Ads reach a record high - MERGED

[HappyMdRSailor]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Well being a 'Supporter' I followed the advice in the other Thread and went to settings and ticked a box... and the new annoying ones disappeared..
To me the $15 is worth it as this is the most free flowing forum I've found.. Yes.. I am a member of others but there's so much back and forth to get to segments I get Pee'd Orf and log out rather quickly.. here I log in and bam... I'm straight into any conversations current.. and a click away from any of particular interest.. no.. for me this place still ranks top spot..
Well.. till my next ban at least..

Agreed on the $15, but the forum is forcing a profit for your bandwith one way or another...

Best forum on the web.... Wanna keep it that way by not excluding great contributors who won't buck up... Or deal with the obnoxious layout...

They won't ban you if you keep generating 99 page, 1483 post, deliberately closed threads..... Or will they??? Hmm...

[Wonderinlost]

Bootie you snuck in. I just read that. How would anyone want to try and ban you? Smh.

If it ranks top spot I wandered into may be a good home to keep.

wondering around with no destionation

[Snore]

Don't know guys. I support CF turned off the side banners and view the forum in safari on an iPad. No over-the-top advertising.

Are the folks with the concerns supporters? If not it is hard to B&M about how they raise money to pay the bills and put a buck in their pocket.

[Wonderinlost]

I sure will be supporting soon enough. I just get this oh I'll wait till whatever but 15 bucks is not touch awww heck I'll go do it now. I've said before the ads help keep a place like this up and running it's not cheap for the server or bandwith. All in all I do enjoy the information and the atmosphere. Sometimes being a supporter also shows you are not just Joe schmo and willing to chip in like a private club or membership. It's not required here but shows a little step you are for the cause.

wondering around with no destionation

[Mike OReilly]

Adblock and Ghostery solves most of the issues. I've made some comments over in the other threads. At this point I no longer get exposed to any ads. Before I lived with the side and top & bottom ones. Now, thanks to the over reach I see none.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Wonderinlost]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Adblock and Ghostery solves most of the issues. I've made some comments over in the other threads. At this point I no longer get exposed to any ads. Before I lived with the side and top & bottom ones. Now, thanks to the over reach I see none.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Never herd of ghostery. I may add it on once I upgrade my aging laptop. Its lags so bad I cant stream my movies and tv shows anymore online. Now with XP support ending soon im going to have to replace it.. I guess 10 years and bouncing in a truck for over 250k miles is a good run.

wondering around with no destionation

[Sea Frog]

Originally Posted by dennisail

I have installed ABP in chrome and still get the adds.

ABP will not filter out CF ads by default. You have to do some action for that. Click on ABP icon in chrome, choose "create quick filter" or whatever it is called, and then by right-clicking on ads in the body of the thread, add them to filter. You may need to fine-tune filters by adding ad's borders too, so it all look neat and nice. I have decided to leave small side ads, just for design reasons. But with my custom filters, there are no more big annoying ones in the body of the thread.

[dennisail]

I am not sure what the "create quick filter" is. But I have been using the "block element" feature to try and remove adds. When I do this the add is gone and it appears in the filter list but the thing is a new add just comes back next time. So its not even worth the effort. What I am doing wrong?

[dennisail]

I think I have it sorted. You have to be very careful what to block. If you block the wrong thing the add will come back, or the whole forum will not work! So it takes a bit of getting used to. There are pretty much no adds left now. Thanks everyone!

I am 100% positive that the adds have got MUCH worse since I joined. I would NEVER have joined if there were this many adds to begin with, and I bet it is keeping many people from joining.

[HappyMdRSailor]

Originally Posted by Snore

Don't know guys. I support CF turned off the side banners and view the forum in safari on an iPad. No over-the-top advertising.

Are the folks with the concerns supporters? If not it is hard to B&M about how they raise money to pay the bills and put a buck in their pocket.

Snore, Probably what can't be seen through the forest is that I hope for the very same thing... I Hope Andy or whoever is making money hand over fist... I have no problem whatsoever paying the supporter fee, and aim to do so... I don't enjoy standing on the soap box, nor desire to be a thorn... I just want this place to be the very best it can, and not drive away future member growth...

Originally Posted by dennisail

I think I have it sorted. You have to be very careful what to block. If you block the wrong thing the add will come back, or the whole forum will not work! So it takes a bit of getting used to. There are pretty much no adds left now. Thanks everyone!

I am 100% positive that the adds have got MUCH worse since I joined. I would NEVER have joined if there were this many adds to begin with, and I bet it is keeping many people from joining.

That's my point!
Lots of ways to personalize the website for perfect use... Free or almost...
New people logging on are simply bombarded, and are probably making the choice and saying... "I'm outta here..."

[Sea Frog]

Originally Posted by dennisail

I think I have it sorted. You have to be very careful what to block. If you block the wrong thing the add will come back, or the whole forum will not work! So it takes a bit of getting used to. There are pretty much no adds left now. Thanks everyone!

Yep! It takes some time and "fine-tuning" to choose the right element to block, so that the ads (and their frames and other stuff) will be removed, and no general structure of the forum will suffer. But it is doable, and you did it right

[dennisail]

I actually tried cutting and pasting the things I have blocked from the list to show everyone, but it does not seem to allow cut and paste.

[twistedtree]

I signed up as a supporter to get rid of the ads. I'm happy to support a good site and pay in lieu of ads. But being a member reduces the ads, and does not eliminate them.

Over the past year the ads have only escalated to the point where I feel my membership $ were spent poorly, if not for a misrepresented cause. I wont be paying again, and have installed adblocker which works great.

Aside from the annoyance factor, one of my biggest complaints about ads is the network bandwidth that they consume and waste. When you are at home with unlimited cable internet it's no big deal, but when you are on a very expensive metered international plan, or a stupid expensive sat plan, wasted bandwidth is very expensive and not to be tolerated. This is, after all, and forum for boaters, so it should be more attuned to such an issue.

[Mike OReilly]

As I wrote elsewhere, no one here is saying they don't want Andy to make a descent coin. Just the opposite in fact. What some of us are saying is that this new approach is impeding our use of this service.

Since this is a private space that is owned and operated to make a profit (I presume ... it could be run philanthropically as a non-profit), it's natural for the owner to try and get more money out of us. On that scale, it's good for the contributors/users/customers (who are all one and the same here) to provide feedback to the owner when changes impact negatively. If the changes are reducing the usability of this space, then it is counter-productive. If, on the other hand, profits go up, then the owners have made a smart move, and will likely stick more ads in front of us.

All of this is to say, if you don't like the changes either stop using CF, or use one of the ad blockers. This will deliver the only message markets understand.

[IdoraKeeper]

Don't know what you guys are seeing, but I cannot be moved to buy a Rocha or get a tattoo simply by seeing an AD. Still useful for me.