Floating, pop-up windows.

[kmcarr]

For the past couple of days floating, pop-up windows have started appearing VERY frequently on Chowhound. They are ads for a consumer opinion survey company. Yes, I have "Block pop-up ads" turned on in my browser. Apparently these bypass whatever mechanism is used to block other pop-ups. Have other's seen these ads? I find them INCREDIBLY annoying; you can't simply ignore them since they are floating across the middle of the screen, blocking what you are trying to read. You also can't close them until they stop moving (at least I can't -- I'm not of the video game generation so maybe my mouse targeting is really bad.)

Yes, of course I understand that Chow has to sell advertising to support the site, but these types of ads have a large negative impact on my enjoyment of Chowhound.

[ChowHQ]

Hi All, thank you for reporting this. If anyone can capture the survey before closing the window and upload it to the thread that would be very helpful. Another question for the group- which operating systems are you using with which browser?

[jen kalb]

Ill try to capture it next time - Im on a corporate Windows XP set up with an Explorer 6 browser. this is really irritating - it originally sat still but now it floats across the page and is hard to capture and close. I tried to answer once to get rid of it but the survey was too long. None of the negative responses get rid of it.

[Servorg]

XP Home Edition Firefox 3.6

http://survey.questionmarket.com/surv...

[ChowHQ]

Thank you Servorg for sending the URL this is very helpful.

[Servorg]

Here is a new one, http://surveys.insightexpressai.com/i... and the irony is that, after it was clicked on it it tells you that it has enough responses already so "never mind"...Now that's annoying. The thing floats across the screen driving you batty, only to say it isn't "operable" when opened. If you don't need my input then you certainly don't need to have your craplet survey float across my screen!

[Servorg]

And we have the latest iteration of the floating eyesore here: http://survey.questionmarket.com/surv...

[hannaone]

Adblock Plus

Go to preferences.
Click "Add Filter"
Type in questionmarket. com (without the space)
Click OK.

Say good bye to questionmarket. com adds

[Servorg]

Thanks for the tip (now added to my already existing adblock plus). Mostly I have been clicking on them so that I can post the URL for the ChowHQ'ers to have some hard data in their efforts to stamp this scourge out for the general CH audience.

[smartie]

also have Firefox and that darned ad floats across my page pretty much every day.

[kpzoo]

My solution is to use Firefox or Chrome and install the free AdBlock Plus add-on. I have yet to see a floating pop-up.

[LNG212]

I have Firefox with adblock. I still get that floating survey. I've complained about this before in the past (to no avail). And I guess I'm with kmcarr -- I can't seem to snag that damn floating thing and click on it so I can manually block it.

[kpzoo]

That's odd. Maybe they're doing geolocation and I'm not seeing it because I'm outside the US.

If you're comfortable with this sort of stuff, next time the floater appears, I'd peek in the source code of the page to try to find it and block the offending URL. Or load up the Firefox Web Developer toolbar and try to track it down in the code that way.

Good luck!

[hannaone]

Try the NoScript add-on. I run both No-Script and adblock and never see any of these ads/surveys unless I disable add-ons to see what the complaints are about.

[Stephanie Wong]

Just got the floating survey & am using Firefox

[grayelf]

I've had it a couple of times, and discovered that if you click to a new page it goes away but of course that means you "lose your place" in whatever thread you are in. I wish it would just hold still long enough to click it away!

[queencru]

I've clicked away before and it just comes back on the next screen. I have the blocking software installed too, so it's a mystery.

[grayelf]

I haven't had that experience, but I did just have the "floater" again, luckily just when I was ready to click to another screen.

[Caroline1]

In my experience, Chow/Chowhound is not represented equally in all browsers, or even on all computers, for that matter. I know. It'a a pain to have to have several browsers loaded on your hard drive to participate on a board, but have you tried other browsers?

[Chris VR]

I don't have them float or move, but there's one popup survey window that keeps coming back even though I've said "No, thanks" I don't want to take the survey. If you're going to subject people to this kind of ad, why are you even offering a "no thanks" option if you're just going to keep showing the ad?

[ChowHQ]

Hi Chris VR,
What you are referring to is not an ad, it is a user survey. This survey is intended for "opt-in" users who choose to participate. We will check with the team that runs these survey's to see if there is a way to stop it from appearing after a user closes it, but it might not be built that robustly.

Quick question, does it come up during the same visit or different visits? If its the same visit, its a bug. If it is different visits, then we will see if it's behaving as designed.

[Chris VR]

Hrm, not sure... how do you define a visit? I have the same CHOW browser window open all day... sometimes multiple days. I'll try to keep a closer eye, it hasn't appeared in the past day or two.

[ChowHQ]

A visit is from the opening of the first page until the user leaves the site or closes the browser. Since you have the same browser window open I have a hunch they are expiring the session at some interval and re-cashing your visit. I will double check and get back to the thread. Thanks for the quick reply.

[Stephanie Wong]

Just happened to me twice in the same visit (about 45 minutes) about 20 minutes ago.

[kmcarr]

I have had it happen several times in the same session. In some cases on four or five page views in a row that damn thing shows up again. I see a lot of people down thread suggesting various plugins, etc. to block these. I do appreciate your suggestions but my view is that one should not have to arm them self as if they were going into battle just to read Chowhound. Finding the ultimate blocking technology is a silent protest; it does nothing to send a message back to the managers of Chow that use of these types of web technologies is disliked and negatively affects my opinion of their site.

(I know, I know. I'm probably over reacting but everyone has to kvetch once in awhile.)