Ad overload!

[meyerweb#CB]

My phone is rooted, and I normally run an ad-blocking hosts file. I was having an issue accessing some web sites that I thought might be related to the hosts file, so I swapped the stock hosts back in.

Man, I couldn't put up with the mobile internet if I had to deal with all those ads all the time! And AC is as bad as any. AC's mobile site has pop up ads, ads that block almost the entire page and have to be scrolled away, ads at the bottom of the screen. Ads on every page - multiple ads on most.

I know ads pay the bills, but the mobile site is ridiculous. If I couldn't block ads, I would NEVER, EVER visit AC's mobile page. It's truly over-the-top obnoxious.

I don't know how people without rooted phones deal with the mobile web.

 

[Climb14er]

My phone is rooted, and I normally run an ad-blocking hosts file. I was having an issue accessing some web sites that I thought might be related to the hosts file, so I swapped the stock hosts back in.

Man, I couldn't put up with the mobile internet if I had to deal with all those ads all the time! And AC is as bad as any. AC's mobile site has pop up ads, ads that block almost the entire page and have to be scrolled away, ads at the bottom of the screen. Ads on every page - multiple ads on most.

I know ads pay the bills, but the mobile site is ridiculous. If I couldn't block ads, I would NEVER, EVER visit AC's mobile page. It's truly over-the-top obnoxious.

I don't know how people without rooted phones deal with the mobile web.

I totally agree! My Note 5 is not rooted and I have no AD blocker.

These Ads that constantly come scrolling up from the bottom on mobile... ALL THE TIME. .. it's way too overkill.

I recognize that the site needs revenue and I'm not against this at all.

However, these scrolling Ads coming up from the bottom are obnoxious and persistent to a point of overload and overbearing.

This is just my opinion from being on the Internet since the old bulletin board days of 1988, having my own domain since 1994 and my same cell phone number since 1993.

If there's a fix for stopping this upward AD scrolling from the bottom, I'm ready to listen.

Too much is way TOO MUCH!

 

[road_kill]

I agree, right now I have to scroll away metro pcs ad on every screen I visit. Is there a way that they can keep the ads down at the bottom of the screen instead of us having to scroll them up all the time?

 

[Climb14er]

The obnoxious bottom to top rolling and scrolling metro pcs ad has disappeared.

I can only thank the admins for this!

Kudos!

 

[Trees]

There's a whole new ad section at the bottom of each article before the comments. The ads look, well, kind of spammy. Agree with the sentiment above though and realize that revenue has to be made. These new ads in my humble opinion cheapen the site's "look and feel". Guess I'll learn to visually ignore them over time.

 

[stevovr]

Ghostery browser works well but doesn't stop the click bait at the bottom of the page.

 

[Bruce39]

Another option is Firefox, Go to app settings, tools, add-ons - this takes you to their web site where you can install add-ons. Two of the ones I use are an add blocker (they have several) & Ghostery
Works good. FYI - Ghostery has blocked 8 sites from tracking on this forum thread

 

[meyerweb#CB]

And no response from AC at all. You can tell how much they care about their readers. Half of the stories are nearly devoid of content these days. Little more than click bait.

 

[Aquila]

I do know that in most of the threads where James has responded to issues that members have with ads, that specifics regarding bugs/bad ads are requested so that those specific things can be dealt with. The OP of this didn't appear to have a question in it - just a complaint that said that typically ads are blocked and for whatever reason you aren't blocking ads and that you don't like not blocking ads. So, I guess I"ll ask ... are there specific ads or site features that are misbehaving and doing things that they ought not to do? Or is it just the fact that there are ads? Have you tried using the AC App for Android, Tapatalk instead of the mobile site (if the mobile site isn't working for you)?

 

[Aquila]

So two relevant posts deleted from the thread, neither of which broke any forum rules. So I'm at a complete loss as to why this has happened?

Not sure, but I found and fixed it.

 

[Phil Nickinson]

And no response from AC at all. You can tell how much they care about their readers. Half of the stories are nearly devoid of content these days. Little more than click bait.

That's pretty much the silliest thing I've ever heard. First off, I'm not sure what you mean by "no response from AC at all." Is that supposed to be blanket statement? Flip through my post history — or that of any other writer, admin or moderator — and then come back and try to tell me we don't care about our readers.

