Yahoo Mail now locking out Adblock users

[portnoyd]

I loaded my Yahoo mail page this evening and was greeted to this after a few seconds:



Yeah, whatever Yahoo. The ADBLK_TRAP in the URL says otherwise.

I confirmed with two other Yahoo Mail users that this is happening for them. I just wanted to bring it to ABP's attention since I could not find any discussion about it anywhere.

I came up with a workaround (only tested in Chrome):

1. Load Yahoo mail
2. Hit compose
3. Type gibberish into the body and wait
4. Chrome will pop up a 'Do you want to leave this page?' dialog
5. Hit Stay on Page

And as long as you don't leave the mail page altogether and come back, it won't bother you again. Seems whoever implemented this did a bad job of it.

Hoping this is fixed sooner than later! Thanks!

[BrooksNYC]

I'm a Firefox user having the same problem. The above error message started popping up today, and pops up even after disabling Adblock Plus.

My temporary fix was to close Firefox and sign into Yahoo Mail using Internet Explorer (a browser I rarely use, and to which I've added no extensions). This gave me access to my inbox, and once there I went to....

Settings > Viewing email

....and changed from "Full featured" to "Basic" view. ("Basic" view has no formatting options.)

After closing IE and returning to Firefox, I was able to access my inbox without interference — whether or not Adblock was enabled. (Eventually, I'd like to restore my "Full featured" settings.)

Thanks kindly!

[teddy123]

Adding @@||yahoo.com$elemhide as a custom filter corrected the problem for me.

[fanboy]

Can someone submit an Adblock Plus report link here?

[AdLover]

Way to go Yahoo! It's funny seeing all these ABP users squirm when a large entity takes the fight to them.

You guys realize like, you get to search on Yahoo and use their email service FREE of charge, right? That's kind of the point of the advertisements. Yahoo spends $$$ on hosting, design, programmers, etc. They don't make you spend a penny. So there are advertisements.

The longer people continue to use AdBlock, the worse it will get. Eventually you either won't be able to access most websites or you'll have to pay to use them. Places like Hulu had to increase the amount of advertisements they have because of AdBlock users. YouTube Red was recently released, a PAID version of YouTube that's ad free.

I don't understand why you get so mad about advertisements. You choose which websites you go to, no one forces you to. Most of the "intrusive" ads people complain about are on torrent sites or other sites hosting illegal downloads. You realize people that host that kind of content are very limited on what advertisers will even work with them, right? So they pay for hosting (likely offshore hosting to avoid legal battles), a domain, pay for an enormous amount of bandwidth, risk going to jail... and the only way they can see revenue is to have advertisements and you all are so entitled you think you shouldn't have to view advertisements? The guy who made the site owns it, he can put whatever he wants to on it. You don't have to go there. But don't go waste his servers resources and bandwidth if you're not willing to contribute.

Then when websites like Yahoo!, which do not have pop ups, animations, random videos playing, etc... nothing intrusive about their ads at all - YOU STILL COMPLAIN AND THROW A FIT! How do you expect these people to earn money? They should just dish out millions on a free service for you and get NOTHING in return? Where on Earth do economics like THAT work?

The funniest thing about it is ads are a necessity and AdBlock Plus themselves admitted that. They went on a massive advertising campaign using paid advertisements to get more downloads - thus proving the point that advertisements are needed for exposure.

The internet is a great place BECAUSE it's a free environment for us all to coexist in. What Ad Block does is take that free society and forces ANY website that wants revenue to charge a monthly membership to use their site. I'd love to see how much all of you complain when every single site you enjoy going to makes you pay $10/month to use it. And even worse than that, the smaller sites don't have the amount of traffic to be able to sustain with monthly memberships. So you're basically helping the already huge companies like Google, Yahoo, Bing because they have the profits to drive into new methods of revenue. John and Jill who write on blogs don't have the viewership, traffic, or content to justify a paid membership. So they can't afford to keep dedicating 8 hours a day to write content for you to read for free, they can't keep paying monthly for hosting to host that content for you to see for free, they can't keep renewing that domain for you to go to so you can get free content.

