I've had it. The ads are driving me nuts and wasting hours of time. Charge me fee!
Jun 16, 2003, 8:56 am
#1
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I've had it. The ads are driving me nuts and wasting hours of time. Charge me fee!
I have not had a real problem with the banner ads on FT before but the last week or so those MASSIVE 217 kilobyte banners on top and base of screen from DrugFreeAmerica.org have been driving me nuts as they take an ETERNITY to load on my screen.
Most especially when I reply to a post. There are 2 different, out of sequence, with multi pages on each of them, and these gifs seem designed not to allow page to open or post until their stoopid "Where Are Your Kids today" multi-page poll/quiz takes place. 217 kilobytes is one big sucker, especially when it "holds" the page from posting/opening until the 'Quiz' rolls over, and over, and over. Two such banners working in tandem, top and bottom of the screen is really maddening - to me anyway.
I understand ads are important for funding FT. I have no issue at all with that. But the sheer size of these current two impacts on my useability of the boards, both in pages opening up and when posting.
It wastes hours of MY time while they load, and that is bugging me more and more each day this week. I spend 10 times as much time here as many FT'ers, so I guess these things bug me 10 times more!
These current gifs are each 50 times the file size of what we used to get here. If Randy is getting paid 50 times the revenue of regular banner ads, I would not mind so much - but I bet he is not. Ads here used to be surprisingly unobtrusive. Remember?
It seems this ad vendor (Real Media.com?) is loading more and more irritating and complex stuff onto FT. Pop ups, pop unders, and the side-loading ads that many others have complained about that 'squeeze up' their screens. Using FT lately is getting more like visiting an EZBoard site or any number of other free sites that drive you nuts with annoying ads.
Many FT users view FT in Hotel rooms, airline lounges etc, with slow connections and/or on dial up. They must go nuts trying to efficiently visit and use this site in recent times.
A FT'er who is versed in this area of BB's tells me that many of the recent banners being foisted on Randy by his vendor are not just simple gifs and jpegs, but have snazzy stuff built into them like complex JavaScript or Macromedia Flash.
Others here have offered in the past to pay a subscription to be free of all this irritating junk, and for me that time has arrived for sure this week. $50 or $100 a year would not bother me at all, but I'd like to partake of an ad free FT whatever the cost please. SOON.
My FT colleague did say that the ad killers like from www.admuncher.com do work. However I gather that also means when I am visiting sites where I DO want to see integral pop-ups like on Starwood or Qantas or VirginBlue or UA sites, I do not get to see those windows which often contain important info that I do need to read. Catch 22.
Please monitor and police the ad vendor and ask them to get back to smaller more conventional banner ads. Or - go the whole hog and have bigger and bigger banners and even more intrusive stuff, but allow those who are now sick of it to pay a fee to not see it. Where do I send my Mastercard details ????
This current top banner is 217,277 bytes. This is working in tandem, and the same page with this current lower banner which is 172,781 bytes. Whereas the only other banner ad seemingly current is the Engine 54 one at only 12,544 bytes or over 17 times smaller.
------------------
~ Glen ~
Come visit HERE the most ** FRIENDLY FORUM ** on FlyerTalk. No flame wars, no personal abuse, no substance abuse. Not much of anything really!
Most especially when I reply to a post. There are 2 different, out of sequence, with multi pages on each of them, and these gifs seem designed not to allow page to open or post until their stoopid "Where Are Your Kids today" multi-page poll/quiz takes place. 217 kilobytes is one big sucker, especially when it "holds" the page from posting/opening until the 'Quiz' rolls over, and over, and over. Two such banners working in tandem, top and bottom of the screen is really maddening - to me anyway.
I understand ads are important for funding FT. I have no issue at all with that. But the sheer size of these current two impacts on my useability of the boards, both in pages opening up and when posting.
It wastes hours of MY time while they load, and that is bugging me more and more each day this week. I spend 10 times as much time here as many FT'ers, so I guess these things bug me 10 times more!
These current gifs are each 50 times the file size of what we used to get here. If Randy is getting paid 50 times the revenue of regular banner ads, I would not mind so much - but I bet he is not. Ads here used to be surprisingly unobtrusive. Remember?
It seems this ad vendor (Real Media.com?) is loading more and more irritating and complex stuff onto FT. Pop ups, pop unders, and the side-loading ads that many others have complained about that 'squeeze up' their screens. Using FT lately is getting more like visiting an EZBoard site or any number of other free sites that drive you nuts with annoying ads.
