Any and all - HJ website and ads

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Tue 3 Nov 2015 19:44
Any and all - HJ website and ads - RobJP

I tend to avoid adblockers. I know plenty of people use them to avoid adspam and to speed up websites, but I appreciate that running websites costs money, and hosting adverts that are (hopefully) relevant to the viewer is how that money is earned, along with having links, sponsored articles, 'commercial partners', etc.

However, as of today, HJ seems to have gone horribly slow. The 'cardboard' lexus ad seems to be largely responsible for this.

This isn't something on just one computer either. I was online at work at lunchtime, popped onto the HJ site and found the same lagfest that I'm experiencing at home. All other websites seem fine though.

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 20:13
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Wackyracer

the same here Rob, very laggy.

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 20:15
Any and all - HJ website and ads - gordonbennet

I have only one thing to say, ghostery.

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 20:15
Any and all - HJ website and ads - brum

I have no moral problem running adblockers. I'm never intentionally going to click on an ad and they dont influence me in my purchasing decisions. In fact the opposite, intrusive or objectional ads turn me dead against the brand. For example I will never ever use gocompare while ever they continue to have that t*** singing. And I dont need reminding about christmas mr m&s, et al.

Using an adblocker is win-win for all. I dont get angry. The website uses less bandwidth. Everything is faster. And the companies behind the ads dont get alienated straight away.

Third party advertising via a website is just bribery as far as I'm concerned.

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 20:20
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Graham567

According to Adblock i have 14 adverts on here that are being blocked.I have blocked all of the adverts down the right hand side and have tried blocking this stupid car video one.Unfortunately if i block the first car video ad on one thread it still pops up on the next topic i click on.Ah well i will just use this site less and frequent other car forums that don't rely on intrusive adverts.

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 23:20
Any and all - HJ website and ads - IRC

.Ah well i will just use this site less and frequent other car forums that don't rely on intrusive adverts.

Me too. I use a low power netbook with adblocker enabled. The site is now so laggy I'm not going to be back very often.

As for how the site pays for itself? Not my problem. I subscribe to one other forum I use. I have donated to a second forum. Both these placesd allow users to switch adverts off. After subscribing in one case. Sometimes i don't even bother turning the ads offf because they are text/pics only and don't take up huge screen space and slow my PC down.

Whatever the answer is - for me it isn't intrusive adverts.

Byeeeeee!

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 20:22
Any and all - HJ website and ads - alan1302

I have no moral problem running adblockers. I'm never intentionally going to click on an ad and they dont influence me in my purchasing decisions. In fact the opposite, intrusive or objectional ads turn me dead against the brand. For example I will never ever use gocompare while ever they continue to have that t*** singing. And I dont need reminding about christmas mr m&s, et al.

Using an adblocker is win-win for all. I dont get angry. The website uses less bandwidth. Everything is faster. And the companies behind the ads dont get alienated straight away.

Third party advertising via a website is just bribery as far as I'm concerned.

So how do you suggest a website like this pays the bills?

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 20:50
Any and all - HJ website and ads - brum

So how do you suggest a website like this pays the bills?

As if I care. Perhaps HJ should get a proper job. ;)

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 21:30
Any and all - HJ website and ads - RichT54

Trying to read this forum on my Android phone is terrible - everything slows to a crawl, then often some brain-dead full screen ad pops up. If I touch the back button, it doesn't just close the pop-up it closes the forum page also. Might as well not bother looking at the site.

Web sites only have themselves to blame. If they had kept the ads static and unobtrusive, it wouldn't be so bad, but now sites a riddled with idiotic flashy and annoying images and videos.

A more serious problem is that several of the companies supplying the advertising feeds have been hacked so that links to malware can appear on legitimate sites. Using an adblocker reduces the risk of being conned by these links.

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 23:00
Any and all - HJ website and ads - bathtub tom

I think something's been done with Adobe Flash player. I've found that if I block that the site's more responsive, but I get large, grey, boxes on my screen that are presumably the blocked Adobe adverts.

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 23:36
Any and all - HJ website and ads - RobJP

Many thanks for your responses all. At least I now know it isn't just me being particularly irked today, but something that others have noticed too !

Possibly Avant could have a chat with whoever actually administers the site, see if the situation can be improved somewhat ?

