Ads, Can I get rid of them

[Dudeface167]

Is there any way to get rid of the ads that slide up from the bottom of the page every time I open a page? I might not be able to survive on here if I can't.

Edited December 3, 2024 by Dudeface167

[Murdoch17]

22 hours ago, Dudeface167 said:

Is there any way to get rid of the ads that slide up from the bottom of the page every time I open a page? I might not be able to survive on here if I can't.

No @Dudeface167, there is no way to get rid of ads short of some form adblocker. (although then EB doesn't make any money, and if everyone did it the site would get shut down for lack of hosting funds) However, some ads can be manually removed by admins like @Jim . In my opinion, the scrolling ads are the absolute worst - no matter what site!

[JesseNight]

Did that idea ever get worked on to offer some sort of adfree subscription? I remember it was talked about by someone to Jim a few months ago, and I bet many people would love to support EB directly and get an adfree experience.

[KotZ]

1 hour ago, JesseNight said:

Did that idea ever get worked on to offer some sort of adfree subscription? I remember it was talked about by someone to Jim a few months ago, and I bet many people would love to support EB directly and get an adfree experience.

I would kill for that. Ok maybe not kill but you know what I mean.

[Jim]

We need those Ads to pay the bills. That is the bottom line. We have been thinking about Patreon and other solutions. We need to invest some time to come up with a proper solution, because we don't like the banners either.

I can tell you that we will be moving to a new hosting environment next year. We will move to a cheaper solution which will save us money on our monthly bill. Maybe we can turn off the Ads. 

But we do need to look into a yearly donation of some sort to make sure we can hide these Ads.

So, we are working on a solution, but the upgrade to the new platform will take some time.

[Jim]

On 12/4/2024 at 12:30 AM, Murdoch17 said:

 In my opinion, the scrolling ads are the absolute worst - no matter what site!

Do we have these btw?

The reason I ask is that Google sometimes turns on experimental features that we sometimes know nothing about.

[Murdoch17]

11 minutes ago, Jim said:

Do we have these btw?

The reason I ask is that Google sometimes turns on experimental features that we sometimes know nothing about.

I've seen them on on other sites in the past, and EB if on another computer besides my main one. I run an adblocker / privacy thingy most of the time, (sorry!) so I don't see them usually. The OP was the one who mentioned them first, anyway.

[Jim]

On 12/3/2024 at 2:07 AM, Dudeface167 said:

Is there any way to get rid of the ads that slide up from the bottom of the page every time I open a page? I might not be able to survive on here if I can't.

Ahhh sorry, that's what you mean by slide up from the bottom.

Let me check...

[Jim]

I can't find this particular experiment, but I have turned off some settings in Google Adsense. Let me know if you still see those ads.

[Calanon]

On 12/9/2024 at 3:36 PM, Jim said:

I can't find this particular experiment, but I have turned off some settings in Google Adsense. Let me know if you still see those ads.

Unfortunately, yes.

[TeddytheSpoon]

Along a simialr thread, on mobile a new ad banner has popped up at the top of the screen recently (last couple of weeks or so). But it's started to become more intrusive, to the point it takes up literally half the screen. I don't mind ads (gotta pay the bills, after all), but this one makes the site borderline unusable on mobile. Is there any setting that can be changed there?

[Jim]

Okay I will check it out. We don’t want Ads that make the site unusable. Thanks for pointing it out.

[TeddytheSpoon]

26 minutes ago, Jim said:

Okay I will check it out. We don’t want Ads that make the site unusable. Thanks for pointing it out.

Thanks. I can provide screenshots if you need them!

[Jim]

That would absolutely be helpful! Thanks.

15 hours ago, Calanon said:

Unfortunately, yes.

If you can provide a screenshot, that would be great.

I only see the header at the top and footer at the bottom.

[gyenesvi]

2 hours ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

Along a simialr thread, on mobile a new ad banner has popped up at the top of the screen recently (last couple of weeks or so). But it's started to become more intrusive, to the point it takes up literally half the screen. I don't mind ads (gotta pay the bills, after all), but this one makes the site borderline unusable on mobile. Is there any setting that can be changed there?

I second this, taking half of the screen and making things super hard to use. Even the previous banner at the top was already bad because it was making the top menu unreachable..

[idlemarvel]

Like others I would be willing to pay a subscription to have ad-free on my smartphone. It's not so much a problem on my laptop.

Not sure if this is the type of ad people are talking about, but here are a few screenshots from my smartphone.

The first shows the "half screen ad" (from the top) as it first appears - eBay as it happens - this is too intrusive.

Second shows the same ad when the up arrow is tapped - this initial size would be acceptable. The ad is still readable and if you were interested (like, never! :-) )you could tap the enlarge arrow.

You can minimize it altogether but this takes two taps.

Hope this helps.

Edited December 11, 2024 by idlemarvel
smaller images

[Jim]

Thanks!

Yes, that is what we are talking about.

I need to look into some sort of Patreon, because there are quite a few people willing to donate a couple of bucks per month/year to remove the ads. And let me be clear; we don't need much. Doesn't cost a fortune to run the site and we don't want to make money. We just want to break even.

[Calanon]

My ads on mobile are identical to the screenshots idlemarvel posted (including the initial half-page eBay ad) - less obtrusive on PC but still much more annoying than ads in the past.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Calanon
Including screenshot from PC

[JesseNight]

10 hours ago, Jim said:

I need to look into some sort of Patreon, because there are quite a few people willing to donate a couple of bucks per month/year to remove the ads. And let me be clear; we don't need much. Doesn't cost a fortune to run the site and we don't want to make money. We just want to break even.

That would be awesome!
I think the number of people willing to sub might end up paying the bills for a few years on relatively short notice, nobody likes ads but supporting a good cause is a whole different story!
(as a small note on subscription plans, it's probably best to have both monthly and yearly payment options available, I've seen it on sites where I was an admin that there's usually demand for both)

Edited December 12, 2024 by JesseNight

[Jim]

Okay cool! That’s good to know. Did you use Patreon?

[JesseNight]

14 hours ago, Jim said:

Okay cool! That’s good to know. Did you use Patreon?

No. This was more than a decade ago, it probably didn't even exist yet at the time. Back then it was a matter of either building it yourself or use a website host that offered the service as part of the plan, rather than specialized web services for this. Times have changed and it's all become a lot easier now, but I have no experience with Patreon myself I'm afraid.

[Jim]

33 minutes ago, JesseNight said:

No. This was more than a decade ago, it probably didn't even exist yet at the time. Back then it was a matter of either building it yourself or use a website host that offered the service as part of the plan, rather than specialized web services for this. Times have changed and it's all become a lot easier now, but I have no experience with Patreon myself I'm afraid.

Okay cool. Thanks for the insights.

[Jim]

For your information. I am planning on turning off the obtrusive header and footer Ads in January. We are also planning on upgrading the board at the end of January. This will include moving to a new hosting provider.

So bear with us for a few weeks and we will be rid of the Ads. We are also looking into Patreon etc.

[idlemarvel]

Excellent news thanks

[Agent Kallus]

On 12/23/2024 at 2:37 PM, Jim said:

For your information. I am planning on turning off the obtrusive header and footer Ads in January. We are also planning on upgrading the board at the end of January. This will include moving to a new hosting provider.

So bear with us for a few weeks and we will be rid of the Ads. We are also looking into Patreon etc.

That's good to hear, As others have said, I would potentially be up for paying a little bit for the luxury of no ads entirely.