Many FT users view FT in Hotel rooms, airline lounges etc, with slow connections and/or on dial up. They must go nuts trying to efficiently visit and use this site in recent times.
A FT'er who is versed in this area of BB's tells me that many of the recent banners being foisted on Randy by his vendor are not just simple gifs and jpegs, but have snazzy stuff built into them like complex JavaScript or Macromedia Flash.
Others here have offered in the past to pay a subscription to be free of all this irritating junk, and for me that time has arrived for sure this week. $50 or $100 a year would not bother me at all, but I'd like to partake of an ad free FT whatever the cost please. SOON.
My FT colleague did say that the ad killers like from www.admuncher.com do work. However I gather that also means when I am visiting sites where I DO want to see integral pop-ups like on Starwood or Qantas or VirginBlue or UA sites, I do not get to see those windows which often contain important info that I do need to read. Catch 22.
Please monitor and police the ad vendor and ask them to get back to smaller more conventional banner ads. Or - go the whole hog and have bigger and bigger banners and even more intrusive stuff, but allow those who are now sick of it to pay a fee to not see it. Where do I send my Mastercard details ????
This current top banner is 217,277 bytes. This is working in tandem, and the same page with this current lower banner which is 172,781 bytes. Whereas the only other banner ad seemingly current is the Engine 54 one at only 12,544 bytes or over 17 times smaller.
------------------
~ Glen ~
Come visit HERE the most ** FRIENDLY FORUM ** on FlyerTalk. No flame wars, no personal abuse, no substance abuse. Not much of anything really!
Jun 16, 2003, 10:56 am
#2
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: This year we're going to the BAFTAs!
Posts: 5,518
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">My FT colleague did say that the ad killers like from www.admuncher.com do work. However I gather that also means when I am visiting sites where I DO want to see integral pop-ups like on Starwood or Qantas or VirginBlue or UA sites, I do not get to see those windows which often contain important info that I do need to read. Catch 22.</font>
Jun 16, 2003, 12:29 pm
#3
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 55,189
Ok, charge Ozstamps but not the rest of us. I don't even see any ads except a narrow banner on top. 
Jun 16, 2003, 12:59 pm
#4
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Dan Fearman, one of Randy's tech wizards is a real class operator. Dan contacted the vendor, isolated the 2 massive banners and had them pulled. All happened within a couple hours of being made aware of this issue. 
All I have seen for the last 30-60 minutes are the perfectly normal and acceptable sized 12KB blue "Engine 54" banners. Pages load much faster and RESPONSES to posts fly through in that period I have noticed.
Thanks Dan from all I am sure who have endured these monsters for the past week or so, and do not have 'ad munching' programs loaded. (I will look at it based on SMessier's helpful post.)
Analise ... the banners you visually "see" on FT are ALL small 'standard' size banners, as per my 3 links to them above. (And trust me they are at the BASE of every page you open as well as top!)
The difference is the one you see now on this page is 17 times smaller in file size than what was there when I posted. AND is free of all the complex JavaScript or Macromedia Flash which bogged down viewing and posting n FT.
All I have seen for the last 30-60 minutes are the perfectly normal and acceptable sized 12KB blue "Engine 54" banners. Pages load much faster and RESPONSES to posts fly through in that period I have noticed.
Thanks Dan from all I am sure who have endured these monsters for the past week or so, and do not have 'ad munching' programs loaded. (I will look at it based on SMessier's helpful post.)
Analise ... the banners you visually "see" on FT are ALL small 'standard' size banners, as per my 3 links to them above. (And trust me they are at the BASE of every page you open as well as top!)
The difference is the one you see now on this page is 17 times smaller in file size than what was there when I posted. AND is free of all the complex JavaScript or Macromedia Flash which bogged down viewing and posting n FT.
Jun 16, 2003, 1:32 pm
#5
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Austin, TX
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Ah, but welcome to AOL8.0, in Flash, no less!
Jun 16, 2003, 2:04 pm
#6
Moderator: Flying Blue (Air France & KLM), France and TravelBuzz!
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This is really quite an improvement. Many thanks to Ozstamps and Dan.
Jun 16, 2003, 2:47 pm
#7
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Since I visit FT on broadband, the ads at the top and bottom load instantly. And I use Pop-Up Stopper Companion which gets everything but the latest Flash ads being used by autosport.co.uk.
