Warning – unsolicited video download from STW ads can cost you money!

<mod>
So we don’t keep going round in circles here, a couple of points.

1) Please take a moment to review the forum policy on advertising over at http://singletrackworld.com/classified-rules/ . Whilst there may be issues sometimes, ultimately the adverts do actually fund the site. No advertising = no forum. I know that sounds far fetched, but it really is that simple.

2) The Powers That Be are aware of the comments on this thread (and the previous ones) and are actively working with the advertisers to try and improve the user experience.
</mod>

…

😆

The quicker there is an option to prevent it running for everyone the better. I don’t think anyone has an issue with ‘normal’ ads, but this specific one is way to intrusive and bandwidth hungry.

How about disabling it while a better solution is found?

To those berating me for being so stingy and not going unlimited data – I think you’re missing the point somewhat.

First, as Londonerinoz pointed out, internet access is way more expensive where I live, so unlimited plans is only really for gaming/video addicts and those whose company are paying for their plan.

Second, this ad isn’t just gobbling data, as others have reported its slowing performance of the PC, clogging networks, and will ‘out’ quite a few closet STW fans at work when the internet usage figures hit the corporate IT managers desk at the end of the month.

I’ve done very nicely thankyou with 2.7 GB per month of data for the last few years, and I don’t see why I should have to upgrade to a more expensive plan because of one advert on one forum!

Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox now, I just wanted to alert others to a potential problem, and as the mods are now looking into it I don’t really have anymore to add.

However, I notice the ad is still there and starting automatically, so I for one will be kicking my STW habit until it is at least disabled – I just can’t risk another big data bill. TTFN.

What he said.^^ Suspect the tethering bill this month might warrant a word from the Boss. If it does and I am obliged to pay the charges I will consider it the Premier membership I was getting round to signing up for after the free month that i got me accustomed. It may be a couple of years worth. Only time will tell.
In the office or at home the browser slowing is a pain. I suspect there may be a less non Premier footfall here due to this.

Ramble over.

I fully agree with you, that sort of unsolicited data use is just poor form for any site provider. I’m happy with ads of a reasonable size, I actually click through many on here, but even on my broadbean line I have a limited data/plan (I don’t intend to stream anything, I’ve no reason to pay for what I won’t use and its not even offered here anyway). Thanks for flagging this, problem is now solved for me!

There was a time when it was considered rude to impact peoples data use like that, seems basic consideration has gone out the window.

wwaswas – Member
thing is that the EpicTV thing is a known quantity. STW know exactly what it’s doing so why is restraint needed?

I guess there’s a commercial decision to be made about the revenue from runnign the ad v any fall off in site visitors that result.

I suspect that getting £15/head off 10 people will make up for the ad revenue from a 1000+ casual visitors not coming back over the course of a year.
I have absolutely no issues at all with the regular advertising on here, and never have, over the eleven years I’ve been a member, but I’d be really, really pissed if I suddenly got a big bill for exceeding my data allowance because some advertiser had been sending unsolicited video to my computer and gobbling up my entire bandwidth allowance in the process.
It may not be illegal, but it’s certainly unethical, and I can’t see why a member should have to cough up fifteen quid a year to disable otherwise unobtrusive advertising when one advertiser is, quite frankly, taking the piss.
Other than those bloody irritating gambling diverts to the App Store, the advertising on here has never bothered me enough to want to remove it, just to be clear.
As it happens, I never use my computer here at home for STW, only my phone or pad, but I do, occasionally use my computer at work, which does have a pretty efficient firewall that blocks such things as Epic TV, so I don’t think I’ll be getting the hairy eyeball from IT at work.
I hope.

Buy the magazine,be a premier member. Support where you spend your time. I hate the advert, but this gave me an enjoyable place to be. It’s cheap compared too many things. Thankyou single track.

As a premium subscriber who only gets to see the ads when my login expires the Epic ones are a bit much, it’s a trend across a lot of sites now though. I’ll open 10-12 google links if I’m searching for something and all of a sudden I have 5 or 6 videos playing. So I either have to deal with random noise or as is normally the case turn the sound off in which case I get a heap of data consumed.

Not an issue on my unlimited home package but when on mobile tethering it is.

CountZero I did also say;

I think it should perhaps be made clearer what EpicTV does.

Even on unlimited connections such as work ones having an stw browser open for long periods even if you’re not visiting it is likely to cause eyes to be cast in your direction…

so whilst I think stw have every right to deliver whatever content they see fit to those not paying to view the site (and I guess to those that are although there’s a different cost/benefit analysis to be done there) I do also acknowledge that EpicTV may need a clearer indication of the potential cost to non-paying/casual site visitors who spend more than a few minutes on here.

