Just recently when I opened the fine woodworking website, immediately a large advertisement popped up, with the word START. I didn’t realize at first that this was an advertisement, because it came up repeatedly every time I clicked on any part to the menu at the top of the bar. Any attempt to close or rid the space of that add was frustratingly met with failure. This is new, and I don’t like it at all. The fine woodworking website is allowing more and more ads and content that adds extra expense to its site.
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Replies
Who does like these things, but they are the way almost all websites do business. I've never been sure whether they actually produce additional business or not, but the user's choice is to either just put up with it if the site is useful or just not go there. However, just not going to the site likely means you won't go to any sites because it's everywhere. Annoying, but something that we either accept or ignore or not use the site.
I get why they advertise but it's getting a little weird. The tracking algorithms have gotten so good that it seems as though they have figured out what your going to want or what your going to think about or do before you do. An ad for a chain saw and 15 minutes later a tree blows down in your yard.....
Or get an Ad Blocker.
Ding, ding, ding. I have my machine so locked down that every now and then when I do use someone else's PC I hardly recognize the internet; "what is all this stuff???". There are tools and methods to make your browsing life more enjoyable.
The add blocker in my iPad does not work. Seems like there should be an alternative to just put up or shut up.
If you do find something enjoyable in the web it will always have some sort of annoyance. Commercial TV is almost at a 50:50, commercial to content ratio. Eventually commercials will overtake content. I haven't watched live TV in 20 years. I record everything to avoid commercials.
It's back to pirating tv. No ads. Free. They pushed me back to it.
I'm guessing that, unless you subscribe to an ad blocker that is installed in addition to your operating system features, ads will not be blocked. Microsoft has no real interest in blocking adds since their operating system permits things like coupons. In effect, they are contributing to the effectiveness of the sites using pop-up adds (essentially all sites these days).
Right now, no one is looking out for the user and all retail sites make money off of the pop-ups in varying amounts.
I think one reason that FWW has become more aggresssive with pop-ups and advertising is that they have been struggling on the edge of financal viability for awhile. Anything they can do to generate more business helps resolve that. Plus, the company that bought them is also making every effort to make the several woodworking publications and sites profitable.
For me, I assess going back to sites based on overall usefulness and value to me; not on whether there are pop-ups. If the ads bother you and you're not getting what you need from the site, just don't go there. The quickest way to get companies to move away from this sort of thing is loss of customers. In the end, if they don't interpret the signs of people being dissatisfied, they just go out of business when the aren't financially viable anymore. It's a shame but the US and, for that matter, the whole world is driven by profit rather than interest (at least for-profit companies are). It would be a shame to lose access to all the valuable articles and videos on FWW's site but, in the end it's really just driven by the company's ability to make money. I'm sure that people at FWW would possibly disagree with me but . . .
Microsoft's browser still allows ublock origin (blocks pretty much everything), though google booted it and created some bogus standard that doesn't allow effective adblockers as they can't get enough data on you and enough small revenue streams, apparently. There is an updated version of ublock that only blocks a few things to meet google's standard - it's pretty pointless.
Brave is another browser, that looks like it's a clone of google Chrome, but the browser itself has superb adblock that you can tune down if you want to support a site and allow ads. I see *nothing* with it ad-wise and can only think of one site that I visit that won't allow it.
Sites like to say in their terms of service that you can't use an adblocker by the terms, but these types of agreements if you're not signed up for something, well, you choose if you abide by them. If they don't allow you to have access without seeing popups, it's a good time to look around and seeing if another place will meet your needs. Sometimes when you stick your head up and find other sources of information, you wish you'd done it earlier just because dedication to a source has limited what you are exposed to. An example of this for me would be youtube and yahoo mail. both are intolerable in their formats without an adblocker - if they prevent me from viewing videos, that's fine. The content of the curated ads is often insulting, too.
Yes, I’ll write a letter to the editor, then I’ll end my online subscription. That’s my only vote.
Hi,
I'm sorry that the pop-up ads are enough to bother you to end your subscription. In my experience with the site, I've had one pop-up ad on the homepage, and once closed, I can navigate the site with ads on the page, but no pop-ups. As editors, we don't control the ad spaces on pages, only the content within it, and we will continue to work hard to make sure that content is worth your visit to our page.
-Amanda, Associate Web Editor of FWW.com
For myself, the question is really only whether I get something useful from the site. Pop-up ads are a fact of the current online world. I certainly wouldn't continue paying a yearly subscription fee if I wasn't getting what I needed from the site. FWW's Unlimited subscription has always provided me with what I need when I need it. It continues to be a great resource for techniques, finishes, overall woodworking knowledge, and tools for me. It's all in one site. While the pop-up ad at the beginning about Unlimited subscription and possibly classes is annoying it's easily wiped off the screen. I do think that, if a user's login is associated with a current subscription to Unlimited, that pop-up shouldn't be there for those people, but I'm certainly not coing to end my subscription for that reason alone.
I know this is an old thread, but this was my thought as well. As a current subscriber, I was hoping that we wouldn't have to deal with ad pop-ups since that is usually an advantage to paying for a subscription. I also wouldn't think that subscribers would be seeing additional notices to subscribe to Unlimited, since we already do 😁.
I use Duck Duck Go exclusively as my internet browser. I don’t get any pop ups of any kind. Plus, in theory, companies aren’t getting my personal info.
I use the free version of AdBlocker and it works quite well. I don't see any ads on this forum page and I only rarely see ads on other pages. I sometimes forget that ads are so ubiquitous that I am surprised when I see one somewhere. I'm sorry that I'm probably depriving content providers of some income. But if they would just follow some ruled about where and how they apply the adds to keep them from being so annoying, I might not object so much.
Many special interest websites have got around the ad-blocking software by making a great deal of their core content adverts-in-disguise. They name them "reviews" or "tests" but they often read like manufacturer or retailer blurb-gush.
FWW doesn't seem to have gone down that road, although some of their tool reviews do look a little, shall we say, thin. But the articles about furniture making are still exactly that and not some trojan horse advert for the latest $499 gizmo.
At present I don't subscribe to FWW as the vast amount of info from them I already have is more than enough for me. I've bought copies of their paper magazines and DVDs of content more than once, for decades. New magazine articles do have an interest to me now but its more of a passing interest than a desire to use an article to make something described therein.
If I was still a subscriber I'd be annoyed if I was having to wade through a sea of adverts to get to the true content. Like others, I use an "alternative browser" to that mainstream spy, as well as ad blockers. These seem to boot out all the ads that aren't trojan-horsed in via a website's core content.
Yeah. And I didn't mention that I occasionally find sites that detect my ad blocker and ask me to turn it off. Usually, these are sites that I don't frequent and that makes it my choice. I can either make the choice to turn it off and get what I want on the site or go elsewhere.
I also rarely try to read anything on my phone as I don't have an ad blocker on it (just haven't bothered). They tuck ads between every few sentences making it a miserable experience.