The 'why are the ads now in such an annoying place' whinge thread

[DancingDog]

Title says it all.
It was fine when they were down the very bottom in each thread page, but why are they now jumbling text to fit them within posts?

[ExSp33db1rd]

Agreed.

Stop it.

[mixture]

but why are they now jumbling text to fit them within posts?

And allowing ghastly intrusive pop-up adverts too !

Sooner or later, PPRuNe is going to drive away all its users, what with intrusive advertising and unstable hosting that's always crashing.

[Capetonian]

What's an ad?
(FF + Adblocker = never, ever see an advert.)

[IBobi]

Popups are not permitted -- if you see one, please screenshoot it and post it or PM me and I will have it blocked.

As to the ads within posts, they are being moved out. If you log in, you ought not be seeing them in the meantime.

Best,

Paul

[MidlandDeltic]

What's an ad?
(FF + Adblocker = never, ever see an advert.)

Same here :)

[Artie Fufkin]

I am using an ipad and every time I open a page on pprune, the ipad diverts to the App Store and opens on the page of the advertised App.

It's rendered the site all but unusable. Anyone else suffering?

[IBobi]

There's a separate thread about the iDevice ad issue:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/532998-weirdness-accessing-forum.html

Paul

[p1andy]

Same issues with the ipad displaying the adverts here. Really annoying! :mad:

[IBobi]

If you see this issue again, please report it as soon as possible. We're going to be testing to see where the ad is coming from, and timing will be crucial.

Thank you for your help with this!

Paul

[gemma10]

Exactly, FF plus Adblocker plus Ghostery equals no adverts-EVER.:D

[IBobi]

I would remind you that this is a free site, because it is advertising-supported. Viewing -- and occasionally clicking on -- the ads helps keep it that way. Any technology used to subvert this can and does interfere with site functionality and is not condoned. Thank you :ok:

[llondel]

I would remind you that this is a free site, because it is advertising-supported.This is the advertising arms race. First we
had some relatively unobtrusive banner ads, then they started flashing and distracting us, then we got pop up/under ads. When the adverts are irritating people more than selling to them, it's not a good thing because either people pointedly ignore them, or look at them enough to see whose ad it is so they can avoid the company in the future.

It's interesting to note that Adblock Plus acquired an "allow unobtrusive adverts" option, presumably in an attempt to get advertisers to behave and halt the arms race. I suspect it was becoming popular enough that some in the ad industry saw that compromise was needed.

It comes down to the fact that if you allow adverts that annoy and distract me, and in some cases eat up my CPU bandwidth for no good reason, don't be surprised if I take measures to block them. It's also not unknown for ad servers to deliver malware courtesy of scripts, so if it's not a static image then some other part of my browser security is likely to take it out to avoid that happening. Flash-based ads are another level of evil (also see bandwidth comment) given the holes in Flash and the Flash cookies that get set and can be used for tracking.

This site already tracks outbound clicks via viglink, and there's the mysterious ibpxl.com, the name of which gives the impression of being there for tracking purposes. The ibsrv.net site appears to host the scripts needed for the forum to work, then there's scorecardresearch and doubleclick for general tracking and adverts. It's interesting that you don't seem to have succumbed to Google analytics, at least not on this page.

The general 'we', not picking on any particular website here.

[Sunnyjohn]

I would remind you that this is a free site, because it is advertising-supported. Viewing -- and occasionally clicking on -- the ads helps keep it that way. Any technology used to subvert this can and does interfere with site functionality and is not condoned. Thank you This is a tricky one. I do use AdBlock. There is, however, a facility for suspending it for individual sites. I was so asked to do on the Rain Alarm website and have done so. But on Rain Alarm the ads are not obtrusive; they simply appear on the RHS of the screen in a column and do not interfere with the viewing. Now I have noted our Administrator's comments - and I do really enjoy Pprune - I will suspend AdBlock on Pprune and see if they are so intrusive that they interfere with my viewing.

[IBobi]

For our part, we do not allow popup/under ads, ads that automatically play video or audio, or anything else similarly obnoxious. If you see such ads, or anything with objectionable content, please let me know and I will have them blocked. Usually our ad ops team will need a screenshot and/or a link to the ad so that it can be targeted.

