http://www.smileygenerator.us/ is the leading clean smiley sites.It has made few thousand smileys so far.Smileygenerator has all of a sudden it has started blocking Opera and Firefox.
If you try accesing the site with Opera or Firefox you get a message saying :
We have determined that you are using some sort of ad-blocking software or using a leech enabled browser that downloads our site to your machine.
The webmaster (balamm) doesnt stop there.
The banned software currently includes Firefox and Opera browsers
As long as these “compliant browsers” and harvesters developers continue to promote theft and fraud,
or allow blocking banner ads or other advertising which allow me to pay for this site and earn a meager living,
I have no choice but to limit their access or close this site entirely.For those who complain, keep in mind that this site is designed using “Proprietary Creativity”.
I don’t care about opensource standards or w3c compliance and neither should the average web user! We’re here to have fun!
.
Being stunned on seeing this, I joined their forum to file a complaint and was greeted by the webmaster with the choiciest of words.The following are his grudges against firefox and opera.
Problem is, Firefox now prides itself on being Leech enabled. Even adverstises that it can strip an entire site, harvesting all links. It’s looking less like an opensource alternative and more like a way to bring an end to the free internet.
Banner blockers, ad stoppers, leech extensions, what next? Hacking and password cracking extensions?Oh, right…. It’s already has those doesn’t it.
Opera is just as bad but even worse for the crappy way it handles site layout and “drag and drop”. WTF is that crap?
When IE comes with blanket ad and banner blocking and integrated MS sponsored leech plugins, then I’ll block it too.Firefox and Opera browsers are both designed to either fake their identity or just not supply it. They are also designed to circumvent site features and block images, banners, text based ads, etc.
Not a very friendly or cooperative software from a webmaster’s point of view.
They are the reason more and more sites are being forced to switch to a subscriber system rather than provide free, ad sponsored content which users just take for granted.
Unfortunately, their designers took a good idea (blocking pop ups) and turned it into an anti webmaster, antisocial, anti “free internet” tool that blocks everything and hurts everyone.
It would be pretty clear to you that his complaints doesnt hold any ground al all.Both Opera and Firefox don’t support ad-blockers inherently.Opera Software has made is very clear that they wont include an adblocker in future either.Hoever there are addons available that can block ads.But, it is exactly the same with Internet Explorer.Actually there are more ad blockers available for IE compared to Firefox and Opera.
Now coming to faking user agents.Opera has been pretty much forced to do it.This is because of all those sites using browser sniffers to send broken code on detecting Opera.Not only that there are many old scripts that dont work if Opera’s ua is detected.Havard – an Opera employee had written a very nice article about this sometime back.You can read it here.And smileygenerator itself has become an example as to why such a feature is needed.If you dont want to edit the ua.ini file manually download this handy addon from myOpera forums.If you are using Firefox you can grab the useragent switcher extension from here.
And even after thinking a lot I just couldnt understand what he meant by a leech browser.
I guess this one beats environmentalchemistry episode by a mile(in case you are wondering what I am talking about please see this and this).I am angry with smileygenerator, but even more than that I am dissapointed to see such immature behaviour from them.Actually now if you want to use smileygenerator you would either have to use ua.ini or else fake your useragent using Proxomitron(whose principal task is to block ads and pop-ups).Not only that Maxthon is a webbrowser that comes with an adblocker included.But you can acces that site without the ads on Maxthon.Ironical.Isnt it?
Visit Smileygenerator
Visit their forums
Update 1 (5/11):It seems that smileygenerator.us is redirecting to a different german site called smileygenerator.com
Update 2 (11/11): Smileygenerator.us is no longer blocking Opera or Firefox.However the webmaster has made the following comment:
pallab.net noise
Pallab.net has been making a lot of noise lately. Seems he’s very desperate to have his site appear on the opera home page so he’s decided to challenge me. He doesn’t want you to know what he’s really about so I’ve asked a friend to ensure there’s an unedited version to keep him honest. When he restores the original, I’ll have this deleted. http://snipurl.com/nquq
It should be pretty obvious to any sensible person that his first accusition holds no ground.Neither am I challenging him.Smileygenerator is his website and he may do whatever he wants.However, this is my blog and I have the right to post my observations and comments on his website.And, in this article wasnt written to challenge him, but I merely pointed out the flaws in his argument for blocking Opera and Firefox.
