Top bar advertising

Ghostery prevents cookies you don't want either. Someone on MN recommended it to me this morning, so have installed it. Apparently provides better security - don't ask me to explain why, I don't understand it.

I have an ad blocker on my PC but I don't have one on my Android tablet
can anyone recommend one?

Here you go, Bucketsandspoons adblockplus.org/

It's really easy to use, too (it must be or I wouldn't have been able to do it!!)

I've just downloaded Adblocker (as a direct result of these changes - own goal there, Mumsnet!) and it doesn't stop the drop down completely, but it does seem to stop it dropping down so far, and I'd say it makes it a better experience, and less unusable. And as a bonus, it's blocked all the other annoying adverts at the side etc that I had previously been happy to tolerate.

Do ad blockers stop this? Anyone? What do I download?

Its just not usable. Trying to read my 'i'm on' threads, it's just too unpleasant and annoying experience, too hard to find and read amongst all the page jumping and the drop downs and the buggering about.

I've managed to read about two threads, so fed up I'm giving up.

Another one saying please, please stop the drop down advertising which covers half the page for several seconds on every single page. It's making mumsnet virtually unsuable, and I can't keep using mumsnet if this continues.

I doubt there would be any ads on a paid for site because there would be hardly any members here to see the ads.... Advertisers wouldn't bother.
Some people seem to be under the impression that lots of people would actually pay to use Mumsnet, hardly anyone would want to pay and out of those who might want to most of them couldn't be bothered to setup and payments or wouldn't Trust Mumsnet to keep their data safe
it would become a ghost website

Oh PLEASE stop this ruddy drop down covering the whole ruddy page on every single new page clicked on. Life is too short for this.

It's infuriating. If it helps to feed back to advertisers: its making me loathe every product forcibly jammed in my face.

ssd Why are you being so rude?

If I had to pay to be here I’d expect a lot more robust safeguarding of data because it would then include financial data and I’d also expect paid moderation 24/7 and none of this no one at weekends and evening stuff relying on volunteers that goes on at the minute

The difficulty, of course, is that it's easy to find out whether proper, paid mods have been put in place, decent security less so ... until it all goes wrong I also wonder if the blizzards of ads would be any different on a paid site?

And yes, I also still have just the word "advertisement" and the twirly circle for 15 seconds ...

I have the same as hiddley.

I have ad blockers on so I have the drop down blank space where the ad would be - with the whirly thing. It blocks out the top half/third of the page for 16 seconds. Every page. Every refresh.

I now just says 'advertisement' instead of the lights out message.

well I guess then Justine might to employ tech experts of the standard relax is used to, whilst she waits for her private plane landing on Necker

Bit of an own-goal there I agree multidimensional.

It's backfired quite a bit the 'keeping the lights on' nonsense since it led a lot of posters to post why they'd installed an adblocker which led many more posters to say 'adblocker, what and how? Oh that seems easy...oh I've done it now and everything is SO much better'

I'd imagine far, far more people have now blocked the ads than those putting MN on their whitelist.

Actually, I lie, the keeping the lights on thing has gone. It's just a twirly thing saying 'advertisement', then said advertisement takes over half the page and pops back up again. I just end up completely blocking it out mentally. If they subtly included ads that didn't invade, you'd inadvertently look at them. The way they have this going, you're actively looking at the text to see when the ad goes away so don't actually see the ad at all. Silly really. But there you go. Unusable and ineffective. But if I made 2 million a year I wouldn't give a shite either!

Along with the big drop-down ads.

It's still on mine Myrtle.

The notice about ads and white lists has gone from the top of my page so we can presume they don't think ''ignore them and they'll go away before this ends up on The Times' .

I couldn't use the site without an ad-blocker, because - as I've already explained - it was literally unusable! As in, page would not load and even having a tab open on my browser with MN trying to load in the background would crash everything else.

It was the same for me. I didn't have a similar problem with any of the other sites that I visit.

Posted too soon - so the fact that I”m not paying means that I put up with no moderation evening and weekends and the crappy troll posts standing for hours and hours and I’ve made the choice to get an adblocker (which is fantastic!)

If I had to pay to be here I’d expect a lot more robust safeguarding of data because it would then include financial data and I’d also expect paid moderation 24/7 and none of this no one at weekends and evening stuff relying on volunteers that goes on at the minute.

Justine appears to subscribe to the 'ignore them and they'll go away before this ends up on The Times' and my net worth plummets. 2 million profit in a year ain't all that small since it's only the two of them owning it as far as I know?

'oh for christ's sake, this is a free site and millions of us use and and have gained loads from it, so there's a few advertising problems, so bloody what? give them a chance to fix it and stop being so bloody pompous, comparing Justine to the Ryanair boss...do you know what, if its that bad here bugger off and get your kicks elsewhere.'

Exactly. It's only ads! work on your resilience while they try to improve it. What a load of whingeing even after they've listened to your gripes.

'Regardless, MN's a business, which has chosen a business model. '

Zzz..

They said they'll try to fix things what more do you want, blood?

Odd that ssd reads contempt into my post. It isn't there - better say that in case MMHQ read it the same way!

At a guess what you find contemptuous is the suggestion that the tech staff may not be competent. That seems quite likely, I'm afraid - and it probably wouldn't be their fault. "Incompetent" isn't a personal insult, it's a judgement of the relation between a person and a job as it exists on the ground. For example, if you recruit someone, change the job underneath them, but don't allow them development opportunities, they end up incompetent. I have no idea what's happened here, and there are other explanations entirely, like poor strategy. (I'm professionally curious about what actually happens when one of the MMHQ folks says "we'll get Tech to look at it" and then nothing happens for months/years: there are several possibilities.)

Regardless, MN's a business, which has chosen a business model. We don't have to be grateful, just because their business model doesn't involve us giving them our credit card numbers, any more than we would if it did.