Ads

I get no popups, only banner ads that are part of the forum (I'm not a paying member - can't afford it). There's nothing underlined because they're flash or bitmaps. I have no extensions in my browser other than Ghostery.

All the glory be to our great God!!! that is good news. I don't get banner ads because I use Adblock plus for firefox. Chrome might have something like that.

It might cut off some malicious scripts, worth a try. Some sites will complain about it but you can enable it per site if you want. Like Ghostery.

https://adblockplus.org/en/chrome

Blessings.
 

I see Jeff, it cost money to run forums, pay host and time, energy and effort (With prayer). I never noticed any ads on this forum and anyone running Adblock plus won't even notice them. In fact it was not until you pointed out the option to sow that I know there is suppose to even be ads.

I suspect others run adblock plus or something similar and won't notice the ads at all.

There should be a script that detects ad Blockers and will show a default message about sowing. It won't be the ad of course but at least a message to alert that this site is using ads to help out. Otherwise I doubt most of us that block pop ups will know.

Some sites have cute pictures of kittens asking to please enable ads and such.

Blessings.
 
Michael, that is something I am looking at. Thank you for the suggestion. (y)

Edit: I just did that. I have a red banner there asking ad-block users to disable Adblock or subscribe to an upgrade. Sure they can continue blocking ads but the red banner will be there as a reminder. I don't want to force anyone. I remember I once recommended Ad-block to a friend a long time ago. :D
 
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Hi Michael, I think there's a problem with the adblock notice.

Can you disable the adblock for CFS and try refreshing the page a few times to see if the adblock notice disappears. For me even with the adblock disabled, I still get the red notice appearing sometimes below the ads. I want to know if this is happening to others too.
 
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Done, your "Real" ad is not switching over. Tested with firefox Adblock off and tested with Chrome (no adblock software)
 
I'm afraid I will be one who (at least while the option is available) accepts the "Ad-blocking software has been detected notice".

While I do appreciate that websites cost, personally, I'm not prepared to pay. As well as believing in the "for free" principle, I'd have to draw a line somewhere and could see things snowballing if subscriptions, etc. became the norm (I'd have to start becoming selective about the sites I visit, miss out on info I need, etc.) if every site worked that way.

I would not mind ads as alternative except for one thing and it is a big issue to me.. I have a strong dislike for example of looking up a product say on Screwfix and finding (this has happend to me btw) the next site I visit shows me an ad. Until such time systems such as Google Adsense have tracking off by defualt (while I can do it, I should not have to turn it off - IMO targeted ads should be "opt in" by law) , I will run Ad-blocking software
 
I'm afraid I will be one who (at least while the option is available) accepts the "Ad-blocking software has been detected notice".

While I do appreciate that websites cost, personally, I'm not prepared to pay. As well as believing in the "for free" principle, I'd have to draw a line somewhere and could see things snowballing if subscriptions, etc. became the norm (I'd have to start becoming selective about the sites I visit, miss out on info I need, etc.) if every site worked that way.

Nobody has asked anyone to disable adblock software and it can be disabled for this site if you wish. As for trackers, there is talk above on how to shut them off from following you with Ghostery so they don't follow you around with ads.

Jeff installed the big read reminder because folks like me never even realized that a ad should be displayed and would have never considered upgrading or understand how the site supports itself. Ads normally pay on clicks and everything helps.

You can very easy shut off trackers you don't like though. I know it gets annoying.

Blessings.
 
Done, your "Real" ad is not switching over. Tested with firefox Adblock off and tested with Chrome (no adblock software)

Thank you. Bed time for me now. I'll work on it tomorrow.

I'm afraid I will be one who (at least while the option is available) accepts the "Ad-blocking software has been detected notice".

While I do appreciate that websites cost, personally, I'm not prepared to pay. As well as believing in the "for free" principle, I'd have to draw a line somewhere and could see things snowballing if subscriptions, etc. became the norm (I'd have to start becoming selective about the sites I visit, miss out on info I need, etc.) if every site worked that way.

I would not mind ads as alternative except for one thing and it is a big issue to me.. I have a strong dislike for example of looking up a product say on Screwfix and finding (this has happend to me btw) the next site I visit shows me an ad. Until such time systems such as Google Adsense have tracking off by defualt (while I can do it, I should not have to turn it off - IMO targeted ads should be "opt in" by law) , I will run Ad-blocking software

I don't mind ad-blocks at all. In fact I have recommended it before to a friend of mine. With CFS, we ran the site without ads for almost 8 years. It was expensive but I managed to pay for it. Just a few months back we were DDOS attacked and the it is still going on at a low level. In order to withstand that I was forced to upgrade to a $90/month hosting plan which I cannot afford by myself. So it's the upgrade or shutdown or selling off the website altogether. In fact, at one point I almost decided to close the forum. After much thought, I opted to continue but I now need the ads to fund at least half the monthly expenses. If it weren't for the continuous DDOS attack I would have kept this forum ad-free. Although hosting is the major expense, there are others too like occasional software upgrades, technical maintenance fees and so on.

Like I said before, I have no problem with anyone using Adblock. I will leave it to the visitor / member to decide on it. (y)
 
@MichaelH, can you try disabling and enabling adblock to see if all is working well now? Everything seems to be fine at my end.

@jonbanjo, like I said previously no problem at all with anyone using adblock. There's a notice there instead just to inform visitors who are not aware that we have advertisements running to fund our website. It's a win-win situation I feel. Do you have any suggestions?

