Agree ML,
I was having trouble with the adds expanding and making me miss posts here. Making my page wonky and all. I tried to set my pop up blocker a little more strict and not too sure if I got it done or now. Will see.

That linking thins is annoying for sure.

I am using Google Chrome and can not tell if it is worse than firefox or better.
Chris

I've just started noticing those too. how did opt out moccasin?

I've known about this since the 13th but today is the first day I've seen the links actually appear. Along with the links I've also noticed that after I log into a thread and it comes up on the screen, the screen goes "white" and then comes back again. As if the page is refreshing itself. That's more irritating than the links. They don't open up unless you move your cursor over the word. Does anyone else have this problem?

They're talking about the same thing over on the Cottage garden forum. There's a good explanation of how to opt out of the advertising.

If you have your browser settings set to delete cookies upon leaving each day, you have to reset your opt out option. It requires a cookie to work otherwise. So, you have to choose between the two. I prefer having my cookies deleted when I shut down each time and not have something sending info out with my browsing preferences to anyone out there. It's irritating to have to choose between leaving the cookies and not have the links or deleting the cookies and having to reset the opt out option every day.

wow it worked lol, thanks lavenderlass.

here is the link and you click on disable. I cant see the links that were in moccassins post anymore woohoo

Here is a link that might be useful: to remove links

I never delete cookies. people are so paranoid about them but they arent capable of doing anything like tracking people across the internet or sending out info etc. Malware and viruses are the things people need to be worried about not cookies which are very basic little text files and a lot of people dont realise that. They arent active files that can do anything.

At the very front page of the Small Homes Forum (and probably all the forums too) is a red/blue statement:
"Please read this important announcement about new advertising."

In this announcement it tells how to opt out, and why they are doing the advertising this way in the first place.
I can see it being useful if they were stable links, but these little things jump right up and get in the middle of everything. And another thing, if they keep these, they should be more selective about the words they choose to use. I thought it would be neat to have IKEA send me to the IKEA site....but no, it popped up a clue to BING. What if I don't LIKE TO USE BING, but choose to use my own search engine? And the expression my home created a link going to....guess where....SEARS. I wonder if typing Sears into my post will send me to BING, like IKEA sent me there.

Whew, I wonder who got a big bonus at Christmas for this latest marketing idea.

When I am confronted with something which attempts to FORCE me to do something I choose not to do, I seek ways around it. One way to minimize these popups, is to change one vowel to a * or something similar. This would make the search function less satisfactory though.

And yes. Tonight I am getting a blank white page and I have to click reload to get it to process.

Thge best way to get rid of this trash is to use FireFox and it's Ad-blocker

Also, find out what website is "serving" the ads and put them in your "hosts" file.
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

If something is in the hosts file, you will never see it again ... ever, on any site.

Funny last night I followed directions and still could not get rid of the links. Today they are gone. Maybe had to re boot??

I like the idea of adding a star here and there to stop the process. Will try to remember that one. I misspell so many words anyway they should never catch my words anyway. Hehehehe

Chris

Thanks for starting this here moccasinlanding. I haven't noticed the hot links, so maybe I have that opt out checked, but that ad that expands is driving me nuts.

obviously my antivirus and pop up protection has kept if off my screen as i haven't noticed..if i do..i'll do further action to eliminate it

All this talk about 'cookies', and we've run out of Girl Scout cookies! I'd $10 for a box of thin mints about now....

Hm, just looked at another of my posts and those stinkin' links are on there.

flgargoyle, go to your local grocery store and buy a box of Keebler Grasshoppers to satisfy your Thin Mint craving. They're the same cookie! Little Brownie Bakers is a division of Keebler. ABC Bakers, a division of Interbake Foods, is the other bakery making Girl Scout Cookies but they both have to use the same recipes.

FWIW - Keebler Sandies "Simply Shortbread" are the equivalent of Shortbread/Trefoils. Keebler Fudge Shoppe Peanut Butter Filled cookies are the equivalent of Tagalongs/Peanut Butter Patties. I found relabeled Samoas/Caramel deLites, Do-Si-Dos/Peanut Butter Sandwiches and several other GS cookie varieties in a local bakery thrift store, of all places. I rarely buy cookies, though, because DH has no self-control when there are sweets to be had. LOL

We prefer to donate cash directly to the local GS troop since they only get about 50 cents from that $4 box of cookies (and the troops often then get nickel-and-dimed half to death), or maybe we buy one box and pay with a $10 with the instructions that the additional $6 go straight into the troop treasury. I sold many thousands of boxes of cookies in my decade-plus as a Scout, but the cookie program and Scouting in general has changed a lot since the 1980s. A friend of ours signed up to be a troop leader a couple of years ago after going through the entire program from age 5 to 18 in the same era I did ("graduating" from Senior in the late 1980s) and quit in exasperation after less than two years.

I know I can go buy other cookies, but that would be cheating. You see, the 'only' reason I buy Girl Scout cookies is to support their organization. I don't really want the cookies at all. However, once bought, it would be wasteful not to eat them, so I choke them down under protest. If you believe that, I've got some 'seasonal waterfront' I'd like to sell you.......

I used the link trancegenie posted, cleared my cookies and I'm still seeing those links everywhere. Have to be really careful where my mouse is or it opens a box over them. Really, really, annoying. I guess I'll be taking a GW break for awhile. With those & the popups I get here, I'm doing nothing but closing boxes.

Marti, the program generating the ads requires a cookie on your computer to operate so, when you clear your cookies you have to go back and disable the program again.

I'm noticing that the same situation is present on IKEAfans website. Not exactly, but similar. I wonder if the cookie works on many other sites these days.

It is like a grain of sand irritating the oyster--one of these days, us oysters will turn that sand into PEARLS.
Hope so anyway.

I believe that the ones on ikeafans are not ads, but acronyms that you can click on for explanations and like that (at least that's all I see, but then I don't see any of the ones here at all, using glimmerblocker).