Combating the Drudge Report’s Highly Annoying Ads

Warning! Off topic post.

If you rely on the Drudge Report like I do, for your daily headline news, but hate their HIGHLY annoying pop under ads, here’s a tip. Download the Firefox browser then set the home page of the browser to the Drudge Report. Then use Firefox for your Drudge Report reading only. Of course, you can use it for your other browsing needs, but I wouldn’t. It’s slower than IE and much less compatible with online activities. But, at least for now, the Drudge Report’s pop-under advertisers haven’t been able to come up with a work around for Firefox’s pop-up killer like they have for all the other ones I’ve tried to use.

I’ve sent email after email to Drudge PLEADING with him to kill those pop unders. It just gives his site a bad reputation for annoying ads. He finally put a display ad down the left side of the page, but he should be doing his own text ad area. Uh, HELLO! Your site is known for TEXT and people come to expect to read each text entry. Text ads would be MUCH more effective for his advertisers and 1000% better for his readers than a pop under.

Not sure what his logic is but there’s a lesson here. If you rely on traffic to pay your bills, don’t beat them over the head when they enter the door. It’s like having someone with a big sign stand at the front of your store and when someone walks in, they make the customer slow down ever so slightly and shove a sign advertising someone but your store in your face for 5 seconds before letting them pass (which is how long the pop under ad slows down your browser while loading it before you can take control of browsing again.)

For someone who appears to be as smart as Drudge, it just doesn’t make sense.