Is it just me or is this website becoming almost unusable?

Massive adverts hiding the content, which as a ‘p’ I contribute towards.
Can you rethink your strategy please?

I can’t see them..?

on the iPad yes, it jumps around redrawing the page every time the pop-up appears at the bottom, fine on a normal pc/laptop.

There are adverts?

Im using an ancient laptop for my sofa surfing and it really, really complains when Im on STW – the fan goes bonkers and I often get error codes for Flash throwing a fit

some IT fairies related stuff I suppose

If your a premier, why don’t you just turn the ads off? It’s lovely then.

That is the real reason I did. Slower laptops have issues with the amount of flash used in modern ads. Can’t handle 720p video too well either!

There are adverts?

Yes. They help pay for the forum you’re using for free.

I doubt that the advertising revenue is that notable.
However, I do occasionally disable and click a few. Makes more sense to me as most ads return more revenue for clicks, rather than traffic exposure.

But they are still getting out of hand. As mentioned, many browse on older gear which is simply not capable of handling all the crap that gets wedged into many sites these days.

Anyway, I occasionally buy an actual paper copy of STW. It has a special place in my heart as I may have been in the very first issue!

Edit. Might have been the second issue actually. Met Chipps and a photographer up on t’moors many years ago and posed for a pic holding the mag 🙂

Yes, almost unusable on an iPhone when not logged in.

It’s the beginning of the End.

I heard it’ll get fixed in the new forum…

was using a newly installed browser the other day before installing all the firefox add-ons etc. My, the internet is an annoying place without a bit of filtering.

Very happily viewing an ad-free site through my premier membership now .

Yes, almost unusable on an iPhone when not logged in.

I only ever use an iphone on here (as I dont have a PC/Laptop) and it’s absolutely fine.

Can’t see a problem.

Certainly a long way from “unusable”

(Otherwise I wouldn’t be using it)

Bad on my I pad, as said above, jumps around until the pop up appears on the bottom of the screen. Real pain

Terrible on an iPad or iPhone for me

Acceptable on a normal PC though

I don’t known if it’s linked but on Windows Phone and 3G recently this site takes ages to load to the point I don’t bother.

Yeah, when for whatever reason the iPad or (windows) phone is kicked out of logged in its actually pretty horrible. I *have* to log back in for sanitys sake.

Fine at work (webmaster blocks content across the board) and ad free P in the phone/iPad….

So go to your settings and switch em (and video content) off!

Mk1 iPad here, dreadful. Adds all over the place jumping about. Keep clicking on them by accident, so I suppose that will make someone some revenue, but I close them instantly. It has definitely got worse recently but as said, it’s a free forum and the adds pay the way.
The recent thread on subs at 1.49 per month to drop the adds is def something ll look into. After all it is a great forum with good advice and great humor.

Not just here though, lots of sites like that but usually i don’t care and just move on elsewhere. For this place i can only really use it on 3g if I’m logged in so i log in as it’s great here

Im not subscribed so cant get on my high horse or complain about the adverts, and i dont mind he adverts being there but there seems to be a glitch somewhere as some adverts seem to regularly float over half the screen making it very annoying and unusable and i doubt its been designed to be that way

Where did that first world problem thread go?

🙂

Only adds I get is when I’m not logged in, I guess that’s one of the joys of a premium member

I didn’t know you could turn them off if “p”, will be doing this cheers!

On main PC no problem, but I do 80% of my STWbrowsing out and about with my android phone. I view a thread and a banner which floats about as I scroll up and down follows my thumb, I press the “x” and as its so small it opens up some Catalogue site called Reis grrrrrrrr. Its not easy to get rid of the ad without zooming in, and once youve done that on 10 threads in a row it becomes tiresome. Once I’ve clicked the Reis ad once I don’t want to get it in my face for the next 15 minutes over and over. Actually does no favours for the site which is pushed so heavily, ad should at least rotate to different companies.

