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Wtf spoke to soon, hello pop ups and hello new phone!!
Oh congratulations, more pop ups...guess why, because you've crowbarred yet more ad's into the page. If you are trying to make this one of the most unpleasant browsing experiences online you are doing a good job. Well done.
@dumbot - I don't know what you mean, it's very subtle on an android phone, a positive visual pleasure built to enhance anyone's contribution.....
Becoming a total bag of shite.
25 blocked on android just now but then one gets through as above
I to have won an amaAma gift voucher....
I really want to beat my record of 25 blocked pop ups though. Always teases me, but stops at 25.
Wtf are are you lot doing about this?! Every time I visit I get "25 popups blocked", and now a redirect to a page saying I've won a competition! You really don't give a toss about your users do you? This has been going on for months and it's only this site it happens on.
Are you actively trying to drive the core users of your forum away?
15 blocked here. Site is unusable on mobile, and not a lot better on a pc.
What a joke.
Worst forum experience by far.
It is getting pretty shit. I hadn't bothered posting on this thread until now, but since logging in 5 minutes ago I've got 25 blocked popups and been sent to the competition page 5 times. Unusable is putting it lightly.
I was about to renew my lapsed digital sub, but not sure if I will now. Are P users getting the same problems?
Just got 16 popups blocked ON THIS THREAD ABOUT POPUPS. Ridiculous. Oh wait, it's now up to 53!
I had a week or so where nothing happened. Now they are back the same again, 25 blocked as I type. Seems they are changing something again maybe??
just checked on my phone - I normally use a desktop
multiple pop ups and a redirect in 3 mins browsing -= not logged in on an android phone
I'm getting 'pop ups blocked' jumping up and down the screen too. Android phone. Jeez why don't you just knock this place on the head and use the old forum format it was much better, what the hell has been 'improved' on here! This used to be my go-to forum but I'm spending less and less time here ... sad cos this used to be a great place for more than just talk about bikes
She is back congratulations six times in a row there, much worse than any bellend lead singer
Dont forget folks, subscribe..look what you get.
Oh wait,..no I don't think I will. Ever.
It's a shame how this '''update" has been managed in the last few months. I was getting so annoyed with it that I just stopped using the forum completely, and assumed after a couple of months any half decent developer would have got sorted. I've tried to use it for a week or so, and it's just crap. STW is/was quite unique in the blend of funny, talented and supportive people using it, but the website is so utterly terrible it's not possible to use it any more. I might try again in another 2 months, but wouldn't be surprised if your readership have gone elsewhere by then.
Apparently it's busier than ever 🙄
The pop up issue with Androids is a known and recognised problem https://www.symantec.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/congratulations-you-won-scam-android
Mark has disabled the culprit before and keeps trying, however until Android fix the issue it’ll be a never ending battle.
so why is this the only site that people seem to be affected by it?
It isn’t.
I never get these pop ups and redirects from any other sites bar a very dodgy pirate tv site I use and even there they are not a bad.
Its a function of maximising advertising revenue
It isn’t.
It is for me.
Maybe I should rephrase that.
It isn’t the only site effected there are others.
I never get these pop ups and redirects from any other sites
Same here. This is the only site bar one where I have this problem. Even VIP Box (assume that's the same one, TJ) isn't as bad as this, but I expect shoddy shit from them.
If they're the standard you're gauging yourself by, I'd suggest finding better standards.
Its the only site I use that does this. I just had to close chrome 3 times to get past the redirects to post this (and that was after it took me a few minutes to get rid of the ad banner that covers the log in option).
Only STW for me, I'm sure there must be dodgy russian file sharing sites that could compete for more pop ups and redirects. Could STW not just ask one of the millions of legitimate sites that don't have this problem why they all get it so right?
and that was after it took me a few minutes to get rid of the ad banner that covers the log in option
Click that arrow and it scrolls out of the way.
Suggests the user interface is wrong if it needs someone to post an image explaining what to tap...
I use it on a PC and the ads are very annoying - they either stop the site working on my PC and/or interrupt me using it.
Certainly use it less now and when I do it ends up with me getting pissed off.
indeed it is CFH.
Could STW not just ask one of the millions of legitimate sites that don’t have this problem why they all get it so right?
Other sites aren't relying on adverts to keep a failing publishing empire afloat so don't have to scrape the barrel so low. Pop-ups have been a thing since well before the latest forum upgrade. Fact is, they're an accepted side-effect.
