Virus?

[HewittC4]

When I view PCGuide, many of the words become bolded and have popup windows that appear when the cursor hovers over the bolded word. Inside these window are ads. I remember that there is a virus that can cause this to happen, but this is the only site that it is doing it.

Is this supposed to happen here or do I have a virus that isn't going away?

[hockey man]

There are ads that appear to unregistered viewers. Do you still get them after you are logger on?

[Budfred]

Those ads are compromise that ixl came up with to help fund the forums... They are only visible to unregistered viewers and they don't clutter things up for registered members, but bring in some much needed revenue....

[pop pop]

This is definitely not the only site that does it. Many do, Majorgeeks and lots of new sites and blogs, for example.

[pangea33]

Those ads are compromise that ixl came up with to help fund the forums...
I immediately saw how helpful these forums would be, and signed up so quickly that I never even noticed the sponsored links. Registration is free though, so this confuses me a little. Is it because registered users are at least contributing, and without whom there wouldn't really be a forum to begin with?

[pop pop]

Registered users provide the lion's share of the great help here--which is a large component of the site's "service", and naturally part of the reason why PCGuide is so popular. The unregistered "drive-by's" who just look are the lion's share of the people on the forum at any given moment, by a very, very large margin...just take a look at the usage stats at the bottom of the page. So yeah, the registered users are contributing, while the unregistereds are not necessarily doing so, unless and until you take into account what revenue they may generate by visiting Charles' sponsors. In that context, it makes perfect sense that Charles allows us the privelege of not having the ads displayed when we are here...to some extent, we're part of his array "products and services" and part of the reason so many people come here in the first place.

Just my opinion, of course. Charles himself may have a different take on this.

[jlreich]

At first ixl had the ads even for registered users, but then it was a real pain and many of us were complaining. It even caused some functions of the forum to work incorrectly. :( So he changed it to just unregistered users.

One thing I have noticed since I started using the NoScript extension in Firefox, it blocks the ads even if you are not logged in.

[pop pop]

the NoScript extension in Firefox, it blocks the ads even if you are not logged in.

Shhhhh! ;) Yes, it does. And it is the only thing I've found that absolutely kills all, I mean all, of the pop-ups and pop-unders you get--even in FireFox, when you go on the Drudge Report.

[HewittC4]

[/QUOTE]Those ads are compromise that ixl came up with to help fund the forums... They are only visible to unregistered viewers and they don't clutter things up for registered members, but bring in some much needed revenue....
__________________

That explains it. I haven't been here for a while, so I didn't know about them. Thanks.