Ad Reporting Thread

If I need to make a ProBoards support account, I can. I just figured since I know SofaJockey has one (saw his post about insecure server and changing ProBoards to https), so perhaps this can more easily be handled by your team.

Qui-Gon GlenN7
I get obnoxious ads that make sound, but I've not seen any popups on the mobile site, but I only spend about 10 seconds on the mobile site, until I can click off to the regular desktop one, because the mobile site is just awful, and there's nothing that ProBoards will let us do with it.

I was starting to work on a theme that had larger text and smaller avatars and such, to make using on mobile a little easier, but I haven't honestly gotten very far, you could try it out, but it's also going to have the standard ProBoards ads stuck in there, since it's still a desktop site. It's the <<<Mobile Test>>> theme.

Meanwhile, I have a support account, so I can ping ProBoards and see if they will provide any feedback about the irritating ads - hopefully it's not something like "well, why don't you pay for the Ad-free DLC!"

I'll report back when I hear something.

As an aside, I made a shortcut to this (in response to a request) on the desktop site... if you click on your USERNAME in the upper right corner, it takes you directly to the notifications page... you know, to make it easier to check on... the things you said

So the response I got back from posting in ProBoards support...

Yeah, not much help. I'll try to use the *shudder* mobile theme a bit and see if I get hit with ads, to build a better case

Maybe some other people will report in here eventually as well?

For what it's worth, I am in a similar boat. Not here, but with someone's privately-owned college football forum. Pretty big name forum, have no issues with them on desktop, but I feel like half the time I access them on mobile, I get those ads that load up and take over the whole page stating I won crap. The ones where you have to just totally close out the web page and try to load that thread again.

Phone only ever does it with that ONE site. Have cleared the cookies/cache, but that crap inevitably starts up again at some point. And I only ever visit the same small handful of sites that aren't shady, illegal, or pr0n-related. I really can't figure it.

Uh.

I have no idea.

Whatever this is: www.secrant.com/

I was just curious, so I looked around through their code and I don't think they're using any of the usual suspects. They might have bought some software, and they were able to remove the licensing information, or they rolled their own. I don't see any traces in any of the page headers or .css files or anything that indicate what it is.

I've never seen those pop up ads. Maybe it's because I use a program called AdGuard that keeps ads from popping up. I can whitelist a site but unfortunately it blocks the ProBoards banner ads. Hate to do that to this free site but it's better than incidents like you're having.

I am seeing popup ads on my mobile device. I think the same one Glenn is seeing: Congratulations Android user" or some such nonsense. The ad requires the user to click on kt. It absolutely blocks any device access unless you either leave the site or accept their bs offer. It renders the bb utterly unusable.

Does anyone have any recommendations for ad-blocking apps for Android phones?

Today, I am testing Bromite, a Chromium based browser for Android that has built in ad-blocking.

It disables both top and bottom banner ads, so that functionality works. I haven't been redirected yet, and over the last few days I would have been redirected multiple times by now.

I would encourage our staff to communicate with ProBoards about this issue. They are losing revenue, thanks to their carelessness, and they have ignored my post on their support forum. The only reasonable option for accessing this site on mobile currently is to block all ads.

Edit: if you do not have root access, this is your best choice atm imo lol bbq.

Edit 2: this is a working solution. For now.