Goodbye, Failblog.

   Note

The below post represents my personal and subjective opinion and should be taken only as such. I do not represent other users or sites and I am speaking only on behalf of myself.

Dear Failblog team at http://failblog.cheezburger.com/.

I have enjoyed your site, especially the Failbook and There I Fixed It sections. Honestly, your site has given me a lot of laughs.

Today was my last visit. I will block all your sites from my household computers, I do not want anyone to visit you anymore from my computers. Of course I understand that my decision most probably goes unnoticed, for you have made it quite clear that I as a user and my opinion are totally meaningless for you.

Of course I also understand it's your site and you alone decide what to do with it; You need to earn a buck and doing it legally, morally and ethically right would not give as big revenues as what you can make now. You have decided to accept the ads and money from various gangs who are doing their best to lure inexperienced users to download and install different malware on their computers, I as a user must accept that and decide if I want to be a part of that or not. I decided not.

If you are interested why I made this decision today, here's the story about my efforts in trying to surf your site an hour or so ago:

First I checked the There I Fixed It section. About 10 seconds after the page opened, I got this small pop-up telling my Flash Player is outdated. Of course I knew this to be BS and clicked the Close button (red X, top right) because the pop-up only has an OK button.

I was immediately taken (same There I Fixed It tab, not a new tab) to a false page made to look and feel like real Adobe page. An automatic download was there to wait me to accept and install:

Of course I know this false Adobe site is only a criminal attempt to install unwanted malware on my computer but quite a many users might take this as real. In any case, I just clicked Back button to go back to There I Fixed It, but it was useless; whatever Failblog page I opened, I was transferred to that false Adobe site again after 10 seconds. Decided to stay on your site and for once really check how you rotate the ads and how long these ads stay there trying to infect my PC; it continued for about 15 minutes, then suddenly I could read the site, browser stayed on the page I had chosen instead of transferring me to falsified Adobe page to get the malware.

But, you being Failblog, it didn't of course mean I could now surf your site as I'd like to. No, of course not. Now your scheduled ad rotating started with these video ads which you can't mute. Some of the videos have the overlay text AUDIO OFF to lure the user to click the ad. You simply cannot mute these ads. The worst is, there's two of these video ads on one page and it's quite confusing when the audio of both ads mixes together:

Finally after half an hour I had peace; I could surf your site about 5 minutes almost undisturbed. But then, it started again:

This time it's about another media player "needed for this content". A pure lie, as both you and me know, simply a paid ad from malware producers who give you the money to get as many computers contaminated as possible.

So, this was it. I have enjoyed your site but I think my IQ might be just a bit above what you'd like your readers to have to get revenues rolling in to accept this kind of unmoral and unethical advertising anymore.

Yours, very sincere

Kari

You could try getting on the site with a mobile device. Also, I suggest that you should change the link to normal text in case someone accidentally presses it and gets malware on their computer

The link is the official Failblog link, it is a "safe" site if you accept the kind of advertising I protested against. Anyway, I changed the link to be text only, no direct link.

Thanks for sharing the issue and your decision,
I've run across several websites via trouble shooting at answers.microsoft.com that op's complain about the same type of popup messages yes they are total sell outs or completely infected no way to know for sure unless you report it to the website in question and or report the site as malicious via Tools/ Safety/ Report unsafe website,
Then let Microsoft figure it out if you use Internet explorer that is
Cheers.

I have reported this to Failblog, last time today but also earlier with no response. I have a ticket number from them.

Important to notice before someone mentions I should use an ad blocker: I am strictly against ad blocking. Informative advertising which does not steal focus or make the browsing experience annoying is welcome to my browser and display. I know a lot of people who get their living from advertising on their blogs and sites and want to support that kind of honest income. Advertising can and should be undisturbing, follow accepted moral and ethic codes.

Take our own Seven Forums as an example: John can offer us over quarter million members an ad free superior place to hang out, thanks for the guest users who will receive some ads. Sounds weird but we members can thank Internet advertising for letting us to enjoy Seven Forums. As a guest user you can still browse the forums, the ads a guest sees are not steling the focus nor are they trying to force you to install malware.

Failblog as told in my original post's example from today is just one more of these sites who completely forget the consumer in their hunt for revenues. Some advertisers they have are known malware distributors.

Kari I understand and agree where you are coming from.
Advertisement keeps the internet working but their is a right and wrong way of displaying those adds.
I think all you are asking is the advertisement will a little class and follow accepted moral and ethic codes. That is not asking to much from the owner of the site.
When the adds rule the website or page instead of relaying the information that I came there for I will just hit the back button or close the web browser all together if need be. Then I run my normal security scans just to make sure I didn't get something I don't want.
Obviously I won't go back to that site again.

Layback Bear said:

Kari I understand and agree where you are coming from.
Advertisement keeps the internet working but their is a right and wrong way of displaying those adds.
I think all you are asking is the advertisement will a little class and follow accepted moral and ethic codes. That is not asking to much from the owner of the site.
When the adds rule the website or page instead of relaying the information that I came there for I will just hit the back button or close the web browser all together if need be. Then I run my normal security scans just to make sure I didn't get something I don't want.
Obviously I won't go back to that site again.

That is exactly what I do if i see some suspicious ads.

Got an answer from Failblog:

Thanks for the heads up and our sincere apologies for the ad issue. While I understand that this issue has caused you to leave the site, please know that we do not condone these ads in any way and we are currently working with our advertisers to root out and eliminate the whatever is causing the problem. If necessary, we will have to turn off the stream from whichever company we determine to be causing the false Flash updates.

With that in mind, I do hope that you will check back occasionally to see if the ads are gone from the site, as we will eventually fix the problem. We truly do value the opinions of our users and hate to see anyone go.

Sincerely,
Cheezburger

Unaware of the issue,
It's pretty common for sites to become corrupted, ask Yahoo
It's up to the site managers to test the site on a daily basis and users to report any odd behaviors of adds and other loading functions
Cheers.

Not heard of Failblog but thank you Kari for the info if I do run across it :)