Sourceforge grief

[iphigenie]

I think I got to sourceforge a few times a month for one software or another.

But this week when you try to download they have started showing a big ad-intersticial page.
And 80% of the page is about the advertiser, good luck finding the link to download... At least for me the ad stays there forever, there is no automatic start of the download. It even freezes my opera for something like 20 seconds.

I find this extremely annoying, enough that it just put me off downloading something because I just didnt want to risk a crash again.

When did this start?

check the screenie - found the download link yet?

[PhilB66]

Never seen these ads before and I have no problem downloading from sourceforge at all. Try blocking the ads.


Edit: Oh, download link is at the top right corner of your screen under the black bar.

[iphigenie]

Well hidden, eh?

So most people don't get this? The plot thickens!

Until last week i got the normal download thingie, but now i get this different page. Must figure out what changed

[housetier]

I have found ABP to be a great help in avoiding ads.

[Carol Haynes]

Have you done a malware scan on your system?

[iphigenie]

I thought about that but this page seems very much authentic.
The IPs and domain are all fine.
the download links go to http://dfn.dl.source...rge.net/sourceforge/... which is a known reliable mirror.
The ads are served by doubleclick and contain the SF code in them.
All the links on the page go to the real SF domains, the add is for a SF sister company

[iphigenie]

interestingly I now logged in on my old SF account and these ads disappeared - it used a different mirror

So it could be mirror related

[Renegade]

It costs money to host all that stuff. I can see why SF would want to make a few bucks with ads...

[iphigenie]

Absolutely, and they have been cramming adsense word ads anywhere they can.

But also remember most of the bandwidth for file downloads is DONATED by third parties so it doesnt cost as much. And they get a lot of their hosting donated as well.

I dont block ads anywhere - unless a site gets really annoying.
I have worked a lot in publishing and on a lot of ad supported sites and I think it is fair I get them at least the impression statistics - and I do click on something if I am interested.

But something like an entire takeover which makes you wait 15-20 seconds, as they seem to have done on some of the SF mirrors, is just plain annoying. Especially when it locks up opera totally for those 20 seconds.

Thankfully on most mirrors this doesnt appear.

[Deozaan]

I used to be a regular visitor to the IGN sites when I was in high school. Then they started having very similar kinds of interstitial ads, where the entire page was an advertisement with a tiny link in the top right corner that says something like "Click here to continue to the article."

This kind of thing isn't new. IGN has been doing it for probably close to 10 years now.

Also just for clarity, I don't usually visit IGN websites anymore, but my reasons for not going there are not related to the advertising practices.

[iphigenie]

i dont mind the interstitial, i mind an interstitial that
1. doesnt reload/start the download after a reasonable time
2. locks opera up totally
3. seems to be by the mirror not SF themselves