraith, the ExtremeTech site just shows a blank page, (and produces a bucket load more hits in uBlock than Forbes).

Running uBlock, RefControl, RequestPolicy, and hosts file blocking - not getting any ads nor am I getting prompts to disable an adblocker on Forbes.

Possibly geo specific?

I get this when going via a US VPN:
2016-01-12 11_02_01.pngForbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.

Doesn't happen if I go via normal IP, (Australia).

Deozaan

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2016, 09:23 PM »
Here's another reason why you should never ever ever ever disable your adblocker:

VPAID is basically pure evil. It's a video ad, but its implementation that I'm seeing across all networks that use it (that includes Google and others) is atrocious. It's shocking. It's rude. It's plain disrespectful.

A single ad that shows a single video at a time will generate thousands of HTTP requests and many megabytes of traffic. And in the case I show here, the ad isn't even animated, or showing video! I mean... what in the actual fuck? [...]

By the time I finished writing this message, this single ad generated 9002 requests and caused 39MB of data transfer. I left it on for 30 min, and the requests never stopped coming

Read more at the link:

https://plus.google....ii/posts/VgrLdYcoifr

wraith808

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2016, 10:09 PM »
If they'd go back to 'dumb ads' then I think that they wouldn't have this problem.  Images... and pay the artist/photographer.  Like magazine ads.  But... progress, right?

Renegade

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2016, 10:16 PM »
IMPORTANT: uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the site "ublock.org".

What are people here using?
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Renegade

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2016, 10:23 PM »
If they'd go back to 'dumb ads' then I think that they wouldn't have this problem.  Images... and pay the artist/photographer.  Like magazine ads.  But... progress, right?

Yep.

The question is progress towards what?



You can still use cookies yourself, or if the ad platform supports it.



People have whined in the past about it being "cheap" or "dirty" to use ad blockers because of "think of the web sitez" and stuff. I didn't buy it then, and I most certainly don't buy it now. Ads are simply obnoxious attack vectors.

If someone has a site that is worthwhile, they need a Bitcoin donation address. I checked my wallet, and all of my most recent transactions are donations for people/web sites.

I didn't donate to Mozilla/Firefox because they wanted my email address and a truckload of information. I had bitcoins in hand ready to give to them... but they f**ked it up by asking for way too much information and making it mandatory. F**k Mozilla. I gave to someone else.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

wraith808

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2016, 11:33 PM »
IMPORTANT: uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the site "ublock.org".

What are people here using?

There are two version from the cluster that happened with the original maintainer of ublock.  Ublock Origin is the one from Gorhil- the original maintainer.  And that statement about not being associate is true, because ublock (non-origin) is the one from the person that took it over.  I use uBlock non-origin.

4wd

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2016, 11:46 PM »
IMPORTANT: uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the site "ublock.org".

What are people here using?

uBlock (non-Origin)

J-Mac

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2016, 12:16 PM »
I'm using uBlock Origin.

Jim

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2016, 08:12 PM »
I took the hint from posts here and added Adblock Plus and uBlock. Two of my other frequently visited sites, one is a different forum, and one has video stuff, quit working with just ABP only enabled. I could not figure out how to add the web sites as exceptions, it only seems to allow 'add filter groups', so I had to disable ABP.

tomos

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #13 on: January 24, 2016, 06:10 AM »
^ just one of those addons should do you fine
Tom

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Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2016, 12:36 AM »
When people use ad blockers, there is still a way to get your point across, show a scaled down, minimalistic ad in an non-obnoxious way, that usually won't have people complaining about it.

Have you seen what happens when you visit sitepoint.com with an ad blocker turned on? If you visit any of their article pages, you'll see something like this, in place of the normal ad banner:

Screenshot - 1_25_2016 , 1_16_41 AM.pngForbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.

It's just text. No links, images, animations, videos, audio, flash, corporate logos, or anything else. Just text. This is what they show instead of a "please turn off your ad blocker" message.

If more companies would take this approach, then adblock users, site owners, and advertisers could co-exist peacefully. Of course this would require advertisers to deal with sites directly, rather than through advertising networks, which would probably put most of the nastiest advertisers out of business.

But that would be a win-win situation, if you ask me.