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subego · Feb 24, 2024, 09:12 AM

reader50 · Feb 24, 2024, 02:23 PM

It pops down to cover content? Or are we looking at a phone browser?

There's almost nothing I can do about ads today - that all runs through the owner. Who keeps us alive due to altruism I guess. Which makes it hard to forward a complaint.

subego · Feb 24, 2024, 02:35 PM

Both. I was on my phone, but the ad is slides down and stays anchored as you scroll. It does seem to be gone now though.

Totally understand we’re at the mercy of our host. I was honestly considering this less of a complaint and more of a notice it’s happening in case it’s unintentionally fucking with our benefactor’s main deal.

reader50 · Feb 24, 2024, 04:32 PM

I'm seeing this ad style on my desktop now. Though it's at the bottom rather than the top. Ladies underwear plus some Chinese-market tchotchkes.

Doesn't intrude much, on a 4K monitor. Perhaps you need a phone with a larger screen?

ps - I've heard a rumor that if you buy everything advertised, the ads go away. Never had the spare cash to test the theory.

ghporter · Feb 25, 2024, 02:45 PM

On my iPad I’m getting those “slide down” ads…

Thorzdad · Feb 25, 2024, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

On my iPad I’m getting those “slide down” ads…

Do none of y’all run content blockers? I haven’t seen an ad here in years.

ghporter · Feb 29, 2024, 09:22 PM

I only run AdBlock Plus. It used to do a great job of blocking ads, but the way the site is coded, I could see where ads were intended to go. But somehow those stupid ads slip past AdBlock...

Thorzdad · Mar 1, 2024, 06:35 AM

Try adding Firefox Focus to your blocking strategy. I use it and either AdBlock Plus or AdBlock Pro (I go back and forth) on my old iPad, and the combo seems to do a nice job keeping me relatively ad-free.

ghporter · Mar 2, 2024, 03:09 PM

Apparently I strayed from the best path long ago. I have been a Chrome user for a whole lot of years, and when I have to use Firefox (it’s the browser Debian includes in their Live images and their basic installation) I find it unfamiliar. Despite Firefox being another Mozilla browser and everything, it’s just not familiar enough for me.

In fact until very recently I got along with the Chromium browser because for some reason I couldn’t find a Chrome version for Linux (even though the Linux version came out in 2009 when the OS X version did).

Anyway, I haven’t seen those ads for the last several days, so I wonder both where they came from and where they went.

reader50 · Mar 2, 2024, 05:34 PM

They vanished on me too, over the last few days. For reference, I don't use ad blocks. So in theory, I'll see all ads.

I think the pop-ups used the banner ad spaces. The banners seem missing too, at least today.

Ads on the forums seem to come and go, vanishing for days at a time. Then reappearing. I haven't spotted a pattern.

ghporter · Mar 5, 2024, 05:39 PM

Oops, the stupid lawyer ad just came back…

subego · Feb 4, 2025, 01:59 PM

Ads started timing out again.

Thorzdad · Feb 7, 2025, 09:54 PM

Though I don’t see the ads, the servers trying to load them have been slowing page loads to a crawl for me.

subego · Feb 8, 2025, 11:55 AM

Pages load at the normal speed for me, but the “page jump” doesn’t happen until after the ads time-out.

By “page jump”, I mean the part where it takes you to the first unread post in a thread. I have to manually scroll to the first unread post, and then 10 seconds later it jumps back to it. If that makes sense.

Thorzdad · Feb 8, 2025, 04:38 PM

Yeah, that’s what I was inelegantly referring to lol.

reader50 · Feb 8, 2025, 06:19 PM

I have seen the delayed page-jump-on-load, but nothing dramatic. Only a few seconds, and only on some page loads. Nothing obvious connected to ads, which I haven't seen recently. The ads come and go, in some pattern I've yet to figure out.

reader50 · Feb 8, 2025, 06:35 PM

On 2nd thought, I see we're up to 3600+ bots surfing the forums again. The delay could be due to some image file taking awhile to load for so many bots. No strong pattern to the IP addresses that we could ban either.

Maybe the AIs are back, learning political reasoning from us. Which is better than taking their cues from the MAGA replies on every CNN video posted on YouTube.

ghporter · Feb 15, 2025, 05:51 PM

I just (1549 CST, 15 Feb 25) had the forums take at least 10 seconds to load past the plain background - and a space for an ad - while another forum loaded almost instantly. It sure looks like “something” is eating up server/DB resources.