This is probably goodbye

[MereDintofPandiculation]

I don’t mind ads, but I’m damned if I’ll accept tracking cookies, and I can’t afford to pay for things that are only a peripheral part of my life (that guff about only the cost of a cup of coffee would make sense if I had any more cups of coffee to give up)

I do hope @MereDintofPandiculation is seeing how much the gardeners are going to miss her. 🌻

@MereDintofPandiculation Hope you haven't gone yet.

If you want to stay (hope you do!), to avoid tracking cookies get Firefox browser. Open a "new private window" and tracking cookies are automatically blocked/disabled.
Also when you put the mumsnet url into the address bar and the window saying about accepting or paying pops up in very small print underneath the buttons it says:

"We and our 199 partners may store and access personal data like cookies, unique identifiers, etc etc."

Click on the "199 partners". It brings you to another pop up showing a list of vendors. (Heading is "mumsnet _ manage your data). Underneath the heading the small print has some blurb, but it also has a hyperlink (blue) towards the end saying "reject all".

Click that and you're on to the front page of the site. Scroll to the very bottom of the page (the blue bit) and along with "Help", "contact us" etc there's "privacy settings". Click on that and it will bring up the list of purposes, site vendors and they should all be turned off.

Then log in to the site and continue as usual.

(BTW - I'm using uBlock origin ad blocker and site is working atm with it).

Do I need to delete my account to stop this happening? Not hugely techy but are they sleeper cookies, as in even if you aren't logged in to MN they can see what you have looked at?

Yes, and still better than the AI plant ID apps.

I'm another one who will miss your wonderful and informative posts too. For the moment I'm donning a wait and see approach to see if they really will kick off all users with adblockers.

Thank you

EDIT - Try to delete them via your privacy settings first. You are supposed to be able to legally change permissions in case you change your mind.

Can you not give this a try OP?
https://brave.com/

No adverts if you use the app.

Or just a smallish one in the middle of a page as you scroll, not too intrusive.

@MereDintofPandiculation Oh no! I will miss your knowledge on the gardening threads and your sterling worki in keeping the cockroach cafe going.

Thank you all for your good wishes, it’s very touching. I’m trying to work around this. I’ll accept ads, just not tracking cookies. Why are online ads so intrusive? Magazine ads you could look at or turn over the page if you wished, online ads are the equivalent of the advertiser hiring a cat to sit on the page you are reading!

I’m also looking at alternative fora. A well known forum beginning red has a uk gardening thread. Wherever I go I’ll try to use the same user name

I agree with you about cookies.

Try going to bottom of page and deleting them from your privacy settings.

The other way is to get them automatically deleted once you close your browser. I think Firefox has that option. So you have them activated while looking at MN (but don't open another tab while doing this), and then logout and delete before looking at anything else. It's a pain but you get to "sandbox" MN.

@Germanymunch don't know what browser you're using, but somewhere under settings should be an option to delete cookies. You can either delete them individually or all at once. If you delete them all at once you will have to log-in again to any sites that use a password.
When you've deleted whatever cookies you want, just continue as per my previous post.

That’ll take some self-discipline! I often double check things before I post to make sure I don’t post complete rubbish.

Thanks, everyone, for suggestions. At the moment I can still get in, but I don’t know how long that will last for. So I may disappear suddenly.

If you disappear I'll probably be gone, too. I prefer the British slant of MN and I've accepted ads, but I'm on an adblocker too that DH set up for me and I've no idea how it works, couldn't turn it off if I wanted to, so may also disappear suddenly. It seems to be fine for now, though. IDK about these tracking cookies. I wonder how many of us there are (probably a lot).

Oh, Mere! I will so miss you if you go! Your encyclopedic knowledge has always been so useful on this board, no-one else can match it. Added, that we are of a similar age too, so I feel a certain affinity with you.

Without this post I’d have been none the wiser (see what I did there!) and not sure what I will do yet, probably wait and see how it all turns out.

i do hope you will continue contributing, as you would be much missed.

You can't leave, who else will share my hatred of plant ID apps?!

It would be a genuine pity if you were to go. I hope you can work something out, but if you can't I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you.

Fancy being the drivers of content/ discussions and having to pay unless you agree to the sharing of your data 🙄

You will be missed. I suspect that a few of us will be looking g for new gardening fora.

I’m overwhelmed by the support on here. Thank you all so much!

For some reason I can still get on on my tablet, but not the desktop (I definitely haven’t clicked anything to consent cookies) so I’m having occasional cautious visits

Fingers crossed that this is not goodbye. Your expertise is so valued here

I’ll stay as long as I can. Currently it’s hit and miss. So my contributions will be fewer and less regular

That stinks 😥

<has a good think on how to ensure Mere stays >
< gets out the duck tape >

@MereDintofPandiculation I use duckduckgo browser on phone and pcs for mumsnet. Don't see any ads, just grey spaces. Every so often the app tells me what tracking it's blocked 😃 .

I would miss your posts and your wonderful cat-stretchy username!

You can install 'CCleaner' (sic) it is free. I believe this will remove tracking cookies. It does not actually prevent them, you need to run it to clear them down.

There is a version for PCs as well.