• Members 153 posts
    July 8, 2023, 12:57 a.m.

    Like I didn't know that was coming. Lowered any class that site might have had, real quick.

    I'm particularly fond of the large Walmart ad selling cucumbers. Oh, toilet paper too. Can't wait for the reviews of the best toilet paper to use.

  • Members 123 posts
    July 8, 2023, 1:08 a.m.

    'Twas easy to run Chrome (no ad block). I did not see Walmart or TP but saw absolutely no camera ads.

    GearPatrol reminds me of In Living Color's Men on Films (and Football, Books, Art, Cooking, Fitness). The sketch was politically incorrect but hilarious.

    "We review cameras, from the male point of view."

  • Members 3342 posts
    July 8, 2023, 1:28 a.m.

    I am getting localised ads at the moment. I would think the ads fed to users' browsers will depend on the country/region they are in.

  • Members 510 posts
    July 8, 2023, 1:33 a.m.

    I haven’t seen a single Ad. on Youtube, eBay or dpreview… or anywhere else for the last 20 years.

    I use the Firefox extensions…
    NoScript
    Maximum protection for your browser: NoScript allows active content only for trusted domains of your choice to prevent exploitation.
    Version 11.4.24
    Last updated June 2023

    and…
    uBlock Origin
    a Firefox extension that completely eliminates YouTube Ads
    Version 1.50.0
    Last updated June 2023


    a2.png


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    PNG, 38.7 KB, uploaded by Greg on July 8, 2023.

    a1.png

    PNG, 66.4 KB, uploaded by Greg on July 8, 2023.

  • Removed user
    July 8, 2023, 2:04 a.m.

    Missed that ... I use AdBlocker in FireFox - still working well on DPR ...

  • Members 360 posts
    July 8, 2023, 6:49 a.m.

    Ouch! Ads in the forum list, ads after three posts. Last visits were unsatisfactory anyways. I did not see it coming, but I might leave dpreview "just like that". Not a welcoming place anymore. Maybe I could contribute some nore here.

  • Members 3342 posts
    July 8, 2023, 6:59 a.m.

    I'm seeing an ad in every thread after the op now 😵🥴

    We're a friendly bunch of people here who play nicely together...................................................................................................most of the time 🤗

  • Members 128 posts
    July 8, 2023, 8:11 a.m.

    Have you heard of ad-blockers?

    You should use an ad-blocker for security reasons, not just to avoid the annoyance.

    I see no ads on dpreview.com - or anywhere else.

  • Members 31 posts
    July 8, 2023, 8:22 a.m.

    Its probably because of people like me ads exist. I'm always buying new things online, i mostly get amazon ads for product ranges I tend to use. since i've been getting into photography I get camera and lens ads too.

    Merlot x

  • Members 510 posts
    July 8, 2023, 11:06 a.m.

    No ads for me. Only large gray blocks. Only in America... that's my guess.

  • Foundation 1405 posts
    July 8, 2023, 11:13 a.m.

    I'm in the EU and see a white block after the first post of a thread. (I use Adblock Plus in Firefox.)

    David

  • Members 360 posts
    July 8, 2023, 11:13 a.m.

    In about place of every fourth post or so. The new owner clearly has different opinions about a service, and I am not going to participate and get him money.

    I would not mind large ads anywhere, money is needed. But there must be a line somewhere. DPreview certainly crossed that line. And that's just the begining. Just few days in. How about a month, a year....

    Not what I witnessed already. Also after DPreviewd was saved, it seemed to me like I spotted some decline in topics and posts here, making the percentage of unfriendly posts larger, but it still is much better here. I truly hope this place stays.

  • Members 510 posts
    July 8, 2023, 5:49 p.m.

    I only see the ad place holders in threads too. But I notice I only see them in flat view. Threaded looks as usual.

    Have you who see ads noticed if they go away if threaded view is used?

  • Members 368 posts
    July 8, 2023, 6:21 p.m.

    Hi,

    All I see is an Ad at the top and another down the right side. Same as it always was.

    And I never see the content unless I wait a bit of time for them to load. Same as it always was.

    I read the posts on a phone. So I enlarge the content area so I only see the posts and go from there. Same as always.

    I see where a not has been made regarding threaded view. That's all I have used since the beginning of it.

    Anyway, I don't see anything different.

    Stan

  • Members 303 posts
    July 8, 2023, 9:04 p.m.

    Of course it was coming - DPR has to at some point turn a profit. Gear Patrol is not a charity and I seriously doubt that it as yet turned a profit. My router (eero) blocks adds. Or I should say the security service that Amazon provides by subscription does. Safari blocks ads and I have an independent and ad and tracker blocker on my system. I haven't seen an ad on DPR in several years and don't see any now. However, I expect the proliferation of good ad blockers has impacted ad revenue for most sites. Richard Butler complained on DPR a few years ago about people using ad blockers since ads was one way DPR generated revenue. But in general when I had my ad blockers off and ads did come through on DPR they were usually camera related. I could live with those, but totally irrelevant ads like TP or cucumbers from Walmart I sure could not live with. I expect Gear Patrol will work to push ads as it is a big source of revenue. The new DPR is not the same as the old. This type of ads is most likely just the start of changes we will see over there.

    With ad blockers it is a cat and mouse game with the advertisers. Advertising companies such as doubleclick.com ( now owned by Google) analyze the current ad blockers and find ways to work around them. They will ether develop a bypass or will stop the full transfer to the website until the ad is displayed. The first is getting more difficult to do. However, the second method is frustrating as a system waits for an ad to display and will not move on. Once doubleclick or any of the others defeats the ad blockers, the ad blockers go to work to defeat the advertiser's code and smoothly block ads. The the cycle starts over.

    I will say that in the past several days, I find that DPR takes longer to respond to download the page associated with a click on the site. It is visibly slower which can be aggravating. I suspect it has to do with the number of ads that DPR tries to down load that get blocked prior to downloading the info requested.
    I look for Gear Patrol to be pretty proactive and aggressive to try to insure that anyone that wants to regularly use DPR to see ads. Stay tuned - it will be very interesting to see how Gear Patrol interacts with the traditional DPR audience.

  • Members 1662 posts
    July 8, 2023, 9:25 p.m.

    I'm not really active on dpreview at the moment, but I take a peek from time to time and when I realized the change (I don't care much about ads, but the ones interrupting the sub-forum lists as well as the posts in a thread are very annoying to me, and that says something coming from someone who doesn't use adblock at all...) I was curious what people thought about that.

    Someone in this thread (Ads in forums) mentioned that some were annoying and it probably isn't a good idea and then this was the reaction of a mod:

    I found that very interesting. If that's true I guess the forum is in a lot of danger still, because I'm not sure this will change. I think a couple of people could be motivated to click on some ads or use some sponsored links to buy stuff, if it was an independent project, created by some of the dpreview staffers, struggling to survive, but for the operation Gear Patrol seems to be? I doubt anyone will change their habits. But we'll see.

    I think regardless of what happens with the dpreview forum, this place should strive towards becoming something different and unique, instead of banking on the demise of the old place, like I've got the impression some alternatives are still attempting to do.

  • Members 2285 posts
    July 8, 2023, 10:37 p.m.

    ive been back on DPR for not even 24 hours and its like useing a well designed ominos 3 DB on a 512k mac back in the 80s compared to Dbase on a IBM based machine. its heaven by comparrision.

  • Members 1662 posts
    July 8, 2023, 11:02 p.m.

    I'm afraid I have no idea what that means... (I was a small kid in the 80s 😅) Could you elaborate?