I'm not sure what you think you mean by "devoid of content." Are some posts better than others? Sure. That's true of any publication. Or forum thread for that matter. But "devoid of content?" Not hardly. So be careful with blanket statements that wouldn't go so far as to keep your feet warm at night.

Ads are a mess. That's not a secret. It's a balancing act, for sure, and we work every single day to at least attempt to swing things back toward neutral. It's also not a secret that the editorial side of things doesn't control ads. At all. You've got enough posts here (more than me, I might add) that you should know this by now. And none of that is a secret, either. So either folks are purposefully forgetting that fact, or looking to actively mislead other folks for some reason.

(By the way, this is also why we're happy to spend a lot of money developing our native app.)

If you have a question, ask it. If you want to know why something is the way it is, just ask. I'm more than happy to talk about behind-the-scenes stuff. (Spoiler: It's generally not nearly as exciting as folks think.)

And if you see a bad ad, please leave feedback here. It helps.

But strolling in here and boasting of ad blocking and moaning of clickbait when you know damn well that any one of us is on the road any number of days a month working our asses off, and then wondering why nobody is in a rush to get on one knee and apologize for something we have little (or no) control over in the first place? That's a nonstarter.

I'll thank folks for the discussion, and now I'm going back to work on this Pixel C. Unless you think that's not worthy content, either.

 

[Phil Nickinson]

Just had this ad take over my Note 4 stock browser (while in the Note 4 forum) popping a prompt over my screen that I was selected by Facebook to win a prize (I don't even use/have an account on Facebook):

Wait a second ...

Landing

View attachment 208811

That looks like you're browsing within the Facebook app there? (Don't get me started on in-app browsers.)

 

[Phil Nickinson]

Nope, couldn't have been Facebook as I don't have the app installed nor is it pre-loaded (if it were it would be disabled anyway). It was just the stock web browser (labeled Internet) on my Note 4. The ad popup was probably designed to look like some kind of in-app browser though. But thankfully haven't seen it again since reporting it.

Then hit that bad ads link and let's get it taken care of! http://phon.es/badads

(Also try clearing your cache and cookies if you haven't already.)

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Climb14er]

The obnoxious bottom to top rolling and scrolling metro pcs ad has disappeared.

I can only thank the admins for this!

Kudos!

The once ever present bottom to top rolling Metro PCS ad has returned. Unbelievable!

Spending less and less time here due to all this incessantly obnoxious ad spamming the forum.

 

[Aquila]

The once ever present bottom to top rolling Metro PCS ad has returned. Unbelievable!

Spending less and less time here due to all this incessantly obnoxious ad spamming the forum.

Please report it to:

http://phon.es/badads

 

[Phil Nickinson]

The once ever present bottom to top rolling Metro PCS ad has returned. Unbelievable!

Spending less and less time here due to all this incessantly obnoxious ad spamming the forum.

By "ever-present" you mean ... what?

It's my understanding that that scrolling ad isn't supposed to appear more than once a day. Please let me know if it is — and if it is please use that bad ads form.

 

[Climb14er]

Every time I go to the forum, on my mobile Note 5, on the bottom there's an ad bar with the word close on top.

The second I begin to move through the forum, the Metro PCS ad cones alive, and scrolls upwards from bottom to top.

This gets repeated every time I move from one thread to another, or one sub forum to another.

This is the only Internet forum where this is occurring.

 

[VDub2174]

Every time I go to the forum, on my mobile Note 5, on the bottom there's an ad bar with the word close on top.

The second I begin to move through the forum, the Metro PCS ad cones alive, and scrolls upwards from bottom to top.

This gets repeated every time I move from one thread to another, or one sub forum to another.

This is the only Internet forum where this is occurring.

As mentioned above, please report it to:

http://phon.es/badads

 

[Almeuit]

Every time I go to the forum, on my mobile Note 5, on the bottom there's an ad bar with the word close on top.

The second I begin to move through the forum, the Metro PCS ad cones alive, and scrolls upwards from bottom to top.

This gets repeated every time I move from one thread to another, or one sub forum to another.

This is the only Internet forum where this is occurring.

Make sure to report it - http://phon.es/badads. As Phil said we don't have full control on ads so reporting these problems ads can really help to get rid of the annoying ones. I did it in the past when video ads were starting a lot per page and those have been fixed .

 

[Climb14er]

Followed link, reported obnoxious scrolling Metro PCS ad last week.

Still have obnoxious ad from bottom up showing up.

Ridiculous this is the only forum affected on my clean Note 5.