I used to use Internet Explorer browser but now love Firefox, but it’s not without its weaknesses, too. Tonight I learned something very interesting about Firefox and Aweber opt-in forms. I had noticed that my Aweber form for people to sign up for my weekly ezine here was NOT showing up at all, when I used the Firefox browser.
I googled to find out why (LOVE Google!), and found the following information about Firefox from a man named Harry Behrens:
1) the Adblock Plus plugin has a filter auto-update feature, meaning that it adds in ad filters without you knowing, and 2) inline Aweber forms are now included for blocking. The filter is “/forms.aweber.” which literally means, ALL inline forms from Aweber no exceptions.
This means that if you use the inline javascript form from Aweber for your opt-in, your form WILL get blocked out by adblock programs automatically, even when the person on the browser doesn’t want it and has no idea that it’s happening. What percentage of your users will have this happen to them is impossible to say.
How to avoid this? You can either use a custom HTML form for your opt-in, which will very likely not get blocked, or you can add a small line under your inline form saying “If you don’t see the form above, turn off your adblocker” or something like that.
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Okay, in plain language for us tech-challenged people, that means if you have a website with an Aweber opt-in form on it, DON’T use the Java snippet version from Aweber to copy and paste on the widget Use the HTML version for your Aweber opt-in form for your website.
Then the opt-in form will show up when you, and most importantly other people, come to your website and your pages! This might keep you from losing some subscribers. Just some useful and helpful info to pass on.