Worst is trying to reply to a thread and flipping phone horizontal for full Qwerty keyboard, the advert sits right above the keyboard pretty much hiding what you type.

There are subtle adverts on forums I frequent, such as top banners, i’d say the STW trolling thumb following mobile site ads are the worst ive come across.

I’m all for adverts and making money for the site, hence every year i’ll sign up as a premium member, but the current guise of banners on the mobile version need a rethink.

ps. Do STW release the stats of mobile vs desktop browsers on here?

I use the forum on android tablet and phone, have clicked the “disable ads” option and have no problems using the site at all – no banners, pop ups or other annoyances. In fact I find it one of the better sites for mobile use 🙂

Don’t bother even trying on 3G when at work anymore as its so slow. Also flashing adds are a real pain on I phone.
On the plus side it has increased my work completed/ongoing jobs ratio massively 👿

Agree that Ad’s seem to have got allot worse recently when viewing on my IPad, keep clicking on them by mistake which is a pain but hey ho, as someone said, first world problem I guess! 🙂

The ads are not problem with premier options switched on. Can I also suggest an option not to see the apparently endless stream of T5 centric threads too? And maybe a super large ‘search’ button specifically for folk asking whether Superstar stuff is any good?

Hiding the ads for premier members is fine, but can the site not do a better job of remembering me? I use three different devices to view the site and rather than each known device logging in as required, you have to relogin on the first visit of each device…
The teeny weeny itty little login button next to a massive great advert doesn’t help logging in on mobile devices either!

I was never bothered by the adverts, until that floating banner for ‘reis’ arrived. That really made the website unuseable on my Android tablet.

I recently changed the settings on my tablet and activted ‘request desktop site’. The page looks the same but the floating advert has gone away. Might be worth a try.

I’ve not been logging in as much as it’s becoming a pain to navigate the pages as the adverts keep popping up.

I never have or will shop at REISS as I don’t ‘think’ I’m stylish or have a tendency to wear overpriced high street garments.

On my android phone it’s fine, but try using my wife’s Samsung tablet and I can normally only cope with one thread before giving up!

I get them on my ipad and phone but fine on PC..last night was a pain as they were down both sides of the screen and along the bottom but is fine this morning.

when I’m on the shitter I use an old android tablet to access stw

takes about 3 minutes to open the forum index page to the point where I can log in and disable the ads. After that it’s close to instant loading

(… so 27 minutes of decent arguolympian content 😉 )

Its the floating stuff and the wide ads in the margin. Answer= login

It was incredibly slow loading the site on my Galaxy S3 using Chrome. I often gave up. However if I search for singletrackworld using the Google Search app and follow the link it the loads in Chrome immediately. No idea why!

The site is fine on a laptop but it really is verging on unusable on an iPhone. Pop up ads at the bottom, stupid sidebars, total pain in the arse. But it’s free so can’t complain I guess. I barely use the site if not on my laptop.

The issue us raised a couple of times a week but the mods generally don’t respond.

Seems OK on my Nexus 4 phone using Chrome (over Wifi).

The mods don’t respond because they have nothing to do with ads. They moderate the forum. They are not web designers or ad sales people. They are in fact, unpaid volunteers.

The ad decisions are down to me ultimately and they are vital to our existence unfortunately. The floating ads can be disabled by clicking the crosses on the ads – works fine for me here on iPhone, iPad. Ads are always under review and I’ll be looking at the effectiveness of the current layouts in the next few weeks. We’ve been a little pre-occupied with getting Grit.cx ready for launch recently which has meant jobs like ad reviewing have been pushed back. Grit.cx will give you an idea of where we are going to take STW and the way that site handles ads and the way it displays on mobile and tablet devices will hopefully give you all some optimism for the future 🙂 Grit.cx is not just a new publishing venture for us but it is also a testbed for what we will be doing with this site too.

Works fine on my windows phone