I'm using Firefox, and have just had the problem. It is very annoying and is very intrusive. It might be alright for the corporation that owns PPRUNE and their geeks who showed this to management sitting back in an airconditioned office with big computer screens. Sure it looks OK then.
But in the real world of PPRUNE, we log on from all sorts of places and (my guess is) many of these are not good, with no big screen, and where this new 25% loss of the screen is affecting the quality badly. I'm on a laptop today, with a torch in my mouth because the lights have failed. I actually want to read PPRUNE without that interference. I can't load all the various PCs I use with cute adblocker software (I'm lucky to get an internet connection let alone anything cute). Time to protest.
What about a poll of our views? - or is that forbidden by corporate headquarters.
Let me at least write to the current advertisers on my screen - fatloss4idiots, pilotswatches and findapilot saying that I will try very hard not to let anyone use their services in the meantime.