Pop up shakedown

[HikeUp]

any way to get rid of this pop up shakedown? shows up every time i navigate to this site. every. god. damn. time.

crap.jpg

[Sean]

Is anyone else having this problem?

I haven't seen the pop-up. How long has this been happening? Are you viewing on the app, mobile, or desktop version? Are you logged in or out when it happens? Have you tried working through the pop-up by hitting "Next" instead of the "X"?

Have you tried jiggling the handle or adjusting the antenna?

[HikeUp]

A few weeks. Only when I am logged in. On my desktop (2 different ones) - using Firefox (private mode, no saving cookies, cache cleared every time I close browser). Hitting Next eventually gets you to the shakedown - a prompt to set up a wallet (i.e. give your credit card info or paypal info, etc.). I "cancel" out of that. I navigate away to another site, return to this one and it shows up again.

I jiggled the antenna - does that count?

[Sean]

On my desktop (2 different ones) - using Firefox (private mode, no saving cookies, cache cleared every time I close browser).

Could it be that since you're not saving the cookies, the site can't recognize your account as already receiving the pop-up? If I can't find a solution for this in my admin tools, I'll submit a support ticket to the professionals.

[HikeUp]

Actually it must save cookies at least until I close the browser. It remembers that I'm logged in when I navigate away and back again during the same browser session. Anyway - thanks.

[Sean]

I'm asking about this on the support forum. Apparently it's a cookie issue, since you're in private mode. I don't know why you remain logged in. Checking your login might be a different process from checking your page visits. Perhaps the page visit cookies expire right away, and the login ones don't until your browser deletes them. I don't know much about this level of computer wizardry. I'll let you know if I get a better answer. In the meantime, have you tried messing with the Firefox pop-up blocker settings?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/po ... leshooting

I haven't used Mozilla in years, so I don't know much about that either.

[HikeUp]

I'm guessing it all has to do with private mode. Many sites (NY TImes, LA Times, etc.) block access to those in private mode. This site chooses to nag and pester me until I hopefully give in! I'll experiment with other modes and other browsers as well as the ad blockers and pop up wranglers. Off grid is so tempting anymore! lol

[Sean]

I have concluded that "private mode" ("incognito" in Chrome) is not very useful unless you're concerned about someone using your machine to track your online history. It doesn't stop servers from knowing everything you do. It just stops them from serving you more efficiently.

[HikeUp]

serving you more efficiently

lol. so that's what kids are calling it these days.

[dima]

Yeah, they're storing the "I-already-saw-the-nag" flag in a cookie on your local box. No cookies - no flag, so they'll bug you each time. What specifically do you want to accomplish by using private mode here? There could be a better way to accomplish that thing.

[HikeUp]

The concept of websites that track, well, anything at all, is a basic violation of privacy. It just rubs me the wrong way despite the fact that it does probably let them "service me" (lol) better. Why are they so secretive about it? I am too tech dumb to care about other ways to accomplish privacy. In the end I just don't care about my privacy enough to continue and try to do anything about it. I figured choosing "private mode" was an easy brain dead thing to do, but it has backfired because the websites fight back and annoy the fuck out of me until I cave in.

Fuck it.

[HikeUp]

If I want to be serviced, I'll pay for it.

[dima]

You won't get any argument from me about any of that. But to more effectively "accomplish privacy", you need to know what the knobs do. In particular, the browser "private mode" doesn't do entirely what you think it does. The web servers you're talking to can all still see your IP (the address of your computer) and they can all still see the type of browser you're using. If you want to block that, use a proxy or tor or something.

If you just want the web to become usable again, without every half-assed website trying to sell you stuff, I strongly recommend:

1. Breaking DNS lookups for ad-serving machines by poisoning your hosts file. This is simple on unixy operating systems, but I want to say even on something like Windows you can do it. For instance look here: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm . This will make 90% of all advertising disappear, and it works in all applications running on your computer (or phone, or whatever).

2. Block javascript by default, whitelisting it only where needed. Everything you hate about the web is powered by javascript. Many sites require it now, but you can enable just the parts they need, and not the parts meant to serve you advertising. Usually it's pretty clear which is which. For firefox, look at the "noscript" addon, for instance

These both require more effort than just turning on private mode, but I find it's well worth it. Not only do you not see ads, everything runs far far faster, since most of the work your browser does these days is in service of advertising, and working through the coders' ineptitude.

[Sean]

Dima, what if he visited the site once in regular mode to acquire the cookies, then switched back to private, do you think that would fix the problem?

[dima]

I suspect that private mode makes it look as if no cookies exist, so that would be consistent with what HikeUp saw. The cookies are used for ad tracking: each ad-enabled site you visit drops data into a cookie, and reads similar data from other cookies, so the site can figure out where you've been by looking at the breadcrumbs in the cookies. Private mode tells visitors that there aren't any cookies, i.e. we haven't been anywhere. You can also turn off the relevant javascript: no such cookies will then be read or written. Highly recommended.

[dima]

Oh, and Tapatalk COULD store this flag on the server if they wanted to. So THEY would then remember that HikeUp told that popup to go away, instead of making HikeUp's browser to remember it. But they decided to do it this way for some reason