HM, your ads are not what they seem.

[driverrob]

I've become paranoid about spam, viruses and adware and have more software protecting my PC than would have ben viewed as sane until recently.
Anyway, over the half the adverts on PH website are now blocked with warning messages that their real URLs indicate they're really known sources of adware or similar.

The register1.net advert at the top is visible but even its URL is actually adbureau .../addclick something.

Can anyone else verify this?

[elster]

Why not just disable all ads from downloading and showing up fullstop

[FunkyNige]

Yeah, it's adware from adbureau.net (I think), they put a cookie on your machine, use that to make a profile of the things you look at on the net then display targeted ads accordingly.
Not 100% sure blocking ads will help all the time, I've just noticed NoScript is blocking something from adbureau on this page and there aren't even any ads on this page...

[Stuart]

The Norton that I've got on my netbook flashes up alerts left right and centre for the same reasons. What you're referring to - where we serve ads according to what you're looking at - is known as Behavioural Targeting. Our ad server software doesn't have that capability, and we don't do it.

I'll alert techies but I'm 99.99% sure that you have absolutely nothing whatsoever to fear from the ads served to you on PH.

[driverrob]

Thanks, everyone.
By the way, this is what I see just above, on this page:

[Furyous]

Theres ad's on Ph ?

...Blimey.


Have to say, post Ted, I installed ad blocker as the site was virtually unusable due to slow adservers.

Now I enjoy the clean look I get from Ph.

[Jonny671]

Furyous said:

Theres ad's on Ph ?

...Blimey.


Have to say, post Ted, I installed ad blocker as the site was virtually unusable due to slow adservers.

Now I enjoy the clean look I get from Ph.

I use adblocker too, its very good! I never get adverts on hardly any websites now.

[Scraggles]

firefox,

adblock plus

noscript

I allow pistonheads and block adbureau.net

checked on IE and got

http://www.crushhouse.com/michelin/micrositev4.htm... - something to do with tyres

http://www.boden.co.uk/?strShortKey=LN5K&cm_mm... - something to do with non driving clothes

[driverrob]

I'm using Opera and I can't find an adblocker for it. Does anyone know of one.

[Scraggles]

http://operawiki.info/OperaAdblock?show_comments=1

2nd hit on searching for

Opera +adblock

bet you are glad that people (other than yourself) know what a search engine is and how to use it

[driverrob]

Thanks for that. I had googled "download opera adblock", thinking it would be an external add-on.
"Content blocker" didn't immediately reveal itself for what it really is.

[Famous Graham]

I just got a chuffing popup questionairre thingy

[Scraggles]

popups ?

used to be really wound up by them, often on inane subjects, no longer get them

[Mr Will]

Famous Graham said:

I just got a chuffing popup questionairre thingy

There should not be any pop-ups anywhere on our site. If it is definitely coming from PH then let me know what company it is for and I will get it removed immediately.