I first observed this on the Aston Martin Forum a day or two ago. I learned that you should not see them if you are logged in which I was for certain. I later learned that everyone was seeing these and that they were able to do something simple to stop it from happening. The only reason I mention it is that I thought that it was a vetted ad and, therefore I ordered some KN-95 masks from them, (the same one that is also advertising on this Forum), and it turns out they were not vetted by the AM Forum and, they may or may not be a fraud. For what it is worth you may want to check into this. You will see this as a "sponsored content" under new threads. (The first one)

 

I've never had one of these show up because I have an ad blocker installed in my browser. I use AdGuard. It eliminates all ads from the internet except for the video ads on youtube. It really cleans up my web browsing experience.

 

Thanks, I have installed it and.......you are right! Thanks so much. I do not see a downside...

 

Thx for the heads-up about the KN-95 masks. If anyone else has had experience with these ads or the masks, it’d be great to hear about it too.

 

If we all block the adverts, it won't be long before the forum owners decide to shut the servers down - no revenue = no forum.

Seems shortsighted to me.

 

That's not going to happen, there's always someone like you who will not block advertisements.

 

Plenty of websites dissappear due to lack of advertising revenue. Forums are particularly difficult to monetise due to the low turnover of new visitors. But if not being burdened by seeing adverts is more important to you than forum longevity, so be it.

 

TANSTAAFL, you're gonna pay either way.

If it's free, than you are the product and either your eyeballs going on ads you don't want to see or the list is unsustainable and eventually disappears.

There is an alternative...

Another large forum I belong to has a voluntary "premium membership" that pays for the list administration, shields you from ads, and gives other benefits. I happily send them the membership fee every year to support a site that has become both an incredible international technical source and a deep and valued social community for me. And I take great satisfaction in being publicly identified as one of the many members who supports keeping that fantastic resource alive. In fact, my .sig for that forum reads "Your gold star membership keeps this awesome list going!" to encourage others to join in supporting it.

I've grown and admin'd large technical forums before and have absolutely no desire to ever do that again. $45 is cheap compared to that insanity.

 

This I would get behind. I would gladly pay an annual fee just to get rid of ads if it also helps support the forum. But I run an adblocker for all websites because I just can't stand ads, especially when they seem targeted to me. It's partly paranoia, partly OCD, and partly just being annoyed by ads. I've been running an adblocker on my devices since I was around 16 years old. Browsing the web without one is now jarring to me. I also figure, most members on this forum are likely older than I am and less technologically savvy than me, and thus are more likely to use browse without adblockers, or any other script blocking browser extension. I'm probably in the minority of members who does make use of those resources, and I figure that the loss of ad-revenue attributable to my browsing habits in this particular forum is negligible.

How many younger Millenial/Gen Z Jaguar owners do you know? So far, I only know of myself.