An update on Ad blockers

[JustineMumsnet]

We wanted to give you a heads up that we will shortly introduce additional software designed to prevent the use of ad blockers. So, if you're using an ad blocker, you'll shortly see a series of prompts asking you to disable it before continuing to browse the site.

We know this is going to cause some annoyance to those of you with ad blockers in place but we do have costs associated with running our platform and the way we meet those is via advertising revenue.

We try to keep the display ads to a minimum (particularly for logged in users) and turn down a lot of the more intrusive ad formats. Nonetheless we do understand that some people find ads really annoying. If you would prefer an ad-free experience, Mumsnet Premium is available as a subscription option for £2.99 a month or £29.99 per year.

The last thing we want is to cause loyal users financial distress, so if you have particular reasons why both seeing ads and paying for Premium is problematic for you, then please do get in touch with us at [email protected] and we’d be happy to look at what we can do to help.

If you have particular problems with ads stopping the site working for you, please get in touch with us directly at [email protected] and we can take it from there. Thank you.

Sometimes this site glitches my whole browser and all other tabs stop functioning. No other site does that.

If it becomes a problem then I will just leave. Sorry MN, I've been here a long time under various guises but time to move on....

Not long to Mumsnet goes the same way as Friends Reunited, just a ild site that crashed and burned. Bye bye

So you have unilaterally decided to not care one jot about your disabled posters who have told you, repeatedly, we use adblockers for sensory reasons.. in that ads are visually disturbing/taxing.

But oh.. we have the option of emailing you to tell you about our disability, and our financial status to beg for you to 'do something' about it for us if we can't afford to pay you for the privilege of not seeing adverts.. bearing in mind a lot of your disabled users are also on benefits.

Cheers Mumsnet. Nice to know we were thought of....

I asked this on the thread about cookies, and never got an answer, but how exactly does subscribing help keep the site running when you say the subs go to campaigns, and not to running the site? If everyone subscribed you'd be skint, surely?

Well I’ve just gone into Adblock and allowed Mumsnet as an exception, and it took several minutes of screen freezes and buffering to do that.
I don’t actually mind advertising on the page unless it distracts me by moving, or obscures text.
I will see how it goes, but I think this will lead to me using Mumsnet much less. Which is probably not such a bad thing.

The thing is if I turn the ad blocker off then it's off for all websites! What a pita...

This downgrade is very bad news for us!

Please fix the ads before applying your restrictions.
The ones on your site are too intrusive!

Please:
-remove the ADs that leap in front of the screen (the ones with the tiny 'x' you have to find to get the screen back)

-and remove the huge ones that make the text suddenly move as you scroll.
The irritation does not make me think well of those that advertise this way. I've not bought anything from the companies that do this.

Assure your 'friends' that we readers can see the ads without them dancing naked in front of us.

Same as @Nevynimportant I only started using Adblocker when the site kept redirecting to a virus warning and adblocker seemed to be the only way to stop it.
Have disabled it after prompts and will see if virus warning returns

Same.

Get Adblock.

It allows ads to be blocked site by site.

I have stopped reading all the news sites that have insisted I have ads so far. I just don't read them. I have been fine.

Mumsnet might be a big harder to give up. But when the ads become intrusive, it's really time to stop visiting.

Oh dear, I don’t think I like it so far. Ah well, might be the thing I need to encourage me to stop coming on here so much after being addicted for 18 years.

I understand the need for advertising revenue, but the way it is currently set up makes the site almost unusable. It's not just the size of the ads but more the way they move around and make scrolling past them virtually impossible.

Solution: keep the ads but make them stationery.

This would be more effective for the advertisers as well. As it is, no way will I ever buy a Kitchenaid dishwasher, or any of the other products that clutter my MN feeds.

@BeckyAMumsnet ...

Will emailing you about shitty ads you run get any better response than the many, many many reports in this thread or just make it easier for you to ignore?

Yep.

As someone with a visual impairment the ads are overwhelming. I'd rather not use the site than get a migraine because of annoying flashy ads, or accidentally click on a link that takes me to a dodgy website.

The pop up is ridiculous.

I enabled ads and see them on my 'phone and can interact with the site (vote, post, etc). On my tablet I am seeing no ads but can't do anything.

Well that's the end of wasting far too much time on here.

I have disabled the ad blocker but find the ads are far too intrusive. I can just about cope with the size of them but it's the movement that distracts. If I don't enjoy reading the threads because of them there's not much point.

I will have to find a new home.

I don't mind ads, I get it that you need to make money. Like lots of other posters though, there's an issue with how those ads affect the loading of the site. I've had problems for months, caused by ads, and you don't seem to be able to fix them.

What I'm specifically talking about (again) is large areas of white space, or being thrown out of threads back up to the top of a page. Both these occur on my phone (using the site, not the app).

I only read on the app because the mobile site ads are too intrusive and drain my battery. If I am out and about I couldn't use the website because I don't have unlimited data. My data would be gone on one page.

I don't know if I can attach images at the moment but this is how much actual content I can see on a page on the app and how much space is taken by the would-be ads (ads not loading at the moment, praise be).

I use an iPad in landscape and have to severely limit my time here due to chronic pain caused by having to read text in the middle of the page instead of at the top.

There is a long running thread here complaining about ads at the top of the page in the app, including comments by many others with disabilities that are aggravated by the current use of ads (including inappropriate content and flashing images). None of these issues have been taken into consideration.

I'll be keeping an eye on this to see whether Mumsnet roll back the decision, but I can't use the site without an ad blocker. I have ADHD, and the constant distractions and cognitive demands of clicking tiny Xs and avoiding touching the wrong bit of the screen and ignoring things that move and flicker make it impossible for me to actually focus on the page content.

And no, I'm not paying for an accessible version of the site. That's ableist bullshit. Limit ads to static images that take up no more than 20% of the screen height - no videos or popups; if you do that, I can whitelist mumsnet on my ad blocker. I understand that the site needs the ad revenue, but ads don't have to be served in a way that has a disproportionate effect on disabled users.

The only reason I ever got an ad blocker was because of this site. I won’t be removing it, so I guess I won’t be using the site anymore.

Doesn't this site generate two million pounds in profit a year?

Flashing adverts and epilepsy....how well do those 2 go together do you think @MNHQ?