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What is with the new, annoying ads?

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What is with the new, annoying ads?
Posted by MikeInPlano on Sunday, October 16, 2022 7:19 PM

So the pop up ads at the bottom of every page weren't intrusive enough, now they have to encroach on all four sides of the page, blocking the content? I assume this a new way to try to coerce us into subscribing to the trains.com site. Thanks for ruining the forums.

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Posted by Backshop on Sunday, October 16, 2022 7:41 PM

I'm not getting them.

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, October 16, 2022 7:52 PM

I use uBlock and don't get any.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Euclid on Sunday, October 16, 2022 7:59 PM

I have always had ads popping up, but lately the GMC ad often pops up and blocks the post I am reading or making.  I have to abandon the posting process, back out and re-open for another attempt.  

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Posted by York1 on Sunday, October 16, 2022 8:03 PM

I don't get ads.

York1 John       

I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer?  He said, "No, but it will seem longer."

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Posted by tree68 on Monday, October 17, 2022 6:50 AM

I loaded up a hosts file on the"big" computer - I don't get ads on it at all on any site.  Every now and then a site will pop up with "please turn off your ad blocker," but I just ignore that.

Look up hosts files.  There are folks who put together some pretty good files.  No worries about programs with trojans, etc, as the hosts file simply blocks unwanted IPs.

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Monday, October 17, 2022 9:04 AM

Try Adblock Plus, that's what I use and it's pretty good.  You can find it on-line easily.

Normally I don't mind pop-up ads unless they cause problems with website loading (some will) or pop-up all over the page causing distractions.

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Posted by rdamon on Monday, October 17, 2022 10:23 AM

I use Chrome with uBlock AND Adblock Plus .. 

if you want more, look at building your own DNS server with pi-hole.

https://pi-hole.net/

 

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Posted by Steven Otte on Monday, October 17, 2022 2:55 PM

I only see one pop-up ad, a narrow banner at the very bottom, and it only shows up occasionally. The other ads are also narrow banners that scroll with the page and are very ignorable. 

If you are getting pop-up ads all over your screen, ask yourself, do you also see them on other websites? Because I'd say it's better than 50/50 that those ads aren't generated by the website, but by adware you've unwittingly downloaded. Get a good malware scanner and they'll go away.

--
Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editor
sotte@kalmbach.com

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Posted by chutton01 on Monday, October 17, 2022 9:49 PM

Sorry Steve, but I had the same experience that Euclid had for the past few days - only on the MR forums - where a GMC ad cover not only the botton of the screen (I can live with that) but covered the bottom third or so, including the Submit button, and I saw no way to dismiss  the ad - I basically had to reload. 
Again, this was only happening on the MR forums, and started a number of days ago.

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Posted by matthewsaggie on Monday, October 17, 2022 9:56 PM

I ONLY get them on the trains site. 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Monday, October 17, 2022 10:41 PM

I'm not seeing much.  Only a bottom crawler sometimes.  I use the  Chrome app on an Android phone.

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Posted by Erik_Mag on Monday, October 17, 2022 10:54 PM

I usually don't see any ads, with the only exception of ads that occasionally appear on the bottom of the browser window. Not running any adblock software, though websites "Powered by Admiral" will often think I'm using an adblocker.

I did see a lot of ads before I activated "https only" on Firefox, and would expect that doing that on other browsers would produce similar results.

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 5:04 PM

While I have a cell phone - and it can access sites such as this forum, I do not access forums from my phone.

I have not, and will not, master two thumb 'typing' on cell phone keyboards that have next to no foregiveness to what the thumbs hit and in which order.  Much easier to utilize a genuine keyboard on either a laptop or desktop computer.

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Posted by York1 on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 8:34 PM

I just tried it on my wife's iPhone and I got exactly what Steve said.

York1 John       

I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer?  He said, "No, but it will seem longer."

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Posted by 54light15 on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 9:27 PM

I am not bothered by pop-up ads since I have an ad-blocker, I forget which one but I was most bothered by ads when on the Trains forum. They were constant and drove me nuts. 

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Posted by Convicted One on Wednesday, October 19, 2022 12:20 PM

The only time that I see ads here is when/if  I browse here using an "incognito" window, because doing so disables my ad blocker.

Some times when opening a remote link I'll get sloppy and ask to open (whatever) link in an incognito window instead of just a new standard window....and if I do that and then come here I have a stark awakening from all the ads.

But, in general...the ads do not bother me,   the lack of mobile compatibility does not bother me,  but I do wish they'd fix the PM functionality and repair the broken avatar issue. 

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