Disturbing Ebay Audio Advertisements. WTF! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 03:43:42 am
content: I was just browsing around on Ebay AU looking at a few items and suddenly without warning a fucking audio advertisement started to play through my speaker system for Aldi products, and then on another Ebay page the same again for Jeep started, I had no idea or clue where the sound was emanating from and it was only when I closed the page that it stopped, who’s stupid idea was this and how would they like the crap scared out of them, arseholes.I always have pretty much everything disabled in Chrome and think it may have been a flash player plugin that was somehow re-enabled, I’ve disabled it again and restarted Chrome and it appears to have stopped for the moment, fucking parasites., I don't apologise for the language as I am really pissed off.

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 03:59:53 am
content: HTML5 video and audio don't require plugins. So it turns out that if eBay want to be this aggressive, turning off plugins won't necessarily be enough to stop them.You can see which tab is producing sound in Chrome because it should have a little speaker symbol up in the tab label.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 04:06:36 am
content: I must say uninvited video streaming really gets my goat.It may be technically straightforward ... but it is simply rude.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 04:10:41 am
content: Thanks for the advice rs20, I was a bit lost and shocked when it first happened and simply went straight into setting to see what was enabled, it only occurred after sitting on an Ebay page for a while and the second time around I was looking at a listings page locally with the two plugins enabled and then walked away to make a coffee and the stupid Aldi audio track started again, after disabling those two plugins it hasn't occurred again since so I will leave them disabled, don't know what else it could be but a Google search indicates that I am not the only one suffering.As mentioned the issue may not have anything to do with those Chrome settings at all but it was the first thing I tried and perhaps just got lucky, running Windows 7 Ultimate with a current version of Chrome.

author: Jeff_Birt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 12:46:58 pm
content: EBay like some other major sites have been getting worse and worse I think. At times the slow EBay response makes it almost unusable (the browser you use does not matter.) A month or so ago I got a notice from them saying they were going to stop using 'active' content when you are on your 'My EBay' pages (I seem to recall this was more to do with the seller sections.) I have not had any audio 'pop ups' from EBay yet though (have had form other sites).I have been pricing used cars the last week and checking NADA and KBB websites which are so slow to load the advertising that it is like being on dial up internet service. You go to click on something and at the same time a new ad loads and the screen shifts down 1cm and now you clicked on the wrong thing.Many new websites will now not let you stop the stupid video from playing when you are trying to read an article; very annoying.Do the people running these website think pissing people off is a great way to earn more money? I don't know if individual feedback means much to them though.

author: RGB255_0_0
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 12:51:33 pm
content: Install uBlock Origin addon. You can continue to whitelist as you choose and isn't a sell-out like Adblock Plus.

author: ZeTeX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 01:34:10 pm
content: In a non-electronics related forum I browse in there was a bug or something where you could make a video play instantly in the signature, so somebody put porn moans and would reply on every thread, and when you entered the thread.. with speakers.. yeah.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 03:05:06 pm
content: Quote from: Brumby on October 28, 2016, 04:06:36 amreason why i stopped caring and installed adblock

author: setq
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 03:24:47 pm
content: I've had this sort of thing a few times. I usually use my phone for music these days and skip the PC so I don't get any unexpected surprises.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 03:32:23 pm
content: since a couple of updates skype has them too. very loud, annoying and unexpected. screw you. blocked the ad domain instatnly.

author: setq
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 03:45:21 pm
content: Skype has them?! Microsoft sure know how to be dicks.

author: CraigHB
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 03:53:33 pm
content: Quote from: RGB255_0_0 on October 28, 2016, 12:51:33 pmThanks for the tip. Been having a lot of problem with pop-ups lately. Installed that blocker, looks like a nicely done extension.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 04:21:04 pm
content: I use Adblock Plus here and, thankfully, it works and keeps the stupid stuff out.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 04:29:11 pm
content: Adblocker Ultimate is my current favourite, nothing seems to get past that. If I'd been the author I'd have played safe and called it Adblocker Penultimate as there's bound to be yet another better one along before long.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 04:58:31 pm
content: I've been using a hosts file for years, even though it's not the greatest way to block advertising, but along with NoScript and Ghostery the job seems be get done. Only rarely do I see an ad. I am going to look into this uBlock Origin though.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 05:08:19 pm
content: Quote from: setq on October 28, 2016, 03:45:21 pmyou also have ads on windows 10 tiles, but that may be a bit harder to spot.. for now. ("suggested apps")

author: setq
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2016, 05:09:54 pm
content: I've got windows 10 enterprise in the office and windows 8.1 at home so I don't get shot with them

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 29, 2016, 12:33:45 am
content: I was hoping to record the audio overlay that I first experienced so others would get an idea of how loud and annoying they were, there was no video displayed or popups and the ads were not related to anything on the page that I was viewing at the time, they were not easily caught at mostly around 15 seconds in duration at random intervals and It would appear that Ebay had possibly loaded a link to existing Youtube videos and played the relevant audio stream as I did find the same recordings on Aldi Youtube videos and others.I hadn't experienced this behavior before so it came as quite a shock and I do not know how long it has been present as I don't always have the speakers enabled, anyway disabling the Flash and Widevine plugins as seen in my first post seems to have resolved the issue on my particular setup without running an ad blocker, other audio and video content appear to be unaffected with these disabled so all is well for the moment, I found these ads extremely annoying and aggravating, nice ploy Ebay you fuckwits.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2016, 03:09:22 am
content: I hate auto playing video/audio. Heck even on sites like Youtube, I would rather that the video loads but still requires me to hit play to start it. But the worse is when it's completely unexpected.

author: CraigHB
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2016, 02:08:33 pm
content: Quote from: Muttley Snickers on October 29, 2016, 12:33:45 amI disabled Flash some time ago. There are sites still using it so I just take my lumps from a-hole web developers that still use it...eh hem Webench. Even Adobe says not to use Flash anymore because it's so full of holes and they're not going to fix it.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 30, 2016, 02:41:31 am
content: When anybody complains about ad content being blocked, my response is always the same. Anything animated? Blocked. Anything making a noise? Blocked. Anything popping under or over? Blocked. Code being executed on my system? Blocked. Too bad some advertisers ruined it for the rest.Besides using uBlock Origin and noScript, Firefox has a configuration setting, media.autoplay.enabled, which can be set to disable automatically playing most content.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 30, 2016, 03:47:51 am
content: Quote from: Muttley Snickers on October 28, 2016, 03:43:42 amWhen did this start happening? I have never ever come across anything like this on eBay or any other site.Then again, I block a lot of 'junk' at my firewall based on theMVPS list.I also block all cookies unless those which I specifically allow.