But for those who use dial-up, thanks to the FT Web Admin Team for "lightning the load".
But for those who use dial-up, thanks to the FT Web Admin Team for "lightning the load".
Jan 17, 2005, 8:44 pm
#8
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FT Subscription
Can we look at FT subscriptions? Something that would allow subscribing members to surf the site ad-free with no banners or pop-ups.
Jan 17, 2005, 9:24 pm
#9
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In case folks overlooked the datelines, I hasten to add this thread was started 18 months back - it is not new. But thanks to TravelManKen for locating it and bumping it, as it seems timely. 
These annoying Macromedia flash "smileys" returning after being "banned" a week back has the same effect - taking me about an hour extra each day to frequent and enjoy FT. FT has been flying for me since these garish ads were removed, and it is slow as molasses right now. For me. Can't speak for others.
If it costs me a fee to avoid those incredibly irritating things, please let me know where to send the check. ^ ^
I have a pop up blocker but by choice do not want to load anything else, as it may affect things on other sites I visit. My choice. And my money if it costs a fee to subscribe ad free to FT.
These annoying Macromedia flash "smileys" returning after being "banned" a week back has the same effect - taking me about an hour extra each day to frequent and enjoy FT. FT has been flying for me since these garish ads were removed, and it is slow as molasses right now. For me. Can't speak for others.
If it costs me a fee to avoid those incredibly irritating things, please let me know where to send the check. ^ ^
I have a pop up blocker but by choice do not want to load anything else, as it may affect things on other sites I visit. My choice. And my money if it costs a fee to subscribe ad free to FT.
Last edited by ozstamps; Jan 17, 2005 at 9:42 pm Reason: HTML coding
Jan 17, 2005, 9:33 pm
#10
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I believe this is a conspiracy; and should be moved to Omni for further discussion.
Dan
Dan
Jan 18, 2005, 2:17 pm
#11
Founder of FlyerTalk
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 6,540
We've reconfigured our settings (as well as I had to slap a few people around....) and it seems to be much better immediately for me. Time will tell. and 'smiley' is gone again. As an aside, we'd had approximately a 21% jump in traffic as of late.
If you really want an idea of what we're pushing daily, look at Alexa - an independent traffic analysis Web site. The other day we hit a record of nearly 17 million page views in a single day. Yes, 17 million in a single day.... We're no Yahoo!, but i think some of you would nod at that daily page view is pretty respectful.
Look for yourself:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/tr...=flyertalk.com
We are trying to manage bandwidth and traffic in real-time so please continue to bear with us.
If you really want an idea of what we're pushing daily, look at Alexa - an independent traffic analysis Web site. The other day we hit a record of nearly 17 million page views in a single day. Yes, 17 million in a single day.... We're no Yahoo!, but i think some of you would nod at that daily page view is pretty respectful.
Look for yourself:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/tr...=flyertalk.com
We are trying to manage bandwidth and traffic in real-time so please continue to bear with us.
Jan 18, 2005, 7:08 pm
#12
Join Date: Jan 1999
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I don't mind the banners as much as I do the &#@*# popup windows that are scripted well enough to get around most popup blockers by tying themselves to clicking on links on the page. I find this really offensive and have brought this up in the technical forum before.
I'd definitely pay extra to not have to deal with these.
I'd definitely pay extra to not have to deal with these.
Jan 18, 2005, 8:17 pm
#13
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Niceville, FL, USA
Posts: 2,793
Quite valid.
But if I may "come out of the closet" on this issue, once in a while I actually click on those pop-under (or whatever they are called) ads just to hopefully "pay my way" a little for the free FlyerTalk.
Small price to pay, IMHO.
But if I may "come out of the closet" on this issue, once in a while I actually click on those pop-under (or whatever they are called) ads just to hopefully "pay my way" a little for the free FlyerTalk.
Small price to pay, IMHO.
Jan 26, 2005, 6:23 am
#14
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Originally Posted by TravelManKen
Can we look at FT subscriptions? Something that would allow subscribing members to surf the site ad-free with no banners or pop-ups.
Jan 26, 2005, 9:18 pm
#15
FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Originally Posted by Gaucho100K
Ive been asking for a FT for a fee for ages....
Seriously, charging a fee might kill, or drastically alter, FlyerTalk.