Yes, I am using Squid and squidGuard. It turned out that about.com was in the /ads/domains file. (from the squidGuard blacklists file) I was sent to a blank page because I send ad redirects to a blank image (that's what threw me off the track).
And it just happened that I had recently visited the site that told me to turn off ad-blocking before I could view the site. So I put 1 and 1 together and got 3! I have gone back through my history file trying to find the site that displayed that message, but I can't find it. I did find a news story about the ability to detect ad-blocking <http://www.pnpa.com/newmedia/viewsource/111301/strike.htm>, but I don't know if that is the method that was in use at the site I visited. Rick Matthews -----Original Message----- From: John J. Yatsko, Jr. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 12:15 PM To: Rick Matthews Subject: Re: Block my ads? Can't see my page! This has intrigued me. Do you get the "ad blocking" message when using Squid or are you using some third party program? John Yatsko, Jr. Technology Assistant Erie County Public Library 160 East Front St Erie PA 16507 (814) 451-7307 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick Matthews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Kevin White" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 12:09 PM Subject: RE: Block my ads? Can't see my page! > Kevin, > > You can block them across the enterprise using squidGuard and > redirecting to a 1 pixel by 1 pixel transparent gif file. (I've attached > one for your use.) > > I've been fairly successful in eliminating the majority of those <Your > blinking monkey is not optimized, click here for $1,000,000 today!> ads. > > The problem that I was mentioning is that I've been to a couple of sites > this week that are returning a blank page unless I turn off my ad > blocking. These are pages that worked fine in the past. > > I visited a new site (first visit for me) within the past couple of > weeks and the page I received said something to the effect: > ----------------------- > *** You have been diverted to this page instead of the page you > requested. *** > You are apparently running software that is blocking the appearance of > ads in web pages. The income that I receive from ad click-throughs > partially offsets my cost of providing this web site, and allows me to > offer it free to you. If you would like to visit my web site please turn > off your ad-blocking software and refresh this page. > ----------------------- > > I turned off the ad block, hit refresh and it worked. > > I think we'll see that spreading, and I'm wondering how they are doing > it. > > Rick > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Kevin White [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 10:39 AM > To: Rick Matthews > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Block my ads? Can't see my page! > > > Rick, > > Though I've not tried this, the best thing I've heard to do is to use > your > hosts file to redirect all those banner ad sites to your local machine. > Since the name resolves to localhost and the file won't exist, the ads > just > won't load. > > You can read more about this at this link. > > http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~atman/spam/adblock.shtml > > You can obtain a good lists of hosts there or you can do google searchs > for > more recent files like this one which is as current as december. > > http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html > > > Hope this helps, > > > -- > Kevin White, Linux+, A+ >
