Please, don't use ad blocking on this site

[weams]

Hangouters,

I know some people are using browser addons to cancel out ads but I would ask you add an exception for this site. Ads are the lifeblood that allows us to bring you this forum and site and the more people that go towards these addons, the harder it will be to bring you these services for free.

We have ensured all of our networks do not include "automatic audio" and no ads should redirect you to any site. We will never employ pop ups or pop unders as well. We've worked hard to make the ads as non-intrusive as we can and will continue to do so, but please help us by allowing the ads.

Honestly, I've seen some interesting products on them and have clicked on them myself to check them out and bought some things I would not have known about.

In the end, we don't want to ads to take away from your experience, but we need those ads to show up. In fact, we are considering getting rid of our plus memberships if our ad revenue can improve. That can only happen with your help.

Thanke for the consdieration and for being a member or our community.

- Tony

Absolutely. All clicks are appreciated. And there are no pop ups here.

[Tony-OH]

It is a very interesting topic to me since I've been in IT since the 1980s.

You don't even need special software to stop the ads. Depending on your browser, you can apply list to stop ads, tracking, collection scripts, etc...

I am using two lists to specifically target specific concerns (but not all ads) and most of the ads are blocked.

In the end, the advertisers will lose this battle, it's already happening now. As for disabling my 2 list, I'll have to give that some thought.

I'm not at 500 posts and haven't made any decisions as of yet, but I'd rather pay twice the cost to join and block the ads. This puts site owners in an uncomfortable position and I feel for them. They should have knowledge of what sites (companies) are in what lists. These lists are also used with ad blocker software.

Just to let you know, there is no more 500 post rule. You will always be able to post for free. However, after 500 posts you will lose the right to see who gave you rep, give rep, and have a bigger avatar.

AS for the ad blocking, I guess I understand how people don't like ads, but honestly, if they are not intrusive, I actually like them on sites. I've found things I didn't even know exists, seen new model cars, and learned that you can get a MILF, cougar or Thai woman through the internet. Who know?

[LoyalBirdFan]

Just to let you know, there is no more 500 post rule. You will always be able to post for free. However, after 500 posts you will lose the right to see who gave you rep, give rep, and have a bigger avatar.

AS for the ad blocking, I guess I understand how people don't like ads, but honestly, if they are not intrusive, I actually like them on sites. I've found things I didn't even know exists, seen new model cars, and learned that you can get a MILF, cougar or Thai woman through the internet. Who know?

If I find myself enjoying the site and envision myself posting here often, I'd join. It's just the right thing to do.

As for MILFs and cougars, be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

:thumbsup1:

[DK745]

Mainly browse and never post on here (mainly because of the older 500 post limit which I just recently learned is gone), but this makes sense. Those ones that automatically play audio or video, or just take over the entire screen until you find the X to close it are the worse.

I'll disable the adblocker.

[scOtt]

Only once? Mmm hmm...

Only saw it once.

[Can_of_corn]

Only saw it once.

They block you?

[scOtt]

Pop up ad (slid in from the left side...)

Powered by VIZU

Poll: How likely are you to vist Colonial Williamsburg?

[scOtt]

These ads are definitely micro-targeted! Lancaster Heart Institute. Antrim Way Honda (8 miles from me.)

[Tony-OH]

Pop up ad (slid in from the left side...)

Powered by VIZU

Poll: How likely are you to vist Colonial Williamsburg?

One thing to remember, some you may have some "viruses" that add things like that. Not saying you do and we'll keep an eye on that, but we have nothing set up that should allow pop ups. BTW, you can set your pop up blocker to stop all pop ups. that should be separate from the ad blocker.

[scOtt]

One thing to remember, some you may have some "viruses" that add things like that. Not saying you do and we'll keep an eye on that, but we have nothing set up that should allow pop ups. BTW, you can set your pop up blocker to stop all pop ups. that should be separate from the ad blocker.

Could be me. I had a problem just last week. Nasty mother.

[LoyalBirdFan]

There are also PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs) that anti-virus software might not flag.

There is malware software (some free scanners) available to scan and remove these PUPs.

Just do your research first.

[Ohfan67]

Good stuff Tony. I recently had a problem on my iPad where visits to OH were being redirected to the Apple app store to candy crush and other goofy game apps. I thought it was a problem with OH, but when I googled I found out this was an issue in the ad chains/streams or whatever they are called and has nothing to do with the content provider's site. It was really irritating and was happening a lot, but seems to have tapered off.

[SouthRider]

I just removed a nasty ad virus on my wife's pc. It placed two large vertical bars of ads down the left and right sides of most web sites. But that is not all. It changed random words on the web site's text into hyperlinks, so as you moved your mouse over the word small pop-up windows would appear with ads in them. It was god-awful. I removed all ad-on extensions from my wife's browser but that did not stop it. I ran full scans of Norton 360 but that didn't pick up anything. I then installed brand new versions of chrome and firefox (she was using ie) but those too were infected. Finally I stumbled on a free ad removal tool specifically for this virus. It removed the underlying infected program (some weather crap thing my wife clicked on) and also cleaned out the registry. Thank goodness for the kindness of whoever made that removal tool available.

[murph]

Disabled it for this site. Can't remember what site I got it for, been a while, but don't remember ever having an issue with the ads here....

