Westjet, fix your frickin advert!

[CpnCrunch]

When I view any avcanada topic that has the Westjet RBC advert (the square one that sits to the right, not the banner advert), it uses 100% of my CPU time (and I have a 1.7Ghz cpu) and brings firefox to a halt. If using IE, it still uses 100% of cpu time, although doesn't bring the browser to a halt (only because IE8 runs flash in a different process).

The advert is just a simple animation, and even when it is sitting there showing a static frame and doing absolutely nothing it STILL uses 100% of cpu time.

So westjet, please get whichever useless programmer that created your advert to rewrite it so that it doesn't use 100% of your cpu time when it is doing absolutely nothing!

I know flash is crap and slow, but it is possible to write it so that it doesn't kill your computer. Or better yet, just use an animated gif.

Right now it's showing the advert here >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[JestWet]

CpnCrunch, get a frickin Mac!

[twinpratts]

Wah! wah! wah!

[DeltaHotel]

Funny I knew exactly what Advert you were talking about because it was right next to your post !

My Mac isn't running at 100% CPU but it is enough workload for the fan to kick into high gear ...

[CpnCrunch]

I'm guessing you have a dual core cpu? Check your cpu usage and you'll probably find one of your cores is maxed out. On this laptop I have a single core. But really, I shouldn't need a entire cpu's capacity just to handle an animation that isn't actually doing anything.

[AuxBatOn]

I think your computer is f'ed up. Both my CPUs run close to 0% with only IE opened and the WJ advertisement on top or on the side. Same on my Mac.

[CpnCrunch]

Nope, just tried on a dual-core mac (previously I was using a Windows PC with single core). On the mac with safari and snow leopard it uses 120% of cpu (i.e. 100% of one core and 20% of the second core).

Note that it only does this while the animation is running (i.e. the first 10 or 20 seconds or so after you load the page). After that the cpu usage drops to zero. And as I said, during the animation there are 1-2 second periods of time when nothing is happening but it still uses 100% of cpu.

Anyway, it's just an incompetent programmer who doesn't know how to write proper actionscript.

Oh, and you shouldn't be running Flash on your Mac - Steve jobs says it is slow and buggy (and he's right).

It doesn't seem to be showing the advert in this thread any more, but you can view it by going to General and clicking on the "smartphone" thread.

[Raybanman]

I think your flash may be out of date. I've never noticed a problem on Windows 7 with IE, Chrome, or Firefox. Nor on Linux with Firefox. Sounds like a flash issue.

[CpnCrunch]

I think your flash may be out of date. I've never noticed a problem on Windows 7 with IE, Chrome, or Firefox. Nor on Linux with Firefox. Sounds like a flash issue.

I've got the latest version of flash, and it happens on three different computers running XP, Vista and OSX so it is definitely 100% an issue with the advert. Check your cpu usage when viewing the advert. Note that if you use IE8 or you have a dual-core cpu you won't notice any problem even if the advert is using 100% of your cpu, but you will definitely see the problem when you bring up task manager.

I solved the problem by simply blocking ad.doubleclick.net from my computers so now I don't even see the offending adverts

[aileron]

Same problem here; very nice ad, with the beach washing by (and washing up the cpu)...

[conehead]

I solved the problem by simply blocking ad.doubleclick.net from my computers so now I don't even see the offending adverts

How would I go about doing that myself? Running Windows Vista...?

[CpnCrunch]

I solved the problem by simply blocking ad.doubleclick.net from my computers so now I don't even see the offending adverts

How would I go about doing that myself? Running Windows Vista...?

The way I do it is to edit c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (just use notepad, but you might have to switch off User Account Control). I just added these lines to get rid of the most annoying adverts:

127.0.0.1 b.casalemedia.com
127.0.0.1 server.adtechus.com
127.0.0.1 ad.ca.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.uk.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 aka-cdn-ns.adtechus.com

It basically just makes the browser try to contact a web server running on your local computer when it tries to access an advert from one of these sites. It will immediately fail and you should just see a blank space.

[CD]

Thanks for the tip...