You people are truly destroying the internet and I can't wait for more companies to stand up like Yahoo.

[TechnicalChaos]

This is coming from the #1 site with the #1 voice chat on the internet. Oh wait, rather than improving Chat, they closed Chat. They could charge for it like the better chat sites do. but they didn't want that. So let them go out of business. Yahoo, sucks these days. They been letting users down across the board in the name of saving revenue, that they loose more than they gain.

I say:

Because we the users are getting smarter, they need to change avenues of making money or providing content to their users. The internet is changing fast, so they will have to adapt or die. At the end of the day, it's up to Yahoo, to figure that part out. If any email service paid or free, held users emails hostage, they deserve to go out of business. Do they really think they can force users to disable ABP, on Yahoo's sites? LOL

[dakre18]

AdLover must be delusional...I don't seeing whining, throwing a fit, or getting mad at ads. I mean sure, ads may be needed, but they aren't regulated to the point where a company like Facebook could have malware in the ad and not care until they get complaints about it. Which I have had happen to me. I don't care much for regulations either, but some kind of guideline would be better.

I think AdLover could be working for a big company, because it sounds like the same stuff cable companies spew about cord-cutters or the MPAA about Torrents and Piracy (both deny the real problem). They would rather blame others instead of change things for the better to keep up with technology or with what people want.

Now I should say I'm a supporter of AdBlock Plus, but at the same time I just hope programs like these get companies out of this mindset they have to do the same things that everyone else does. I watched a TV show for the first time a few weeks ago and the ads were much worse than i remember they were. That made me want to watch TV less (which i only have for sports anyways).

[lewisje]

This thread just got linked from an article on the Sophos Naked Security blog: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/1 ... s-control/

[Dahxic]

Adlover,

please read http://www.esecurityplanet.com/malware/yahoo-ads-serve-malware-for-second-time-in-two-years.html

Because Yahoo allows any form of scripting, especially when Yahoo has no idea what ads they are pushing onto us, we come to the situation we are in. It's their fault, not the users.

Blocking Adblock users does not do anything to better the situation. What would be beneficial is that instead of blocking adblock users they could show a page explaining the steps that they are taking to remedy the current rise of malware, maybe even linking to a community page where users and the security team at Yahoo can correspond to discuss the issue, once one exists.

[dakre18]

I've had the same problem on various sites, even though I mentioned Facebook in my last post. My biggest complaint is how ads can do all sorts of tracking without having any say in the matter. So adding malware just adds to my complaints. Not to mention how they can be intrusive, deceptive, and overall a pain to deal with. Especially when you have to sit through 20 minutes of ads for an hour long show. That's one reason why Netflix is so popular, no ads for the same shows on demand (even if it's a year behind on new shows). And you pay a fraction of the cost of Cable TV.

To me, i would equate no ads to be similar to having no traffic on your drive home from work. It's so convenient that you would take that chance, which is why ad blockers are becoming more popular. Granted I don't want every website to go to a pay service with no ads, but back to my previous post, that's where companies need to think outside the box to provide their content as freely as consumers want it while keeping ads reasonable and more manageable.

[damnnative]

I'm actually more surprised that people still use Yahoo! mail considering its garbage and there are vastly superior services out there with better filters and tools.

[lewisje]

I'm actually more surprised that people still use Yahoo! mail considering its garbage and there are vastly superior services out there with better filters and tools.

I know, it's surprising that people who have an e-mail address that works well enough (and actually has gotten good since the rise of Gmail), that many of them have used to sign up for other sites with, still want to use that e-mail address.

(I do know you can retrieve Yahoo! Mail with the Gmail client and even respond as if you were on Yahoo! Mail, but not many people know or wish to bother with yet another e-mail account.)