Feedback / Idea Adblock Blocker

[PissFanOmega 206]

So, today I was greeted with an overlay about turning off my adblocker, or purchasing a gold membership.

First, let me make it clear that I understand the site's need to earn money to maintain itself.

That aside however, here's the reality of the situation with Adblock Blocker:

• I don't visit sites that use it to block my access to otherwise "free" content, especially when it's used to sell premium content.
  • I started using adblockers as a means to protect myself from malicious code executions, and links to malicious sites. This is never going to change for me. It is far too easy for a site to host an ad that can do damage, often behind the scenes, sometimes even without the target website's knowledge. So, my adblocker stays, regardless of the content, or how long I've been around.
• With the current usage of the function, I can bypass it, but if I'll be required to do that repeatedly, I'll be less inclined to visit the site.
• If the Adblock Blocker is used to deny access to the site as a whole, at any point, you can easily assume I won't be around anymore, because as I stated, I don't visit sites that go down that path of "pay up, or lower your security options".

I personally live on a fixed income, and couldn't afford a premium membership here, even if I had reason to purchase one. I would have a hard time believing I'm the only one in that situation. I certainly do know of users who don't buy one strictly on principle, and that's fine too, but we shouldn't have to also lower our internet guard just to view content.

As a conclusion to my feedback, I'm going to add that while there will undoubtedly be users here that overlook the usage of Adblock Blocker, I can almost guarantee it will turn away more than a few, especially if at any point, the ads you host on site become compromised, or the sites they lead to do. No site is safe from that prospect, even the most popular sites out there have to deal with it (probably more than the average, due to high-volume traffic).

So, use it or don't, that's up to you, it's your site, but this is where I stand, and my position on the matter will not change.

[Guest UnabashedUser]

3 hours ago, PissFanOmega said:

So, today I was greeted with an overlay about turning off my adblocker, or purchasing a gold membership.

First, let me make it clear that I understand the site's need to earn money to maintain itself.

That aside however, here's the reality of the situation with Adblock Blocker:

• I don't visit sites that use it to block my access to otherwise "free" content, especially when it's used to sell premium content.
  • I started using adblockers as a means to protect myself from malicious code executions, and links to malicious sites. This is never going to change for me. It is far too easy for a site to host an ad that can do damage, often behind the scenes, sometimes even without the target website's knowledge. So, my adblocker stays, regardless of the content, or how long I've been around.
• With the current usage of the function, I can bypass it, but if I'll be required to do that repeatedly, I'll be less inclined to visit the site.
• If the Adblock Blocker is used to deny access to the site as a whole, at any point, you can easily assume I won't be around anymore, because as I stated, I don't visit sites that go down that path of "pay up, or lower your security options".

I personally live on a fixed income, and couldn't afford a premium membership here, even if I had reason to purchase one. I would have a hard time believing I'm the only one in that situation. I certainly do know of users who don't buy one strictly on principle, and that's fine too, but we shouldn't have to also lower our internet guard just to view content.

As a conclusion to my feedback, I'm going to add that while there will undoubtedly be users here that overlook the usage of Adblock Blocker, I can almost guarantee it will turn away more than a few, especially if at any point, the ads you host on site become compromised, or the sites they lead to do. No site is safe from that prospect, even the most popular sites out there have to deal with it (probably more than the average, due to high-volume traffic).

So, use it or don't, that's up to you, it's your site, but this is where I stand, and my position on the matter will not change.

Deactivating Java gets around that problem on the sites I've visited that use adblock blocker. 

But like yourself, I use adblock all the time on all sites.  Too much malicious code floating around out there.

[Scot_Lover 1,878]

I've started using Brave browser, it has a built-in ad blocker, works pretty well, in 4 days it's blocked over 2000 tracking attempts. 

The constant Brave Reward prompts get a little tiring, but I think it's worth it.

 

[Admin 14,791]

As someone who typically uses ad blocker myself, I can definitely relate to what you're saying. There is one important point to bring up here though:

ALL of the adverts on PeeFans are self-hosted images. The ad is hosted on our server in a simple .jpg or .png format. 

There is no external code to other sites which could be modified/hijacked. The ad images are served in the same way as every other image on this site is served. 

Another very important point is we have absolutely no popunders, popups or any 'hidden' ads. The ads are always in the same spots, and are quite clearly ads. They don't move or obstruct the main content.

Additionally, the vast majority of ads promote gold membership or other forum-related things, and so the links are to other pages on peefans. Any other ads we do include here will always be from trusted partner sites. We never just add a code that provides unknown ads; we manually select sites and then work closely with those sites. Again, this is not something we do often, and we do screen the sites. You could argue those sites could get hacked yes, but you could argue that about this site or any site. The ads are very easily not clicked if you are concerned about visiting other websites, and the ads themselves will always be simple .jpg or .png images with a standard hyperlink (all hosted on our server). 

The upshot of all this is that the ads themselves are perfectly safe, and always will be.

They are also relatively unintrusive to the main content, and I would hope they're a small price to pay to ensure the site can support itself. I am sure most people are happy seeing 1-2 .jpg banners on each page if it means they get access to the site completely for free. 

Alternatively, gold membership at £7.50 per month to remove them completely is something I believe most members could afford if they wanted to. If a member simply doesn't want ads but has no interest in all the other gold benefits (or can't afford £7.50 per month), by all means contact me and for a very small one-time fee we can remove ads on your account permanently.

[Scot_Lover 1,878]

35 minutes ago, Admin said:

Alternatively, gold membership at £7.50 per month to remove them completely is something I believe most members could afford if they wanted to. If a member simply doesn't want ads but has no interest in all the other gold benefits (or can't afford £7.50 per month), by all means contact me and for a very small one-time fee we can remove ads on your account permanently.

I like this part, very cool. How many sites offer something like this?

I honestly don't mind the ads for Gold Membership, as you said, it's all done on site. 

[Sophie 24,412]

Interestingly I still get the popup with adblock disabled (you can see the ads in the image), but only when logged out.

 

[Guest UnabashedUser]

3 hours ago, Sophie said:

Interestingly I still get the popup with adblock disabled (you can see the ads in the image), but only when logged out.

 

a

Am running Opera here and I never get this message even not logged in when running adblocker. 

[PissFanOmega 206]

21 hours ago, Admin said:

The upshot of all this is that the ads themselves are perfectly safe, and always will be.

Thank you for addressing that particular aspect to my post, that actually helps me make further decisions regarding adblock on site.

[Ozabot 63,296]

19 hours ago, Sophie said:

Interestingly I still get the popup with adblock disabled (you can see the ads in the image), but only when logged out.

The same thing in any case, logged out or logged in  I still get the popup with adblock disabled. In Chrome and Mozilla

[Admin 14,791]

I have set it so that if you dismiss the message once, it stays dismissed permanently. I will put my faith in people that enough users will be willing to view the ads (or upgrade to gold) to make the site sustainable. 

[PissFanOmega 206]

23 hours ago, Admin said:

I have set it so that if you dismiss the message once, it stays dismissed permanently. I will put my faith in people that enough users will be willing to view the ads (or upgrade to gold) to make the site sustainable. 

That, mixed with your assurances regarding the ads on site, will help me feel more comfortable turning off my adblocker for this site.

Thank you for addressing my concerns, I truly appreciate it, and I think many other users will as well.