Worse than my local newspapers for usability and that's saying something, maxing out the advertising is gonna kill this site.
Suggests the user interface is wrong if it needs someone to post an image explaining what to tap…
Someone being an unpaid forum moderator.
After a brief respite, back to being unusable on a mobile again. Yay.
It's utter shiz. The only website I use regularly that seems to want to cause it's own demise. Does becoming a premier subscriber guarantee no adds, if so that'd be well worth it. I'd be interested to see how much revenue is needed to be generated per average user through the ads.
How much is my viewing worth to singletrack, and do you want me to keep viewing your website, it appears not atm.
As someone who has been very, very patient with the whole popups on mobile I have to say that patience has now gone.
Viewing on a mobile has got unbearable. It sucks huge amounts of data from loading all the ads and redirects. The ads take up so much of the screen it's hard to see what bits are the actual forum. Navigation is just painful. The reason the number of page imprints is up is because it takes 2/3/4 clicks to get to what you want rather than 1 or 2. This means the site will look busier than before despite fewer users and less posts. The only way I can reasonably access the forum now is on my laptop using an adblocker otherwise it becomes slow, laggy and a complete mess to look at. This site is now banned at work due to it setting off the antivirus software.
The user knowledge is what has kept me coming back over the years, it's the place's best asset and that is being forced away. With no real reason to look on here it's going to wither and die. I don't like to see a person's business creak along so I'll no longer be visiting.
I find that really hard to believe, unless you mean the website as a whole (i.e. not just the forum). Is the main website beset by these problems too?Apparently it’s busier than ever
Surely if you randomly happened across this forum you'd stick it out for 2 minutes then think "nah **** this" and never come back?! It's like your mate who always gets really drunk and acts like a tit. Everyone else in the pub is thinking "what a ****". And he is a ****. But you stick with him because you know deep down there's something of value there!
Not in my case, because I always get logged out, so there's no real benefit! However the pop-ups don't seem to be a problem on MacOS or iOS (at least for me!) Maybe Safari is better at killing the spam/scam stuff before you see it?Does becoming a premier subscriber guarantee no adds
Fact is, they’re an accepted side-effect
So just to fill in my knowledge gaps on such matters, is it just a case of turn up the advert count increase the revenue, but turning the ad tap up is going to negatively impact on your site's users. As such you are looking for a balance of revenue and keeping user's?
Yes a subscription is fully Ad free.
Is it drac? No ads in threads at all? I seem to remember Mark saying its less ads not ad free but you know what my memory is like 😉
@tjagain - From the "Our Forum" sticky, Mark wrote this:
Today we fixed a bug that you aren’t going to like.
As you know paying subscribers have ads disable on the site once they are logged in. Since we launched the new theme the filter that handles that has been disabling ads for most registered users too. Today we fixed that and registered users now will be seeing ads on the page.
Firstly let me reiterate how important they are. Ad revenue is a vital revenue stream for us and without it we would not exist. I can’t stress that enough.
However, what we are going to do is ad another layer of filtering to our ad system that will reduce the ads for registered users by around 20%. It’s going to take some time to implement as I have to completely rebuild the ad inventory to allow the filtering to work but over the coming days the number of ads on the page will reduce for registered users.
So the "fewer ads" applies to registered users not to subscribers. Presumably the latter see zero ads (I need to sort out the transfer of my grit.cx subscription)
Is it drac? No ads in threads at all? I seem to remember Mark saying its less ads not ad free but you know what my memory is like 😉
Subscription is fully ad free.
Thanks chaps - sorry Drac
Subscription is fully ad free.
except every 2 weeks or so when you are logged out and have to battle past the ads and pop ups to log back in again.
No TJ it use to be the way you remember but changed as part of the way upgrade.
Yes Bruneep if you’re not logged in you see ads but I have no pop ups and hardly a battle to get through the ads. Then again I don’t own an android device.
It's just as well Android is such a niche platform then.
logged in and 21 pop ups blocked in under 30 seconds .
Yes Bruneep if you’re not logged in you see ads but I have no pop ups and hardly a battle to get through the ads. Then again I don’t own an android device.
