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Thread: New banner ads at the bottom

  1. #1

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    New banner ads at the bottom

    Not sure how these will play out. Seems to cover content annoyingly but perhaps they go away after you view some number of them?

  2. #2

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I don't use ad blockers. I don't spoof my IP via VPNs. I don't hail from an economy where advertising has no impact. I hardly ever even click-away that insulting right-hand ad sidebar.

    I guess that makes me a sucker paying the freight for the freeloaders, eh?

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  3. #3
    Administrator Steve R Jones's Avatar
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    And I don't have a clue what you're talking about...

    How about a picture is worth a thousand words

    This is what I see and it doesn't block ANYthing on my screen:
    Attached Images Attached Images  

  4. #4

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    It's "Ad by Google" persisting popover:
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    Last edited by dilettante; Jun 20th, 2020 at 05:17 PM.

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Ok, perhaps it was Chrome?

    Installed the "new Edge" and I don't see it right now.

  6. #6
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    It's "Ad by Google" persisting popover:

    Attachment 177624
    This method doesn't work. Only you can see it.. You must click the GO ADVANCED option and manage attachments.

  7. #7
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I have never seen a popover ad on this site. There is an ad at the very bottom of the screen, but they're hardly getting their money's worth out of that, as who ever scrolls to the bottom of the screen?
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    No, that bottom banner is still there too.

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Oh, BTW:

    I had used the "Insert Image" button, so it's clear to me that the new forum software is broken there. It has been flawed for a very long time but now it seems to have failed altogether.

  10. #10
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Oh, BTW:

    I had used the "Insert Image" button, so it's clear to me that the new forum software is broken there. It has been flawed for a very long time but now it seems to have failed altogether.
    All YOU have to do is allow the entire world to have access to your hard drive and the Insert Image works as designed.

  11. #11

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Cute. But the flaws I referred to are things like transforming an image any wider than around 520 pixels from the original format to a bloated blurry JPEG. Aside from that it has worked for years, and before that broken forum software version was adopted here it worked flawlessly.

    In case you've never used it, the button pops up a dialog asking you to provide an image URL or upload an image attachment.

  12. #12

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I just looked at some old threads here, and I can see that the broken forum software has now taken every inlined image users have posted and jerked them out of context to display them all at the bottom of the post in an Attached Images lump.

    Quite destructive, rendering thousands of threads into a confusing mess.

  13. #13
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I don't think it is site specific. I see the add on this forum, but I also see the same popup window at the bottom of the browser window on a lot of other sites, so it may be browser rendering characteristic. I'm using Firefox, which you might be able to tell by the taskbar in the capture. You see how the "Ads by Google" window shows up at the bottom of the screen. It stays at the bottom of the browser window as you scroll, so is always in view, obscuring part of the window when you scroll, in this case I'm on a laptop with a 1920x1080 screen, and the browser window is set to maximize.

    Today, with Firefox, I can't even get the ad window to go away. If I click on the "close x", the window stays, but asks some questions about the ad. There is no option to close this window. If I select, "I don't want to see this add again", the obscuring window remains, with no way to remove it I can figure out, with the text "Ad closed by Google" in the window. It still obscures the web browser content.

    p.s. I guess when I actually posted this reply, and the window refreshed, then the popup window did finally go away.
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    Last edited by passel; Jun 21st, 2020 at 10:52 AM.
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    i had assumed there was a software update, but if it just moved to new servers I suppose the differences may be configuration options.

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    I just looked at some old threads here, and I can see that the broken forum software has now taken every inlined image users have posted and jerked them out of context to display them all at the bottom of the post in an Attached Images lump.

    Quite destructive, rendering thousands of threads into a confusing mess.
    Please provide two examples.... And odds are you'll need to show screenshots too. And we'll in-turn explain how to set your browser or which browser to use.

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    The popover floating bottom-banner appears in Edge Version 83.0.478.54 now as well as in Chrome.

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I'm seeing it, as well. It wasn't here yesterday. And as Passel noted, I can't dismiss it. That's a VERY aggressive way to run an ad: An omni-present, invincible, overlay ad. You can't dismiss it, you can't ignore it, and it covers part of the screen in all cases.

    I'll check on my Surface, later. If this ad is present on that device, in this format, it would make the site pretty nearly unusable. There isn't all that much screen area to begin with on one of those older Surface Pro 2, so giving up a good percentage to an ad that can't be dismissed has the effect of chopping off the bottom inch or so of the screen.
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    The popover floating bottom-banner appears in Edge Version 83.0.478.54 now as well as in Chrome.
    I can confirm that I didn't see it in Edge when I first viewed this thread but I do now. Unfortunately, not sure whether Edge has updated in the interim. I was thinking that maybe it was something Google slipped into Chromium in a recent version but if it's happening in Firefox too then I guess that's not it.

  19. #19
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I see it in Chrome and Firefox on Linux as well.

  20. #20
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    My guess would be that this site gets paid to allow that advertising at the bottom. I'm surprised the administrators are acting like they don't know what we're talking about. It's an annoying banner but it's a free site so you got to either accept it or move on.

  21. #21
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by wes4dbt View Post
    My guess would be that this site gets paid to allow that advertising at the bottom. I'm surprised the administrators are acting like they don't know what we're talking about. It's an annoying banner but it's a free site so you got to either accept it or move on.
    If it's a new thing, which seems may be the case, then maybe the powers that be weren't aware that they were allowing advertising of that nature and, if they are made aware, they may be able to do something about it. Given the inactivity on the PHP errors, etc, though, that seems fairly unlikely.

