Yes, that page you linked to is exactly it. The “google-adservice.com” fake ad.
We can disable ads at the forum level easily by changing the header template, or alternatively I’m sure google has a way to do it.
Has this stopped happening for everybody? Maybe google fixed it.
It hasn’t happened in a few hours so, yeah, maybe it went away.
Same thing happened last week too, and it stopped after a little while, though that was for “google-adservices.com” so it was probably a separate incident. The older incident also didn’t force you to refuse it multiple times in a row.
Edit: Chrome isn’t complaining about Qt3 being a malware site for me, so that might be further proof that Google’s cleaned up something on their end.
My adds from google on this one are advertising trojan removers.
I find it funny.
I agree. I use adblock in my browser, but would gladly throw a couple bucks Tom’s way every now and then if a paypal donation button was available. I don’t mind paying for the ads I block.
I appreciate the willingness to support the forum, but there’s already a mechanism in place for that. You’re subverting it when you block the ads. If you want to support the forum, let the ads load and maybe even click on them from time to time.
-TomGiven the choice, I’d rather pay a monthly/annual subscription than have ad banners. I don’t block the ads right now, but if I had to choose one or the other… this site’s worth $5/month or so to me.
I agree no ad would be better, but we’re pretty streamlined as it is. I guess I’m so used to ads everywhere that I figure the banner ad on Qt3 isn’t that bad. Especially compared to other forums, which have more ads sprinkled around, and with that annoying instertial ad beneath the top post (I hate those ads!), and so forth.
I don’t mean to make an issue of it, since the site has never actually cost me money so I’m not complaining. But I figured the ad stuff was benign enough, and a much better way to democratically spread the cost of the forum equally rather than relying on a few people’s generosity.
-TomWhy not do both? Keep the ads, but add a paypal donation link so people can donate and then not feel bad about using adblock. Obviously it would be on the honor system that they will donate if they are going to adblock, but it is already on the honor system that they won’t adblock, so this wouldn’t make that situation any worse.
FWIW, I don’t adblock here (or anywhere) but I’m pretty sure I’ve never clicked a single ad either because the vast majority of ads that end up here are just ridiculous, so in my case I’d actually donate even though I don’t adblock and probably wouldn’t bother starting because I just filter out the ads mentally anyway.
I un-adblock this site and click random adds. Service to the entity! I even did it while I was banned.
I’m not bragging. I Adblock and NoScript all sites for security reasons. Clearly this thread proves it.
However, I can make an exception in AdBlock for specific URLs. I tried to unblock “http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/*” based on the html source of the page but no ads showed up when I refreshed.
Anyone know how to properly unblock ads for QT3?
Just unblock the site, since that seems to be the first occurrence of a safety breach, and it seems to have been cleared up.
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js
http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en
Unblock those two.
I don’t get it. You want people to click on ads to support the forum, but then, the site has never cost you any money, so… why bother with the ads at all, then? Are you saying that the ads that people DO see (and click on) are what covers the cost of the forums?
Every year, there’s a thread, and every year it comes back around to “if you provide a manner for the forums users to donate a few bucks to keep things running, they likely will”, and every time you are adamantly against it. I’m just curious why that’s the case- is it because PayPal is so hard to figure out? Or tax/business issues/something along those lines? Because that’s all I can really pin it down to.
That said, were there to be donations towards keeping the site running, I would gladly make a donation, without the expectation of anything in return whatsoever, so long as I never had to look at another banner ad here again, ever.
After catching up on the thread I was going to click a banner to help out, but it was that rich jerk guy and he can go to hell.
Actually, wait, clicking on it costs him money… (Edit: that’s not an invitation to clickspam; Google gets very grumpy when people do that, and Tom’s the one that would suffer)
I’d just like to say that I also mentally filter out ads and don’t understand why people would want to pay a monthly fee for membership instead of banner ads. Personally, I would be all for a second ad at the bottom of the page (there’s some empty space there) if it meant Tom could actually break even or start to profit from the forum. Think about it: ads don’t actually affect you in any way, at the same time as not affecting you they make money for Tom, and there are actually quite a few threads of people getting amusement from them.
Fucking internet generation I tell you. Is the concept of paying for something you enjoy and make use of all the time so goddamned foreign to you? Just because you load it in your browser doesn’t mean it’s not worth paying for.
I don’t want to and wouldn’t pay a monthly fee. It’s a hobbyist forum, if nothing else. Hobbyists typically like to contribute back to their hobby so that they can benefit from the resources & knowledge of others that are also involved in that hobby. Alas, not everyone does.
I’m not sure about the “internet generation”, but considering the amount of hours I’ve spent on Qt3, I want to reiterate (because I’ve said it before) that I would also happily spend $5/month on supporting the site. And that’s on a student budget. It’d probably be the best dollar-to-entertainment hour ratio investment I could possibly make.
I did that. No ads still.
It’s just irrational. Why do you want to pay Tom for membership when the ads pay/have the potential to pay for the site? Like I said, I’m not adverse to Tom turning a profit on something he owns and I use, I just don’t see why subscriptions are better than ads.
I’m not adblocking, so I’m doing exactly what Tom expects of his users to cover the costs of the site. Clearly if the cost of the site to him reaches an unacceptable level he will do something about it, speculating about it amongst ourselves is useless.