DigiDame: Let’s Do Something About Annoying Pop-Ups
This is an ongoing series of posts on digital life and culture from DigiDame, aka Lois Whitman-Hess.
I spend a good part of my day trying to get rid of ads that pop up on my iPhone screen while I’m trying to read an online newspaper or magazine article. Yes, it happens on internet sites as well.
I can’t stand it anymore. I see a news or feature headline that interests me, I click on it, and before you know it, an advertisement pops up. I spend the next 20 seconds trying to get rid of it. I pound away on the screen trying to activate the X.
I complain about it to Eliot, who wonders why I get so agitated by pop-up ads. He says commercials on TV bother him way more. I don’t mind TV advertisements. You know they are coming, and you use it to your advantage. You can go to the bathroom, get something to eat, or check out another channel.
Internet ads are much more annoying. You have to exert energy to get rid of them. To be honest, they are counter-productive. More often than not, I close the article and move on to another online activity.
If you agree with me, let me know in the comments section below. I’ll send all of our comments to Advertising Age or Ad Week.
A version of this post was first published as “Reading Interrupted” at DigiDame
Lois Whitman-Hess has been in the tech business for 50 years. She has been writing DigiDame every day since 2012 because she loves sharing information about the digital world with people over 55 years of age.
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Comments
I have tried many “pop-up and ad blockers, and just cant’ seem to get rid of them. I HATE THEM! If you can help we will all be forever indebted! Thanks.
I hate the bloody things. Have tried the tool Pop-up blocker and other software that claims to eliminate pop-ups to no avail. Is there anything out there that can stop this darn stuff??
Adblock Plus seems to work better than anything I’ve tried. It’s an extension for Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera – not sure if Microsoft Edge can use it, though I know they’re working on making it compatible with Chrome extensions.
Totally agree. I usually leave the site immediately! I’m sure that’s not what the site intended but it’s what I–and apparently others as well–do.
I SO agree with you. I get extremely angry and purposely I never read the ads at all! And, just as you, when I get seriously annoyed with those incredibly intrusive ads (many of them smacked in the middle of an article) I just forget all about the article altogether. I think their money gluttony defeats their own purpose since people just abandon those sites. Another terrible interference is the series of social networks vertically or horizontally placed covering significant parts all around the articles. Nobody on my computer list reads the ads and also abandons reading the articles under them. :o)
Can’t stand it … If the sites tell me to turn off add blocker I then them off.
Only had one article in the Wall street journal , that I was really interested in. had to shut them off but found the same
article on another site withe out the junk covering the page.