Incredibly irritating ads

[+IceColdUK]

I'm assuming the issue is with Google Ads rather than Groundspeak, but the ads on the Geocaching website have become infinitely more irritating overnight!  The 'full media experience' is bad enough, but the volume can at least be muted.  What's even more annoying is the way the page automatically scrolls to put the ad in frame.

Hadn't really been bothered enough to install an Ad-blocker before but I will be now.  I'm guessing I won't be alone...

[+Viajero Perdido]

+1

Weren't the ads supposed to be "of interest to the geocaching community", or somesuch?  Once upon a time?

What's so relevant about an ad for a bank?

Why must it dance around and try to get my attention?  Stop that!

And why must I look at it when I'm a $$$ paying $$$ member?  What other website does this?

[+lodgebarn]

I was appalled to find an audio ad on a cache page today supplied by the powers that be. This ruins whatever else I am listening to or even work phone calls. I also get a video right in my face. Please stop this immediately since this is the absolute pits. I thought the web pages couldn't sink any lower, how wrong was I.

Edited September 15, 2017 by lodgebarn

[+The Haywood Hornet]

I have got rid of it! Click the X, top right of the advertisement, and it goes back to "Geocaching" adverts. This seems to have killed the problem when I go to other cache pages as well.

[+on4bam]

I've been running adblock for years, on top of it I use Noscript and Ghostery. This keeps webpages clean to look at. No (malicious) scripts can run and it keeps 1000's of trackers away. I run these add-ons as opt-in so all is blocked by default unless I unblock.

 

[+MartyBartfast]

I've been running an add blocker for years so didn't notice this myself but saw a LOT of people complaining about it so I turned off the add blocker to have a look and it's appalling the way it interferes with using the page - particularly the page scrolling. 

Everyone I've seen who complained about it on FB was advised to install and add blocker and they have all done so, the upshot of this will be that GS's advertising revenue will  take a hit. I think GS should be more selective about what type of adds they allow Google to push to their pages.

 

 

[+The Haywood Hornet]

My solution worked for 90 minutes but now they are back and I cannot get rid of them. Is an ad blocker easy to install and use? Cost?

[+on4bam]

Try (for Firefox) Adblock pro (free) or µblock (free)

If you install Ghostery (free) you can block, among many others, google adsense.

Install Noscript (free) and block just about any script.

 

[+arisoft]

I haven't seen any this kind of add from Google. Is there any possibility that there is somekind of hostile advertizing extension loaded into the browser?

Edited September 15, 2017 by arisoft

[+IceColdUK]

47 minutes ago, arisoft said:

I haven't seen any this kind of add from Google. Is there any possibility that there is somekind of hostile advertizing extension loaded into the browser?

Maybe you already have an ad-blocker installed?

I displayed my dashboard (https://www.geocaching.com/account/dashboard) in six browsers on two PCs:

HOME PC

1. Chrome
After about 30 seconds, the page automatically scrolled down to the ad below the menu on the left-hand side, and started playing it.

2. Microsoft Edge
Same behavious after about 10 seconds.

3. Microsoft IE11
Strange.  A different selection of ads when I tried IE - no music or auto-scrolling.

WORK LAPTOP (on a VPN)

1. Chrome
A 40 second wait for the page to scroll down and start playing the ad.

2. Firefox
Same behaviour after just a second or two.

3. Microsoft IE11
Popup: "This page is accessing information that is not under its control".  Clicking 'No' disables the ad.  Clicking 'Yes' and the ad plays after quite a (nice) long wait, but only after I'd scrolled down far enough to see the ad on the screen.

This investigation has cost me dear - I'm now not going to be able to get the 'Go Compare' tune out of my head. :-(

[+arisoft]

1 hour ago, IceColdUK said:

Popup: "This page is accessing information that is not under its control".

This looks like a Cross-site scripting attack. I am using Firefox and I have never used AdBlock or similar products. My dashboard is located at https://www.geocaching.com/my/default.aspx which makes me think about the "streamlined version" of the dashboard. Which version do you use?

[+on4bam]

14 minutes ago, arisoft said:

This looks like a Cross-site scripting attack. I am using Firefox and I have never used AdBlock or similar products. My dashboard is located at https://www.geocaching.com/my/default.aspx which makes me think about the "streamlined version" of the dashboard. Which version do you use?

Seems you use the "old" profile page (as do I) but IceColdUK uses the "new" page.

 

 

[+IceColdUK]

1 hour ago, on4bam said:

Seems you use the "old" profile page (as do I) but IceColdUK uses the "new" page.

Yes, this was on the new profile page, but that was only for illustration.  I had the same issue with the ads on cache pages.  Looking again now though, and I'm being served up a different set of ads (on profile and cache pages) - none that fire up the speakers or mess about with the page, and all easily ignored.  Watch this space!

AND THEY'RE BACK!

Edited September 15, 2017 by IceColdUK
AND THEY'RE BACK!

