Ad Blocking on this website?

[Mike Lucey]

@unknownuser said:

nah.. it's almost like why bother.. jean said somewhere that he hopes it doesn't turn into a cat and mouse game and i can see that scenario happening..

my own take on the ads is sort of 'whatever'... i don't watch tv very often.. those ads do bother me.. but the ads online aren't so bad.

they're like if you're watching a movie on tv except the commercial comes up at the edge of the screen every now and then... but the movie keeps playing.

we agree to live in a capitalist society.. ads are a huge part of that setup.. so we agree to having ads.. (or go buy, say, a book for ad free content.. but then again, that's not free either.. etc..)

I agree with a lot of what you say Jeff. I do watch a fair old amount of TV (while working on my laptop) and also find the full-break adverts slots annoying. There are some that I find interesting also but most are of no interest to me. I also notice the the sound level increases for some reason. I normally have the sound level set at a comfortable level for the program I am watching and then when the ads come up they are set at a much higher level. My solution is to just hit the mute sound button on my hand controller for the duration of the ads ..... problem solved. However if I see an interesting ads I will listen to it

I have not come across the movies that show the ads at the side of the screen. Like you, I don't think this would bother me too much.

Yes, we do live in a capitalist society and ads area huge part of the set up. Members also agree to having ads here on SketchUcation. Check out the SketchUcation TOS - Basic Terms here,

Very few have ever read the TOS let alone adhere to them in the case of using Ad Block

As you say, books are mostly advert free but one has to pay for books unless the public library is used but again someone has to subsidise the public library aslo

I honestly don't think that the adverts we have here are obtrusive or too large. As a matter of interest we insist that they must be sub 150Kb in size. also not too 'flashy'. I would go as far to say that all are well designed and to my mind add a 'splash of colour' to the site.

When complaints have been voiced by various members about adverts, I have always asked them for an alternative site financing measure. To date a viable alternative has not been suggested but I live in hope. When one is, we shall seriously consider immediate cessation of advert placement but I can't see that really happening with the current system we have to operate under ........ capitalism!

Mike

[wind-borne]

@gaieus said:

All right, I have tried to apply some magic I have learnt recently about asynchronous loading of javascript files. Since I have never really experienced what you do with BSA, I cannot tell if it works.

Please, try to load the pages and let me know if they still load very slowly due to BSA not loading properly (i.e. in time).

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The other day I could not connect to the site at all. It was not BSA but Google. More exactly Google servers probably worked correctly but for some reason, the connection between Google servers and my ISP seemed to be down.

Nothing loaded here as a web page does not load until all the js files are properly loaded. Now I have set the Google Analytics code to load asynchronously too. I wonder what the effect would have been if I had known this when this happened to me.

Thanks for your effort.

First test this morning the page loaded in 1.9 minutes, the worst of any test ever.
Later, worked properly for a few pages, loaded in less than 3 seconds when tested.
If while loading I scroll to section and see the dashes beside stats.buysel... it's the long wait.

What I need is a better balance of decent load times versus unacceptable

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[notareal]

@gaieus said:

All right, I have tried to apply some magic I have learnt recently about asynchronous loading of javascript files. Since I have never really experienced what you do with BSA, I cannot tell if it works
...

Not sure how you load third party scripts, but seems "load third party scripts async, after onload" is a working strategy, not just "load third party scripts async"
http://www.aaronpeters.nl/blog/why-loading-third-party-scripts-async-is-not-good-enough
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3323888/delay-the-loading-of-3rd-party-javascript

[julyyen]

I don't have any AdBlock and DoNotTrackMe addons for Firefox, I also read what other regular users comment here, so finally what is the solution to view and download those
useful attachments - plugins and others?

[notareal]

@julyyen said:

I don't have any AdBlock and DoNotTrackMe addons for Firefox, I also read what other regular users comment here, so finally what is the solution to view and download those
useful attachments - plugins and others?

I have find that NoScript (and possible other addons that) do block third party javascripts. So perhaps if you can list the addons you use, maybe someone can spot one that possible do block.

[TIG]

@julyyen said:

I don't have any AdBlock and DoNotTrackMe addons for Firefox, I also read what other regular users comment here, so finally what is the solution to view and download those
useful attachments - plugins and others?
Something on your system is blocking these so the SCF end won't display the links for you.
The most common 'ad-blockers' are AdBlock, NoScript and DoNotTrackMe, these need disabling/removing for SCF to open with all links available - but there are other add-ons too that can cause this...
Also your anti-virus/malware software or your firewall etc might also be set to be over zealous where SCF is concerned...
The tech-guys are working to ensure that nothing that is not a genuine ad-blocker is misinterpreted as one !
If you use IE or install a 'clean' version of 'Chrome' with no add-ons, what happens ?
If that works then you know it's then something in Firefox...

I use Firefox [v19] with the latest AdBlock add-on and I have no issues whatsoever, ether with link display or loading times etc [but then it is fully 'disabled' for SCF.com and a few other sites I visit that are supported solely by advertising...]

[Mike Lucey]

Thanks notareal for rowing in and helping on this matter. Do you think it might be a good idea to compile a list of possible bottlenecks that folks may have installed?

[TIG]

I've listed the three main ones that I know of...

