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Lifehacker starts Gmail Ads bloodbath
Lifehacker was able to take advantage of this filtering system to create an email signature that should eliminate the ads. Rather than going the profane route, they whipped up the following innocuous statement: "I enjoy the massacre of ads. This sentence will slaughter ads without a messy bloodbath." If you can live with a violent email signature, you can probably come up with your own variation.
Comments
22
Subscribe to commentsPraveen PremchandranAug 5th 2009 11:38PM
That is so totally awesome!!!
cjborodinAug 5th 2009 11:47PM
that's HYSTERICAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RboyettAug 6th 2009 12:09AM
I bet that will still work if you change the font color on that sentence to White so the reader doesn't have to see it.
QueinAug 6th 2009 1:45AM
Also works with racial epithets usually.
jeremyAug 6th 2009 1:47AM
i bet google starts putting in links to lifehacker for the above sentence.
blasztaAug 6th 2009 1:54AM
Gmail has ads on the right? Oh wait.. I use adBlock plus plugin in my Firefox :-D
Michel RijndersAug 6th 2009 2:28AM
When you don't want to show your ant-ad email signature to the receipents: just make the text colour white. Google will still remove the ads.
Step van SchalkwykAug 6th 2009 10:53AM
Is there a way to change text color in the signature ?
Niels van DijkAug 6th 2009 4:04AM
good find! But I see google ads more like a service than a annoyance.
Step van SchalkwykAug 6th 2009 10:53AM
Dag,
Would you have a colonoscopy performed by a doctor advertising in a Google email sidebar???
jrAug 6th 2009 8:11AM
Or, you could just use the ad block plus firefox add on. That works too.
sybgtwyAug 6th 2009 8:59AM
@jr: with the sig technique, you lean on their processing cycles rather than your own. A true hack, worthy of alt.hacks circa 1994
Step van SchalkwykAug 6th 2009 10:26AM
Only works in the body of the message. Adding it to the bottom of the signature doesn't work - guess they've already compensated for this "feature". Now for the next one...
Saint SeminoleAug 6th 2009 12:42PM
I tested this yesterday (along with a few keywords of my own) and it seems to work. However, I won't be using the technique often, and here's why.
I love Gmail. I love that it's free, that it spurred the race for larger total storage and larger attachments (a few years ago).
If it's the ads that keep it free (and they're relatively non-irritating, text-based ads), then I'll keep them, thank you very much.
In general, I use AdBlockPlus to take away the flashy, distracting, long-time-to-load ads that slow up many webpages and waste bandwidth. These little Gmail ads are okay in my book.
MysteriusAug 6th 2009 2:33PM
Seconded. Targeting all ads indiscriminately will only encourage the development of more distracting, virulent ads.
Far better to encourage a shift toward acceptable, non-intrusive ads by dismissing "bad" ads and allowing text-ads like Gmail's.
And if this doesn't work as a bottom-line signature (as some have posted), then is this worth all the trouble? Conversations without these lines will still have ads, you'll have to manually add them yourself (so does this even save time?), and you incur potential recipient confusion.
Are even innocuous text-ads too much for people?
jimAug 6th 2009 3:14PM
Thirded, let the ads live if it's how they keep it free. everyone here knows not to click on these ads. I don't even notice them anymore and if one does catch my eye, I don't click on it. I just google it. :)
threeohclockAug 6th 2009 9:36PM
Fourthed - I find text ads to be relatively useful and unintrusive, and I like gmail. I block animated/flash advertising because it is not relevant and distracting.
AndresAug 7th 2009 2:59AM
I copied & pasted the sentence and something strange shows up at the bottom - a box with "Machine ID" something...anybody???
check it out: http://yfrog.com/07wtfilhj
tortilla riotAug 7th 2009 9:17AM
Bloodbath on its own does it. Blocking google adverts for a free service via AdBlock seems like such an idiotic approach to a free service. Along the lines of taking vegetables from a farmstore by the side of the road and not leaving any money.
Popups and huge flash ads I understand...google ads I don't, they're non intrusive.
~reenaSep 19th 2009 10:23PM
Thanks, so much for this article.
I copied your sentences into my signature in white. Well, it showed up on the page - so I changed it again to white, and moved it as far down in the sig box as possible. It cannot be seen, unless a cursor is run over it.
The ads disappear! Nice & clean. Thx so much.