Ads blocking access to site!

[nikon grrl. . .]

Hi everyone. I don't want to stick in anyone's craw, but this

complaint wouldn't be written if it weren't dire. I'm a true

photo.net addict, and ever since that Apple 'Aperture' ad has prececed

access to the site, I can log on! it's like, the ad starts and never

goes away. what gives?! has anyone else had this experience? i know

all about gorilla advertising and stuff, but this is ridiculous. ps,

i'm not ragging on the site, the administrators, or anything like

that. i just thought it needed to be brought to someone's attention.

to reprise: since the 'aperture' ad has been on photo.net, i've had

difficulty accessing the site. thank you.

[ellis_vener_photography]

The ad is place there by Google. Funny thing, even as I finished that first sentence it start

to do its pop overthing.I don't like it either bu t how is it really just to hit the little button

in the ad space that says "Skip this ad"?

[f_thaon]

get Mozilla Firefox browser with Adblock extension. no problemo. you can have a gorrilla ad beating up on you but after all it is a gorrilla and you have options it doesn't. seems to me a bad PR move on everyone's part. it will go away eventually as all bad ideas do.

[jbs]

I Love Photo.net but come less and less..........

[lauriee]

Yup I just started getting this ad too! The first couple of times I didn't notice the "skip this ad" because it's quite small AND you must be very fast or you miss it completely and STILL have to watch the ad! It's annoying for sure....but not annoying enough for me to leave.

[alexander ziegler]

well: never buy programs who need to be advertised like this, there must be something wrong with them

 

advertisement is ok, but this is ridiculous

[alexander ziegler]

besides:

 

i did some checking. frequency of popups decreases, when you do enable cookies in your browser. seems to be enough when you enable cookies for PN. temporary cookies do not work. popup blockers do not work.

[mottershead]

The ad is supposed to be exposure-limited to once per user per 24 hours. If you have cookies disabled, then the exposure-limiting won't work because a cookie is used to record the fact that you have seen the ad alerady once in 24 hours.

[root]

Help me out here, please.

 

Since updating my membership status, the site has been unable to remember my password. I am automatically logged out when I leave the site even though I have attempted to check the "remember" box. Cookies are enabled. What am I missing?

[kelly_flanigan1]

Here I still have not seen the pop up advert yet. <b> As usual, what Operating system, browser do you use? </B> Maybe like Bigfoot and UFO's, some see these things, and others go to great lengths hopeing to see them, with no success. Here I have tried several computers, running W3.11 thru XP, with the modern OS's using mozilla foxfire 1.0, old netscape and even Opera and buggy IE :) too. I tried logging in as member, and not logging in. I even tried using a computer that has never been to Photo.net ever. <BR><BR>There have been probably a dozen threads about this problem, and most all folks never mention any details about their settup. It is like saying one saw a UFO or Bigfoot, but not wanting to mention where they were seen. It is somewhat like complaining about a film,camera or lens, with no reference as to the type of film, model of the camera or lens. I wonder why some see these and some dont. The lack of real info from the complaining folks seems to be a common problem with these threads.<BR><BR> Maybe somebody should start a thread about this matter, where one can only add a complaint, if the system info is given. This data thread might give the site operators some REAL clues on what is going on. <BR><BR>Is the advert a moving gif, a flash file or what? Where are the details? ? ? <BR><BR>Bigfoot, UFO's, Adverts, do they really exist? ? ? ? :)

[kelly_flanigan1]

֠_ _0 �

[root]

I haven't changed my OS and browser recently, so that should be a constant. FYI, it's Mac OS X, Mozilla.

[mottershead]

This Aperture ad will be finished tomorrow. It does not come from Google, by the way, but from another ad network to which we belong.

 

I've seen this ad a few times, only when logged out. The times I saw it, it collapsed back into the banner after the animation completed as it was supposed to do. The animation took about 5 seconds. I didn't find this annoying. There was also a close button, although it might have been difficult for people to see.

 

On Firefox, which is the browser I use, when the ad closed, the area underneath it was not repainted. This was annoying. On Internet Explorer, it seemed to work correctly.