I’d be really, really pissed if I suddenly got a big bill for exceeding my data allowance because some advertiser had been sending unsolicited video to my computer and gobbling up my entire bandwidth allowance in the process.
It may not be illegal, but it’s certainly unethical,

You overlooked “unintentional.” My understanding is that it appears to be using more data that it should, the hamsters have engaged with EpicTV and are working to improve it. Though, how much of it is actually possible to change I’ve no idea, have to wait and see I guess.

That said, tethering a PC to a phone with a small data allowance is asking for problems, STW aside. Personally I wouldn’t do it, for exactly this reason. Many sites detect a “mobile” browser and scale themselves accordingly (including STW AFAIK); if you’re tethering, you bypass this safeguard.

there’s a different cost/benefit analysis to be done there

Put it this way; it’s not likely to be going away any time soon.

cynic-al – Member

maccruiskeen – Member
Preferences – Advanced – Internet plugins

plug-ins is under Preferences / security and I have already unticked “allow all other plug ins” (while java is allowed)

I presumed unticking java would stop loads of stuff that’s needed for work.[/quote]

Its also under ‘advanced’ as a power saving option and thats the box to tick to stop the video loading

That said, tethering a PC to a phone with a small data allowance is asking for problems, STW aside.

In an ideal world people would all have a nice unlimited package.

However my folks on a landline package have a 2gb deal as they don’t use much, so it’s not just tethering that is an issue. Outside of the UK plenty of people don’t actually have access to landlines or broadband connections and rely on mobile plans to use the internet. Nobody should assume that everyone is using a super fat connection. Most sites that use more than expected data give some warnings about it.

In an ideal world people would all have a nice unlimited package.

😆

Outside of the UK plenty of people don’t actually have access to landlines or broadband connections and rely on mobile plans to use the internet

With a 2Gb download limit?

Nobody should assume that everyone is using a super fat connection

I refer you to the paragraph prior to the one you quoted. The TL;DR version is, “no-one did.”

Bear in mind though, from a webdev perspective you need to be realistic. Running a full-fat browser on a severely limited data allowance is a fringe case. No website can possibly be expected to cater for every possible user configuration; should the devs be worrying about support for Mosaic, Link and IE3 just in case?

Most sites that use more than expected data give some warnings about it.

Really? I’ve never seen that warning.

There seem to be some condescending and patronising comments regarding people’s choice of internet supply.
This is not the issue. It only aggravates everyone when such stupidity is said.
The issue is one advert.
It probably would do STW good to pause it’s usage until a solution can be found.

Epic TV was bringing my netbook to a halt. Often I have a number of tabs open in a browser when it shuts down and therefore when it opens – threads that are still alive that I’m interested in, and it was taking forever to sort itself out until I’d found the epic TV thing and disabled it. Petty rubbish if only from that POV.

Cougar I was referring to your comment about “tethering a PC to a phone with a small data allowance is asking for problems”, I saw that it was unintentional and not something STW expected to happen but I can do most of the web surfing I want with a tiny amount of data, most sites keep the amount low which means it runs well on slow connections and also means a low data consumption.

For context a lot of people over here in Oz are on Data packages with low downloads as that is what they need and use, also due to the fact that they have no fixed connections to their properties or are in the middle of nowhere for work for 4-5 weeks at a time.

Now we all need to tweak browser settings to cut as much stuff out as possible, I have no issue with the way this place is funded but if the general internet trend of high data use and loud videos launching automatically will lead to more usage of plugins to stop it.

It probably would do STW good to pause it’s usage until a solution can be found.

They are looking into the issue and what can be done. It won’t be paused mean time.

Thanks for your cooperation. We all appreciate it.

Yesterday I placed a cap on it so it currently only displays a set number of times per session. I’m monitoring the effect of that and also looking into a cap that will disable it after a period of time so that it won’t continue streaming if you leave a browser open and forget about it. These are things we can look at implementing at our end but we have also asked EpicTv to look into issues at their end too. When I know more I will report back here.

thanks for the update Mark, seems a reasonable solution, imo.

Thanks Mark

No website can possibly be expected to cater for every possible user configuration; should the devs be worrying about support for Mosaic, Link and IE3 just in case?

Cougar you know that’s not right…. just because you have the latest version of the browser it doesn’t mean you want to download ‘vast’ amounts of data.

I’ve read this thread with interest and it does seem negligent to have an ad that uses your data/bandwidth without any form of notification. Tethering a laptop to your phone seems fair to me – why should anyone incur extra data plan costs to satisfy one advert?

It seems that events like this are only going encourage users to employ other methods of preventing this happening in the future – in which case it it might be short term gain, but long term pain for the site hosts.

Good of Mark to do what he can so quick but no way should a website think its acceptable to shove that amount of data down the line unless the viewer has specifically clicked play on something. Auto streaming is bang out of order. Ads are understandable but that goes beyond reasonable and if I ended up being charged I’d be cancelling my subscription. As it is I think I better not browse during work hours any more if the site has that flippant approach to the data usage of their user base.

how much does STW get from the epic TV adverts?
Perhaps can we cover the costs between ourselves and we can get the nonsense switched off. Thinking it might be less than £15, I’d willing to contribute a quid or two if other people are. Sound reasonable?
Does Mark own and run ST magazine then?