Based on the feedbacks I have received so far, I have made some improvements to advertising in our forums. There's an update about it here: http://www.christianforumsite.com/threads/update-regarding-advertisements.36743/
 
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@jonbanjo, like I said previously no problem at all with anyone using adblock. There's a notice there instead just to inform visitors who are not aware that we have advertisements running to fund our website. It's a win-win situation I feel. Do you have any suggestions?

I think you are being as reasonable as you can be about this. I'll use your site as one of my "trusted sites" and see how it goes.
 
I'll be as reasonable as I can. I may see a drop in ads revenue for now, but I think I may be able to offset that via
(1) a better affordable subscription deal
(2) by raising the price of custom ads on the forums and
(3) by requesting certain ad-blockers like ABP to white-list our domain because we now only display text based non-intrusive advertising.
 
Thanks for all you've done in this area. I find ads annoying, but I see the necessity of them so I won't block them. (If everyone blocks them, then that defeats the purpose of generating income to keep the site up.)

BTW, I've never had ads I consider 'intrusive' this site (meaning no popups).
 
Ads seem to be working, even click on a few to check them out.

Renttoown.org..................... this one is bad, no Wot rating and they pull information from other realtors without permission and add their own stuff and description. There is a long complaint page and some homes are being put up that are not even Rent to own and the owners are pretty upset about it.

I work for a Real Estate Company and we are not affiliated with Rent to Own in any way. All of our listings are on this site with FALSE, MISLEADING information. They are pulling information from somewhere without permission and adding FALSE information to the listings to entice you to join. You should not have to PAY a cent to search for...
read more

this is just one out of a bunch.


Speed up my computer (sparktrust) Junk progrm, only 2 star rating on cnet, no WOT rating. Will not make any computer faster and I suggest CCleaner as it does the same thing only a whole lot better. To really speed up a computer you need to shut down services not needed "services.msc" and you need to look at the start on run menu and disable all those things that don't need to load on boot. defragging may help (though some question this) but slow computers are caused by having a slow computer, super long registry though years of use and process that use memory and Cpu.

Question:

should a Christian site only have ads that are actually helpful to people, or is it all business and not considered christian related?


blessings.
 
I'll block those websites you mentioned. Thanks.

It's very difficult to implement a 100% family friendly / christian filter for ads. For larger websites, it is possible because they have advertisers queuing up to advertise on their website specifically. They can choose and allow who they want. In our case, we don't have any advertiser targeting our website specifically so we are in a group of small websites where anyone can advertise. This is probably why we get these type of ads.
 
I'll block those websites you mentioned. Thanks.

It's very difficult to implement a 100% family friendly / christian filter for ads. For larger websites, it is possible because they have advertisers queuing up to advertise on their website specifically. They can choose and allow who they want. In our case, we don't have any advertiser targeting our website specifically so we are in a group of small websites where anyone can advertise. This is probably why we get these type of ads.

I see, ads are good but If I were to come to this site and trusted you then someone might think that you would only let those things in that would not be worthless or even take someones money. I understand it's not a simple problem to solve. A disclaimer maybe? I wonder if E-sword pays for click thru's.... doubt it... but still..

be blessed.
 
Got the following ads while Ghostery only shows DoubleClick, Facebook Connect, Facebook Social Plugins, Twitter Badge and Twitter Button:

(2 people tracked you)
spyguardapp.com
Free tool that reveals your secret web history.

pcrisk.com says this is a rogueware privacy threat with a fake Norton Secured badge on their website.

Your Computer is Slow
speedmaxpc.com
Repair Your PC Before It Gets Worse. Follow These 3 Steps Immediately!

Google says this appears to be malware.

The True Jesus Christ
www.rcg.org
(and other links like www.rcg.org/lastdays)
Unknown to Christianity - A Single Book can Change People Forever

This is a cult (like Armstrongism before the split)

3-Minute Chakra Test
www.chakrahealing.com
Take the Free Chakra Test to Find Out Which of Your Chakras Are Weak

Kinda obvious.
 
Got the following ads while Ghostery only shows DoubleClick, Facebook Connect, Facebook Social Plugins, Twitter Badge and Twitter Button:

(2 people tracked you)
spyguardapp.com
Free tool that reveals your secret web history.

pcrisk.com says this is a rogueware privacy threat with a fake Norton Secured badge on their website.

Your Computer is Slow
speedmaxpc.com
Repair Your PC Before It Gets Worse. Follow These 3 Steps Immediately!

Google says this appears to be malware.

The True Jesus Christ
www.rcg.org
(and other links like www.rcg.org/lastdays)
Unknown to Christianity - A Single Book can Change People Forever

This is a cult (like Armstrongism before the split)

3-Minute Chakra Test
www.chakrahealing.com
Take the Free Chakra Test to Find Out Which of Your Chakras Are Weak

Kinda obvious.

You get these trackers from this site?

speedmaxpc and Chakrahealing.com should not be tracking at all here. Speedmaxpc is malware and normally some file in your computer. Did you check your temp folder? Some like to hide out in there. You can empty your temp folder, though some programs keep the whole reinstall in there.

C:\Users\Mike\AppData\Local\Temp

That is where mine is located, might not hurt to take a look to see what is in there.

You have to enable show invisible files and folders first though as AppData is invisible unless enabled.

Blessings.
 
Ok, I exited my browser, emptied that temp folder (..and it needed it: 76Mb of files), and checked out the forums again. Eventually I still got an ad for speedmaxpc. I don't have any malware or viruses, according to Comodo, Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware.
 
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