← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Happy Hacker
Thread ID: 6297 | Posts: 16 | Started: 2003-04-23
2003-04-23 16:57 | User Profile
Today I saw a headline on LewRockwell along with the other headlines:
*Sick of Pop-Up Ads?* For present and prospective Alexa users, the new toolbar has the best anti-popup tool ever, and itââ¬â¢s free.
Alexa ratings work by the Alexa toolbar reporting home where people visit. By a gentle shove of his users to Alexa, he'll help his ranking climb. Of course, it all may be innocent. The toolbar (I don't use it) does look like it has good features and the anti-popup feature looks very good.
As for me, my pop-up control mainly conists of placing annoying websites in my "restricted zone" (a feature of IE) where java scripting is disabled (so much more garbage than just popups are killed, all without any overhead). Other places where I always want popups are usually put into my "trusted zone" which allows popups and scripting. Other than that, I have a tray icon to turn scripting on or off (thus turning pop-ups on or off for all websites not identified as restricted or trusted).
2003-04-23 17:13 | User Profile
I admire the scheme. He says, "Hey, here's something in your self-interest you'd like, since we all hate pop-ups." Of course, it's also in his interest for you to use the method he recommends. Nothing wrong with that. It's a "win-win" proposition.
2003-04-23 17:46 | User Profile
I knew there was something suspicious about Rockwell's rating. Looking at his year chart, from mid May '02 to the first week of June '02 shows a jump from 30,000 to below 10,000.
Anybody remember what happened in that time frame that would justify everybody on the internet coming to Rockwell for guidance and council?
Perhaps Rockwell is doing some kind of hacking with proxies or something.
:nerd:
2003-04-23 18:02 | User Profile
Mozilla 1.3 has nice features as far as handling images, pop-ups and cookies is concerned.
I am not sure the Alexa toolbar is the only way they collect information. Ad-aware finds a funny registry entry with the word "Alexa" in it. I am wondering if the latest IE has the spyware turned on by default.
2003-04-23 18:08 | User Profile
Originally posted by madrussian@Apr 23 2003, 12:02 ** Ad-aware finds a funny registry entry with the word "Alexa" in it. I am wondering if the latest IE has the spyware turned on by default. **
I think it does. I've found the same registry key in IE 6.0 and I've never downloaded or used the Alexa toolbar.
But since we're on the subject, anybody notice OD's rank lately. Just on the edge of the 20,000 range.
2003-04-23 18:30 | User Profile
Originally posted by Texas Dissident@Apr 23 2003, 11:08 ** But since we're on the subject, anybody notice OD's rank lately. Just on the edge of the 20,000 range. **
Soon we'll take on the FReakistan and Tex will be able to retire on a quarter a mil per year :th:
2003-04-23 19:11 | User Profile
Mozilla and Opera both nicely disable pop-ups, but I don't think they do it with the versatility of the Alexa toolbar. There are a lot of 3rd-party pop-up killers, most of them are poor choices, such as those that close the pop-up rather than prevent them in the first place.
Anyway, I'm running IE6 and haven't found any appearance of Alexa in the registry, nor is anything being sent to the Alexa domain. You might have installed other software that installs Alexa's spyware. Or, the Alexa reference in your registry might be totally innocuous (exactly where is it?).
2003-04-23 19:33 | User Profile
Originally posted by Happy Hacker@Apr 23 2003, 12:11 ** Mozilla and Opera both nicely disable pop-ups, but I don't think they do it with the versatility of the Alexa toolbar. There are a lot of 3rd-party pop-up killers, most of them are poor choices, such as those that close the pop-up rather than prevent them in the first place.
Anyway, I'm running IE6 and haven't found any appearance of Alexa in the registry, nor is anything being sent to the Alexa domain. You might have installed other software that installs Alexa's spyware. Or, the Alexa reference in your registry might be totally innocuous (exactly where is it?). **
New Mozilla, 1.3, does handling of pop-ups pretty well, I've that filter set up so that it disables all pop-ups except the sites I choose. And adding site to a list is as easy as a mouse click. Also, images can be blocked from sites by just pointing and clicking, without having to type anything in. Before I used older 1.2.x version and it wasn't as good. I've never seen the Alexa toolbar.
I am sure I didn't instal any crap that would install Alexa spyware. The registry entry was under Microsoft hierarchy and I think it got there after another "Windows Update". If you are interested, update to the latest Microsoft wares and see if you get it :lol:
2003-04-23 22:29 | User Profile
Javelin: I knew there was something suspicious about Rockwell's rating. Looking at his year chart, from mid May '02 to the first week of June '02 shows a jump from 30,000 to below 10,000.