No ads when logged in, but every 2 weeks or so for some reason this site logs me off. This is the only one that I visit that force logs me out so often, many just don't force log me out at all and when logged out on other sites I'm not subjected to as many <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">adverts </span><span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">and a barrage of </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">pop ups.</span>
Yes it is a battle at times for the users of Android but that's obviously not important, as its still ad revenue in the bank as well as my P money.
<edit> WTF ^^^ It really is pants
It’s just as well Android is such a niche platform then.
Colin, the problem with Android isn't that it's niche, it's that it's fragmented. Not only are there major and minor releases from Google but each manufacturer has their own branch and variations on that branch. Saying Android is akin to standing in the centre circle at Wembley, pointing at the crowd and saying "football fan"
but every 2 weeks or so for some reason this site logs me off
@bruneep - that's the default Wordpress log-in period if you click the "remember me" box when you log in. It's 48hrs otherwise. There is a way to extend the logged-in period but it's not something I've ever looked at.
I can’t recall how long the cookie is set for logging out, could be 2 weeks though.
Every two weeks on multiple devices means it is a more than weekly occurrence. Don't want to get grouped with whingers but it is pretty annoying. My only reasons for subscribing are to support the forum and be ad free. Some of the popups have sound too, double annoying
except every 2 weeks or so when you are logged out and have to battle past the ads and pop ups to log back in again.
There are no ads on the login page. http://singletrackmag.com/wp-login.php
I can’t recall how long the cookie is set for logging out, could be 2 weeks though.
It's two weeks, yes.
Why?
There are no ads on the login page
Indeed, but that's not where a user lands when they go to their bookmark and find theyve been logged out.
http://singletrackmag.com/forum/
Indeed, but that’s not where a user lands when they go to their bookmark and find theyve been logged out.
It is if they set as they’re bookmark. I don’t use that I use the main page.
Whoop!
There's a fix for the redirects on Chrome Android, by setting a flag 'enable-framebusting-needs-sameorigin-or-usergesture'.
Instructions: https://www.androidpolice.com/2017/11/08/heres-protect-rogue-redirect-ads-right-now-chrome/
Google post: https://blog.chromium.org/2017/11/expanding-user-protections-on-web.html
Test to see if it's working: https://ndossougbe.github.io/web-sandbox/interventions/3p-redirect/
Cheers sl2000 😀
It does seem to be stopping the redirects 👍
Still rocking the 25 pop ups blocked, but progress of sorts I guess.
that’s not where a user lands when they go to their bookmark and find theyve been logged out.
It is if they edit their bookmarks.
I have http://singletrackmag.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=forum/forum/off-topic as the bookmark - it goes to the chat forum if I'm logged in and to an ad-free login page if I'm not. Caveat here though, it resets the "keep me logged in" cookie, so depending on your platform you might get a lot more logouts (it's never affected me adversely but Chrome is "special" when it comes to session cookies seemingly).
Sl2000: You're a magnificent human being.
but every 2 weeks or so for some reason this site logs me off
I get logged nearly every single time, have done for years. New forum is no better or worse than the old one.
It doesn't matter though as the Devs can't replicate it, therefore it is not a thing.
It doesn’t matter though as the Devs can’t replicate it, therefore it is not a thing.
It is a thing but as they can’t replicate it they have difficulty fixing it.
Instructions: https://www.androidpolice.com/2017/11/08/heres-protect-rogue-redirect-ads-right-now-chrome/
It's interesting that in the comments on that link, there's someone complaining of similar redirects on road.cc , so it's clearly not entirely a STW-specific plague.
Surprised that the strategy I thought they were following, of turning on ad servers one by one and waiting for howls of anguish from this thread, hasn't identified the culprits yet.
It’s interesting that in the comments on that link, there’s someone complaining of similar redirects on road.cc , so it’s clearly not entirely a STW-specific plague.
Well I never.
Surprised that the strategy I thought they were following, of turning on ad servers one by one and waiting for howls of anguish from this thread, hasn’t identified the culprits yet.
It did but for some reason they seem to creep back in. They’re rouge Ads that pop up that shouldn’t be served, for some reason they do and Androids are vulnerable as are some PCs.
just for balance, i have no problems at all on either my chromebook or my android phone. yep every now and then im logged out but its always pain-free to click 'log in' again, it remembers my details so a quick click and im back in. i go double-safe tho with a P and 'that software we must not speak of'. a quick glance up at the toolbar shows its blocked 6 ads on this page tho even tho im logged in, id have expected none actually.
ive seen the site in its full flashing glory when ive attempted to visit at work before logging in, so i can fully sympathise with everyone who has to cope with that, it truly is awful, like a cheap porn site (*cough* i would guess) and yes its surprising to me that it cant be overcome like all the other forums we all visit. however, like i say, im one of the lucky ones that has no issues other than the trivial ones such as showing last poster on your threads, home page font etc.
itll all come good in the end peeps, keep the faith.
