This site is now as absolute shitshow

[JeffTheSquirrel]

MNHQ, you know why.

I find I’m spending only about 10% of the time actually reading a thread. The rest is clicking fucking x’s to close down ads, trying to stop the glaring, moving ads at the top, scrolling past mid-thread ads that go on for ages, or scrolling past ‘promoted by’ bollocks that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic that you’re in.

This site is now like Reach media.

Such a shame.

Just adding my voice to say that something seriously needs to be done, if you don’t want to see a mass exodus. There is a lot of goodwill here (I’ve been around for decades, I’m sure you can check). But fuck me, if you don’t tone down the ad invasion, me & many many others will be off.

Still, I’m sure the shareholders are happy, eh.

Mumsnet is over isn’t it

I agree. I had to subscribe as otherwise the site was unusable.
A lot of people can't or won't do so.
Without a large range and number of people posting it will become less interesting so people like me could stop subscribing so MN will shrink and shrink.
I appreciate ads are needed but the balance is not being managed with usability.

The last 2 days this site has become really bad for me, I'm on a MacBook not a phone so have been coping with the ads so far, but I keep getting pages only half loading and the whole site grinding to a halt every couple of threads. It'll become unusable if this keeps up. There's no way I'd subscribe here, I'm not even sure that would help!

I barely got that post done before the page stopped loading and my browser informed me "this page is slowing down firefox. To speed up your browser stop this page". Even if I click on 'stop' the whole page just goes white. I got THIS post done by turning on my ad blocker!!

Are you really that greedy, MN, that you must run literally hundreds of ads all the time?? What about the user experience, doesn't that count?

This is where I am at with it. Have been here 22 years and not a day goes by where I don't come on here these days (live alone, kids young adults). It does give me joy too, I have learnt so much over the years 😂

I also pay for premium - I have done since the day it was announced. Solely because I'm in the sticks on a crappy slow copper cable internet connection (no fibre here!) and the ads, even some years ago, were causing MN to run so appallingly slowly. It was unusable to me back then so must be terrible now. Might log out and take a look so I can remind myself that the £2.99 a month is worth it.

Ok so just as feedback for @BeckyAMumsnet - I logged out to see how bad it was without premium. First thread I went on, I got a page of blank space with the message "this ad used too many resources for your device, so Chrome removed it" 😱

I have never seen this message before in all my years using a mobile phone and Chrome!! So yeah, something isn't right.

LOL don't you love it when your browser takes control? 😂Yes that is really saying something!

Even on the horrific Reach media sites (Yorkshire Live type stuff) that I end up closing before even getting to the content, I've never had that message before 😂

I use Duck Duck Go browser with an ad blocker. Never see any ads on here.

Yeah, I switched to using Duck Duck Go (only for Mumsnet) a couple of weeks ago. I was happy to tolerate static ads but I cannot cope with moving ones. As an added bonus, the screen no longer regular refreshes itself and goes back to the top of the thread I'm trying to read. It's like the old days!

The "sponsored by Mumsnet" fake threads don't show up either.

(If the ads had remained static, I wouldn't have done this).

It's not exactly sorted, is it?

I get they need to pay their staff but the site wouldn’t be anything without the users and we are treated like the lowest priority.

Why the hell do they continually mess with the design that was working perfectly well but fail to address the multiple tech problems?

I’m sick of the ads and sponsored posts and clearly not the only one - it’s obvious from the ‘Active’ list how much less is being posted, threads hang around on there for days now.

I also don’t want to read threads by AI bots or angry men.

I’ve been here over 20 years but I’m visiting less and less.

Sponsored posts are rubbish. I stopped clicking on them very quickly. They're effectively just ads in some prose.

There was an old episode of Shooting Stars where they had a question requiring the contestant to simply identify the brand of a cream cracker (and it was indeed the 'main' brand that almost everybody would automatically think of)...

However the joke was that this flimsy little cracker was brought in ridiculously unnecessarily on a massively heavy steel girder by two blokes who were struggling to manage with the considerable weight of it.

I can see parallels with MN and advertising in this. Not that I'm suggesting that MN is somehow 'flimsy' in any way of course; but a great thing is very easily destroyed if it gets encumbered by a huge amount of heavy baggage that destroys its very essence.

Everytime I click on 'active' I seem to end up in the Aldi website.

How does the Duckduck go thing work, Im not good at tech. Im on chrome browser

It's really difficult to use MN now. Three screenshots just from this thread (when they are approved). The whole screen covered three times, and other adverts. Oh and now another bloody video.

I downloaded the app on my phone. In a browser, I guess just type DuckDuckGo into search bar?

DuckDuckGo is a browser. You need to download it for your device (on a phone that will be an app) and use it as your browser.

I know it's a browser. To find it though (and not as the app version), you can type it into your existing browser search bar, e.g. I typed it into Google just now and got to it that way.

Use the app!

Same.

I only look at MN on my laptop and iphone through DuckDuckGo so it is like an app.

I don't get all the ads on my work laptop which uses Chrome but they must have much better blocking software.

Why? Why don't you want another app? What's wrong with another app?

Thank you :). I do do this (no choice if I want to use mn) but it's such a faff.