“MacDailyNews (MDN) has been expunged from this pundit’s bookmarks. Their use of pop-under advertising has simply become too annoying,” ron carlson writes for Insanely Great Mac. “As the site plainly admitted, a cookie generated by the site limits the number of pop-under ads to one every 24 hours. There are days when I’ve seen more, but one is the general rule. However, a couple dozen Mac sites offer nearly identical content and manage to put bread on the table without resorting to such unwashed advertising tactics. So, why suffer even a single moment’s annoyance?”
carlson writes, “Perhaps if enough of us decide that pop-unders aren’t acceptable, period, MDN will change its tune. Until then here’s one reader that’s taking his ad impressions and walking… What’s your take?”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: MDN will change our tune when we can land an advertiser or advertisers that will commit to making up for the loss of the pop-under revenue. The alternative is a site is updated much less frequently without a single pop-under per day. If a single pop-under bothers you enough to no longer visit MDN, well, we hope to welcome you home when we’ve landed that replacement revenue. Or maybe Apple will get Safari working again… Anyway, the full, sordid “pop-under story” is explained here and we also provide a link for opting-out of pop-unders.
Please ask yourself honestly, of the “a couple dozen Mac sites that offer nearly identical content” out there, how many would link to an article that reams them (thanks, ron) and also provide an advertising opt-out option to its readers?
We’ve been upfront about this throughout. We’ve always had pop-unders. Safari users got used to not having them and a few people had a minor stroke when Safari’s pop-under blocker was coded around. Welcome to Capitalism. MDN stopped pop-unders immediately at this time – based on principle – while we investigated. When we discovered a way to let those who didn’t want pop-under ads opt-out, we provided the link and turned those ads back on. Without advertisers, MDN cannot run – this is an ad-supported site. Admittedly, we’re not the greatest ad salespeople, but we’re trying our best (lately) and things are slowly getting better.
We thank our loyal readers for their support. We really appreciate it!
Advertisers who are interested in placing an ad campaign with MDN, please email and see our Advertising Information page here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Safari’s and Firefox’s Pop-Up Blockers broken? [UPDATE] – February 20, 2005
MDN website – Where else can you get a Microsoft experience on your Mac for free?!
I consistently get 3 or 4 pop-unders from MDN daily. As such, I visit about once or twice a week. After reading these comments, I agree with most of the annoyed people on here and will probably never return.
MDN’s intentionally circumventing Mac’s ad filtering is unconscionable. To boldly be proud of making money from this action is totally inexcusable.
Bye!!!
You know if you’re going to treat your readers with such a steaming pile of contempt, don’t expect much love back. What this means is if I ever accidently find myself on this website, I will go out of my way to not click on any advertisement here, I will configure any and all ad blocking software to not only disable pop-ups (flash, javascript, dhtml, and otherwise), but to disable the otherwise unobtusive inline ads in each article.
I agree with max and buffy. MDN, I love you guys. (*sniff*) man, don’t ever leave me.
But if you ever make me get a violation at my company for inappropriate web content, you’re history.
MW Center, as in you are the center of my Mac News.
I’ve been getting a lot more than my alleged limit of one popunder per day. In fact, the first time I visit MDN on a given day, if I hit the Back button to return to the home page, I get a brand new popunder to add to my collection. Pity I don’t want a collection.
It’s rather funny, don’t you think, that this is the only news or opinion site I ever visit that insists on having popunders as a revenue source. Every other website I frequent makes do without them.
So how shall I handle this? Hmm, let me see:
1. Track down PithHelmet, install it, then do regular upgrades every time MDN, or the sleazeball ‘service’ serving the popunders, writes a fresh hack to defeat the anti-popunder code.
2. Get my Mac news from any of the dozens of other sites that cover exactly the same stories as MDN, often in more technical detail, always without annoying HTML adware.
It was actually a fairly balanced decision for awhile, because my habits and my bookmarks list favoured #1. But I really do not appreciate MDN’s cavalier attitude as revealed in this article. You’re hacking my system, guys, to defeat a security feature which is one of the chief selling points of Safari, and that is totally unacceptable to me.
I don’t give a good goddamn that you are (by your own admission) incompetent at selling legitimate forms of advertising. If you can’t survive on the revenue streams that support every other successful Mac site on the Net, then I guess you’re just SOL.
So I’m taking my business down the road.
Welcome to capitalism, yourself.
With a combination of Safari’s pop-up blocker, PithHelmet, and a custom style sheet, I don’t see any ads at all! Check it out:
This is a test:
<href=”
“>
That’s curious… How do you post web links here?
MDN why not use the opt in model…all the ppl who want to support your site and have pop unders install a cookie
it is considered to be illeagal for anyone to bypass my computer security (safaris ad block option )and display a pop under ad
i have reported the matter to the police and they are investigating
this sneaky hacker attack
Принимающ гордость в рубить в другие компьютеры пока развевающ знамя славы, успеха и жалостливого капитализма. Я довольно имел бы моего ребенка вырасти вверх наблюдая порнография чем учат эти снованные общественнаяа стоимость.
Порнография, котор я могу объяснить.
MDn = лысого в кулаке гонять!
Taking pride in hacking into others computers while waving the banner of glory, success and the pitiful capitalism. I would rather have my child grow up watching pornography than learn these warped social values.
The pornography I can explain.
Confused:
try doing putting this: (a href=”http://www.domainname.com”)link text(/a)
just replace the () with <>.
Cpt. Obvious–
Thanks. I feel like such a goon. I now realize what I did wrong… I left out the closing </a> tag! Doh! 😮
Anyway, check this out:
<href=”
“>MDN Screenshot</a>
That is how I see the web.
<href=”
“>Here is a full-size sample.</a>
Wow… You’ll have to forgive me. I’m used to php forums.
<href=”
“>MDN Screenshot</a>
That is how I see the web.
<href=”
“>Here is a full-size sample.</a>
Now I really look like a fool…
That is how I see the web.
This time it should work for sure…
Yay!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”LOL” style=”border:0;” />
Complain and bitch all you want MDN. We are your customers, and the pop unders suck.
Other Mac sites can make money without them. Stop your complaining, serve your customers, and stop the pop-unders.
I like MDN, but no more excuses. Serve your customer base.
I also get more than one a day. I also have dropped from visiting several times a day to a few times a week. I surf a lot of sites and MDN is one of 2 that give me popunders. Everyother site seems to be doing ok with the popunders.
sorry:
Every other site seems to be doing ok without the popunders.
I Hate PopSocks. Popunders I can live with.
If it’s any consolation to mdn, I recently followed a link from this site to Crucial Memory to purchase 1GB of Ram, which travelled from the US (Idaho I think) to Adelaide Australia in about 4 days.
Pop unders? What Pop UNDERs? I get Pop OVERS…..every day, regular as clockwork.