Bear in mind that we do not and in fact cannot vet every ad that is served, before it appears on the site. Ads appear differently for everyone as well. So often, it will take a member spotting and reporting it before we can nix it.

I have not seen anything bad here yet. At the moment I am seeing a static banner for Hyatt at the top, and a static Marriott banner at the bottom.

[Ken Borough]

My iPad is constantly hi-jacked by ads that automatically divert to Apps for download. One such ad is for 'Clash of Clans' while another is a war game of some kind. The annoyance factor is high. What can be done?

[Saab Dastard]

Ken,

Is the problem on any and all websites, or just pprune?

This thread is specifically for problems with ads on pprune.

SD

[ELondonPax]

[Sorry, also posted this on 'ipad problem' thread. Didn't notice at first that I was supposed to post here.]
Just happened to me. Happily browsing a thread. Suddenly the ap store opened at "Game of War". I've never visited that site (in fact, I don't do any games). Frustrating....

[Ken Borough]

It only happens when I visit PPRUNE. All of the hi-jacks appear to be for Apps that are promoted on the top of the page or at the foot of the page. And more often than not, before I've had a chance to put a finger on the page. It is driving me more than crazy as SWMBO reckons I've been crazy for years!!

[Saab Dastard]

IB admins are monitoring this thread, so your comments should be noted.

SD

[IBobi]

Thank you for reporting -- we've seen complaints of these app store redirect ads for a couple of weeks. They are not permitted on PPRuNe, but we're having a hard time tracking them down for blocking.

If you see one, please take a screen shot and post it or send it to me. We'll get this taken care of.

Thanks

Paul

[le Pingouin]

And this is the whole problem with obtaining ads form third party operators who obtain them from who knows where. You have no control over what is shown to your users and this leaves you open to serving up malware putting your users at risk. Sorry I block ads from sites who use this model of advertising because it's a risk I don't have to take.

[orionsbelt]

As stated by Capetonian

If you have a windows PC Use Firefox as your browser and set up Ad blocker as offered. (I use win 8.1 no problem )
I see no Ads at all on this site and very very few on any others such as BT etc.

I try never to use my Nexus 7 unless I'm traveling and i use a 'thick phone'.
I don't use twitter or facebook and never will. And i dont walk down the road with my head stuck in a screen pretending to be important.

Also while Im about it Flight Sim 2004 runs perfectly well on Win 8.1 even with loads of add on's.
Another point with 8.1 get rid of all the crap that makes it pretend to be a tablet or smart phone, you don't need to set up a MS account ( if your cleaver ) and you can copy from other windows PCs all the things you used to get for free without an account such as Skype and older games.
MS and Google want to control your world dont let them do it.!!!!!

Feel better now will take a pill and have a beer or three.

***

[alisoncc]

The extension "Adobe Shockwave Flash" is normally disabled on my machine, so I don't get all the stupid ads jumping up and down, causing a distraction. I only enable it when I want to watch a Youtube video or similar.

You would be surprised how many ads use Shockwave Flash, and by disabling it - nothing, with minimal effort.

[IBobi]

Is anyone still seeing the app store redirects happening on Ios devices and Android?

[ExSp33db1rd]

[If you have a windows PC Use Firefox as your browser and set up Ad blocker as offered. (I use win 8.1 no problem )
I see no Ads at all on this site and very very few on any others such as BT etc.]


I started to use Firefox a few months ago, and have no problem with it, and have added AdBlock, but I was reluctant to remove I.E in case I wanted to go back to it for some reason unknown at the time of changeover, so it still lurks somewhere on my computer - except - when I sign in to PPRuNe ,then it opens in I.E. with no command from me ! Plus Ads.


Can I safely kick I.E. into touch, or does Windows Hate Point One need it for some reason ? e.g. I've been told that Windows needs the thrice-accursed SkyDrive ( now OneDrive) to work properly, and if I did succeed in ditching SkyDrive - not easy apparently - I would create all sorts of problems, and don't want to fall into that trap by removing I.E. unnecessarily.


Ignorance is only Bliss sometimes !

[Sunnyjohn]

Following my previous post, I have not found the ads intrusive. I'm using SRW Iron as a browser.