As an internet marketer myself I have no qualms with advertising, even intrusive advertising such as overlays or pop-unders etc. This is the machine that allows us to have all these fantastic free services. But when that said, when they avoid basic usability guidelines it becomes very frustrating, and really damages the credibility of online advertising in general.

I have emailed the advertisers to make sure this doesn't happen again

trog lives in toowong

s***ting on his doorstep isn't going to fix anything. Afterall, Toowongs don't make a wight.

still really anoying++++

Holy s*** that thing was annoying. Not to mention attempting to click the 'X' often didn't work.

How come when I click on the X it f***s right off immediately? Do you guys have terrible aim, or are you just complaining, or is it genuinely not working?

the X/close thing only works about 1 in 10 times for me, in both firefox and IE on both my home and work computers. I have pretty bad aim, but not that bad

I have an feeling it depends on what resolution your running.

The X usually works for me!

Its more annoying because it opens up on the left hand side of the page. I load QGL, I aim to a thread I'm interested to read, and by the time I go CLICK! the ad has loaded, expanded, and now I'm going to their crappy site.

Do you guys have terrible aim, or are you just complaining, or is it genuinely not working?

Little bit of a, b and a splash of c.

If one of you guys that its not working for can let me know what res you're running in I'll see if I can reproduce; if its actually broken we can definitely get it fixed up

I'm running 1680x1050, but I'm not running a full-screen browser. My browser is maybe 1024px wide (guessing).

If you can align it to the right it'd be far less annoying.

Firefox 3.0 anyone?

1920x1200 here trog, but the browser window is not maximised
firefox 3.0.1

1920x1200
IE8 or FF3

Sorry to bump this - but if you click anywhere between the word Close and the top of the banner it launches the site. Any way to ask the advertiser to have the active 'close' section be that entire top corner where the close button is?

How is this f***ing annoying thing still there!?

OK I checked this out the only way I can reproduce it not closing is if I click on the "close" word and not the X next to it. The next time you get it can you try making sure you're clicking on the 'x' to close the thing.

Any way to ask the advertiser to have the active 'close' section be that entire top corner where the close button is?

WAT! Is your aim not good enough?! I feel like saying no just on general principles; I expect FPS gamers to be able to click s***.

... but I agree - basically the whole top right part of the thing should be close. I'm guessing this is a sneaky advertising technique to make you click on the ad. I'll ask them about it right now.

I guess my aim must be awesome from my railgunning days because I've managed to close it every time without opening it!

How about blacklisting the advertiser instead? :/

I think there is a problem with the hit boxes. I 'miss' it a lot too. And it's still cheeky to open the ad when you click the word 'close', lots of people have made that mistake, and I bet the advertiser researched that and was counting on it.

Yeh that's a good solution, except for the massive hole it'd leave in our revenue, thus denying us the ability to do all the useful things we do like giving away prizes and serving up 30 terabytes of files every month

Can't you just click the X?

The only times I can't click the close is when it's over the banner ad and when the banner ad is a flash ad, if the banner ad is just an image then it's fine. Either way it's an annoying ad that's run way too long IMO.

The fact that people cant seem to aim for s*** is a seperate issue. (I havent missed the X yet)

It's an Intrusive ad to begin with. I dont mind leaving the banner ad up the top and other advertising, but when ads like that come up it's easiet to block everything untill the problem sorts itself out.

'just click the X' hey yeah that's a great idea why didn't I think of that

the X/close thing only works about 1 in 10 times for me, in both firefox and IE on both my home and work computers. I have pretty bad aim, but not that bad

I've been clicking right on the x and it still pops up for me too.

Yeh that's a good solution, except for the massive hole it'd leave in our revenue

Unless of course everyone started blocking ads because they detracted from the end user experience...

The ad actually wraps up in a couple days so if you can absorb the gayness for a bit longer I'll try to make sure it doesn't happen again in future ads.

yeah you'd better

yeh or we'll all go make our own forum somewhere else... but with bourbon & hookers! in fact, screw the forum!

i like the cut of your jib