I use Firefox for Mobile/Android, because I can add the ABP extension. Though I’m a member, too, so maybe that’s part of it, but I’ve never been redirected.
He just said that Ed Zotti is the owner, and he’s apparently paying attention to this thread and trying to do something about it. Ergo, complaints that TPTB are ignoring the issue appear unfounded.
I’m not having this issue, running Android and Tapatalk.
My issue with Tapatalk is that things change frequently. First, I started getting push notifications. I don’t want emails and messages and things telling me threads are active or have been posted in. I had to dig around to find the “notifications” feature and turn it off. At some point the app updated and it got turned on again, I had to go turn it off a second time. That’s kinda annoying.
Second, the way the toolbar works varies. When browsing and selecting posts for reply, sometimes it gives buttons at the top and sometimes it only has the quote box with number of replies quoted, and you have to use a reply button in a post to pull up a window. And the look of the buttons has changed on me, so I’m looking for one button and it’s not there and some other button is there that is the feature I want.
None of that makes the application unusable, but it does make it mildly annoying.
I considered running my regular browser or Chrome and accessing the normal site, but the window size is too small and I hate having to zoom and pan to read. And editing in the edit window is impossible when it keeps resetting to the middle of the screen. So I use Tapatalk.
I just tried, for the first time, to access the board from my iPhone. As soon as I click a thread, I get sent to the app store. This never happens using Safari on my mac desktop or on my iPad. I was very surprised. Clearly a bug in iOS/Safari on the iPhone and triggered by something the board is doing (a script or something). Hopefully the relevant folks will get this straightened out soon.
I tried this last night. It seems to be working so far.
1).Go to settings.
2). Click on Safari.
3).Turn on BLOCK POP UPS.
4).Turn on DO NOT TRACK.
5).Click Block Cookies tab. Then click block cookies from third parties&advertisers.
6.)Reset phone
I actually disagree. It seems that TPTB are doing everything in their power to avoid really fixing the root problem, which is that their only recourse with this ad provider seems to be to write to their support folks and say “um, excuse me, but you seem to be doing malicious things to our users again” and then waiting several days for them to fix it (sometimes requiring a lot of pestering from us to keep them on it). Contrary to popular belief, Whack-A-Mole is a carnival game, not a training simulator for running a website.
I may be in the minority here, but the malicious stuff that pops up on phones actually worries me. One of these days, an actual bad security exploit will be found and you’ll end up with malware on your phone injected by one of these shitty ads that won’t get cleaned up for a day or two. My phone has access to and control of an awful lot of important information, and for that reason, I just avoid the risk of reading the SDMB on it these days. Since that used to be one of my primary methods of passing idle time, my SDMB participation has dropped a huge amount. These things aren’t unrelated.
(aside for all the people wondering why not Tapatalk, I don’t trust Tapatalk either. I am extremely selective about what apps I’ll install on my phone for the above reasons, and a third party whose business model I don’t fully comprehend and wants to insert itself into a lot of communications is at the top of the suspect list. Not to mention the fact that in this day and age, everything it does is completely doable in a mobile browser, so it should be unnecessary for any decent forum to need a special client app.)
The problem here is that the offending behavior is likely tied to specific ads, which means you have no good way of knowing whether it worked or not. Your cookie-clearing and do-not-tracking might just be affecting what ad you get served, and that may very well be a temporary effect.
I hope you meant restart, not reset.
Restart. The button on the side.
Well put.
My reason for the OP was to bitch about what I’m seeing now (hence the thread title).
However, I’m glad to see that action is being taken to fix the redirect issue.
While there have been problems with ad providers and the willingness to go without, if you follow the links in this thread, you will see that this is far from isolated to the SDMB or one or two ad providers.
Granted, malicious code sneaking in through any method is a worry, and anything that hinders reading to the level described is beyond nuisance into obstruction.
But I was restating I plain English what was said two or three posts prior. Ed Zotti posted he was aware of the issue and working on it. At least he isn’t playing ostrich.
I use Android’s default browser and can confirm that I’ve been redirected to Uber a few times in the last week. I also get security certificate warnings every third or fourth time I load the site.
My phone is basically in a constant state of assuming that the SDMB is malware.
I have been getting random redirects usually to uber. I’m on android.
I don’t have such a problem on my android devices (phone and tablet). I just installed Firefox as my web browser, and I’m good to go. Periodically, the device will offer to install (or turn on) Tapatalk, but not often enough to present a serious problem. I just decline, and go on my merrry way (I don’t feel the desire to learn any more new operating skills than I absolutely have to, that’s why).
Thank you. The fact that I am only just now getting around to replying to this a week later is a symptom of the problem. I look forward to its resolution.
I don’t know if anyone cares, but I’m still having this problem with Android.
The problem is that this isn’t a bug, it’s a “feature.” browsers on iOS recognize URLs for the App Store. If you had a blog about turnip twaddling and wanted to promote your awesome new app for turnip twaddling, you can put a link to the app on your page which will direct someone to your app on the Store if they tap on it.
Unfortunately, like pretty much everything else, advertisers have hijacked that feature and turned it into a royal pain in the ass.
I have no idea why anyone would use Tapatalk, on Android anyways. My built in Google brower and the Firefox browser app both display every message board perfectly fine.
This reminds me very much of certain porn sites that re-purpose a whole bunch of control in your browser so that you can never leave the site, short of re-booting. I stumbled upon one of those by accident (I swear it!) some years ago. While at work, even!
It’s pornographic in itself that sites do that, even on top of the content matter they purvey. What could they have been thinking? Would anyone who gets stuck in a site like that EVER come back?
Because the edit window is nearly impossible to use. The view centers on the screen, so you either have the screen too tiny to read, or you can’t get the cursor to the edge of the window.
I don’t like having to pan the screen left to right just to read the board.
Under Settings/Accessibility, you can “scale” the text size default on my built in browser. No panning required.
The edit/message box can be a bit of a pain. Sometimes seems to randomly choose where it puts a paste.