I always thought road.cc was a malicious redirect 😁
If you were some malicious person serving up the popups/redirects then you'd want to cover your tracks as much as possible. There's two way communication going on here so the controlling servers know when the service they've infected is shut down and started up. If they began serving popups/redirects immediately it's pretty obvious what's at fault so the infected service gets started and contacts HQ who replies "wait 35 minutes there's a bad malware and then start doing your stuff".
In the meantime the guys trying to find the errant service have shut down and restarted another couple of servers and then the popups reappear, seemingly disconnected from their actual source.
Or just stop taking ads from those networks?
Or just stop taking ads from those networks?
I'm amazed no-one's thought of that before.
It's not that simple, unfortunately. You can get rogue ads from any third-party network. This is how Mark explained it earlier:
"The configuration we have is we use only long standing trusted networks and fewer of them. I get contacted several times a week by new networks desperate to get in on our inventory. I don;t get swayed by the promises of higher revenue potential by new networks. I'm much more interested in trusted and stable sources of ads, even if this impacts on our potential to earn more money.
The networks we use are all Google approved.
Adsense (Google) - rock bottom prices but about as trusted as you get.
Criteo - Big global respected network
Sortable - Google certified and basically deliver 60% Adsense anyway
SOVRN - Longstanding trusted supplier.
Carambola - Newest addition and they deliver those ad units with the sports related factoids in them that you can interact with. They pay high [returns] that would normally put them well out of reach of the popup merchants who infect the networks."
If I'm remembering correctly the last round of redirects I think came via SOVRN - in Mark's words a "longstanding trusted supplier." So even trusted networks can get polluted occasionally.
Additionally, Mark is looking into alternative revenue streams to replace the reliance on this kind of advertising; things like sponsored content, for instance. There's a third fewer adverts being offered now than there was pre-upgrade.
one of those networks ( at least) is serving malware so should not be being trusted.
Getting almost impossible to browse on Android
25 pop ups blocked just in the process of writing this post!
Cougar, re bookmarking
Yes, we covered this last time. The bookmark login ***** with the remember me cookie for me so has had to be abandoned. Yer know we're just used to the shonky these days.
I see my message was deleted. Excellent way of dealing with the problem.
I see my message was deleted. Excellent way of dealing with the problem.
You’ve had no posts deleted.
If the aim is to make this site so ***g unusable that you piss off anyone thinking about using it or subscribing, then this evening's browsing shows one thing.
It's going REALLY well.
Six attempts to open a thread I wanted to read. Four attempts to post a reply.
How the * is that going to look for someone new, someone looking to the forum for advice, someone dipping their toe in the water of messing about with bikes and mud? They'd just look at this place as a virus infested pile of shit.
Someone had a porn redirect in public, no response. Lots of us continue to find it almost pointless trying to use the forum, no response. And no, the faithful lap dog mods running blocking isn't helping.
So, if the aim is to destroy the forum, it's going really, really well.
Given the usual mod f you response I got when I asked about the ad revenue v user experience query I got earlier, I took it the inference was they are making it so shite you need to subscribe. Seems a strange sales pitch to me. On another forum I use they just had a drive to raise money for a new server and I quite happily chucked in £20. Oddly, I figured subscription here was really just for people who wanted all the content that comes with it, so wasn't for me. But if there had been some openess about the need for funds for a forum change here, I would have been equally happy to chuck in.
Just revisiting this since i posted earlier. Had log in again, but not before my phone blocked 21 pop ups.
They’re rouge Ads that pop up
That's it. As per usual I have nothing of use to post. 🙂
as a comparison I use the local magazine site here in Norway (Terrengsykkel) - Im not even going to try and make a link to it with the state this site is in. However, this is a fairly small magazine with a limited audience and the site is basic - but seems to work fine. And the forum, even without logging in on a phone, doesnt appear to be too tedious and in your face awful adverts everywhere. Just comparing
SL2000's link hasn't worked for me. This is getting ****ing ridiculous.