Technobabble

Opinion-Central Pop Up Ad

Posted by on Jul 7, 2007 | 16 Comments

The Opinion-Central Pop Up Ad is about as annoying as it gets… it uses a nasty little piece of code that spawns windows with remarkable frequency (and not in a good way). An immediate investigation is in order, my friends… tracking down the origins of (and clamping down on) the Opinion-Central Pop Up is of utmost importance. Until fixed, any Web site that allows the Opinion-Central ad to be served from their site needs to re-examine their audience commitment, ASAP. Browsing has become an experience not unlike swatting swarms of green-head flies on the beach on a hot July day. Smack! Smack! Smack!

I’m here to read, not kill pop ups. I’ve seen the dreaded window appear dozens of times this evening.

Are Digg and other fine sites really allowing this hideous thing to be served up? Or is something else at work? Can InsightExpress, the purveyors of Opinion-Central, shed any light on this?

I have nothing against online surveys… if you have the time to waste, go for it. But the wisest companies utilize paid surveys, so as not to antagonize the audience and poison the poll. One has to question the validity of the data created by Opinion-Central’s tactics.

Seems like it’s time to select Safari’s Block Pop Up Windows option… just this sometimes Centrist’s opinion.

[tags]online surveys, paid surveys[/tags]

  • ED

    I agree with you. The Opinion Central pop-up is very annoying. How do I get rid of it?

  • Jill

    I lost a day of work because of this pop up from opinion-central. I could not email clients or do anything on line. It was the most annoying thing that has ever happened.
    I called the Geek-Squad and they would be happy to remove the pop-up for $249.00. I am not even sure how it got to my computer. I have my Virus protection up to date. I sent an unfriendly email to opinion-central.
    Here is some info. on Opinion-Central I got from a google search:
    (If you require immediate assistance, please contact us at 203-359-4174 during the hours of 9AM to 5PM EST. Or you can send me an email at CArnold@Opinion-Central.com).
    I may have my attorney send them the bill for getting their pop up out of my computer. When I thought it could not get any worse it did. I went to my back up computer and somehow they found me there too. I have two computers that Opinion-Central has wrecked and made unable to use.

  • Sammie

    In order to get rid of the popup, you can add it to your hosts file and this will stop it from opening up. In order to add it to your hosts file you must remove the read only check mark on hosts then you can edit it in notepad. Remember to restore the read only to the hosts file once you have added the site http://www.opinion-central.com to your hosts file. the entry should look like this. 127.0.0.1 http://www.opinion-central.com
    Note:spybot S&D enters several bad sites into the hosts file and effectively blocks them. I encountered this particular flash popup while visiting http://www.frontdoor.com a real estate site link from hgtv. This frontdoor.com site also serves up alexa and other spyware. I say this because I had no problems with this particular popup until I visited this site from the HGTV site. When I ran spybot, after visiting the site, these were in the entries found as spyware. You can also add this site to your security and privacy features block in IE. If this doesnt work, then also go to the flash settings and eliminate 3rd party ads. I hope this works for you.

  • Sammie

    This direction is for Windows xp pro. In order to stop this popup, you must add insightexpressai.com to your hosts file. I earlier explained the adding of opinion-central.com to the hosts file but that did not stop the popup. Adding insightexpressai.com to the hosts file will. The way to do this is in your search criteria click advanced and search for hidden files and folder. Also, uncheck hide files in windows explorer under (tools/folder options/View). Next search for the hosts file. it is usually found in c:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc in Windows xp pro. Next right click on the file and click on properties and uncheck read only. Next Open the file in Notepad. Next add (127.0.0.1 insightexpressai.com) without the parentheses. Next click on file/save. Next right click on the hosts file and recheck read only. I also suggest blocking this site in your Internet options security and privacy settings. I also suggest using Spybot S&D to add other blocked entries automatically to your hosts file. Make sure you recheck to hide those files in windows explorer (tools/folder options/View) after you are through. Hope this helps.

  • ks

    These kind of ads are not only annoying, but I think they must be a security risk too. The have found a way to keep the window hidden, for what purpose one can only imagine. It is possible to kill the opinioncentral.com ads by resizing your browser, and making sure that you don’t allow java to resize windows (this can be set in most browsers). Someone needs to file a class action lawsuit and teach them a lesson.