AdBlock is easily disabled for the whole SCF site - one-click

NoScripts also readily allows you to 'whitelist' SCF, but buysellads.com needs specifically enabling as its default setting is 'barred' - of course under the ToS members agree not to use 'ad-blockers'...

DoNotTrackMe is far far less easy to customize, and blocks everything by default...

I have also AVG DoNotTrack installed and that allows SCF/buysellad anyway - only barring a relatively compact list of usual suspects...

[wind-borne]

@tig said:

I've listed the three main ones that I know of...

AdBlock is easily disabled for the whole SCF site - one-click

NoScripts also readily allows you to 'whitelist' SCF, but buysellads.com needs specifically enabling as its default setting is 'barred' - of course under the ToS members agree not to use 'ad-blockers'...

DoNotTrackMe is far far less easy to customize, and blocks everything by default...

I have also AVG DoNotTrack installed and that allows SCF/buysellad anyway - only barring a relatively compact list of usual suspects...

I have AdBlock disabled here and everywhere to test and still have buy/sell problems here.
Intermittent problems are the most annoying.
Maybe 5 pages will load ok and suddenly all I get is 1.4 minute time outs...............over and over
Problematic more than not
Any ideas welcome

screenshots 12 minutes apart

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[Aerilius]

To me, Firefox developer tools said it would be waiting for the server to respond (for the main html document).
Then loading all the other resources (although ~50+ files) was not much more than a second.

Shouldn't the server logs reveal more valuable info about what happens between that the browser sends a request and that the server responds?

[Mike Lucey]

Thanks Guys for sticking with this. I will after a while make a Global regarding the little gremlins that folks may have working away that they could well have forgotten about.

I imagine there are probably a few more that will come the the surface?

[Gaieus]

@aerilius said:

To me, Firefox developer tools said it would be waiting for the server to respond (for the main html document).
Then loading all the other resources (although ~50+ files) was not much more than a second.

Well, the site has been put together and styles changed here and there to conform more to our needs but it has never been "optimized" for best performance (yet). Certainly there are many places for improvement and we'll try to do these as our resources allow.

@unknownuser said:

Shouldn't the server logs reveal more valuable info about what happens between that the browser sends a request and that the server responds?

Not only the server logs but there are online tools, too, like Google's page speed insight.

With another site (that I have been building forever) I have managed to get that "improvement possibility list" to have only one item: enabling compression (which I cannot do on my shared hosting server) so I am beginning to understand what those "suggestions" mean but on a site like this, it is much more complex to achieve than on a speedy, small website (which I put together from bits and pieces in php manually so I can optimize wherever I wish).

I would not dare to tamper with the code here though...

[Woodarc]

I'm still really struggling with this issue of not seeing ads etc. Ive checked all the settings and cleared-out browsing history and caches, updated stuff and so on but still can't see stuff. The image attached is what my browser (Chrome) tells me. I have three computers through my router 2 wired and one wireless. The wireless one (my wifes) I can view ok. Is is wire/wireless issue? Suggestions on remedies welcome please (apart from always using the wifes!).

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[TIG]

What 'add-ons' [..Tools>Extensions] do you have loading for Chrome ?
Do you have 'AdBlock'? that needs deactivating for SCF.com. click on the icon at the end of the address bar... Are there any other 'DoNotTrackMe' types of thing ?
I assume your illustration is from the machine that's not working...
Javascript seems fully enabled ?
What about the other settings... my are all similar so I expect that's not it.
I use Firefox so it's not directly comparable... many members use Chrome without difficulty though...
If your Firewall set to allow SCF through unfettered ? That might be a difference ?

[Joe Wood]

For the forum's troubleshooters, I'm having these loading issues intermittently, this morning I was able to browse the forums no problem, came back after an hour and had the long wait again. An hour later, trying to reply to this thread also took over a minute to load, we'll see if it even posts.

[solo]

@tig said:

many members use Chrome without difficulty though...

Disabling AdBlock and 'Do not track me' makes it possible, however at the price of very very long loading times.

[Rich O Brien]

You can run ad block Pete?

You should be able to

[solo]

Aha!!! excellent, page loaded in less than a second.

[TIG]

@solo said:

@tig said:

many members use Chrome without difficulty though...

Disabling AdBlock and 'Do not track me' makes it possible, however at the price of very very long loading times.
I have 'Firefox' [as my usual browser] and also 'Chrome' [occasional use], both with 'AdBlock' loading, but both have it disabled for SCF. I notice no time difference in the site loading with or without 'AdBlock' enabled - the load-time is usually pretty fast for me - and it's no faster if 'AdBlock' is totally disabled globally.
I use 'AVG DO No Track' which ignores SCF and buysellads anyway, rather than 'DoNotTrackMe', which I found both clunky and difficult to understand and customize ! Have you tried it with that 'off'.
Using 'NoScript' is also likely to stop/slow SCF à la une ad-blocker...
That can be disabled using a site 'whiteboard', but I stopped having that add-on enabled altogether ages ago...
Without any first hand experience of this 'load-delay' I am at a loss to suggest what might be up... Is it consistently slow ??

[wind-borne]

@tig said:

Without any first hand experience of this 'load-delay' I am at a loss to suggest what might be up... Is it consistently slow ??

Broken record here

Would seem like a setting would be consistent yes/no for loading.
Here are 4 instances within a couple hours where buy/sell twice loads, twice fails to load and times out at ~ 1.4 minutes before allowing page to load.

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