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Forums - Website Topics - Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love

FKNetwork on 09 March 2010
ioi said:

Can you not read? I counted 11 ads on Eurogamer, 16 on MCV and 12 on Gamesradar and you are saying VGChartz is worse with 6-8 per page? In terms of quantity you're obviously wrong, in terms of your personal experience then that is your opinion of course.

When did you see an ad that creeps up from the bottom? They were removed over a week ago from the site pages. The reason your memory footprint is high is more to do with the two flash boxes on the homepage which are part of the site and not ads so it's not actually an ad issue. In terms of flash ad units we have four on the homepage and six maximum on a forum page - only 3 of which are ever visible in a single scroll. Again, this is no worse and Eurogamer or any of the other sites I've mentioned and like I say they are actually the same ads in many cases (if you are in the UK).

In terms of malware as you keep going on about, what malware alerts did you get today?

As I've said numerous times in this thread - it isn't really a case of whether you mind the ads or not, rather that they are presented to you as part of the site's service and you just have to accept them and get on with them or the alternative is simply to not visit the site. It isn't a case of whether you like them or not. We have to balance the needs and desires of everyone who interacts with VGChartz and find the right balance to support all the site activities financially. If you don't like the balance that has been decided upon then don't use the site. The fact that some users won't like it is taken into account when setting the balance.

I can read perfectly fine thank you,

Just to show you what a LOT of users here are talking about I have taken some screenshots and stats to show you a few problems with this site regarding its adverts and performance.

 

 

Eurogamer:

3 Adverts (not 11 like you said), loading and looking around the site causes no issues at all

Loading time: 2.9 seconds (Firefox 3.6)

 

 

 

VGChartz with adverts (adblocker off)

4 Adverts (not 8 like I said), Browser starts going very slow, looking around the site is jumpy and frankly horrible to use.

Loading: 15.2 Seconds (Firefox 3.6)

 

 

VGChartz without adverts (adblocker ON)

Browser responds fast, the site is perfectly smooth when looking around, a pleasure to use!

Loading Time: 3.1 Seconds (Firefox 3.6)

A huge difference in loading time due to the adverts and for the browser having to wait for a response from addional ad servers, with adverts on VGChartz is one of the slowest sites and most laggy I have ever visited, with adverts off VGCharts is one of the fastest loading sites I have visited.

 

 

 

And now for the process use on my Quad Core, 3gb Ram desktop, please note that ALL my plugins are up to date, cache and cookies were cleared before this test to make it fair.

 

VGCharts WITH adverts ON (adblocker OFF)

One tab open with VG Chartz, fully loaded:

Firefox is using 43% CPU and 380mb of Ram

 

 

VGChartz with adverts OFF (adblocker ON)

One tab open with VG Chartz, fully loaded:

Firefox is using 12% CPU and only 71mb of Ram.

 

Firefox uses an addicional 309mb of ram just to display and process the adverts on the site, that is a lot of ram just for adverts and is no surprise that it causes the browser to run badly.

So no, I do not blame anyone to block adverts at this time, if you can improve the sites performance with adverts on the site and ensure the site uses less memory/cpu to load the adverts then I don't see people having issues turning adblocking off but until that time I will continue to use adblocking.

 

And also, if you keep on telling people you may stop letting people use the site if they use adblocking software I think your members will end up just telling you what you want to hear even if it isn't true, for example: "no, I don't use an adblocker" when they will anyway as there won't be anyway at all for you to tell.

Just seems at the moment you are picking out the people that are actually being honest about this admiting they are using an adblocker, surely it is better to know the truth rather than hearing what you want people to tell you?

 

Anyway, I hope this post helps you out in some way :)



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NJ5 on 09 March 2010

FKNetwork good post. Flash ads are a CPU and memory hog.

I just installed adblock to give it a try (which ironically I probably wouldn't have done if it wasn't for this thread), and the forum threads load much faster. That ad which appeared between the first and second posts of a thread was really slowing down the loading, I think it was only displaying the remaining posts after the ad server responded (sometimes it didn't respond at all, requiring a refresh). The main page also loads much faster.

In conclusion I can definitely see why people are against flash ads and bandwidth-heavy ads. I am in the process of building my own site right now, if I do put in any ads I will try my best to only have text-based ads such as Google ads.

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

Kasz216 on 09 March 2010
NJ5 said:

FKNetwork good post. Flash ads are a CPU and memory hog.

I just installed adblock to give it a try (which ironically I probably wouldn't have done if it wasn't for this thread), and the forum threads load much faster. That ad which appeared between the first and second posts of a thread was really slowing down the loading, I think it was only displaying the remaining posts after the ad server responded (sometimes it didn't respond at all, requiring a refresh). The main page also loads much faster.

In conclusion I can definitely see why people are against flash ads and bandwidth-heavy ads. I am in the process of building my own site right now, if I do put in any ads I will try my best to only have text-based ads such as Google ads.

 


i wouldn't use google ads.

Back when this site used google adds heavily i'd get trojan popups all over the place.

it actually killed my computer which at the time was running McAfee only.

i know it was google adds because i kept being able to track which ad was doing the popups.  i made a post about it way back.

When this site used Google ads, i'd get a trojan alert like every 5 page views from my new virus protection.



ps3_jrpg_gamer on 09 March 2010

i hate some ADS IN VG CHARTS THERE IS ONE NAMED DEATH CLOCK AND THE SOUND doesn 't stop



phisheep on 09 March 2010
ioi said:
phisheep said:

I don't think we're actually in any disagreement, except for over the use of the word 'enforceable' - no disgreement about what you allowed to do anyway.

