How do I stop the ads from flashing at me?

[TimmyE]

I'm sure I clicked on one of your flashing ads on your website in the last few days. It didn't seem to load properly and it said it couldn't find something and ever since then, when I close my browser, I get a pop up window in the lower right hand corner, or I get one on the left hand side, mid screen. This is even with my pop-up blocker on.

The one in the lower right hand corner was some kind of internet radio thing. The other one wanted me to run some kind of scan because my hard drive was apparently full.

Anyways, I went to my control panel just to see what was there, and this internet radio thing was on there. So I deleted it, and I have been fine ever since.

[LoneWolf_53]

Anything that tells you your computer is broken, or requires a scan, or hard drive is full, is malware, and I'm sure Troy would very much like to be informed of any ads causing such an issue.

[Troy]

LoneWolf_53 is bang on. If anyone is seeing anything like that while using our site, please let me know: [email protected]

Screen captures and/or any other information about what you are seeing or what you clicked on is very helpful. I can then do some research to determine where these things are coming from - whether it's a bad ad on our site or, most likely, some form of malware on your computer.

[Woodenhead]

I use AdBlock & other similar tools as well. (customizing your hosts file can work wonders, if you know what you're doing)

Troy, have you ever considered going the donation route & dumping the ads?

I run a site with a similar user-base size, and we have no ads at all. Purely voluntary user donations, no incentives offered. Our costs run just over €1,000 per month (roughly $1,495 CAN), and we get by. (I've no idea of your costs, although I doubt it's anywhere near as much, hardware-wise) Food for thought, at any rate. Cheers!

[Troy]

Woodenhead, I really appreciate the food for thought. Our hosting costs are actually much higher than that, with the equipment handling all our websites, including the forums section of Castanet. The forums represent a small part of our overall traffic, but we really like having this social feature and feel it is the heart of Castanet and perhaps even the heart of the local online community overall.

A donation system isn't really feasible for the whole business, as we do have 26 local employees in an office to take care of. The only way I could see something like that working is if were to spin off the forums to be its own thing, completely separate from Castanet. For now, the couple of ads in the forums help keep it online.

Cheers!
Troy

[Woodenhead]

ah, well that makes sense then!

We have no offices, and all staff volunteer - nobody is paid. All costs are purely hosting/traffic.

[LoneWolf_53]

The ads don't really bother me much, I've always viewed Castanet as my newspaper substitute, and the paper was full of ads too.

It also has the added benefit of keeping a person on top of who is spending money on advertising, as in competitors.