Recently the ads have become egregiously intrusive, to the point of forcing pages to reload repeatedly (deleting responses in progress of being drafted), blasting out audio, spawning secondary modal windows with more ads or video, and even repeatedly forcing redirections to spamware pages that then try to spawn more browser popups and in-page advertisements. I know the Wrapports LLC (which sounds like a knockoff candy cheap people give away on Halloween, but I digress) needs ad revenue to justify continued operate of a message board that otherwise does not sell media, but there the degree to which the current line of ads interferes with reading and posting on this message board is problematic to say the least.
[ul]
[li]Ad Blocker Plus engaged : check![/li][li]Blur running: check![/li][li]Privacy Badger locked and loaded: check![/li][li]Membership: yup![/li][/ul]
Offering some cheese for your whine: priceless!
Snark aside, there are numerous issues with your solutions. Ad blockers don’t play nice with some sites, they don’t run on some platforms, and paying for membership is fine except when there are issues staying logged in on a particular platform. And finally, casual visitors dropping by, perhaps directed by Google or a referral, are likely to be discouraged by an unfriendly barrage of ads that leads to a pretty negative first impression. At some point it simply becomes self-defeating because people either act to turn off ALL the ads because of the obnoxious and intrusive barrage, including the ones that normally wouldn’t be bothersome, or they just don’t come here any more. Ads aren’t very effective if they have to compete with each other in a mad cacophony that no one can tolerate.
The last time I saw someone link this site on another forum, there was a general response of mockery for how awful the site looked. Nobody even talked about the content.
I’m quite sure the ads are stunting the site and have become self-defeating.
I’ve had problems on multiple platforms but it is certainly much worse on mobile browsers. I did recently have the site try to spawn a cascade of windows, including some Russian porn spam on Safari on OSX, finally forcing me to me to have to kill the entire application to get it to stop
I understand the “if you pay for membership you won’t get ads” rationale, except last time I did that it didn’t actually prevent ads from popping up anyway so I’m disinclined to shell out even a token fee for this ‘service’.
There’s a solution to the ad problem on the iPhone but it can be a pain in the butt. You have to navigate through Settings to turn off JavaScript. That kills those mofos instantly. But most other sites won’t run properly. Either videos won’t load or comments won’t and Facebook, while it functions, is pared down and more difficult to use. So if you’re away and on your phone for quite a while you wind up toggling back and forth and back and forth and that gets to be a pain too and oftentimes it becomes easier just to avoid the site. But be that as it may, here’s how to kill those obnoxious overbearing hijacking/cascading ads:
This is not remotely a reasonable response. I have absolutely no idea why people keep bringing it up in these threads.
This site draws in large numbers of people who are only looking just a few times, perhaps only once. To tell these people to pay $ and become a member right away is ridiculous and then some.
This site, by using some of the worst ad providers, is killing its future. Nice job, there.
I’m a logged in paying member using vanilla IE11 with no additional blockers of any kind on my box-stock Win8 Surface tablet. IOW, other than somebody using a phone I’m about as malware- and ad-vulnerable as I could possibly be. I see exactly zero ads of any kind on SDMB.
For you, membership would solve your problem.
Agree with you and the others’ larger overall point that membership is no solution for newbies. They need to be given a welcoming user experience, not one that makes them think this place is some fount of gangster malware.
If it’s as bad as you/they say TPTB need to fix that soon or this place is doomed.
I recently became a member and it has, indeed, eliminated all ads except for those on the home page, which are not especially intrusive.
My big objection is not to the ads themselves, even though many are quite irritating, but to page hijacks, which often lead to very dubious sites. I was getting quite concerned about accidentally downloading malware.
I understand that there’s a need for revenue, that carrying ads fill that need, but I hardly think that forcing your users onto potentially harmful sites is in any way a legitimate way to raise funds.
I just logged in on a computer that isn’t mine. No ABP and not being logged in when I get to boards . straightdope . com (typed that right into the browser).
It spawned two windows, now, I knew to expect a pop under from previous discussions here, so I went looking for that one to close it. The really annoying one was the pop up OVER the place where you type in your log in info and no clear way to close it.
The Viglink redirects have been discussed multiple times before: If you post a link to a product on Amazon, for instance, the link will automatically be converted into a link to the same product on Wal-Mart. I’m baffled that Amazon hasn’t sued Viglink into oblivion yet.
I will say that, as it appears to me, when we have had a couple of situations where pop-up ads seemed to become more intrusive, that overall SDMB board traffic went down.
It may just be how the internet is changing, but it is noticeable to get on the board a few hours after being last on it and seeing only 3-4 threads updated with new posts. A few years ago, there would’ve been dozens updated.
Yah, I am just starting to get banner ads on the right hand side of the screen IN ADDITION to the one covering the bottom of the screen IN ADDITION to the old-school ad built into the page at the top. On any given page there are now 3 ads - one that’s non-intrusive (top), and two that are in the way of page functions. Ugh.