The reason I homed in on it is that at some points in this thread people have got all muddled over 'enforceable' meaning legally enforceable, and the implication that if something isn't legally enforceable then nothing can be done about it - which of course isn't right.

Strictly speaking - or 'legal pernickertiness' if you like(!) - the ToS isn't enforceable, at least against guests, in my view - because the basis of your being able to ban/block/whatever isn't the ToS, it is the (undisputed) fact that you can do anything you like whether it is in the ToS or not! You could still do that if there wasn't a ToS at all.

So I feel that mentioning the ToS in the context clouds the issue a bit - certainly if one of my students made this point they'd get a mark or two knocked off.

EDIT: Just a quick note on your last point, that "the very act of using the site represents your compliance". That's almost certainly not true, so it may be worthwhile not banging on about it too much. The reasoning usually used to justify it is cases like Thornton v Shoe Lane and all the stuff following it, which clearly established that contractual terms can be established by notice - and in a very limited number of cases even by notices that aren't readily apparent, or are in documents you have to seek out or even purchase. The trouble is, there isn't any sensible precedent that such a notice can create a liability in the first place, it can only add terms to one - which is why I win 100% of my arguments with car parking companies. Just because the ToS says that is the case doesn't make it so.

 

I never said anything was legally enforceable - you were the one bringing legal issues into this!

I've said that we have the right to remove access to visitors if they breach the TOS. You're saying this isn't the case as they haven't agreed to ithe TOS even though it clearly states that using the site represents your compliance. I don't understand where you're coming from?

If you're suggesting that we don't have the right to remove a visitor for whatever reason we want then I think you're wrong! A visitor to a website has no legally-enforceable right to have access to the services that site offers, it is at the sole discression of the website owner(s) and if they have rules that the visitor breaches then they have the right to deny access.

Oh, for goodness sake ioi!

Check out the two bolded bits above will ya? Put the opposite of my words into my mouth why don't you?

Look. I understand you're feeling a bit twitchy about all this but, really, don't assume that every post is disagreeing with you.

What I'm saying is that your absolute right to ban/block/whatever is not based on the ToS - and if you say that it is you open up all sorts of spurious arguments about whether things are in the TosS or not, or whether people read the ToS or not, or whether people signed up to it or not or whether it is enforceable or not.

All of that happened in this thread - and all of it when I wasn't involved - so it isn't me bringing the legal stuff into it.

It wasn't you either.

We aren't disagreeing.



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NJ5 on 09 March 2010
Kasz216 said:
NJ5 said:

FKNetwork good post. Flash ads are a CPU and memory hog.

I just installed adblock to give it a try (which ironically I probably wouldn't have done if it wasn't for this thread), and the forum threads load much faster. That ad which appeared between the first and second posts of a thread was really slowing down the loading, I think it was only displaying the remaining posts after the ad server responded (sometimes it didn't respond at all, requiring a refresh). The main page also loads much faster.

In conclusion I can definitely see why people are against flash ads and bandwidth-heavy ads. I am in the process of building my own site right now, if I do put in any ads I will try my best to only have text-based ads such as Google ads.

 


i wouldn't use google ads.

Back when this site used google adds heavily i'd get trojan popups all over the place.

it actually killed my computer which at the time was running McAfee only.

i know it was google adds because i kept being able to track which ad was doing the popups.  i made a post about it way back.

When this site used Google ads, i'd get a trojan alert like every 5 page views from my new virus protection.

That's really strange because I thought Google ads were served directly from Google's servers, no 3rd parties involved.

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

NJ5 on 09 March 2010

After trying out Adblock some more, here are some observations:

- it doesn't block the Dragon Age ad on the top of the page. This is a good thing, it means that it doesn't block ads made specifically for VGC, which are likely to be more relevant and less annoying (since ioi is against very intrusive ads).

- it doesn't seem to block Google Ads either, which is also a good thing as it's punishing the heavier, more intrusive ads and encouraging lighter, non-intrusive ads. I'm sure it could block Google Ads too by adding a rule for it, but by default it doesn't seem to do so.

In short, sites which have good ads like the Dragon Age above should do fine, adblock seems to be more meant towards blocking the generic ads which are more likely to be bandwidth heavy and with content that hasn't been specifically approved by a site's owner (which is often downright silly or even a scam).

Part of me wants to uninstall adblock, but after seeing the huge performance boost and finding out things like the above it's getting harder and harder to convince myself to do it (though at other places I also use Google Chrome which doesn't have an adblocker, and I'm fine with that).

On a lighter (but related) note, this article is hilarious:

http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-worst-ads-ever-2009-8#

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

impur1ty on 09 March 2010

^^^ If you're using adblock plus on Firefox, you can add additional elements to your blocking filters.

E.g. if you wanted to remove background add - right click on background > Adblock plus: Block image...



NJ5 on 09 March 2010
impur1ty said:
^^^ If you're using adblock plus on Firefox, you can add additional elements to your blocking filters.

E.g. if you wanted to remove background add - right click on background > Adblock plus: Block image...

Yes I noticed... But I really don't see a reason to do that since:

- images don't visibly affect the performance (or bandwidth since it's always the same image, so it gets cached)

- I'm not getting scammed by being the "999,999th visitor" and winning 1 million dollars

- it's a good way to do ads which could actually be relevant for the users of the site

Besides if it gives ioi some money, why not?

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

impur1ty on 09 March 2010

Full screen images do affect performance even if by only half a second. Flash can be blocked too. The process for blocking a flash element is slightly different, you hover over an item to see a small 'block' button appear.