Tex: But since we're on the subject, anybody notice OD's rank lately. Just on the edge of the 20,000 range.
... Huh, are we starting to beat him? :) Maybe Tex should link to Alexa on the front page and see what happens.
Also, this is the part where I recommend [url=http://www.proxomitron.org/]Proxomitron[/url] for popup-blocking again. I've never had it miss a popup, and yet it doesn't interfere with user-requested popups most of the time. It's also free and doesn't report your activities to Alexa. :P
2003-04-27 13:11 | User Profile
Current Alexas
FRONT PAGE: 49,463
WEEKLY STANDARD: 7,392
NATL REVIEW: 1,924
TOWNHALL.COM: 2,795
SIANEWS: 97,809
POLINCO: 714,968
OVERTHROW.COM: 15,985
ETHERZONE: 6,769
VNN:15,162
STORMFRONT: 6,628
TOOGOOD REPORTS: 38,742
ROCKWELL:1,244
ANTIWAR.COM: 2,112
WND:586 (obviously, even net-heads prefer the USA TODAY, eh?)
FREEREPUBLIC: 755 (....to say nothing of Fox News!)
NEWSMAX: 864
LUCIENNE.COM: 4,305
JEWISH WORLD REVIEW:4,432 (note that this dumping ground of the world's most virulent neocon screeds is Alexa-described as a "daily webzine covering kosher recipes, humor, politics, book reviews and first person essays." Come to think of it, I suppose "World Domination" is indeed a kosher recipe)
RADIO ISLAM: 52,372
SOBRAN: 13,901
(one for Walter) THE WANDERER: 204,330
and finally....Ed McMahon, can we get a tymp?......
ORIGINAL DISSENT: 30,234
2003-04-27 14:49 | User Profile
One more, to slam reality home.
FOX NEWS: 144
And an anomaly. Alexa ranks FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE at 49, 463...but they simultaneously rank FRONT PAGE MAG at 4, 545. Click either link and you get the (exact same) Horowitz website. What this means is unknown to me - but that is a pretty wide disparity for the same damn page!
2003-04-27 15:10 | User Profile
A further puzzler, from the VNN 'review' section at Alexa:
**Assinine, Innane Loser Reading Material, 4/21/03 Reviewer: Sartre What a waste of internet space. Full of hate for blacks, jews, and women. Chock full of exciting fantasy pieces which include painful death to various jews, and anti female postings that are full of errors. Guess your logical brains failed you there, dudes. Might want to lay of the brewskis while you cut and paste from old Nazi literature. Undoubtedly posted by fat, illiterate, balding white male trash living in trailer 2B in some backwoods trailer park, angry at the world because they never could quite attain that lofty pinnacle of success, the GED. I am amazed and astounded that this material is allowed on the net. Aren't there hate crime laws that cover this sort of thing? **
This couldn't be OUR Sartre??? Bollixing up both 'inane' and 'asinine'?
2003-04-27 17:22 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Apr 27 2003, 15:10 **A further puzzler, from the VNN 'review' section at Alexa:
**Assinine, Innane Loser Reading Material, 4/21/03 Reviewer: Sartre What a waste of internet space. Full of hate for blacks, jews, and women. Chock full of exciting fantasy pieces which include painful death to various jews, and anti female postings that are full of errors. Guess your logical brains failed you there, dudes. Might want to lay of the brewskis while you cut and paste from old Nazi literature. Undoubtedly posted by fat, illiterate, balding white male trash living in trailer 2B in some backwoods trailer park, angry at the world because they never could quite attain that lofty pinnacle of success, the GED. I am amazed and astounded that this material is allowed on the net. Aren't there hate crime laws that cover this sort of thing? **
This couldn't be OUR Sartre??? Bollixing up both 'inane' and 'asinine'?**
You can fill in any name you want when posting a review. All you need is a real e-mail address. The name in front of @xxx.com doesn't have to match the reviewer name.
2003-05-02 23:58 | User Profile
A milestone of sorts:
[url=http://www.alexa.com/data/details?url=originaldissent.com]http://www.alexa.com/data/details?url=orig...inaldissent.com[/url]
29.3K
:th: :punk:
2003-05-03 02:53 | User Profile
May is rockin, TD.
2003-05-15 14:47 | User Profile
LewRockwell is at it again. Today's news features:
*Three Digits!* Alexa.com rates LRC as 929th best-read website in the world. Get the free Alexa toolbar here.