serfty

I appreciate the need for advertisments in keeping the FT site running. I just wish some of them were not so CPU hogging.

For the last week or so I have been getting FTalk screen mainly with three ads for those smileys on the top, to the right and on the bottom of every page.

These macromedia flash ads, while looking good, use up most of the available CPU resources making the viewing of these pages a chore.

It has become such a drag that I, for one, will never avail myself of these 'smileys'. Yes, these ads have a negative impact for me.

I used a resource monitor and found my CPU usage goes to 100% when two or more of these ads appear. From then on any desktop activity is really sluggish until I set the quality of these ads from High to Low, (Right-Click, Quality, Low), whereupon the CPU usage drops to about 50%.

This happens on each of the three PC's I mainly access FlyerTalk from. The PC I am using at the moment runs at 600MHz, Another 1.2GHz and my laptop 500MHz.

Is there anything that can be done about this?

I am very tired of opening a window, then doing the following each time: CTRL-PAGE UP, right-click ad, Q, L, Scroll Right, right-click ad, Q, L, CTRL-PAGE DOWN, right-click ad, Q, L & finally CTRL-PAGE UP.

jfe

www.admuncher.com

serfty

Doesn't this go against the FlyerTalk grain. Do not the advertisments help pay for the site?

Anyway, there appears to be a similar issue already in discussion

Randy Petersen

Actually, we have in the past asked the advertising agency that handles placement of these ads on FlyerTalk to remove from rotation ads that bother our members. I'm not sure I've seen this smiley ad but if you see it again and can grab a screen shot (flash) and email to me, i'll see what i can do to make your and others time on FlyerTalk a better experience. I'm sure you are aware that any ads here are very much the same ads you'll see and experience on other Web sites, they certainly aren't created just for us.

And while these things can have a slight impact on any attempts to subplement the annual cost of providing FlyerTalk as a free resource to its members, that's certainly not my first concern. The first being the greater good for our members. If you've been around FT for some time, you'll know that the first few years were ad free - meaning that I fronted the entire cost of providing Ft and that didn't seem to bother me from keeping it going.

Thanks for the heads up and please continue to let us know of these things. We are a Mac company and all run Safari with ad blockers so we really never see anything like most of you do. Macs tend to be virus free and pop-up free. Besides, we've all got our iPods to block out the "noisy" ads!

Have a great day and BTW, Happy New Year.

serfty

(Copy of E-Mail Body text)

And best seasons greeting back to you.

I have attached images of the three ads to this Email in a ZIP file. There was also a Verizon last week that caused some issues as well; I have not seen it recently.

The main problems occur when two of the three advertisements displayed are of the Macromedia Flash type. The CPU is kept very busy generating movement for these and at high (default) resolution it is being maxed.

However, I did notice that about an hour ago these ads have been replaced by static .gif images (same picture, but no movement).

The difference is amazing.

Thankyou for your prompt action.

serfty

They're Back!

ozstamps

Yes Randy ... as posted in another thread you may recall your tech staff acted fast to pull some other very large sized banners about a year back, and many reported far faster loading of FT pages as a result.

Banners pay part of the bills and that is fine, but I feel sure these folks with the bandwidth hogging smileys are NOT paying you any more than the more usual less intrusive ads without flash would pay? Your staff contacting ad agency is appreciated in the past, and hopefully now.

I can understand if your office has good blocking of these things that you do not see them at all and do not readly see what an eyesore they are. But they have been here for about a month now, and maybe ad company dumps them on BB's and leave them there until they are asked to get them off?

Yes banners are part of all free sites. If I see them on a newspaper site I click on to, I'd not bother as (a) I am only there for a few minutes a week, versus many hours on FT and (b) owners of the newspaper site are not likely to care WHAT the users think of them, unlike the owner of FT.

They really are incredibly irritating and intrusive - that is their intended purpose I guess.

But when it slows down FT useage for many as seems to be the case, it would be nice to see them replaced if at all possible. ^

serfty

The've Gone!! ^ ^

kcvt750

Still here for me.

ozstamps

Maybe it is regional?

The flash backed smileys have gone for me too in last 48 hours too.

There are now THREE static banners (one at base I do not recall being there before) and speed is since much improved for me.

Kiwi Flyer

Ads seem to be at least country specific, or rather thats what been able to figure out in various PM exchanges with other FTers around the globe at times in the past when I had speed issues.

Fine for me now though.

serfty

They've been at the base at least since I noticed the speed problems.The bottom one was always the most painful. Hitting CTRL-PgDn sometimes took several seconds to have an on-screen reaction.

It seems fine for me now ^ ^

ozstamps

Not today ... back again. Top side and base.

serfty

They are back today: See Post here

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Update:

They were removed again within 24 hours; thankyou FT et al.

ozstamps

Back AGAIN last 2 days.

Intermittent, but they are sneaking in more and more.

Admin says flash ads are banned, so hope ad agency gets a rocket on this