Does Mark own and run ST magazine then?

*unsure if serious*

Perhaps can we cover the costs between ourselves and we can get the nonsense switched off

You can it’s called Premier Light.

Sorry it took so long folks.

I’ll sign up for Prem Lite when we get PM functions, avatars….and possibly sigs.

I’ll sign up for Prem Lite when we get PM functions, avatars….and possibly sigs.

…

*unsure if serious*

First off – agree with what perthmtb said, and the way he said it.

Secondly, we need to be aware that we are not the customers, we are the product, served up to be sold to advertisers. That’s not intended as a criticism of Mark et al, just a statement of a cynical truth. As such, maybe there are some consequences of selling us off to Epic ? If people pay for Premium ad-blocking, then we stop being salable to the other less intrusive ads.

I wonder at what point things are profitable for STW? How many Premium members are needed to pay for the site? How much advertising can you sell if most/all of your clickers are blocking the ads. Glad that’s not my problem to solve 🙂

Cougar – Moderator

Outside of the UK plenty of people don’t actually have access to landlines or broadband connections and rely on mobile plans to use the internet

With a 2Gb download limit?

Nobody should assume that everyone is using a super fat connection

I refer you to the paragraph prior to the one you quoted. The TL;DR version is, “no-one did.”

Bear in mind though, from a webdev perspective you need to be realistic. Running a full-fat browser on a severely limited data allowance is a fringe case. No website can possibly be expected to cater for every possible user configuration; should the devs be worrying about support for Mosaic, Link and IE3 just in case?

Your tone is way off, especially someone who is a Mod.

I think you need to wind your neck in.

People are just asking questions.

Just remember to remain logged in if Premier, or login immediately if you wish to use the provided setting. Especially when at work, flagging to your IT guys that you’re a heavy b/w user. I often browse logged out (browser at work nukes cookies on close), and login just to post. Not any more.
Just disabled all plugins for good measure.

Your tone is way off, especially someone who is a Mod.

I think you need to wind your neck in.

It’s hard to judge tone in written text, but your phrasing sounds more aggressive and confrontation that Cougars.

FWIW, Cougar is right, it is a fringe case and you can’t cater for everyone all of the time.

Most data limited services and especially ones that allow tethering to mobile devices warn you of the consequences of accidentally running up huge data usage, as in today’s media heavy websites an allowance can be eaten through very quickly.

It’s still a shonky implementation and I’m glad STW are listening to the concerns and doing something about it, but it’s the users responsibility to monitor they’re usage and not make assumptions about the websites they’re using.

wwaswas – Member
Does Mark own and run ST magazine then?

*unsure if serious*

I cannot find a potted history of ST on the site so since I haven’t been here since year dot perhaps you could fill me in?

I think you need to wind your neck in.

Coincidentally, that was the exact phrase that went through my mind when someone called me patronising earlier.

Here’s the deal. I understand the need for advertising (and specifically, the EpicTV feed) from a commercial perspective. I also understand and empathise with people’s frustrations when there are teething issues with changes to the site.

As a moderator, I’m trying to do what I can to help communication between the people who run the business (and let’s not forget, it is a business) and the people who consume its products. I’m trying to provide as much transparency as I’m at liberty to give so that the forum users are kept in the loop rather than sitting there going “well this is all shit”. I’m also trying to be objective; as however much revenue advertising does or does not generate, I see a small percentage of sod all. So I have no vested interest other than as a user of the forum who would quite like it to continue to exist.

So, I’m trying to provide explanations, manage expectations, and offer suggestions where I can (as I do elsewhere on the forum). If my efforts aren’t good enough, I can always stop if you’d prefer?

If you don’t like the tone of my responses so far, I’d wager you’re really not going to like the tone of the one I’d like to give you right now, because frankly I’m spitting feathers.

I cannot find a potted history of ST on the site so since I haven’t been here since year dot perhaps you could fill me in?

Ok, yes he does part-own Singletrack.

there’s a sticky at the top of the forums;

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/our-forum

written by Mark which gives a clear indication he’s at least a part of it, though.

but it’s the users responsibility to monitor they’re usage and not make assumptions about the websites they’re using

not really.

it’s the webdev’s responsibility to ensure that sites don’t cause inadvertent unethical use of paid-for connections.

a meg here or there is fine. 2Gig over a day or so is not.

or give me a megabytemeter at the top of the page showing me how much data I’ve used (edit: and an alarm to tell me if I’ve used more than say 50meg that month).

surfing on a laptop when tethered is not a fringe case.

almost all “unlimited” data plans have limits.