PPRuNe using Viglink click-through
 

While I fully appreciate PPRunNes owners have every right to maximise profits by earning a click-through commission on all links contained on its site (hover the mouse over BBC - Homepage and see for yourself), it might have been helpful if we had been told about its presence just in case of any technical snags, which sure enough I have had.

Finding Firefox unable to open ANY PPRuNe links, and noticing a lengthy viglink URL when doing a mouse hover, I spent some time convinced of a browser highjack. Only after some time did it dawn what was really happening, but havn't yet got Firefox to work, though Chrome does.

Seems that installing a script blocker might help, but surely we shouldn't have to go to those lengths?

Just been experimenting, and it looks like the Ghostery security plugin clashes with Viglink and stops the links working
Its not Adaware or No-Script - they don't seem to have any effect on it. But if you disable Ghostery things start working again.
Ghostery also exists for IE and Chrome, so the same can be expected there.

I can't see a way so far of bypassing Viglink to allow the links to load normally

It wouldn't be so bad if the Viglink link-throughs worked every time. I find about 50% of the time you just end up with the link displaying a blank screen, as if Viglink's own server can't keep up. A real reduction in functionality.

Also yesterday evening I started getting a lot of all-black web pages when browsing PPrune with IE, which usually indicates a scripting error in the page. They usually worked eventually on second or third attempt

I'm also having all links fail now since I use Chrome with the ScriptSafe plugin, which has Viglink on a blacklist. No, I'm not going to whitelist it.

An explanation of what it's about: it's basically an attempt to "monetize" links. VigLink Review - from an Actual User

Sad.

further to my earlier posts, I'm finding on some links I'm having to unblock through No-Script as well as Ghostery, so theres an inconsistency in the way the software works

Thanks for the reports, everyone. We can't guarantee the performance of the site if people are using third party scripts/extensions/plug-ins/etc.

That said, I will pass your reports up to management who handle our ads to see if we can improve their delivery.

Quick update: We've stopped using VigLink, as it was an experiment that yielded unforeseen technical issues, i.e., the ones you guys reported. So thank you for the reports, and carry on :)

Milo was spot on about Ghostery which when paused allowed the links to work.

Not sorry about PPruNe abandoning the experiment all the same!

A further issue (with IE 9) was that it filled up the browser History with Viglink entries for each link you followed

I think stopping it was a good idea. These link-grabbing sites like Skimlinks and Viglink are just used to try to make money on the sly, off of unrelated online purchases. I don't mind if it's in the open e.g. an Amazon Affiliate link that, if used to make a purchase there, kicks back something to the affiliate. But that's my choice to make, not the site's.

"We can't guarantee the performance of the site if people are using third party scripts/extensions/plug-ins/etc."

I get that, but I have to use such things because of "assets" that are linked in from outside sites, especially 3rd-party ads and tracking scripts. Those are the problem, not the actual contents of this site. On top of the security / privacy risks, they use a lot more bandwidth and severely impact the usage experience if I don't control them. On some websites e.g. the Washington Post, I see 30+ 3rd-party scripts being blocked per page loaded. And you wonder why your fast PC is struggling to display a web page? :ooh: