Big Huge Internet Forums

I won't mention any names, but as a rule, are big huge internet forums that have tons of various kinds of advertisments bad for you computer?

I seem to frequent a few forums such as those....but having been at this forum(Wilders) this evening, I've noticed that my computer is actually running a lot smoother and easier than it has in a long time.

Therefore, with all of the agressive kind of ads that those types of forums use, and lord knows what those forums are downloading into your computer, I would think that those sites are actually hazardous to your computer's health.(Also, if you've ever been to one of those types of forums, look at your Status Bar and notice everything that is going on when you're either reading or posting in a thread.)

Plus, I have read on more than one occasion where some members have complained about getting a trojan from one of the ads at those types of forums.

Any feedback concerning this would be appreciated.

 

That's one of the many reasons I block ads.

 

What do you use? I recently starting using a free program called AdBlocker, which happened to work fine, but after having it for a few weeks, the vendor acted like he changed his mind about his product being free and changed his product to only the first 200 ad blocks being free. And you can imagine how fast 200 ads can be used up on those big huge internet forums. Plus, on top of that, the vendor started this extremely annoying 'nag' ad to try to get you to buy the paid product.

And BTW, I'm having some problems with my computer, therefore, having a second browser like Foxfire, which has a wonderful free ad blocker, taxed my computer too much.

 

Also, I forgot to mention that with these sites, it's more than just ads that they inundate you with. There is a lot of malware being downloaded into your computer from those sites, which can be seen on the Status Bar.

 

Norton DNS Web Content Filter and Adblock Plus (EasyPrivacy+EasyList, Fanboy's Adult/Dating List, and Malware Domains)

 

On a Windows box, besides AdblockPlus and Noscript, i wouldn't visit such sites:
1- at all
2- without Sandboxie
3- without a limited user account
4- without Software Restriction Policies - either by gpedit.msc or Sully's excellent PGS

But what do you mean by "which can be seen on the Status Bar"? What are you seeing there?

 

I was a member of Toms Adware. I couldnt take it anymore. Try disabling java on that site. Its a accident waiting to happen

 

Well, it's interesting because I don't know if one of those large sites have tracked me coming to this site and is aware of this thread, but I just went to one of those large sites that I am talking about and the site was unusally free of most of it's ads.

And I'm talking about the agressive ones where it you try to click on a certain page, an ad would usually highjack your entire page and start to play a mini commercial video ad either until it was over with or until you clicked on the "Skip ad" link.

But in addition to that, when you were either reading a post or a thread or composing a post, you would hear a lot of clicking and you could look at the Status Bar and see all of these different ads such as doubleclick and other types of ads being downloaded or trying to be downloaded into you computer. I mean, it was actually all spelled out in your Status Bar near the bottom of your page. Plus, all of that would help to slow down your computer.

However, I just came from that site and now all of the sudden, it is on it's best behavior. I mean, it's as if they got rid of all of that advertising rubbish.

And don't get me wrong. I understand the need for advertisments, but this site was like it was on advertisment steroids.

 

Wait, this is a legitimate website we're talking about?
I believe there is some confusion in what may actually be happening. Next time try to get some screenshots, otherwise we're left imagining things.

One simple explanation would be the site in question had a 'foreign' script somewhere, loading all those images, and in the meantime it was removed by whoever manages the site.
Get 'Adblock Plus' and 'Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus' for Firefox, if you use Firefox. Get to know them. It's been a while (years) since i've seen any of that on my computer, and i'm not doing any magic!

Cheers

 

It's not especially difficult to protect yourself against infections that are distributed through ads.

Whitelisting javascript and/or using adblock plus is plenty.