You can probably enable Java script again Pudge. I'm running Safari as well and today there are no more pop ups. Maybe your complaining stopped it? :) That Christmas list was the first pop up ad I've had on this computer. I don't know why that one got by when I have pop ups turned off.

Syreeta

The ads have been very bad lately....so bad that I don't drop in here as much as I used to. I have a pop-up blocker but they are getting past somehow. Its very annoying.....

Sierra

Grrr..... they are a MAJOR pain, and I've not been visiting as often either (what'dya think of that iVillage???). I accidently clicked on it a couple times, an ad for Kohl's it looks like. Sheesh, if they think that kind of nonsense is gonna have me shopping at their establishment they've got another thing coming!!

Soon Christmas will all be over and they can start bugging us with Valentine's Day ads... sigh...

... jingle all the way....

Syreeta, I enabled Java script again in Safari, and the ad came back. I think I'll leave it disabled as I don't seem to be missing anything of great importance with it on.

Have you guys tried turning off Java script (in your browser, in preferences) to see if that works for you? There is also something called just Java, which is unrelated so that can be left alone.

Hi all

This forum is also slow to load into my computer. I go on several other forums and they load fast. I thought that it was just my computer but I have upgraded to a pentium 4 and we recently got high speed internet, but this forum is still slow to load. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Cheers Al

Thanks for the Java script tip, it worked! One less thing to stress about in these short days before the big one!

Has anyone else been getting a daily e-mail update from "the frappr team" announcing the latest new members in the Winter Sowers group. I have been getting this for about 2 months now and I am SOOOOOO sick and tired of it. I have tried to bounce them back - it's not a valid address so they come back to me again. I have e-mailed the administration twice. So far, no luck. I have now changed my rules in my preferences to delete the messages immediately. But how do you totally stop people from sending cr** like this to your e-mail address. I know I didn't join this group. None of my passwords work on it and there doesn't seem to be any way of unsubscribing on the website. Help??!!

Shauna

Shauna, sometimes when you go on a site and have to register, you have to watch for things they already have clicked and unclick them - like "Subscribe to our fabulous newsletter" type thing. These people are sneaky. If you look through the email, you may find somewhere that you can go to unsubscribe. Maybe these people aren't overly ethical, though.

One thing that's just happened to me is that i downloaded the new Yahoo IM thing ("With Voice!") because a friend wanted to share pictures with me and it's really easy to do. But now Yahoo has taken over a lot of things in my computer. I now have a Yahoo toolbar that i don't want, and no matter how often i tell it that, it still comes up every time i open the internet. I HATE stuff like that!

And a funny thing - when i clicked on this thread this morning, i got the "annoying ad" Pudge mentioned for the first time! LOL

It looks to me, upon a bit of further research, that all I did was put my location down to be included on the Winter Sowers map that they have going in the GW winter sowing forum. But, I didn't subscribe to anything and don't recall even opening anything on the website when the map came up. I've now put a "rule" onto it that will dump it into my trash bin immediately (I hope) but that doesn't really get rid of it - just saves me the trouble of deleting it every morning.

You registered for the winter sowers map too, didn't you, Marcia? Sounds like you're not getting this annoying daily e-mail, though? Geez, I wonder what I did wrong. Funny thing was, when I registered my "name" into it, I didn't have any trouble getting the map or my location, despite my Mac, that many of the people on the winter sowing forum experienced. I must have done something right but, ultimately, did something wrong. LOL.

Shauna

Yep, i'm on the map there and at another forum. I don't remember if i had to unclick something when i registered. Have you looked at the email to see if there's an unsubscribe thing?

Checked that but it won't connect for me. Frustrating. I made a bit of a mistake this morning too, when I put the filter onto it. I set it up so that all messages would be deleted. Oops! Fixed that now but I heard a couple of audio indicators that I had mail and there wasn't any when I opened my mailbox. So I missed a few e-mails. Oh the joys of a computer.

I did have a message from Trudi that she gets all of the daily updates, too, but as an administrator. So, I guess it picked up my e-mail address and somehow attached to it for these daily updates. Trudi is going to look into it for me and see if she can help.

Shauna

Once and for all: How to stop the iVillage ad onslaught.

First we need to understand how it's done: iVillage doesn't bother to try and buy ads directly from all the various companies that show up on the pages of GW. Instead they use large ad-service agencies like doubleclick, akamai and pointroll. You can visit some of these sites if you'd like to see who's behind the ads.

http://www.akamai.com
http://www.doubleclick.com/us
http://pointroll.com

This makes it easy to block out all or almost all of the ads very easily, just block the originating sites. Right now all the ads on GW come from:

http://amch.questionmarket.com
http://a820.g.akamai.net
http://iv.doubleclick.net
http://i.ivillage.com
http://m.2mdn.net
http://tste.ivillage.com
http://img-cdn.mediaplex.com
http://ads.vmirror.com
http://cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com
http://ads.pointroll.com

The Universal Solution.This will work on Windows systems for all browsers; IE, FireFox and Netscape.

The Windows operating system provides a system-level method to block specific IP addresses before they even get to the browser. To effect this solution you need to edit a Windows system file called hosts. This file is located in the directory:

Windows XP: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Windows 2K: C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Windows 98: C:\WINDOWS

Open the file in Notepad. Cut the following from this post and paste it to the end of the file.

127.0.0.1 amch.questionmarket.com
127.0.0.1 a820.g.akamai.net
127.0.0.1 iv.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 i.ivillage.com
127.0.0.1 m.2mdn.net
127.0.0.1 tste.ivillage.com
127.0.0.1 img-cdn.mediaplex.com
127.0.0.1 ads.vmirror.com
127.0.0.1 cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com
127.0.0.1 ads.pointroll.com

Edit each entry so that there is a tab between the IP address 127.0.0.1 and the URLs. Save the file and you're finished. Close and re-open your browser and all the ads will be gone.

Unfortunately, iVillage may in the future buy ads from a new source. In this event the new ad source will have to be added to the list.

The IE solution.Most of the ads are placed using Java$cript. You can remove the more offensive ads in IE with the browser settings. You can't however remove them all. To improve GW using IE do the following:

From the menu select Tools -> Internet Options -> Security and click on Custom Level. Scroll down to the end of the list and you'll see an entry for Scripting. Disable all the sub-entries. Now select the tab labeled Privacy. In the bottom of the box that appears check on the option to block pop-ups. I recommend you also click on the button Advanced and select the option to block Third-party Cookies.

NOTE: By disabling Scripting you will also effect the way other websites behave. You may need to get used to switching scripting on and off as desired. That's why this is the least desirable of these various options.

The FireFox solutionThis is an excellent choice -- it's the fastest...

"Open the file in Notepad"

How does one do that? I can't paste it in, and there's no "Open With".