Now lets finish disabling the Rays!

[allquixotic]

Tony,

Please don't get rid of Plus memberships. In fact, if financials are an issue for you, consider increasing the price of Plus memberships, or offering an additional-cost "Plus-plus" membership (think of Gausman's changeup) that doesn't serve ads at all. I would gladly buy it.

I'm fine with supporting this site financially. However, I am strongly against Internet advertisements, and I'll note that them being an "eye sore" is the least of my worries. Here are, then, my objections to them in order from most severe to least, and why I use AdBlock Edge on all sites:

1. Security. There are security issues with the way that many (most) advertisements are served. Ad networks may claim that they go to great lengths to ensure that all the ads they serve do not pose a threat to your computer or your data, but by and large this is simply not the case. As a practicing Information Security Engineer Professional, I can assure you that these advertisements, while mostly benign, could still possibly pose an information security threat to the user if the advertisement is allowed to serve content that causes buffer overflows, injects code, or any number of other possible attack vectors. Flash-based ads are an order of magnitude more dangerous than images, which are in turn an order of magnitude more dangerous than plain text. I would be more inclined to allow plain text ads, but it seems that most ads served today are flash, images, or both.
   
2. Bandwidth caps. My home internet connection is technically "unlimited", but there is a soft cap on how much I can download each month, and if I exceed that amount, my bandwidth can get throttled significantly if the connection is saturated by other subscribers. To minimize the amount of data that I download, and thus extend my soft bandwidth cap as far as possible, I prevent all advertisements from even being downloaded.
   
3. Performance. Even if I had a truly unlimited, uncapped internet connection -- which I don't -- I still wouldn't want to download advertisements, because it slows down the rendering of the webpage by adding complexity to the Document Object Model (DOM), and increases the time to download the webpage because "legitimate" page resources (such as javascript, images, and HTML) are competing for bandwidth with "unwanted" resources (such as ads). I often visit these forums on small, low-power mobile devices such as low-end laptops or tablets, and these weak systems noticeably slow down if there are ads all over the page, but the site loads smooth as silk if ads are blocked.
   
4. I will never click on them. I have never clicked on an Internet advertisement in my life. Ever. Not even before I knew about adblockers. I lived with the Internet and its advertisements for 12 years before I started blocking ads, and I never clicked on a single one.
   When I actively seek information, I use a search engine. I consider advertisements to be unnecessarily subversive and persuasive; if I have the need to do business with a company, I will find them, and I will do business with them of my own accord. An advertisement's attempts to persuade me to do business can only lead me to lose control over my life if I take them up on these "offers", because there is always (always!) a catch. Remember, the only time a salesman or a politician is lying is when his mouth is moving (or in this case, his fingers on his keyboard or his hand on his mouse).
   
5. Work. I occasionally visit this site at work. For one thing, the corporate internet connection itself blocks some of the advertisements on this site, and I have no control over that whatsoever. I literally cannot prevent it from blocking these ads, unless I don't visit the site from work at all. Also, I am asked by management at work to minimize my personal internet browsing's impact on the performance of the shared Internet resource at work. To help with that, I also have Adblock installed on my work machine, to clean up any ads that don't get blocked by the proxy. This also reduces the attack surface for having work data exfiltrated to some hacker (see my first point on Security).
   
6. I have money, and I gladly part with it to help out businesses and websites I respect. I respect the Orioles Hangout. I like what you're doing for the Orioles fan community. I enjoy the forums and the game recaps. I am a working, salaried professional and I make a living wage. I'm more than willing to part with enough money that you will make more from me than if I were the most gullible, ad-loving person in the world and visited this website 24/7/365. No need to annoy me, potentially expose me to security vulnerabilities, slow down my systems, or take up my bandwidth to get money out of me.
   

Please consider offering an "ad-free" subscription addon, or make it part of the default Plus package. Increase the price if you need to. But for the love of God please don't think that you need to ask people to disable adblock and then get rid of Plus altogether... that is going "backwards".

Here is my point of view on how I will personally react based on the decisions you make from here.

Choice 1: If you make no changes and the "status quo" continues, where you offer Plus subscriptions but the subscription does not come with disabling ads as a feature, I will continue to block the ads, and I will continue to maintain my Plus membership. I feel that supporting you with my subscription is "enough".

Choice 2: If you introduce an increased-price Plus subscription, or an addon subscription that disables ads, I will buy the most expensive subscription available, assuming it's reasonable (I can spare on the order of $100/year, but $1000/year is not worth it to talk to a bunch of Internet people ). I will continue to block ads when I'm visiting the site while not logged-in, etc.

Choice 3: If you remove the option for fans to buy any premium "paid" subscriptions at all, my conscience will force me to stop visiting the site. I can't reconcile "visit and watch the ads" due to my objections above, and I can't reconcile "visit and block the ads anyway without paying anything" because I'd just be taking up your bandwidth, and I have a moral objection to that because of the amount of respect I have for your small business (I'm OK with blocking ads on large sites that are profitable large corporations because my ad revenue is not even a drop in the ocean to them.) I wouldn't want to have to stop visiting the site, but I simply can't view the ads due to my concerns about security, bandwidth and performance, and I can't in good conscience block the ads against your will while not giving you any compensation whatsoever.