Not thrilled with advertisments.

I know this site has to pay the bills with advertising, but it is a real aggravation when the advertisement takes over the web page and blocks me from seeing the critical information on this site.

Most of the advertisements are benign, but those 'Slenda' ones are a bloody nuisance.

On another note, I really like that this site is dedicated to the healthy maintenance of weight. Unfortunately many of the advertisements are not. A bit hypocritical, no? i.e. "Lose 8 lbs of belly fat per week" from one sponsored link is a bit over the healthy 1 to 2 lbs. this site recommends.

I know what you mean.  I tend to treat the ads as 'aversion therapy'... something to be acknowleged, laughed at,  observe that there's one born every minute ... and then ignored!

Agreed, however that Slenda ad seems to expand and cover half the screen if you roll the cursor over it accidentally (even without clicking). It also seems to be an "always-on-top" window so there is no way to see anything that gets trapped under it.

I'm going to block http://ad.doubleclick.net in my firewall as this site appears to be where these ads originate.

Original Post by d_thomas02:

Agreed, however that Slenda ad seems to expand and cover half the screen if you roll the cursor over it accidentally (even without clicking). It also seems to be an "always-on-top" window so there is no way to see anything that gets trapped under it.

I'm going to block http://ad.doubleclick.net in my firewall as this site appears to be where these ads originate.

 Did this work?  I think the ads on here are downright awful.  Most of them are scams too.  I wish sites could advertise without having to have ads up that are completely contradictory to what they're trying to accomplish

Still working on this.

Update 11/7/09: only partial success.

I was able to block cookies from this ad server which seemed  to work at first but ads either came back or the calorie count page took so long to load that it was not worth the effort.

I then tried blocking the ad server in my router. Again, only partial success. I blocked the advertisements but the web page was delayed loading until the Internet browser timed-out waiting for the ads.

I know this can be done without the delay as I've peaked at this site from my work computer which has a third party web filter the does block these advertisements without degrading the load time for the page.

I'll keep looking for a non-expensive solution to these obnoxious ads. If anyone out there already has a solution, please let me know.

I use a totally separate browser for CC than for any other website which shows just how bad the problem is. Firefox has an easy Ad Block program that makes sure I only see the benign ads. I detest with a passion the discolored teeth and "fat" people ads. Firefox sucks the life out of my old pc so I do not use it except at CC. I tolerate the memory abuse because I am so unsettled by the worst of the ads.

It would be worthwhile to have an option - pay to be ad free or suffer the disgusting ads but have the site be free. I'd pay.

d_thomas and everyone else...

Have you noticed any virus issues on your PC with CC??  I too hate the adds, but I installed the Calorie Count tool bar because I am on this site all the time and I thought that it would be convenient.  Well, everytime I opened a new tab to browse, the URL attempted to access my C: drive "documents/settings....".  I contacted Comcast and they couldn't help after 30 minutes on the phone with them.  The tool bar was the only new thing I did so I uninstalled it.  Problem persisted.  Finally I did a system restore, to the day before and all was fixed, but it was a nasty little bugger.  After I restarted (prior to system restore) I got a screen that asked me to re-install comcast!  Seriously???  Even Comcast was shocked....and I was pi$$ed!!!  I will never click on anything in CC again that is not related to my food log or activities.  That was simply their toolbar.  Imagine what you could catch if you clicked on an AD.  I've heard that the site about.com is teeming with adware/spyware etc.  Anyone else heard that?

Jannid - My father preferred FireFox over Internet Browser but as I have to use Bill's product at work I never really took a good look at the alternatives. I use to use Netscape about 10 years ago but gave up the battle against Bill.

Summer_lover - I've not noticed any problems with viruses from this site (I use the free version of AVG in addition to other shareware/anti-adware products) but I always decline the use of "special" toolbars.

d_thomas02,

I too use the free version of AVG, but not sure if I have any other shareware/anti-adware products.  Funny after all of the above drama, I kept wondering if there was not something still lurking in my computer somewhere.  Yesterday morning my credit card was declined at the gas station.  Long story short...number was "stolen" and was charged 5 times to UNICEF and 5 times to the British Red Cross.  My card company noticed and immediatley froze it, and thankfully I am not responsible for the charges.  I have possesion of my card (not stolen) so I can only assume that the number was likely obtained on my computer.  Hmmm...who knows??  I am just suspicious of everything now!!  Even though nothing else was accessed, I now have every possible fraud and idenity theft alert there is.  As for the tool bar...I don't download them either usually, but I trusted the one from Calorie Count.  My bad I guess.....  : /  What do you use for shareware/anti-adware??

My card was recently replaced because the company that process all the transactions for many of the major credit card banks got hacked into and tens of thousands of numbers stolen, so may have had nothing to do with your PC security.

I am currently using four free shareware products to control nasties.

  1) ZoneAlarm as my firewall ('cause I don't trust Bill's)
  2) cwshredder (kind of a hold-over from the '90s, I don't think its found anything in the last ten years or so and can't connect for updates so the site may be gone now.)
  3) Ad-Aware 2008 (controls tracking cookies mostly)
and
  4) AVG 9.0 for everything else (I use to have a spy-ware product but it got bought by AVG and is now part of their package.)

Thanks for the info d_thomas02.  It's amazing how quickly your number can be compromised, right?

I use Firefox with the Adblock Plus extension (free), and I don't see any ads at all. I didn't have to configure anything, didn't even realize CC had ads!

Thanks Appletwo, I'll have to give Firefox a try.

Downloaded FireFox and then the Adblock Plus extension and ... WOW! Who knew the Internet was so fast!  It's like 80% of the wait time for Bill's IB was loading ads.

I'm a believer now.

cc really needs to reconsider accepting the colon cleanse ad, no wonder so many people are trying it so that the nasty stuff keeps popping up in the forums.

I got so annoyed with the ads that I installed an add-on to firefox that killed all ads...

to developers: when advertising becomes too intrusive, users would find ways of blocking it.

I agree but have to add the ad with the girl that is 5-6 month preg in her before and pre baby (i would guess from not a single mark on her) in her after makes me mad.  Thats a down right lie not just misleading. 

Original Post by baumann93:

I got so annoyed with the ads that I installed an add-on to firefox that killed all ads...

to developers: when advertising becomes too intrusive, users would find ways of blocking it.

I did this too.