  • Lee Fox

    I am an attorney and I am really sick of this and other survey style pop-ups. I too want these pop-ups to end, ASAP. SO: if anyone has the background on the pop-ups sites, Name, Address, Website, where they originated and / or how to resolve or obliterate the matter and would not mind being enjoined in a class action suit as a plaintiff I will pursue this matter on a pro-bono basis. Depending on the response I will seek to enjoin this as well as other sites from using the ‘Pop-Up’ vehicle as an advertising annoyance medium. REALISTICALLY, unless you can demonstrate otherwise, the damages would be minimal (most likely non-existent) but the SPAMMERS could be stopped with the secondary benefit being they could be subject to criminal sanctions for continued proliferation of this garbage. With a little cooperation, i.e. get me the information on the culprits and I’ll try to put an end to their little ruse. Please don’t think I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart, I was going to do it anyway, however it is much easier to file a suit if someone else is doing all the leg work. That would be you! Respond to leefox3@gmail.com – Lee

  • Alex

    Hi, i just saw this from googling stuff from google. whenever my computer isnt doing anyone, not even opened a internet browser yet, the opinion-central thing pops up, so i click the thing on the start bar thing (sorry, i do not really know computer terms). It shows up for like 3 seconds with nothing in it then it minimizes back into the start bar thing. it is so annoying. has anyone found a way to stop it?

  • http://opinionCentral celeste

    I am so grateful to have read this! You have just preveed me from falling into the opinion abyss of pop up hell!

  • skip

    if every one wants to avoid pesky pop-ups and virus’ and all this type of stuff,I highly recommend that people buy apple computers since they don’t allow these things to destroy your pc.They are easy to use and very reliable to use

  • foo

    Errr.

    Adding loopbacks to the hostfile is a bad idea. Don’t do this. By adding 127.0.0.1 to your hosts file you are redirecting outbound connections to your own machine. Which means that you are providing a predictable way for web scripts to bypass your firewall.

    Use your browser security features, or your firewall software to block the domain. If you want to use the hosts file, use an address in the RFC 1918 space, like 172.16.255.254 for example. This is address should never exist on a public network and only rarely exists on private ones.

    THEN, contact the offending website and request they subscribe to one of the http blacklist systems like http://www.projecthoneypot.org

    Ultimately, this is the only long term solution.

    Have a nice day.

  • http://OPTOUT vjw

    http://www.opinion-central.com/faq1.asp
    will temp fix the Opinion central popups

  • mah

    this thing is popping up with all yahoo.com sites also!

  • Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

    Be still my dog of war! l understand your pain. We’ve all lost someone we love. But we do it my way! We do it my way! Fear is our ally the gasoline will be ours. Then, you shall have your revenge.

  • Angeline Markham

    Am I the only one who also noticed the utter stupidity and incompetence of those who designed the ad?

    It stalled at 12% loading. There was no word to click on in the box provided for it (whether it might have said submit or continue is unknown). One can only conclude that they are content to annoy and enrage those who hate intrusive and blocking popups, that they don’t really care about getting the information. They have probably set us up to be hacked also.

    My computer is great ramwise and vintagewise. It’s kept in perfect order and not overburdened or low on resources. If they can’t even run a simple popup ad on my computer, what were they thinking? Or were they thinking at all?

    In conclusion, if they really wanted answers, an ad within the boundaries of propriety, not overly intrusive, would be perfectly adequate. Evidently for them that’s rocket science.

    They just shot themselves in the foot.

  • GMoney 2009

    I have had this trouble lately on a Mac OSX 10.5.7 running Firefox 3.0.11.

    I am never presented with an actual survey, only a tiny pop up window (I think it originally happened in the bottom right, with only 1 pixel width being visible, the rest off the edge of the screen.) I eventually identified and dragged the lil piece o’sh*t into view, only to encounter the next set of issues.

    It takes my hidden windows and brings them to the front one at a time. Any time the offensive window is brought to the front, it begins the process again. I am unable to view URL or source code for the window.

    I contacted the company via complaint form, and got a form letter back. I did what the form letter said (as mentioned above about blocking cookies) and it did not help.

    I contacted them via phone, and they placed the blame on those implementing their great software.

    I informed them that it might be their problem, since when i googled Opinion-Central – they came up in the top spot and the next 99 search results were complaints about this very issue. They were still unimpressed.

    I’ve informed finance.yahoo.com of a page that triggered it.

    If you want to complain to the company personally, you can call (203) 359-4174 but they seem to be unresponsive to the problem, blaming it instead on the implementation of sites hosting the survey software. Press 4 for Sales – nothing like tying up an income generating extension, like sales, with feeble complaints that don’t get resolved.

    GOOD LUCK!

  • Eric the Ad Consultant

    Yo! Paid surveys don’t yield good data due to the self selected sample. Random surveys like the annoying, ghastly, intrusive and disgusting opinion-central pop under are much better.