Hi,

Yikes. That's a very aggressive anti-adblock. You don't see that very often.
First it says welcome.
Then it says I'm using an ad-blocker.
And that that's okay.
Then it says that with ad income you can't keep making the site awesome.
The it shows a button with "I agree to switch off my ad-block."

And if I don't switch off my ad-block, it blocks the site.
Hm. I guess it's not okay after all, apparently.

I don't know how long this has been in place. There are only three sites I don't ad-block, and www.armorama.com and www.aeroscale.co.uk are two of them. But I accessed the site with my work computer half an hour ago (which ad-blocks everything) and then I noticed it.

Guys, please, there are better ways of handling this. This only alienates people.

I know sites cost money, even sites run mostly by volunteers like on Kitmaker. It easily starts at 50-300K per year, more if you need larger clusters and more mirrors to handle the bandwidth, and double everything if it's on Microsoft. I'm in the IT business. I totally get it.

Have you tried The Guardian's approach?
Tell people what the site costs to run. That money obviously has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is ad revenue. Unblocking will cover the costs of your visit.
Oh, and tell them the ads are not at all intrusive and that they are relevant to our hobby and will actually probably interest them (which really is the case on all Kitmaker sites.)

Look, these Kitmaker sites are as far as I'm concerned the best in the business. But that anti-ad-block is so... so not like you.

Kind regards,

Marc

My work computer has adblockers and I never had a problem accessing this site unless something has changed since yesterday. It just tells me that i'm using an adblocker over the spaces where the ads would be.

i have the same problem between my pc and work pc and i fully agree with Marc, its very aggressive anti-adblock,i see yasterday,never see something like that anywere and that means i cant watch any more the site from work and is a shame.

Well, I turned off my ad block, per new site requirements. Nearly had a seizure from the flashing, band width sucking adds. Not sure this is the right fix! Perhaps an advertising method similar to Missing-lynx.com would work better. No flashing ads, no problems w/adblock . I understand the need to build revenue but come on.

I totally agree, the flashing bandwith sucking adds are terrible.

This new requirement confronted me yesterday. I whitelisted this site, but I'm now looking for the next generation of ad blockers.

I've whitelisted this site on my ad-blockers long ago but now I can't access this site unless I disable them completely. I understand that ads are a necessity but this is almost nazi-esqe in demanding that they be completely turned off. I run them because I'm tired of re-directs, hi-jackers and pop-ups. This site doesn't have them but the majority of sites that rely on ads do.

I disabled the AdBlock Plus yesterday for Armorama site. So far only two relatively small columns of ads on the left and right which my brain did put on ignore mod rather quickly. Didn't notice any slowing down. As long as pop ups don't kick in I think I could live with it.

Agreed! I have my adblocker set to show all ads, except flashing localised ads in danish (penis enlargement, dodgy investments etc) and still I get locked out.
I like the model related ads, and even click them to generate revenue, but I don't like the localised crap. They're irrelevant.
John

I think it is the wrong way with such an aggressive antiadblocker. I put an addblocker in because I hated the flashing ever changing adds (as they appear on the left side).
I totally understand that such sites need finances, but it could be done a bit different...

means: about the anti-adblocker!

Here's an example of what I'm trying to block:


And I don't mean the Master Club metal tracks ad!

John

Nobody wants too see a glow in the dark toilet and Pokémon .
Andy

Precisely!!

John

Had the same problem. logged on yesterday and instantly bombarded with this message and it sucks

Have never come across such annoying problem with a pop up on this site.This needs to be fixed

Michael

I will make sure Jim is aware of the issue and ask him to seek a resolution.

Andy, that depends on what scale they are, and if they have a good photoetch fret or not.

[quote]

I'd like a glow in the dark wonderseat. Just think, you don't want to turn on the lights and bother people, and you have a glowing target to aim at. Perfect for those middle of the night emergencies.