I have no idea as to what he means by “He doesn’t want you to know what he’s really about”!I dont delete or edit comments posted only blog unless they are blatant comment spams,have abusive/racist comments.Sometimes I edit comments just to correct the formatting.He has put up a copy of this page here.If you scroll down you would notice that there is a comment there by the webmaster which isnt on my blog.It does make it seem like I deleted the comment.But the fact is that the comment was never posted on my blog.If I didn’t delete his earlier comments why would I delete that either?Feel free to draw your own conclusions.
He says:
“Guns don’t kill, people do!”Same with firefox and opera. It’s the people using it that give the software a bad name and a foul smell.
Does that mean that people using internet explorer don’t use adblockers?
The comment he makes in the last paragraph is really hillarious 
)
Your fanatacism is very usefull. I didn’t have to do much at all to make it into thousands of sites where other fanatics like yourself plot the overthrow of MSN or Microsoft, or IE.
And yet he calls me a fanatic
Oh, by the way palab,your CSS is NOT valid!
I know it very well.I never claimed to be an expereinced webmaster.I am an ameteur.But even an ameteur like me can tell that with the current design the click through rate at smileygenerator would be lowe than it deserves.Smileygenerator is one of the few sites still using almost extinct frames.But heck, this article wasnt supposed to be about webdesigning.
“but doesn’t not block any browsers” I want to say “but doesn’t block any browsers”
Shhhhhhh…. That’s a secret :p
lol!! What next? balamm is a commie?
Yeah, I’m secretly collecting all your IP’s for a foreign superpower who plans to invade and take over your moms basement. Watch out, the telletubbies are coming! hahahahah.
Get a grip on reality buddy, anyone with half a brain can see what you’re about.
Yeah, go find a better site. We won’t miss you. It’s not like your faked UA was contributing to Opera’s standing as a legitimate browser or your own integrity anyway.
I’m sure there are a large number of other sites with unlimited resources offering my image and animation services for freeloaders like yourselves
Love the colors on this site by the way. Real nice shades of opensource standard w3c compliant gray. Really livens up the web!
Not dull, boring, and unimaginitive at all
“Yeah, go find a better site. We won’t miss you. It’s not like your faked UA was contributing to Opera’s standing as a legitimate browser or your own integrity anyway.
I’m sure there are a large number of other sites with unlimited resources offering my image and animation services for freeloaders like yourselves
Love the colors on this site by the way. Real nice shades of opensource standard w3c compliant gray. Really livens up the web!
Not dull, boring, and unimaginitive at all ”
I’ll don’t bother to change my settings because of your pseudo-site! hehe, is more productive to search a REAL site offering its own smilies but made by a real webmaster and real person. And I never go to visit yours even if I modified my settings and now I could access to it.
And your “site” isn’t the only one that offers its own smilies, idiot. Goggle the correct terms and see. Or visit other forums and compare different types of smilies.
And the colors doesn’t matter, what matters is the information that the site has. Other reason more you are a mindless pseudo-webmaster.
And even you don’t bother to answer the questions already stablished here. What happens is that you don’t have reasons to do that “dirty work” and you now try to switch topic.
Conclusion: You are painful.
Naturally, “dirty work” means the browser-blocking policy of him, not the answering the questions
Hmm…balamm…
If you really did all of those things, I would assume you’re in a fairly nice financial state. In which case, buy your own webspace and don’t bother with ads, and let the decent browsers back into your website.
Oh. And I notice you still haven’t answered the people who asked why you think Opera and Firefox are “leech browsers”.
And to that thing about the cop disguise – it’s a totally crap comparison, quite simply.
A website is somewhere anyone can access it, unless there are passwords/similar. If someone knocks on your door, then you choose whether or not they can get in. Not the same thing. If you want your website to just be for select people, then by all means block out everyone except the few that you regularly get, as well as the 11% of Firefox users and the x% of Opera users.
BTW I don’t have faked UA, genius, the mine is the original one because I want to the best browsers out there (Opera and Firefox) increase its stadistics. How I said before, I WON’T visit your “site” anymore, even if faking the UA could get the access, because I don’t want to pollute my worthy and clean computer with your crap.
Don’t make illusions if your traffic doubles, the vast majority of it are users who visit it and then leave it, for curiosity about the blocking method and so on. Before making stupid random statements like the above quoted, think twice about what you have to say.
Gentlemen,
We are fussing too much. The webmaster here has made repeated references to their ads generating revenue as visitors browse the site. By closing the doors to certain browsers, they are actively preventing themselves from generating that revenue, and indeed driving potential customers away as they find themselves unable to access the site.
This is officially known as shooting oneself in the foot. It’s also a rather like cutting off their nose to spite their face.
