Ad Blocking

What's so hard to understand? An infected ad can do anything from crash your PC to steal your identity. It happens and more often than you think. Spyware, keyloggers, etc are a huge problem and hackers are almost always one step ahead while security companies play catchup. It sucks but that's how it is.

In better less HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE terms, Your PC won't gain a resistance to formatting. A format is a format.

Sorry, not very familiar with this type of stuff^^;

but how much more would clicking the ads help over just loading the ads (ie taking off adblocker) help in terms of income?

It varies with the type of ad.

Given XI's awful history with ad-based hacking, I'm not really shocked at the general rejection of ads, but for those who want to balance appreciation for the site with no ad-risk, I'd take a peek at the donations. They're abysmally low. lol

I think part it is that few years ago this site along with somepage and few others was included with a big scare of peeps getting there accounts hacked from going to the sites so now peeps are even more cautious then with non game related sites and with some other sites about going to without as much precautions as can.

Lately even been seeing adds for rmts on wiki that probably making peeps more nervous.

The spyware hurts the actual "ograns" of the PC (aka like the CPU, the BIOS and so on) after a while. I've had it happen before with my Dell laptop (2002 laptop died in 2005) and reformatting just didn't work well.)

I know, but I mean if we want to help keep ffxiah free, should we actively click the sites or would just taking off adblocker be enough

oh look i took off all the add blocking and first add i see is a flashing one for rmt...

That has nothing to do with malicious coding. A format is a Format.

If they added a level of membership that was fee-based that removed ads I'd be all for it.

F ya.. Hell, That would be nice. I'd do that, /cheer!

Man is making a valid point here.... just helping pointing it out. That's something that is always a floating issue..

*Boomhour* Mummble mummble...dang you two..mummble..mumble.

Agreed.

I clicked the Dell ad 5 times does that help?

Sigh. Look guys, if you don't trust the general web itself, that's fine. My original post was just a friendly request for those who may not know their ad-blocking effects us. If you have legitimate reasons for doing it, carry on. The purpose wasn't supposed to start an argument or tell you that you were wrong.

Just realize the same argument can be used for the entire web: no site is 100% secure. Even if they don't run ads, the administrators' accounts can get hacked and insert bad code, or they can not scrub their SQL inputs, or... anything, really. The web is a scary place.

We do our very best here to not have problems, and in the time we've been live, we've had only one real instance of hacking, when someone got ahold of an administrator account and put malicious script in the site contents itself, which attempted to install a keylogger. (It didn't work and was up for less than an hour, so I'm curious where the "notorious" adjective comes from.) And it had nothing to do with ads.

Previous hacking scares came from ffxicyclopedia, which both once had their admin accounts compromised and had folks posting malicious code in wiki links, and who we freely link to. Alla and KI got hacked once too. In fact, the other sites' problems vastly outnumber our own, and at no time did they revolve around advertising.

It's just a general risk of the internet itself, and if that scares you enough to block all scripts and all ads on every site, that's your call and I'm not going to argue with you. Just realize that by doing so, you're potentially trading the livelihoods of the folks who bring you the content for your own security.

And the Verizon one twice. :D

Lord Jaerik has spoken!

/endthread

I remember a while back reading on BG that there was something strange embedded in FFXIAH while the main mod was on vacation or something. While I completely appreciate the site, there are still uncontrollable situations that are never expected.

Sad to say, I will never enable ads again while surfing the internet. Other means for raising money are accepted by me, however, because of this reason. I probably wouldn't donate, but a one time fee to allow more in-depth access and ad-free surfing on FFXIAH would be a way to do it (as long as you don't remove free privileges - like how the site is now).

edit - I use noscript which blocks ads and any malicious software. Personal security should and normally always does outweigh a majority of other things. Not trying to sound selfish, but it pretty much is the truth.

same stuff happen to me n since i got my account hacked once (almost got hack twice but manage to recover my account b4 he change my password) so unless the site is 100% virus free (which will never happen) ill protect my PC/account first

little off thread: anyone that using firefox got that "free virus scan" pop up? i changed not long ago n wouldnt mind to drop ABP as long that ***doesnt come everytime i open the page

I'll whitelist FFXIAH on my laptop for a week(and only FFXIAH). If nothing pops up I'll leave it off.

my site once got hacked into and a fake paypal set up on it.
It was done via php code injection into the script.

