Check out Glinski's Hexagonal Chess, our featured variant for May, 2024.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Earlier Reverse Order Later
Google pop-up ads on CVP site[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Wed, Jan 24 04:51 PM UTC:

Has anyone besides me gotten a sudden alarming increase in Google pop-up ads showing on this CVP site? They give me a way to get rid of each kind of ad, one at a time, after clicking through about 3-4 small boxes the size of the original ad.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Jan 24 05:18 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 04:51 PM:

I have not seen any pop-up ads here. Ads should be limited to the header, sidebars, and footer, all out of the way of content. Can you provide a screenshot if it happens again?


Kevin Pacey wrote on Wed, Jan 24 05:43 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 05:18 PM:

Sorry, I guess I meant footer (i.e. not pop-up, I guess I don't understand that term - smallish ads appear sneakily from bottom, going upward on my screen). Maybe I thought it was a new trend by Google (and it's not?), but it seemed the footer ads appear especially when I am on my own game logs page.

The footer ads take up enough space (and my attention), at least today, that I wanted to get rid of them (maybe I'm just in a poor mood?), so I started trying to by clicking on the ads' small 'x' in the upper right of their 'box' - a never-ending exercise it seems, as ads (always say they are Google ads) are soon replaced by different ads.

Last week I went to a NY Post horoscope page that was evidently infected in some sort of way, but my Microsoft Defender later detected no fresh threats to my laptop. Since then, the only thing that might have changed, I thought, was detectible on this CVP site, but I guess I was wrong if footers are usual (I paid them no notice earlier, if they were appearing for a while now).


Kevin Pacey wrote on Wed, Jan 24 07:26 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 05:43 PM:

I don't recall how to share a screenshot (maybe I had a different laptop when I once did for you, Fergus), but one image with a 'slider-footer' is located at (according to screenshot I took):

www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/logs.php?stat=ongoing&age=7776000&sort=priority&userid=panther

if that works for you/helps. The footer may be what you expect, but I find it gets in the way a bit of my game log list, until I scroll further down, or remove the footer ad.

C:\Users\User1\Pictures\Capture.PNG


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Wed, Jan 24 08:04 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 05:18 PM:

It happens to me too, but not on every page. I have a large sidebar on the left. Sometimes I have in addition a large footer. Here it is a large header. Having both is a bit invasive.

https://www.chessvariants.com/membergraphics/MSwildtamerlanechess/Capture%20d%E2%80%99e%CC%81cran%202024-01-24%20a%CC%80%2020.57.49.jpg


Kevin Pacey wrote on Wed, Jan 24 09:33 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 07:26 PM:

@ Fergus:

I was able to email you my screenshot, at least (like the last time I did a screenshot for you, when I think I had a different laptop/desktop computer).


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jan 25 12:58 AM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from Wed Jan 24 09:33 PM:

I was able to email you my screenshot, at least (like the last time I did a screenshot for you, when I think I had a different laptop/desktop computer).

I didn't see your email, but I only asked for a screenshot when you were saying it was a pop-up ad, as I do not run pop-up ads on this site. Since you later said it was actually a footer ad, that's nothing unusual, as I do run those.


Ben Reiniger wrote on Thu, Jan 25 01:03 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 12:58 AM:

This description doesn't fit:

smallish ads appear sneakily from bottom, going upward on my screen

and I've never seen such, and I expect they shouldn't be possible.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jan 25 01:09 AM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from Wed Jan 24 07:26 PM:

if that works for you/helps. The footer may be what you expect, but I find it gets in the way a bit of my game log list, until I scroll further down, or remove the footer ad.

The footer ad goes below the content and above the comments. So, it should not be getting in the way of your game log list.