As FireFox and Opera users, I expect we do tend to get a little heated about being blocked from sites, particularly when it seems unfair and unnecessary (TV company Showtime’s curt handling of non-US visitors springs to mind here).
It’s fair to ask the webmaster to update their site to something more accessible to all, but badgering doesn’t help. We should simply move on – the web has plenty to offer elsewhere.
Refusing potential customers while harping about capitalism amid pages of flames is patent madness. Simply leave, it’s their loss, not ours.
Thank you for reading, I hope this makes sense.
Tom
hehe.. don’t they say.. education instills manners in a person. However rich a person may get, but if he isn’t educated.. he won’t have manners, would brag about his achievements at the first possible instance and be rude to others.
Ballam or whatever is your name, even CEOs of companies don’t have an attitude like you. Also, you conveniently choose to ignore the questions regarding Maxthon. Why isn’t it blocked. It blocks ads far better than any of the “secure” browsers can do. Also why isn’t my browser being re-directed? It has an in-built ad blocker too.
I guess you are just frustated with life.
Anyways.. who cares..
Regards
tomfin, its now moved on to the phase I like to call “spanking the ignorant monkey”.
Ballam, the fact that all the blogs posting about how stupid you have been now have a higher rank than your site, so any search for ‘smiley generator’ will link people to these posts instead of your site , is amusing.
What is also laughable, is the way you denounce the colouring of this site, when your own is so much worse. Sure this site is grey and bland, but al least I can read it without having to get my eyes checked after.
Even more pathetic is the notion that we where going to call you a ‘commie’ (being a communist doesn’t apply any of the things you think it does
tomfin, its now moved on to the phase I like to call “spanking the ignorant monkey”.
Ballam, the fact that all the blogs posting about how stupid you have been now have a higher rank than your site, so any search for ‘smiley generator’ will link people to these posts instead of your site , is amusing.
What is also laughable, is the way you denounce the colouring of this site, when your own is so much worse. Sure this site is grey and bland, but al least I can read it without having to get my eyes checked after.
Even more pathetic is the notion that we where going to call you a ‘commie’ (being a communist doesn’t apply any of the things you think it does). This really just shows us what you would call other people as an insult. It makes you look like an arrogant American wanker (which you really are).
You’ve also accused Anand of being bad at spelling (English), without knowing where he is from. seeing how the Internet is not something only Americans have access to, he could very well only have limited knowledge of English. Where as you, with your poor spelling (no better than Anand), are from America, a country where English is taught as the first language.
Its interesting to note, that despite your supposed good education, your spelling is on par with a 13 year old.
Have a good day, looser.
Actually Anand has a very good knowledge of english.Incase you don’t know he has written for reputed online as well as printed english journals in India.But frankly most of us don’t really bother about spelling when are typing on the keyboard.
Balamm, in all your comments you haven’t answered my main question i.e. What makes you call Opera and Firefox leech browsers.
oh well now I have to use punctuation on the net!
Good lord! When will the world understand that we’re a Commonwealth country. English is the primary language in our country. Even government correspondence is in English.
*Sigh*
I never knew you guys gave so much importance to punctuation and spellings in blogs! Come on!
For your information, English is taught as the first language here too and it seems you don’t know about the education system in our country.
Just research a bit..You’d know why it is so rigorous.
Where else in the world you have to actually “learn” 1000 pages for a 50 marks exam
Was that directed at me? If so, I don’t know what country you are from, I implied that you might not come from a country that speaks English as a first language, I meant no offence to you Anand.
I like to keep my spelling in check at all times. Pedantic? Yep!
Our entertaining favourite web”master” wrote:
“I built and sold 3 Cable ISP’s before my 22nd birthday, did contract work for every major ISP on the west coast of canada for over 25 years.”
Hmmm… okay for the sake of argument lets say that our favourite webmaster got his first contract work at an ISP at the age of 20 and the last contract work in 2004. So his first contract work for an ISP was in 1979 and our favourite webmaster built and sold 3 cable ISPs before 1981.
Conclusion:
Our favourite webmaster sold cable ISPs 15 years before the by cable standards sluggish 56k modem was invented in 1996 by Dr. Brent Townshend.
:crazy:
I don’t know what dimension you’re from but but you’re dates are very screwy.
Check out rs232 circa 1982 or earlier.
From there on, cable was slow to propagate but if you had the money, you could get it. Same as fiber.
You think it’s new? It already old technology.
Most cables systems are actually running almost 30 years behind what’s presently available.
Just because cable was not available in your country at that time, doesn’t mean we didn’t have it.