  22. #22
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    This wasn't showing up for me for days after it was first reported. It is now showing up all the time on Chrome. I have yet to try it on the new Edge, but that would be on the Surface, where it would be pretty horrible.
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  23. #23
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    And from this day forth-> MAKE A SCREENSHOT. ATTACH SCREENSHOT TO POST.

    A picture is worth a thousand words....

    The good/bad news is that I now see it for the first time and can get something done about it.
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  24. #24
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I used up my one screenshot of the day (I'm on a diet) taking a shot of the tracking of an Amazon package. I live just outside of Boise Idaho. The package came from the east coast to Portland, OR, which makes sense, as that would be a hub. Then it went just a bit further west (you can't go much further west), then made it to Boise Saturday in the wee hours of the morning. I felt that meant it would be delivered today....until I saw the update showing that it arrived in Texas Monday morning....Oops.

    Fortunately, that appears to have been a mistake, because it's out for delivery from Boise, today. So, unless it made a round trip to Texas over the weekend, which it could have done, that was just a typo.
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Well, on my personal PC (windows 10, firefox), I don't see it, I have only a small rectangle with "adchoices" written in it in the right bottom corner.
    On my job PC (windows 7, firefox), I don't even see the "adchoices" box.
    For both I have an AD blocker but it is not active for this website.
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    PPS : I check on the new EDGE and I have it on it
    Last edited by Delaney; Jun 22nd, 2020 at 03:21 PM.
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  26. #26

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Come on guys, y'all know I'm crazy. Clearly you are all in my mind.

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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Come on guys, y'all know I'm crazy. Clearly you are all in my mind.
    Thanks..... That was funny.

    My email was forwarded to the AdOps people. (Sounds official to me.)

  28. #28
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I'm not sure whether it was there all along and I just missed it due to my browser being full-screen on a 2K monitor but there is a means to dismiss that intrusive ad, as shown below. Interestingly, if I turn on my adblocker, the ad disappears but that close button is still there.
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  29. #29
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Good catch. Never saw that.

    EDIT - But it comes back. Oh well I'm pretty good at ignoring things.
    Last edited by wes4dbt; Jun 23rd, 2020 at 01:35 AM.

  30. #30
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    I'm not sure whether it was there all along and I just missed it due to my browser being full-screen on a 2K monitor but there is a means to dismiss that intrusive ad, as shown below. Interestingly, if I turn on my adblocker, the ad disappears but that close button is still there.
    That's interesting because yesterday, I didn't have that button... or I didn't pay attention maybe . But I am pretty sure it was not there on my work PC and I am sure I didn't have it on my personal one (as it can be seen on the picture before). I'll check tonight.

    By the way, I don't see the add even with the adblocker off.
    Last edited by Delaney; Jun 23rd, 2020 at 04:02 AM.
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  31. #31
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    I think the "X" was added after I reported the AD.. Historically, any AD that blocks Site Content is a NO NO.

    Hopefully the new owners will agree. Time will tell.

  32. #32
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve R Jones View Post
    Hopefully the new owners will agree. Time will tell.
    I just noticed that that strip at the top of the page doesn't descend a second or two after the page loads any more. I take it that that belonged to the previous owners. I cannot tell you how many times I've tried to click on the New Posts link, only to have that appear a moment beforehand and push the page down so I clicked the Forum link instead. So annoying!

  33. #33
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    The X is an improvement. However, I still feel this is a bad ad strategy. Since the ad comes back on every navigation, you have to click the X after every navigation. Compared to what was happening with the duplicate posts, this is a very minor thing.

    Still, what is the point of an ad? It is to get information to people who might be interested in it, potentially making them aware of something they didn't know about and might want to purchase. If they don't have any interest in it, then the ad is a waste for all involved. Since you can't predict who will be in the former group, you show it to everybody. But in this case, the ad is in their face all the time, which will do little more for the people who ARE interested in the subject, while aggravating those who are NOT interested in the subject. That's a pretty aggressive ad strategy.
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  34. #34
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    At work, there are ad blockers at the domain level that filter out these ads. However, I have noticed that the bottom half inch of the pages are partially greyed out. You can still read the text, it is just grey instead of black. This is the only site I have noticed with this issue. I am using IE11 on Windows 10.

  35. #35
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by jdc2000 View Post
    At work, there are ad blockers at the domain level that filter out these ads. However, I have noticed that the bottom half inch of the pages are partially greyed out. You can still read the text, it is just grey instead of black. This is the only site I have noticed with this issue. I am using IE11 on Windows 10.
    It's because of the "X" they added so you could close the ad. It shows up even if the ad is hidden.

  36. #36
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by kfcSmitty View Post
    It's because of the "X" they added so you could close the ad. It shows up even if the ad is hidden.
    I still use Firefox 56.0.2, principally because it allows me to block unwanted scripts. I was curious about the "X" at the bottom left of the screen, but now that I know what it is, I can just ignore it.

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  37. #37
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Haven't seen the ads at the bottom today. yay

  38. #38
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    Re: New banner ads at the bottom

    Quote Originally Posted by wes4dbt View Post
    Haven't seen the ads at the bottom today. yay
    DITTO... I turned my Ad Blocker off and confirmed.... No more "X" either. (LOL)

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