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Wed 4 Nov 2015 12:51
Any and all - HJ website and ads - alan1302

So how do you suggest a website like this pays the bills?

As if I care. Perhaps HJ should get a proper job. ;)

You must care a bit as if there is no money then there is no website and seeing as you frequent here you must care a bit.

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Tue 3 Nov 2015 23:36
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Andrew-T

I also realise that this site depends on hosting nonsense to survive, and like Brum I have developed an automatic immunity to adverts over several decades so I'm not too bothered. What I do find intensely annoying is the screen content bouncing up and down while the site 'waits for cache' and then for other bits and pieces. It can take several seconds to settle, sometimes more than I can, so I go elsewhere.

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Wed 4 Nov 2015 12:30
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Snakey

Same here, that lexus ad has really brought the site down to a crawl. I gave up flicking between threads.

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Wed 4 Nov 2015 12:32
Any and all - HJ website and ads - skidpan

Same here, that lexus ad has really brought the site down to a crawl. I gave up flicking between threads.

Agreed. Mine is a good spec PC, god help anyone with an old laptop.

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Wed 4 Nov 2015 12:45
Any and all - HJ website and ads - dadbif
Must be a PC problem, blisteringly fast on ipad and iPhone, fine on iMac too
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Wed 4 Nov 2015 12:46
Any and all - HJ website and ads - madf

I also realise that this site depends on hosting nonsense to survive, and like Brum I have developed an automatic immunity to adverts over several decades so I'm not too bothered. What I do find intensely annoying is the screen content bouncing up and down while the site 'waits for cache' and then for other bits and pieces. It can take several seconds to settle, sometimes more than I can, so I go elsewhere.

No such issues here and noo ads.

Chrome/W10/W10 Seciurity and Ad block.

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Wed 4 Nov 2015 14:21
Any and all - HJ website and ads - brum

idevices and android devices dont support flash, they insist on html5 or other. The problem is flash. Its high time it was euthanised, apple and google have been trying for years, but dinasours like HJ still insist on using flash when serving pc's. Ironically the website serves html5 to androod/idevices, so its either a lazy admin or lack of interest in tweaking the site. I guess the money earned from all these cancerous ads is used for HJ's holidays abroad rather than website support.

I doubt it costs very much to run a simple forum/board like this, its active member numbers are very few.

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Wed 4 Nov 2015 15:12
Any and all - HJ website and ads - lordwoody

I think the whole site is badly designed and clunky. What I hate is how, when you go to input your password, just as you are about to do it, the whole page clunks down, then does it again as you're trying to select a link to another part of the site.

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Wed 4 Nov 2015 17:02
Any and all - HJ website and ads - concrete

I agree with others here, the Lexus ad really slowed the site down and made it more difficult to use. It does annoy me when the page moves just as I am trying to click onto something too. The ad's are part of the revenue for the site, ergo: no revenue-no site, so I put up with them for that reason. However as with other sites, it is page design that make the site work better. The ad's are still there but not too intrusive. Maybe the powers that be could look at a re-design to see if it can improve the site for new and existing users. I would be sorry to see the forum suffer as it is a good, knowledgable and amusing forum with some very interesting posters. Speaking of which has Jamie taken his ball home?

Cheers Concrete

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Wed 4 Nov 2015 18:35
Any and all - HJ website and ads - John Boy

Send for Mrs Ling's webpage designer!

www.lingscars.com/

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Thu 5 Nov 2015 00:35
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Avant

As I've said many times before, my concern is with the content of the forum, although I can confirm that advertising is our main source of revenue without which the forum couldn't operate.

Please direct any queries of this sort to:

kalpesh@honestjohn.co.uk

Thank you.

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Thu 5 Nov 2015 09:47
Any and all - HJ website and ads - RobJP

As I've said many times before, my concern is with the content of the forum, although I can confirm that advertising is our main source of revenue without which the forum couldn't operate.

Please direct any queries of this sort to:

kalpesh@honestjohn.co.uk

Thank you.

Many thanks, Avant. I've emailed to that address :

Dear sir/madam,

'Avant' the moderator on the HJ forums has given your email address as the contact for any website difficulties. A few days ago the HJ website went horribly slow and 'laggy'. This seemed to coincide with the new 'cardboard' lexus ad which the site has been running. A thread on the HJ forums has been running, discussing this matter (I started the thread, as I was wondering if it was just me, but several others have posted that they are having problems too) www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=110964 If you (or someone else) could have a look at what exactly is causing the slowness, then it would be much appreciated. A slow and clunky website also, of course, do not serve you well, as it risks visitors leaving sooner due to frustrations with slow page loading, etc.

