We’ve received numerous messages about this new login popup on our site. This is NOT our doing. It is most likely some ancient script from our ancient template that has finally become outdated or expired. We’re working on a resolution. If you hit cancel it will go away.
We are truly sorry for the inconvenience and are working to get rid of this immediately.
Update: It is gone. It was a site statistics script from sitemeeter that suddenly had issues on many sites. We try VERY HARD to make sure our advertisements are unobtrusive since we rely on those ads to support us. Anything that gets in the way of you reading our site is bad.
Good thing that this was the first post… I was a bit confused.
Please, tell me you’re talking about the login issue. I get a little nervous when I see those words.
Have not seen this show up yet on Chrome, would have loved to have poked at it a bit to see what was going on.
Thanks for being transparent about it in acknowledging it and letting us know your working on a fix though. Very awesome.
You’re welcome. We try VERY hard to keep our ads unobtrusive since that’s how we survive. Anything that stops you from reading our page is a HUGE no-no. To have a login pop up? holy cow. bad news. I figured it was important to acknowledge it immediately.
So can you fix that gravatar login nonsense when we post? I had to switch to my spamtrap email, because my primary one seems to trigger it..
I’ve seen this on a few sites today. It’s a problem with sitemeter.
Indeed with sitemeter, same situation here.
Are the Hackaday folk still actively using sitemeter I wonder? Surely Google analytics is doing the same thing for them and probably gives more relevant data.
In its defence, I actually prefer sitemeter as it’s a lot less invasive for the readers – doesn’t apparently track them between sites, etc.
google analytycs DOES track between sites that dont use it??? really? looks like google just got a DNS block on my windows… PS i use a different search engine then google
I read somewhere about 80% of the web causes your browser to touch a google server (assuming you’re not using Chrome or a Google toolbar, etc). Simply blacklisting Google’s domains (and there are many of them) in your hosts file will break much of the web for you unfortunately. If you’re worried about it, a pretty neat solution is moxie marlinspike’s http://www.googlesharing.net/ for firefox.
Yeah, I’ve been getting this on many sites. It’s not just you guys.
I didn’t see this at all in Firefox. Or the Jeep ad.
FF 13.0.1 +noscript +adblock plus
Nothing to report on Opera 12, Yet…
I believe it’s because you guys are using WordPress. Since I already am logged in I don’t get the request using FF13.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to say that I love the way this website looks. Hack on.
+1
I haven’t seen it here on Firefox 12 in Linux Mint.
I feel left out now :(
Nothing wrong with Google Iron + AdBlock + FlashBlock
Just a reminder, we survive off of ad revenue. We work very hard to keep our ads unobtrusive. There are no popups, or hover overs. This popup was a goof on sitemeeter’s side.
I normally don’t click on ad’s but i actually have on this site. they arn’t super annoying and can kind of be interesting products.
I understand this, but I won’t be changing my viewing habits. I do not follow ads, period. If I like something I see (somehow) I look it up… I do NOT go through the ad.
As far as I’m concerned advertisers need to die in fires.
agreed. Actual content creators, I have no problem giving my info. Content aggregators (like wackaday here) get blocked the shit out of.
Safari seems required to get it. Explosm.net has the same problem for me, seemingly at random.
Ooh…now i feel like wasting my day away reading that series…
seeing this popup at a few different sites also, glad to see i’m not the only one.
I’ve caused this accidentally before by passwording a directory that had some of my forum avatars. My money is on a mistake but it could be a phishing attempt.
Worked as a dev for a website and for whatever reason one of the banner ads would throw something like that up.
FF12 and it popped up, hit cancel and has not poped up again, hmm
what exactly IS sitemeter anyway?
an ad?
should i block it? ***
See for yourself: http://www.sitemeter.com
No particular need to block it unless you’re feeling ultra paranoid. The login requests are a snafu on their part.
Unreleted to this, but whilst you’re looking at logins…
I often get redirect loops between hackaday.com and r-login.wordpress.com. It seems clearing the browser cache sorts it, but it can be annoying. Once again it may not actually be a HaD issue but thought you;d like to know as it affects your site’s usability.
Havent seen it, but I block anything with tracking.* with adblock so I would never see anything like that.
agreed. Use other means to get your data wackaday, not this google shit.
This usually happens from a blocked banner. For example I blocked doubleclick.com on DNS level and map it to a 127.0.0.1 and I have on my local computer a web server with no anonymous page. When I load a normal page with a banner randomly gets from doubleck.com and redirects to 127.0.0.1, I get a login popup
The joy of the over connected web. 3rd party apps that break things or annoy / infect visitors.
Ads? What ads? I haven’t seen an ad online in years.
At some point in the past this site went from letting me use my email address to make comments, to making me login with WordPress. I don’t know what changed and if it’s at my end.
I can still post comments with just an email. If I check the follow-up boxes I get a WordPress thing for subscriptions
Adblock Plus
>new filter
>*tracking.sitemeter.com* as filter
No more popups.
Adblock Plus
>No revenue for HaD
No more HaD.
Some people refuse to be the product.
Whilst we’re on the subject, I have to say that I like your policy on adverts. Like a lot of people I always left Adblock+ on the “block everything” setting because I got so sick of full screen iFrames with dancing pink unicorns and worse, together with a hard to find “close” button.
I whitelisted you as a trial after you promised that the ads wouldn’t be annoying, and I haven’t noticed them any more than a press ad. Probably less.
Odd that other sites don’t do this – The only other one I know of is whatreallyhappened.com (where Thorazine and tinfoil hats are always in fashion :), but they all but advise their readers not to buy anything advertised on their site…