I figured out how to partially get rid of some of the items in the green pop-up bar at the bottom of the screen so I don’t have to click the “X” every time I get on the forum. You’ll need Adblock Plus, which is FREE:
With Adblock Plus installed, right click an icon with your mouse
Click the “Add Filter” button
Only the MR magazine, signup, and Facebook icons are “blockable” at the moment. And blocking those will leave just the green bar and some of the clickable links behind - e.g. subscribe, renew, digital editions, and newsletter… The “close” button will also disappear.
I personally find this more tolerable than the current setup. And, of course, you can choose to just close the green bar altogether by clicking the “X” on the right side. The above can also be disabled if you should decide later you don’t like the edited green bar and just want to get rid of it in the usual fashion.
Lastly, it would be nice if MR subscribers didn’t have to be subjected to the pop-up bar until perhaps a month shy of their renew date.
It’s a balancing act for me on what I put up with…on the one hand the internet sites are free…on the other there are things that are annoying to the extent that I, at the extreme, avoid the site. The worst are the pop-ups that are in the way of what I want to see and have to be “x’d” to close them first, common on CNN.com where you go to a chosen item and then are blocked by an overlaying thing. I tend to close the site on these and hope they notice.
When I pay for something, I expect less nuisance. For instance, I pay for Consumer Reports and MR, so I expect more from these sites (including less bother) than from the complete freebee sites (CNN, USA Today, etc).
This item is less bothersome (I didn’t notice it except when the magazine photo got in the way) but thanks for the pointer on how to mitigate it.
I use Simple Adblock with Firefox 19 in Windows 8. It blocks most ads quite efficiently. With the green bar I just click the X. I’m logged in all the time so the bar rarely appears.
I totally,agree with your last sentence…When you logged on,show,it for maybe,5 seconds,then have it go away,until you log on again,that would not be bad either…
It is somewhat annoying. Would be nice if they tied it to the user database so if your subscription wasn’t almost expired, and also if you were already subscribed to the email newsletter, it wouldn;t show.
Doesn’t help that all that information in the annoying bar is ALREADY in the page footer.
At the very least the taller MR magazine icon can be eliminated. That’s the one that stuck out the most and the one I found the most annoying. Even if you remain logged onto the MR site (which I do), if you close the window then come back to the site later on, you have to “X” the bar again to close it.
Anyhow, it’s an option to having to “X” the bar out…
Tried the Adblock Plus but started to have problems w/ other sites, mainly Photobucket. I would get random “Block” showing to select “img” and would not copy, same w/ FB many fuctions were blocked also. Don’t know how to change settings or afraid of added troubles. Just removed it and will continue to be really annoyed by it.
I too feel this banner should not appear as long as you log in and are a MR subscriber.
LION uses a Barracuda Web Filter to keep good little boys from visiting naughty sites. It also blocks ads.
Most ads are like photos as far as HTML code is concerned: just a snip it of code that says “go here and get that.”
If it is on the same site as the MR banner below, it is got an shown. Ads from else wither may or may not be shown, but if they are not shown a gray box appears in their place with text from the Web Filter trying to tell you all about its good work. The filter block connections to the sites that provide the ads.
Sometimes the browser will hang waiting for a reply that will not come.
Great it is not, but then we did not buy the beast to protect us from ads.
This isn’t the only MR popup i get - I also see one advertising the digital version. I understand that it’s a form of advertising, but to me it’s like junk mail - I don’t want it, I don’t read it, I throw it away, and if I keep getting annoyed with it from any company, I will just stop buying or using their products. Several years ago I had a solicitor come to the door collecting money for a very well known and respected charity - so I gave them $10. For the next three years I was inundated with mailings and letters requesting more money and I got so angry that I called their home office and said to remove to my name from their mailing lists immediately. As far as I was concerned, they completely wasted my contribution and that of countless other people on ridiculous mailings that, from me anyway, netted them nothing.
Adware is a decent but my experience is that it doesn’t filter everything so a good popup blocker is also needed.
Here is another pop-up bar, this was in Laredo, Texas.
It popped up partly on the sidewalk space and partly on the Texas Mexican Rwy right-of-way between an existing mutual benefit society building, a street and the railroad. I did not sample their drinks. Just took a picture while sampling riding the Tex Mex passenger train which ran 1986-1989.
I don’t like that thing–annoying time waster for sure. It’s part of why they redid the whole blog area. I’m a subscriber and think it shouldn’t be there for those who pay. I don’t think this forum is as busy as it was prior to the change, btw.
Whale, on the other hand, those ads in the gray bar to the right seem to have disappeared. There used to be ads there for Bar Mills, Trainworld, and other places of wonderful interest. Now they are gone.
