Constant intrusive videos

[BTECBetty]

These are driving me mad. I understand you need to sell advertising space, but on every thread there is a highly intrusive video. Even when I close them down they reappear on the same thread! Surely once a user has closed the ad that should be it?

What have you done to your site? The ads are massive. Pages are now scrolling by themselves, very slowly. On Android Mobile not the app.

Just get rid of the pop up ads! They are ridiculous. I had the page scrolling itself. What a joke.

I keep getting the ads that pop up at the top of the screen, with the "x" at the top right corner. I use my phone one-handed when I'm reading in bed and I can't reach the bloody x to get rid of the ad 😒

My favourite is the big grey screen that just covers the whole page and never goes away. Fun times!

I had this, the page scrolling at snail’s pace, nothing I could do. I had to clear my browser cache for that day to cure it and lost various other useful cookies as well.

Strange - they appear to have lost your page....wonder how that happened. I do resent the waste of battery power on intrusive videos

My battery is draining really really quickly so I wonder if this is why?

I think it's extremely likely.

I'm now only logging in to MN when I don't have any other tabs open and I'm not logged in to anything else. I'm also clearing cookies etc before logging in to MN and straight after logging out of MN. I'm not using my phone for MN. I have my laptop on mute so I don't get bothered by the sounds of the ads and pop up videos. I've turned the brightness right down. I'm hanging something - currently a sock - over the righthand section of my laptop screen so I'm not having to see the pop up ads and especially the inappropriate, sexualised, misogynist ads I really don't want to see on MN - and I especially don't want my DC to see - like Ann Summers, the women's backsides and chests in Walmart and the 'attractive young athletes' bums and chests. There are still the ads and flashing ads to put up with at the top, left side, middle and bottom of the screen. Some of those ads I really don't think are appropriate on here either, particularly betting given the horrors for people and families of gambling addiction. A fresh hell is the line and arrow on the Aldi surround ads which concerningly and intrusively follows your mouse/icon movements.

MN is now by far the worst site I go on for ads. What an accolade. Some ads to financially support the site? Sure, but this has been taken so far as to be trashy, highly distracting and unwelcoming. No thought or care has been given either to Mumsnetters with epilepsy, neurodivergence or migraines. If I came to the site now for the first time it is so off-putting that I wouldn't come back. I feel disappointed and let down by Justine and MN because of what they have chosen to do to the site and to Mumsnetters, many of us who have been loyal to the site for years or decades and have provided substantial content during that time. MN has sold out really.

Then we have the loss of basic functions for many of us like bookmark, navigation from notifications and being taken to the newest post. Rather suspiciously these have not been fixed for two months "despite MN's best efforts". I am left with the distinct impression that it too is related to increasing ad revenue from all the extra page visits and clicks now needed to navigate the site. My direct question about this has remained unanswered. Make of that what you will.

It certainly all makes me use the site far less now and recommend it to other mums far less.

I spent around 30 seconds scrolling a thread and as you can see (photo probably loading), my phone had to block 8 pop ups and 3 times, I ended up being redirected to a new website entirely. It's draining the battery and making the site unusable.

And in the time it took to type that, 5 ads appeared at the top of this page. Shut one down, up popped another. I'm logging off.

I agree, it’s bad again today. I do genuinely understand the need for revenue, but the site is becoming unusable.

Oh yes.. the 'walmart' ass one is lovely.. i know, i know, mumsnet don't police the exact adverts, but an advert inviting people to join a website laughing at photos taken surreptitiously of people is vile...

I don’t register what the ads are for at all. I just ignore them or close them down.

What the hell is going on with these videos? Three times today they’ve come up at the top of my phone screen and I’ve ignored them because I’m reading further down the screen. Then suddenly, the video pops up in the middle of the page and starts playing - WITH SOUND - all by itself and then suddenly disappears.

If nothing else, suddenly playing sound is really inappropriate at times.

We now have a woman right in the middle of the MN page standing by a car with her skirt up showing her stockings and suspenders @BeckyAMumsnet @HebeMumsnet @PipMumsnet . Are your advertising partners deliberately trolling a site for women with all this awful sexist rubbish aimed at men and why are you allowing it?

After I posted I scrolled up the page to find not only the women by the car one but also two more ads with women with their legs apart, all on the same MN page. The offending ads and the Walmart woman's backside one are coming from 'PopFlip'. There is also an ad promising 'banned' photos and photos from a 'hidden camera on a beach'. Can you block all these @BeckyAMumsnet @HebeMumsnet @PipMumsnet ?

Video ads are so inappropriate. Just stop them.

On your phone download the DuckDuckGo app and use that as your browser. All the ads are blocked and you can use the site again.

No more quick draining battery or hot phone.

That advert is driving me mad! Yes, I have presses skip which does nothing......but repeat the advert ad infinitum!!!

The ads are awful and there was a clear shift a few months ago that coincided with the 'please turn off your adblocker' pop-up and the hanging/refusing to load other sites if you did turn the adblocker off. It's not the ads themselves I have an issue with, its how bad those ads make the user experience (the pop-ups, the covering the screen - I don't mind just scrolling past them, as long as they don't then follow me down the page) - surely MN can see that whatever was done a few months ago to change how the ads worked or interacted has been received really negatively by users? It makes MN look like a spam or virus-riddled site rather than just 'normal website with normal advertising'.

It makes MN look like a spam or virus-riddled site rather than just 'normal website with normal advertising'

Yes! This is exactly the problem. Not the advertising itself.

I keep getting taken over by a “ anti virus” software scam. I have an iPhone16 and this is only happening on this site.

This is pretty shit.

I haven't been taking any notice of the video adverts in the bottom right hand corner of my chrome browser on my Windows laptop until one came up that I was actually interested in so I clicked it. Nothing happened, none of the adverts seem to actually take me to the products.

The adverts themselves don't even display the name of a website or similar like TV adverts so I can only think that they are meant to take you to the site when clicked but none of them do for me.

So I’ve found a way that makes it less irritating to use the website on my phone and not see all the adverts that pop down from the top of the screen. I opened Netflix and resized the tab. it sits over any webpage you are looking at and the adverts stay behind it so I never see them. I still have less screen to read, but at least it’s stuff I actually want to see. I tried to take a screen shot, but it made the Netflix window blacked-out, but you get the idea.

@HebeMumsnet

These ones top right are still causing me a nightmare. There is no X to shut them down, I just have to endlessly wait, and wait, and wait whilst the page loads, crashes, reloads and then eventually let’s me read a thread. It’s taken me ages just to get on here!