I use flashget as my download manager. while it does not install spyware, it does flash ad banners, but that is only in freeware mode, so fair enough.

However, ads are becoming more and more intrusive and annoying. One of them (I think it was for gain or some other s*** company) created a fake win9x-style bsod popup ad, which seemed strange to me b/c I am using winxp.

I took a screenshot:




Looks pretty real, doesn't it? The only thing that gave it away for me is that you don't get these on XP, at least not that I've ever seen. It's a cheap dirty trick by advertisers to make people think their computer froze, but all it did was piss me off b/c I had to stop what I was doing to close it.

So, to give this thread meaning and purpose, post the most annoying online ad that you've ever seen.

I hate most of them in general

I think the ads here are pretty terrible; they've been offering server hire for years. How many people are out there wanting to hire servers to play games? Not many. And I think all of them that are wanting to get them would have them by now.

I actually like ads that advertise new games and such, because I can find some cool games I haven't heard about. Penny Arcade's ads are pretty good in that way.

I don't see ads anymore!

ads that stick to their little banner-size space are fine. They become annoying when they start loading java applets, have sound, popups, or things that follow you on the screen as you drag down the page, constantly blocking your view.

This is why I refuse to install flash, or shockwave.

Macromedia has put a voodoo curse upon the internet with their damned hellchild.

The only things flash/shockwave are good for are:
- Presentations (an online equivilant of Powerpoint)
- Games (I do stiff prefer the feel of Java.. It just feels much more gritty, and you get the impression that someone had been slaving over it for hours on end and totally respect the programmer, whereas with Flash any idiot can knock up some crap within seconds)

Anyone that uses flash/shockwave for anything use must be shot. Twice.
Web design, particularly sites made entirely out of flash (official sites for games are usually quite bad at this, Rockstar grr) but also use of flash navigation is especially awful. Flash intros are the second most irritating thing in history, completely unnecessary, completely useless and completely irritating. especially those without "SKIP INTRO" links. But the worst is definitely flash banners. At least with popups, you can just click an X and it goes away. But there's no such standard with Flash, oh no. You can have the ad floating across the page dancing and singing and doing all sorts of obnoxious things, without the ability to get rid of it!
One particularly annoying one was a banner, and it started talking. "Hello, I'm Tina" it started off, making it sound like I was browsing for porn. The banner consisted of a picture of some face, and next to it a suspiciously large volume control bar. Desperate to get this stupid witch to shut up, I went to drag this bar... oh no... I'd clicked on the banner, and loaded the page. I'd been got. :-(

It was that banner that made be uninstall flash. grr.

I agree, flash is annoying, way to many official sites do this. games. car sites. ect.
As for popups and ads i see no popups...... i was getting at least 5 on each page i loaded when i was on IE wich was the point i said F### it and switched to mozilla. I have been popup free since then.
A few spyware things have tried to bypass my defenses and download themselves, but mozilla has caught the more creative ones that have almost pulled it off every time.
And it's faster than IE and free. lol.
That sounded like a ad for mozilla didn't it? lol. well..... IT WAS! this is a popup actually with a mind of it's own that has invaded your message board. hwaha!

Ads do suck, can't disagree there. I haven't had many problems with pop-ups and such with IE, with help from SP2 and Google's toolbar.

But for reference...

Windows XP does have BSoDs, at least from my experience it does... I've experienced them on a few occasions. Fortunately they're quite rare, definitely nothing like they were in 9x

Advertising is indeed getting annoying, but I have to accept them into my way of life. I mean, what aspect of the social world (like school, activites, transportation, even in churches) today isn't covered with at least one ad?

2k Pro does not feature the BSOD. The closest thing we have is a bios error during startup. And it's only blue because the bios is blue.

Firefox + a huge host file + Adblock + Flashblock = No more ads. Ever.

I just use Mozilla + Adware + Spybot + Spyware Resident + Norton Antivirus + Not visiting porn sites = Not a single ad.

After watching channels like Sky One, I thoroughly love the BBC.

There was this great film on BBC 1 the other day, and it was so great watching the whole film through without a single ad break. It's so easy to take that for granted, but the liscence fee really is worth it. Down with commercial TV.

Another huge advantage with the liscence fee is that the BBC can show programmes that small groups of people will absolutely love (as opposed to programmes that large groups of people will be mildly interested by, such as Big Brother or Who Wants to be a millionare). I'm thinking here of things like Question Time, HIGNFY, Red Dwarf, QI. These sorts of programmes would never survive on commercial TV. But the BBC don't need to worry about ratings, or profits, they get money regardless of what they show, so they can show things that will appeal to small groups of people. And without advertisments!

Hooray.

You know what I say? **** the internet, I'm switching to UNDERNET!

All NT OSes have BSODs, they just hide them by automatically rebooting usually. They also look very different from Win 9x BSODs, they are infinitely more helpful.

Those flash ads where you have to "Shoot the chicken to win an IPod!"

Those are obnoxious.

Did I ever tell you how much I love you?

Me too.

I hate the banners with sound, such as the talking ones Mort described. They have a crappy animated image of a person moving their mouth, and begin speaking when you move your mouse over it (of course, it doesn't give you the option of clicking something to hear the sales pitch), or sometimes just starts going automatically when the page loads. If allowed to run its course, it will ramble on and on for minutes. There are several of them out there, each with a different face and "name" (but with the same obnoxious voice).

I especially hate the ones that take up the whole screen, or appear right in the midde of what you're trying to read and begin playing a flash animation. I've noticed that in most cases, the "X" option doesn't even appear until the thing has ran its whole course.

Not only is advertising getting very annoying, but very sexist and degrading... Especially towards women.

I hate ads that have fake scroll bars and/or form elements in them. I use to react with "oh, there must be more to this ad?" or "I wonder what the form would do?" back in the old days when I didin't know any better. As always with those, as soon as you click on it, you'll get dooped into going to their website. Also, I hate those flash ads that make you think you win something by shooting something with the crosshair. It is boogus because even if you miss, you still "win" and go to their stupid site.

What's really pathetic is advertisers who resort to using trojans in order to get you to look at their ads. Those asses should be arrested! I was having a bunch of popup problems for a few months awhile ago, adaware, spyboy, cwshredder nor hijackthis could kill'em. One night of scanning with trendmicro and I got rid of three trojans, and suddenly my popup problems were gone. That just irritates me to no end...

Hell, most advertisers break the law of giving minors access to porn anyways.

I don't get how this really brings money in though? I mean, usually all it does when I see a product in an annoying ad it gets me to avoid it and cease any discussion about it.

Anybody else notice that it says 'Interntet' in the 'BSoD'?

LOL