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Thu 5 Nov 2015 19:48
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Graham567

They seemed to have listened to you RobJP as the annoying flash adverts have gone!

Business as usual :-)

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Sun 8 Nov 2015 13:16
Any and all - HJ website and ads - John Boy

The index page shows a post to this topic at 10.47 today, but I can't see it. Why is that?

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Sun 8 Nov 2015 13:18
Any and all - HJ website and ads - John Boy

The index page shows a post to this topic at 10.47 today, but I can't see it. Why is that?

Correction: showed a post, because mine above has removed it from the index.

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Sun 8 Nov 2015 16:11
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Leif
I visit infrequently due to the ads slowing down the web site on my ipad. There must be a balance between number of ads, and deterring visitors, surely.
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Sun 8 Nov 2015 16:27
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Engineer Andy

My (admittedly fast) PC with Firefox and the ad-blockers generally has coped well (the recent 'cardboard' Flashplayer ad being an exception), but like you, my tablet (a Samsung Galaxy Tab2) never has coped with ads like that - it just about does ok on Firefox/Chrome (but not on Samsung's own web browser) for the HJ website, but the DT crawls along (it has lots of those sort of ads, much to my annoyance). I have to use a memory manager to turn off loads of programs just to make the DT work at all (and to a lesser extent HJ), and you can forget about multi-tasking.

Other well-known websites (with ads) aren't anywhere near as bad as the DT. I have no problem in HJ's website having ads (my ad-blocker doesn't stop them all), as long as they don't impair my use of the site (e.g. pop-ups and reducing the available screen size as well as browsing speed). As you say, a happy medium and use of software to show the ads that has a low impact on computer memory usage/performance for the vast majority. Hopefully something can be found to accommodate everyone.

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Sun 8 Nov 2015 17:05
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Honestjohn

Thank you for these posts. Of course, the site slows me down more than any of you because I have to jump in and out of the site maybe 50 times a day copying links to refer readers to. Our Tech is aware and I'll bring the matter up with management if we can't fix it. Unfortunately our ad revenue fell sharply in early summer due to circumstances I'd better not go into and we had to fight hard in order get enough revenue to pay for the offices and staff and show a very small rise in profit. It's not merely a matter of making a profit. Profits of a business like this have to rise every year. No need to repeat this, but I will anyway: The forum is only a small, non profit making part of the business and, like other forums, does not even get Google Analytics ratings any more. We run it because like to give you a good place to chat, argue and exchange information.

Rgds,

HJ

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Sun 8 Nov 2015 17:56
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Andrew-T

We run it because like to give you a good place to chat, argue and exchange information.

Rgds, HJ

.... and long may that continue (can't remember when I first signed up) ...

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Sun 8 Nov 2015 18:47
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Engineer Andy

Keep up the good work - I try and give you and the website/forum a regular mention on the DT website (also a long-time member) - especially since you've had your Agony collumn taken away and their so-called 'Cars' section has gone from being quite good to God-awful (in my view they used MSN as a template). You can't even comment on articles on the 'Cars' section - only on the main site for the motoring-related articles that reach the 'front page'.

The news and reviews here are (with one very recent exception [not by you]) very informative and trustworthy, much more than those in the DT and the motoring magazines (and their websites), which are all trying to ape [Clarkson's] Top Gear rather than inform with a bit of humour and wit thrown in. Good to see you're contuning the Agony collumn (I still love the pun descriptions) - a great deal of useful, sensible advice for everyone from someone who actually knows the motor industry, and not a paid 30 y.o. hack who drives cars and thinks they're an expert.

Do let us forum member know if we can be of any assistance to help keep the forum/website/firm in good health - its nice to know that you've taken it upon yourselves to provide an essentially free service for the public good in addition to your day-to-day commercial activities.

Thanks.

Edited by Engineer Andy on 08/11/2015 at 18:50

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Sun 8 Nov 2015 22:14
Any and all - HJ website and ads - Leif
Last time I bought the DT, I was disappointed to see a changed car section.

Sad to hear the web site is not hugely profitable.
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