[+noncentric]

1 hour ago, on4bam said:

1 hour ago, arisoft said:

This looks like a Cross-site scripting attack. I am using Firefox and I have never used AdBlock or similar products. My dashboard is located at https://www.geocaching.com/my/default.aspx which makes me think about the "streamlined version" of the dashboard. Which version do you use?

Seems you use the "old" profile page (as do I) but IceColdUK uses the "new" page.

I'm also curious about these annoying ads. I use the new dashboard page, new profile page, old drafts page, old lists page, and numerous cache pages.  I've had Adblock, in Firefox, turned off for a few weeks.

I haven't seen any irritating ads, just the usual vertical banner ad in the right-side column of some pages.

 

[+MartyBartfast]

2 hours ago, noncentric said:

I haven't seen any irritating ads, just the usual vertical banner ad in the right-side column of some pages.

They're the only ones I saw, but some of them were video adds which were extremely distuptive, having sound and they tended to drag the page back to the add if you tried to scroll down to read the logs.

[Moun10Bike]

As far as we know, none of the ads served up by our ad provider (Google) match the description in this thread. However, to help us be sure, please copy the URL of the offending ad and post it here so that we can check it. With that info, we can block the ad if it is indeed being served up by Google.

[+MartyBartfast]

7 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

As far as we know, none of the ads served up by our ad provider (Google) match the description in this thread. However, to help us be sure, please copy the URL of the offending ad and post it here so that we can check it. With that info, we can block the ad if it is indeed being served up by Google.

Just tried it and after about 5 page refreshes got  video add, with music, which forced the page to scroll back to the add. The add linked to this URL:

https://www.mcarthurglen.com/uk/swindon-designer-outlet/en/?utm_source=Clearstream&utm_medium=Display&utm_campaign=AW17

 

[+kunarion]

6 minutes ago, MartyBartfast said:

Just tried it and after about 5 page refreshes got  video add, with music, which forced the page to scroll back to the add. The add linked to this URL:

https://www.mcarthurglen.com/uk/swindon-designer-outlet/en/?utm_source=Clearstream&utm_medium=Display&utm_campaign=AW17

 

 

Are these ads targeted to the UK?  I'm seeing a trend in who it seems to affect.

[+MartyBartfast]

6 minutes ago, kunarion said:

 

Are these ads targeted to the UK?  I'm seeing a trend in who it seems to affect.

You could be onto something, that add is UK specific. I mentioned above (somewhere) about seeing lots of complaints in Facebook, and I only subscribe to UK based Geocaching groups so they would all be UK peeps; and I know that Lodgebarn, The Heywood Hornet, and IceColdUK are all UK based (as am I).

Hmm....

 

[Moun10Bike]

13 minutes ago, MartyBartfast said:

Just tried it and after about 5 page refreshes got  video add, with music, which forced the page to scroll back to the add. The add linked to this URL:

https://www.mcarthurglen.com/uk/swindon-designer-outlet/en/?utm_source=Clearstream&utm_medium=Display&utm_campaign=AW17

 

I checked with our department that handles ads and they responded that this is "definitely not a direct ad that we manage." Their suspicion is that it is something being served by Google Adsense, and that it's all based on behavior targeting. I'm still suspicious that Adsense would be serving up such an intrusive ad, however.

[+kunarion]

2 minutes ago, MartyBartfast said:

You could be onto something, that add is UK specific. I mentioned above (somewhere) about seeing lots of complaints in Facebook, and I only subscribe to UK based Geocaching groups so they would all be UK peeps; and I know that Lodgebarn, The Heywood Hornet, and IceColdUK are all UK based (as am I).

Hmm....

 

 

So it could be a regional attack distribution.  I clicked the URL you posted, and "google searched" that company.  So far nothing has changed on my screen.  If anything, the ads lately have been more benign and less varied than usual.

[+MartyBartfast]

7 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

I checked with our department that handles ads and they responded that this is "definitely not a direct ad that we manage." Their suspicion is that it is something being served by Google Adsense, and that it's all based on behavior targeting. I'm still suspicious that Adsense would be serving up such an intrusive ad, however.

It is 100% a google adsense add, clicking the AdChoices button at the top right of the video takes you to the Google Adsense support page:

 

https://support.google.com/adsense/troubleshooter/1631343?url=https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4M618_jamies-warm-up&gl=GB&hl=en&ai0=&visit_id=0-636411069840015096-1216289221&rd=1

 

The add appear here on the cache pages:

 

 

 

[+noncentric]

24 minutes ago, kunarion said:

 

Are these ads targeted to the UK?  I'm seeing a trend in who it seems to affect.

I noticed that too after MartyBartfast posted that URL.  I've never seen any video ads on geocaching.com pages. Heck, it's rare that I see a non-Groundspeak ad at all on these pages. Most of the ads I see are for geotours, shop geocaching.com, and GIFF recently.

Do those intrusive ads show up on other webpages, besides geocaching.com?

[+MartyBartfast]

4 minutes ago, noncentric said:

Do those intrusive ads show up on other webpages, besides geocaching.com?

I can't really say, I use an ad blocker so never see google ads, I specifically disabled it for geocaching.com yesterday to see what all the fuss was about when I saw others complaining.