Bob Greenwade wrote on Thu, Jan 25 01:11 AM UTC:

If what you're seeing is like what I'm seeing, there should be a chevron on a tab to the left. If you click on that, the ad will retreat into the bottom of the screen.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jan 25 01:22 AM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from Wed Jan 24 05:43 PM:

smallish ads appear sneakily from bottom, going upward on my screen

You might be speaking of the sidebar ads, though that's not quite an accurate description. There are no ads that change position on their own. The ads will move only when you scroll the page, just like other content on the page does. However, most of the content on the page has static positioning, which means it can move off the screen if you scroll far enough away from it. But the sidebar ads have sticky positioning, which means they stop moving up once they reach the top of the screen.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Jan 25 02:47 AM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 01:11 AM:

Yes Bob, that's what I think I am seeing - and clicking on the chevron makes the ad retreat to the bottom of the screen, as I found out later, too.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Jan 25 02:56 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 12:58 AM:

@ Fergus:

I sent you an email 'Kevin Pacey's screenshot' at 4:30pm today, at your email address XXXXXXX at yahoo dot com. I can forward it again to you if you cannot find it - unless my laptop has been unusually hacked, somehow.

After I wrote that I thought it was on second thought a footer ad, I searched for that term on Google and found on an early search result that apparently there is such a thing as a 'slider footer' - though I'm not sure that's what I am seeing on CVP site, especially on my own Game logs page (maybe such ads choose their 'victim' based on page(s) he visits a lot?!).

[edit: it just happened again, and I did not touch the sidebar to scroll, at all]

edit2: From a Google blurb (maybe there's other newish types of ads out there now?):

Slider ads (also called floating ads or catfish ads) are banner ads that slide in or fade in at the bottom of a page. The slider ad moves along with the page as the user scrolls up or down and stays visible unless the user closes it through the closing button.Oct 6, 2015


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Jan 25 04:37 AM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 02:56 AM:

I edited my previous post, in case anyone missed it.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Jan 25 04:09 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 02:56 AM:

@ Fergus:

I just sent you a fresh email. Letting you know in case it's mistaken for spam.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jan 25 04:55 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 04:09 PM:

I got your email, and since the ad was placing itself at the bottom of the screen instead of at its place on the page, I purged the ads of google ads in the footer before selecting an ad.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Jan 25 05:01 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 04:55 PM:

Okay, thanks.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Jan 25 05:41 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 04:55 PM:

@ Fergus

A footer slider ad appeared again just now, at bottom of my Game logs page.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jan 25 06:01 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 05:01 PM:

Further testing shows that the bottom screen ad is still showing up on Chrome even when code I've added tells me there is no footer ad in the HTML. Meanwhile, I have not seen it in other browsers. This may be because Chrome is owned by Google. So, I would recommend switching from Chrome to another browser. If you want a browser that supports Chrome extensions, you can switch to a Chromium-based browser that is not owned by Google, such as Edge or Vivaldi. If Chrome extensions are not important to you, then Firefox is also a good choice.

For now, I'm going to allow Google footer ads again and do some further testing.


H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jan 25 06:12 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 06:01 PM:

Well, I am using the Samsung browser on my Galaxy tablet, and some pages ago I also got an ad that had settled itself at the bottom of my screen. It was easy to dispoe of, though (by clicking on a kind of tab it had).


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Jan 25 06:15 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 06:01 PM:

I use Google (and gmail) though I never knowingly became a Chrome user (Google all but tries to shove it down people's throats, similar to Microsoft's trying to force people to finish installing Edge). I cannot seem to figure out if I am still not a Chrome user, despite instructions online on how to find out.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Jan 25 06:19 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 06:12 PM:

I did click on the Chevron tab you wrote of, H.G., but today before Fergus made changes I was getting tired of clicking due to suddenly seeing way too many such sliding footer ads on pages I went to.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jan 25 06:26 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 06:15 PM:

Yes, I saw the Copilot symbol from Edge in your image and realized you were using Edge. So, I tried some other things. First, I changed my ad blocker in Chrome from AdBlock Plus to uBlock Origin, and it made no difference. Note that I had turned each one off to see the ads, but I wanted to see if either was blocking some ads regardless. Then I installed NoScript, and that did make a difference. Even with everything trusted, NoScript is still stopping the bottom screen ad from showing up, but it is not stopping a Google ad from showing up in the sidebar. So, it's probably that my other browsers, which I use more often, already had NoScript installed, and Chrome didn't.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jan 25 10:49 PM UTC:

I logged into Adsense and found out that Google was conducting an experiment in Anchor ads, and I stopped this experiment. I then removed NoScript from Chrome and loaded the logs page, and I saw a Google sidebar ad but didn't see any bottom screen ad. So, I think I've gotten them turned off.


24 comments displayed

Earlier Reverse Order Later

Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.