The Student Room Group

New ad blocker messages

I was recently confronted with a rather ugly page here:



Was this the end of my TSR ****posting? Was I now forced to the dark side - leddit?

Thankfully, it proved easy to bypass, but it made me wonder. Just how many of you guys are running ad-blocks? What is TSR's business model?

Ads aren't the only way websites make money off of their users.

TSR, for example, sells your information to advertisers. This is on top of its services to survey companies; I can see that it runs scripts from a lot of advertiser domains on every page (you can block these using a Firefox extension called NoScript).

This isn't unusual on the internet - on most newspapers online you can find similar scripts, all collecting data about you for Google, Facebook, etc.

The problem with ads is that they are obnoxious (TSR's popups particularly so), insecure (they are controlled by third parties, and therefore can push malicious scripts onto viewers), and attack your privacy (with tracking ads and cookies). Plus they promote the very consumerism that has been destroying our planet.

An alternative that has recently been rolled out for several major sites is a javascript cryptominer - basically making your CPU run a lot of calculations, instead of pushing ads on to you.

Personally, I'd be happy to whitelist these for the websites I want to support.



What do you think about ad-blocks? Stealing money from creators, or a sad necessity?
(edited 6 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

f****ck tsr I havent got time for ads!!!!!!!!!
Reply 2
Glad you made this thread, I get this annoying pop-up that keeps telling me how many times I viewed TSR with an ad-block this month.

So essentially, I have to either whitelist this site or go through the process of observing how often I use TSR :colonhash:

Screen Shot 2017-10-16 at 16.42.38.png
I use ad-block because their ads are far too intrusive and make their website slower than it already is.
Reply 4
It is ****ing annoying me TSR.
Original post by UWS
Glad you made this thread, I get this annoying pop-up that keeps telling me how many times I viewed TSR with an ad-block this month.

So essentially, I have to either whitelist this site or go through the process of observing how often I use TSR :colonhash:

Screen Shot 2017-10-16 at 16.42.38.png


I have just discovered it too. Page #8 here, technically... probably in the thousands in actuality :rofl:

If you use uBlock, you can use the element zapper to block it.

I run a tonne of other similar addons, one of which blocks this kind of thing automatically (uMatrix or NoScript probably).



Yup, that is the main reason I run ad-block on TSR - the site is horrendously slow to load. I don't know if that is just because it is terribly designed, or because they keep on trying to add fancy eye-candy in for the ever-younger audience.
(edited 6 years ago)
Tried, doesn't work for me. Must be browser-specific.
Reply 7
If the ads on the website weren't so annoying and intrusive I wouldn't mind having them but....
Original post by It's****ingWOODY
Tried, doesn't work for me. Must be browser-specific.


If you are using uBlock, use the element zapper.

Else you can install NoScript and block javascript from thestudentroom domain - only thing is then you won't have notifications (how will you know how many badges you've earned?!)
Original post by It's****ingWOODY
Tried, doesn't work for me. Must be browser-specific.


If you're using adblock plus, either use block element and then click the purple bar or you can go to settings and add the element manually.

It's this btw "thestudentroom.co.uk##.fc-root.fc-pinned-message-container"

Spoiler

In the case of TSR, i'd have no problem going back to the old model with subscribers and a monthly fee. But the new model, £5 = 500 page views, so I did an audit of how many page views i've made on here in the past month, and came to the conclusion that to continue at my current rate, I'd need to be spending about £30 a month, i'm not a particularly heavy user, but lets think about this. If you have seen a post that interests you from the front page.

Page count:
1. Home Page
2. Post of interest
You want to make a comment?
3. Send reply
4. returns you to post of interest.

4 pageviews just to make a comment, and you're going to charge people £5 for 500, or force them to run obtrusive adverts instead.

I'm still of the opinion that until it's made explicitly clear, the current wording of the ePrivacy Directive, requires that implicit consent must have been given for the running of any adblock detection to occur, rather than the implied they're trying to pull at the moment. When GDPR comes into effect, there will be none of this implied BS, because they'll be legally required to get implicit permission for any data collection.

A script, running in the background (yes, i've checked, it's an adaptation of a fairly well known one, and it's one of the most obtrusive as well) that is collecting information from the client side of an interaction, is data collection.

As it stands, i've just set up a whole new set of custom rules for bypassing this, if you want money from me to remove the popups, fine. Use a reasonable model and i'll consider it. Especially as most of the time, i'm personally not here to search for help.

However, with this model, taking into account that the little quip about 65 staff yada yada, TSR Group is a multimillion pound business according to 2016 filings, blocks are in place, just like every other multimillion business doing this dubious practice.
Original post by FriendlyPenguin


If you use uBlock, you can use the element zapper to block it.


cheers
Is noone going to say anything about the tabs that OP has?
Also quality porn there.
I've noticed more and more websites now tell me I'm running an ad blocker.
I don't know exactly what the **** is up with your tab game but boy do you have some weird sexual fetishes which need to be fulfilled for definite.
Things like this make me want to make sure I never, ever unblock ads for the site because it makes me resent the ads even more. It's invasive and it's irritating.
Tip for everyone to stop the annoying purple popup at the bottom: If using ublock origin you can right click the popup and block that element and youll never see it again
Reply 18
Original post by SuperHuman98
Is noone going to say anything about the tabs that OP has?


I'm pretty sure that's intentional.
Original post by _gcx
cheers


You use uBlock too? :biggrin:

Latest