 

Another problem was that the ad was supposed to be exposure-limited to once per user per 24 hour period. I don't think I saw it more often than that, but several people reported that they did. I don't think the ad was annoying, provided one saw it only occasionally. I think some of the people yelling and screaming about this are objecting less to the ad itself than to the idea of advertising on web sites. On the other hand, no matter how tasteful the ad, I can certainly see that it would get annoying if it seemed like you were seeing it every time you turned the page. It may be that those reporting problems had an unusual set-up for cookies, which would have been self-defeating in this case because ad networks use cookies in order to limit the number of exposures a person has of a particular ad. Without these cookies, the ad network does not know that you have already seen the ad.

 

Subscribers should not have been seeing the ad at all if they were logged in. Being "logged in" is also implemented with a cookie. I never saw the ad while logged in. But we did get a couple of reports from subscribers that this was not working. In fact, our administrator Jennifer reported that she saw the ad once when she was definitely logged in. A couple of times she reported seeing other ads that she should not have seen as a logged-in subscriber, and that the header said "Sign In/Register". On the next page, it said "Workspace" again -- meaning that for one page hit, either the cookie was not sent by her browser, or that it was not correctly handled. I will investigate this when I have time.

[mottershead]

Carl, what do you mean by "leave the site"? One thing you might check is after you "leave the site", does you browser still have a "photonet_login" cookie? If you do, then the cookie is persistent, as it should be if you click the "remember" box. If you don't, then that would be interesting.

[root]

Ok, I fixed it. Seems I had somehow set cookies to only allow them for the session on this site. It works now.

[john_bright]

I just recently opened a broadband account with a capped service that quite adequately suits my purpose untill I'm confronted with a manace like Apple 'Aperture'(cdn.eyewonder.com)which wastes over 2.5MB every time I come here!

[john_bright]

Just for the record I've been around here for about forty-minutes using Firefox and I've downloaded about 1.5MB (without flash player). If I clear my stored pages in IE and come back again fresh, the usage will be about three time that ammount in a few minutes. Eyewonder is a manace!

[zhua]

I usually enter PN via bookmark to the login page. When the Apple ad came up, I couldn't get to entering my data without first closing the ad which took a while. Brian, in the future please avoid any ads that cover your login data entry fields!

[kelly_flanigan1]

Wow, 1.5 and 2.5Megs! ? Here with dialup there would really be a bog!. Like Bigfoot and UFO's, I still wonder if this advert was a moving gif, flash, or a dream. :)

[kbreak]

goto www.apple.com and find out?

[kai_griffin]

<i>wastes over 2.5MB every time</i><p>

O, the humanity! Global bandwidth is due to run out on the 1st of April, and nobody seems to be doing a thing about it, spilling bits with reckless abandon. You'd certainly expect more responsibility from a leading company like Apple. Now chant after me: We want our bits back! We want our bits back!

[john_bright]

I wouldn't have normally even noticed the bandwidth being used, but as I mentioned above I've just started using a capped service and I'm showing a bit more interest in the subject, temporarily. It just seems crazy to me that visiting photo.net uses virtually nothing, but the ads thereon use about ten times as much. I thought PN would like to know. It could become the norm and then we will be inundated with streaming adverts. Don't get excited guys we're only having a chat.

[john_bright]

PS. I rather like having a few birds in the back garden eating the seeds etc. but I don't particularly want an elephant out there trampling all over everything. Happy New Year all!

[kai_griffin]

John, for the record, I totally agree with you. I just found humour in "wasting bits". But if you're on a capped or pay-by-the-megabyte service, it certainly a genuine concern. Frankly, I find *all* decorative Flash animations (if that's how that ad is implemented) highly irritating, most especially when used in any manner as part of the front page of a website. It's today's equivalent of the equally pointless animated GIF frenzy of the early 90's, only far more resource hungry. Fortunately, it's very easy to block things like this, either through techonology, or by using your wallet (ie, subscribing!). A combination of both will ensure that even the accidental occurences of the ad showing up will be eliminated; like Kelly, I've never seen this ad in person. The 3rd option is to buy one of Kelly Flanigan's lucky PCs, all of which are charmed ;-)

[mottershead]

John, do you have cookies blocked on your browser or something? You are supposed to see the expandable version of this ad only once per 24 hours. Even the regular banner version of the ad is limited to once every 4 hours. If you are blocking cookies the ad server does not know how many times you have seen the ad.

 

Also, the times I have seen the ad, it collapsed back into its banner after the animation ran, which was 5 to 10 seconds. And there was close button so that you could close it if you didn't want to watch the whole thing.