Now I filter every verable that requires an input.

Back to ad blocking.

I don't bother with ad blocking, part from the pop up and under ads which in my opinion is forceful advertisement.

A great website does not over power there site with ads, but clevley integrates ads in to there site.

FFXIAH.com and ffxiclopidia.org both do good jobs of not having ads in the face.

Allakzam on the other hand, have a few pops up and great big dirty ads in the face.

if anything think should take this response as a honest veiw of what people are thinking and their concerns and then use that knowledge to try work out ways that help everyone while still feeling secure

The problem is that RMT banner ads can't be fully trusted if they are carrying malicious Javascript code or iFrames. And, because this website and many other FFXI-related websites use the related content features of Google AdSense, those banner ads will still be displayed.

Given the recent hackings caused by RMT banner ads, it led me to the conclusion Google AdSense does not review banner ads for malicious links or code submitted to them for distribution. Until banner ads are fully clean, unobtrusive, and not annoying or overwhelming the content of the website, it is then we will stop blocking ads.

If there was a way for the end user or website visitor decide what website ads he or she would like to see, that option would be more preferable. Yahoo has something similar with their opt-out features here: http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/opt_out/targeting/

It places ads based on your activity on their website. If something similar can be done using user-made preferences on what ads we'd like to see rather than what we don't want to see, then I'm sure a lot of people would stop blocking ads.

It would be better to have manual ad placement rather than ads based on related content from Google AdSense. This is because many RMT websites go through Google AdSense to deliver their ads because of the larger audience, and it is in those that they cannot be trusted at all. That way both sides will be happy-- the user and the content provider.

I've whitelisted several websites and a few websites that relate to my interests like cars, animes, music, or business-related items. But, I have to block ads that I don't want and what I consider is not safe.

I've recommended NoScript and AdBlock based on the sheer fact that malicious content and code can be delivered that way from RMT websites. The stories of FFXI players being infected by malicious code hidden within banner ads, and getting their account hacked in the last two years won't change my mind on disabling NoScript and AdBlock. It's why a lot of people have switched to Firefox or Chrome, and away from IE. (Of course you can do similar features in IE7 Pro.)

Of course, as you said, nothing is 100% safe on the Internet and I truly believe that. However, when you can consider that the banner ads are from RMT websites on FFXI-related websites like FFXI AH, and the chances those ads contain malicious code, how can FFXI players place trust in the website and disabling the ad blockers?

I have always had ffxiah.com whitelisted. I do not receive any ads at all, as they all come from google ad services. Which I will never whitelist. I used to unblock everything on this site and not even run noscript. It was not until the scare of stuff coming through the rmt ads that I started to find out what made the RMT ads go away (you used to have 1-2 on this site at all times) after going through through all of the sites that would make those rmt ads go away found out they came from google ad services.
Below is how my no script is set for this site.
If you actually screened the ads and had them come from ffxiah.com then I would be OK with it but after several issues with questionable google ads and many exploits coming from ads google serves, i refuse to unblock google ads for any reason ever. I do not see any ads but I do see screenshots with this setting.

<No script settings I have had for the last year>

<a href="http://s1025.photobucket.com/albums/y315/cloverlief/?action=view&current=Capture.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1025.photobucket.com/albums/y315/cloverlief/Capture.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

lets try that again as it did not show up.

ya jsut to get adds to show had to allow 5 or 8 diff things

Have you ever thought about user advertisement?