Score76

Is it me or have the number and aggressiveness/intrusiveness of ads on here intensified over the last few days? Today I check in, reading the top Portugal thread about buying estate agents, there's only 2 posts in that thread currently yet 5 ads. One of them is an auto playing video clip, about the NBA. If I'm on 4G that would be chomping through my data allowance. How irrelevant, being British, living in Portugal, accessing from a Portuguese ISP, no vpn, reading the Portuguese section of a British site... An ad about American basketball. Rant over...

Previously I've been using Google Chrome on Android to view this site, switching to Adblock Browser this morning reduces the number of ads to zero.

christmasoompa

Unfortunately, it's the only way BE can keep going. No ads = no revenue = no forum.

As you say, it's easy enough to block them though. You can also edit your phone settings to not autoplay videos so it doesn't use any data allowance.

chislenko

If you use Opera as your browser it blocks all adverts.

toots sweet

We use an ad blocker and have never seen an advert..

GrahamF

+1, no ads visible.

Jon-Bxl

Good point.... But I'm curious...

How do adblocker browsers + Opera etc etc. Make their money? Is it a paid service please?
....

And if it is free how do they pay equipment, salaries, offices etc.

Id like to investigate this further and with your help, find the best one that people trust. Id personally even be open to paying a reasonable subscription to improve security/privacy/hassle

Thanks

Jon
PS Im guessing that adblockers happen at the users end, so the advertising revenue still goes to BE and we are saved the ad-hassle (should we choose it, others may like them). Win-win....

riv

I still don't understand the rationale for not permitting persons to post personal ads. I just can't see how that would damage the revenue stream.

On the contrary, because more people might be attracted to return to the site more frequently - eg if looking for a car or flat or whatever - it might make the site more attractive to the companies which do pay for ads which intrude ? Algarvedailynews permits small ads.

Jerseygirl

We would be inundated by every man and his dog advertising.

GrahamF

Not necessarily, the other two main forums I frequent both have "wanted" and "for sale" sections for personal but strictly not business sales, separate from the discussion groups. Would be handy for folks here wanting to dispose of or buy second hand furniture, cars etc.

christmasoompa

We had a Classifieds section for many years. 99% of it was spam posts so it took up an inordinate amount of time for the mods and it was got rid of. Any established forum members looking to sell something are usually advised to pop details of it in their signature.

HTH.

GrahamF

That's a pity. I "think" any posts on the other forums can only be made by registered users so that may limit spam but no idea how much work the mods. have.

riv

Isn't that the case here also ? That you have to be a registered user to post ??

Algarvedailynews is not inundated with private ads. A classifieds section would work well, I believe. If necessary charge five Euros a pop.

christmasoompa

Only registered members can post here too. We still get a crazy amount of spammers to ban/delete every day.

christmasoompa

Very few genuine members used the Classifieds section (IIRC, when the decision was made to scrap it, it had only had one genuine post in the previous 3 months amid the numerous scam/spam posts). It really didn’t work well and charging for it would make it even less popular I think.

Forums in general these days just aren’t as popular as they once were, and people tend to use other places with a much bigger audience to sell their stuff.

macliam

I can assure you that neither of my dogs has any ambition to post