New
#1
Really IRRITATING advertising via ISP's RE-DIRECTS
Hi there
(Hi Mods - please move to Browsers - hit the ENTER against the wrong section).
Companies must be getting ever more desperate to foist their hideous commercials on to online users at every conceivable opportunity - and some are getting better and better at managing to avoid "POP up and Ad blockers".
The latest nasty to appear in droves (it's always been around but only in a very few cases) is the REDIRECT when a website can't be found. Companies are now jumping on to this type of advertising in DROVES.
If for example you make a typo in a web site's address or attempt to visit a non existent website - instead of the HTTP 404 Not Found you used to get in most browsers you get a page from the ISP filled with rubbish commercials (plus of course the mention that the site is not found).
The more insidious one's even have a list "suggesting you might like to visit these sites" -- and this is based not on the title of the site you are trying to visit or the topic you are researching but a list based purely on the Fee the advertisers have paid. (This technique is known as "RE-DIRECT").
I was a bit suspicious of Google and others such as OPEN DNS offering Free DNS servers as it didn't seem a sustainable Business model -- now I see how they do it and I for one HATE it.
Can we have our plain old HTTP 404 page not found back again please.
I REALLY HATE online advertising -- if I WANT a product then I'll research and read reviews - but pages filled with commercials surrounded by maybe 3 sentences of proper TEXT -- No thanks.
Reminds me last time I was back in Los Angeles and made the BIG mistake of trying to watch a Movie on ABC (Channel 7 KABC TV) TV -- seemed to me it was an incessant stream of commercials broken up by " Film Break" instead of the other way around --needless to say I gave up and enjoyed myself much better in the Hotel Bar watching a Mexican Soccer Match on Channel 34 (KMEX) where they didn't have have commercials during the two 45 minute playing periods.
Anything to "Intercept these re-directs and just throw up the standard 404 Not found message"
Anybody writing code for Adblocker type programs should be able to intercept the page coming in and "Re-direct the Re-direct" back to the 404 message (or one of your own) --doesn't sound too hard for people who can program this stuff -- anybody out there who can do it for us.
PLEASE all you Progammers and coders out there rid us of this menace.
Cheers
jimbo