Evil Interfaces - The Media Show

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You know what we're talking about. Those dancing ladies over to the right. The ads that pop up over whatever you're trying to do on the Web. The free iPod offers. They're not just annoying -- they're evil! We talk to computer science professor Greg Conti of West Point about interfaces to watch out for -- and a few ways to fight back.

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• furry
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[bandislife]

What about newspapers? Are newspapers an evil interface? Readers just want to get the news, but newspaper publishers are unethically trying to distract them with all these ads!

[themediashow]

@bandislife I see what you're getting at, and yes, we do think ads are a distraction everywhere (see our latest video about the Hollister Clothing Co. for more on why Weena flips out about ads). What we think about when we think about newspaper ads, though, is "news hole," and how dependent newspaper content is on ad revenue. The same is becoming more true online, too. Thanks for bringing this up -- I think we will have an episode about it soon!

[pete275]

I don't believe that guy is an expert in computers. He has a hickey, and everyone know computer geeks are virgins.

[themediashow]

@pete275 What you don't know about computer geeks could fill a book, dude. Also? Give you herpes.

[jbgandhi2]

why does the puppet have the 6th Army SSI?

as for adblock and noscript, et al.

sorry if 10k of actual information comes with 7 megs of flash and js-loaded images, leading to xss and all the flash vulnerabilities. and simple info that should be passed in the initial GET that are left to an AJAX loader? there's no reason for a simple website to load so much trash. so much waste and overhead. lost of wasted bandwidth.

[themediashow]

@jbgandhi2 Great question about the patch! Like many punks, Weena has picked up an army patch because she thought it looked cool, without knowing what it was about. A visit to her awesome cousin who works at the Presidio, though, made her proud to be affiliated with that San Francisco-based unit.

[RobTFirefly]

@badpazzword Far from silly, AdBlock is wonderful. I use it to block ads to which I would have responded negatively. I wouldn't have clicked them; I haven't clicking web ads in 15+ years. The ads still get downloaded, the site gets whatever credit their advertising scheme gives. Blocking the crap from my view has not changed the ad-provider/website-owner dynamic in any way, it's like leaving the room or channel-surfing when TV ads come on.

So, who is being hurt?

[fiona3637]

All of a sudden it seems I cannot CLOSE the idiot ads plastered ACROSS the bottom of Youtube vids.....I didn't care so much when I could just shut the stupid things, now it's not even an option. Does Adblock kill these malicious ads? Does any advertiser actually believe I am going to click on and BUY from them when they are actively annoying me by blocking out part of a video/captions I am trying to view?

[nuno0alex0rocha0]

I'm hating the youtube ads before the video, it's so stupid.

They think they can force me to watch ads...

To bad, because I have the perfect solution, I close the tab, I don't watch the video, because I lost interest, and I don't care how much I wanted to see that.

Hope more people do this.

STOP FORCING ME TO WATCH ADS

[alienmode]

@isaacaggrey why dont you write more comments dude

[themediashow]

@fiona3637 Which ads do you mean, Fiona? The ones which show up over the content of the video itself? I just noticed banner ads below the video frame, and I can confirm that Adblock Plus can block those. Right-clicking on the ad and choosing "Adblock: Block Image" should do the trick. If you can find me a video which has the overlay ads, I will try to test that. We also recommend Lavasoft Ad Aware for PCs.

[isaacaggrey]

@themediashow NoScript is another add-on for Firefox, akin to AdBlock, that blocks JavaScript/Java/Flash scripts from being run without the user's permission.

Personally, I've found it to be a nuisance to have installed since, if you're trying to be *really* safe, you have to verify each script is something you want to run. Even if you allowed scripts on a per-site basis, a whitelisted site could still be injected with malicious scripts and the user's still out of luck.

[isaacaggrey]

@themediashow Does anyone like ads? :-p

Perhaps Adblock should clearly give users an option---maybe right after installation---to allow only verified/benevolent ad providers and block all other ads instead of blocking both types wholesale.