Contract work at 20? No, I made it quite clear. I built the sytems and sold them. From there, I did contract work and retired at 40. That was a few years ago incase your still having trouble with the math
Just in case you’re having trouble referencing this,
Link: http://homepage.mac.com/tadd/comphist/comphist.html
He got into it a little late actually.
I’d suggest you research CATV “push pull” tecnology.
2 way addressable multitaps have been in use for many years.
Even before widespread internet use, cable back channels were being used for programming and system monitoring.
The major west coast systems began the full scale switch to digital around 82 0r 83. I had better cashflow than the older CATV systems and none of the government regulations applied to me at the time so I was free to go with the best and I did!
I’m not going to bother checking your dates for the 56k modem because it just doesn’t make sense when so many of our subscribers were on cable broadband modems well before that time.
The date for 56k dialup may actually be correct but it has Nothing to do with cable or fiber systems, RF, and digital communications.
I’d love to teach you more but I usually get paid for that.
and yet he still hasnt answered the questions asked…..
i think hes just a lier who injoys making himself feel good by pissing people off,
in other words hes a cs kiddie (cs=counter strike)
no manners at all just alot of poor typing and bullshit.
dude grow up i got around your browser check 5 diffrent ways just to prove ur check sucks. and NONE of them requiered me changing the .opera name of opera….if ur so good at programing then stop me from being able to access ur site :O
It looks like ballam has no answers to the question “How FF & Opera are leaching his site?”
Plus looks like he has opened access to all including FF & Opera.
Maybe this means he’s lost the battle
babumuchhala, can you read at all?
)
I haven’t lost anything. There never were any ads. There are no checks.
You people have been used to the max!
Although I do now have a way of kicking those using Opera or firefox with a fake UA if I decide to. Seems there’s a serious privacy flaw in both those browsers that doesn’t exist in IE so identifying them via a little “script” is very easy
Prophet, I’ve never even looked at counter strike. You seem well aquainted with it though. Maybe you should stick to that instead of trying to act all 1337. All you’ve done is shown what a fool you are, even after I explained how I’d used you all!
Thanks very much for making such a fuss and bring our site to the attention of thousands more users
You might want to focus your efforts in some other direction next time though to avoid the sting lol
Opera and Firefox are crap browsers , ho shot to fame by spreading lies about IE :> ,now dont ask me to prove it :-/ cuz i am not going to waste time with u the way balamm Did ,
@ balamm why the hell u wasted ur time talking to noobs like these , they dont know anything about u or ur site,
Itz very easy to post a flame like that.But it takes a lot more to actually provide valid reasons.
Btw,why can’t you understand the simple thing?If he can do whatever with his site I can also make a comment about it in my blog.I challenged him to provide valid reasons for blocking Opera.He failed.And well I know that you only blindly follow your guru.So I wont ask you to do that.
Yes,I don’t know anything about balamm.I can comment only on what I have seen.And he has acted in a very immature way.Thats all I can say.
your funny really.
i avoid cs and the likes of you in my gaming and forum crawling exp m8. because dealing with stupid people who think they are 1337 is quite boring. I mean really why bother dealing with people who will flaim others because they wont agree with him the microsoft is the best?
I mean really I have my oppenion and many people, including scrurity experts happen to agree that IE is total crap and shouldnt be used for anything more then windows update.
Yeah.. ok… have another drink there buddy.
)
You’re almost comprehensible
Your “scrurity experts” don’t know sh*t.
)
Opera and firefox both have their own security issues to deal with as evidenced by the latest script running on my main index.
I’ve only scripted for browsers pretending to be IE so far because I really don’t give a sh*t about “wanna be” browsers pretending to be another “wanna be” browser.
The only flaming you’re getting is for being feeble minded and too drunk too type a clear sentence
Drugs and alcohol make you stupid(er) ya know
How much you getting paid for plugging this software anyway?
I know palab’s just in it for the glory and attention..
but to be as angry, obnoxious, and fanatical as you are about this for no cash? That’s just very sad and hard to believe unless you actually are an active developer of one of these highly over rated problem browsers.
And judging by the communication skills you’ve displayed here, I seriously doubt that.
Oh, and palab, You do know the difference between overflows, scrolling divs, framesets, and iframes?
No, I don’t think you do or you wouldn’t have posted such drivel.
There are no framesets anywhere on any of my sites. Iframes and hidden iframes on the other hand are quite usefull and are employed by many major opensource portals and CMS’s.
I think you’ll find 3 or 4 on my main index for smileygenerator.us.
You really should try to at least have a basic grasp on the subjects you tackle. Challenging people who know the difference at this point is just making you look like an idiot who’s out for acceptance from other idiots.