Hi guys,
Sadly I can understand wanting to stop obnoxious ads on some sites, however when I have ever ad-blocked in the past (and still do on a few sites) it was because of long video ads which I was not willing to sit through to wait to see stuff on YouTube or Twitch. At some point though they will likely stop all of us from doing that. And they should. Ad blocking is wrong. Period. I am just as guilty of it as any of you, but because of my own personal experience with it I can say I have had a change of heart. Why? Because my family relies on the ad revenues of the site to eat, have health insurance, and to pay for our mortgage, clothing, and everything else. Meaning this site is the in the minority of hobby sites out there that actually are trying to support more than just pay some hosting fees or domain costs. Considering larger commercial hobby sites like Fine Scale already require people to be magazine subscribers to gain access to all their content, I think having this ad-block checking script is not really all that obnoxious.

I see the ads just like you do after all. My Google ads on the right are for Sprint and Canon products. I haven't done any searches for toilet seat covers, but I am thinking about it after seeing that image.

One member wrote me a very nice email and used the term "draconian restrictions" in reference to the anti ad-blocking script. Draconian? Perhaps some of you feel that way but trust me Draconian would be making all the content subscriber based only.

Also, just so you are aware, subscribers can turn off the ads on the site as then they are helping keep the site and community going but not potentially taking money out of my pocket. Yes, my pocket, which I will tell you VERY honestly has a lot less money in it than it did 5 years ago when our expenses were less and people were also using ad-block... less.

I will be looking at this issue more in the future. I can't promise any changes but I do promise you will be seeing more and more online content sites employing this kind of thing in the future. I myself have run into more than a few sites in the past week where it did detect my use of adblock and notified me I had to disable it. Where do you think I got the idea?

Anyway again not trying to make anyone feel bad for using it as stated above I am/was right there with you. I just don't want to go broke and have to shut down this site someday because I didn't do anything about it when I should have. So yes this is a matter of principle as well as a financial concern for me. And adding it to the site was only done after a lot of thought and consideration of reactions just like these.

Best wishes (and Happy Holidays!),
Jim

Good, well thought out, level headed reply Jim. I don't want to see this site slowly dry up and disappear, and I certainly don't want you or your family to go hungry.
I can live with the few annoying ads, and I discovered a little "x" in the upper corner of the offending ads, which gives the possibility of removing that particular ad, so no more toilet seats for me!

Merry Christmas to you and yours, and thanks for all your work on this great site.
John

The issue for me was the sudden and absolute nature of the notice. The thing is, I have been able to add the domain to my Adblocker whitelist and happily continue to run it on other sites while still accessing Armorama. One does not need to turn off Adblocker completely as your message states - just give instructions to users on how to add to the whitelist.

Thanks for this feedback and I can update the default message to make that point. It's just a matter of going up to the Adblock icon, clicking it and then clicking on the 'Enabled' text to have it disable it for this domain. Keep in mind you may see it again if you change to another domain on the network, but once set you don't have to do it again.

Thanks,
Jim

Just no sound ads ... please. 🔇

Thank you,
—mike

For me the problem is not the ads that relate to modeling which indeed are interesting,but the constant flashing is quite annoying after a while, but' having a slight case in the family can not imagine that those suffering from epilepsy without ad-block ads in the continuous movement of the screen side can be dangerous.

For ads not related to modeling thankfully I have none, I think that an app of my antivirus blocks them letting the good ads go tru

Personally, I understand in part Jim and I would gladly subscribe, but as I said in another tread i find that the system for the photos is so obsolete and so many vital information get lost on old an sometime not so old post from make me rethink all times, because in a photo is more 'important 1000 explanations in modeling.

I don't have a problem with it. I turned off the adblocker after getting the banner message. The only ads I'm seeing are all modeling related.
It's also quite reasonable if this site needs to generate some income for admin and those that don't pay a subscription fee (me).

As others have pointed out tho, it did come as a big surprise when I clicked on my bookmark and got the adblock thing.

Again, tho I'm not a modeler anymore I do enjoy reading this forum and looking at all the incredible stuff out there for modelers.

For me the AddBlock is a nice way to "recover lost screen space" sind at least half the time I access the side from a tablet pc in portrait mode and the rather big add bar on the left eats space. And since the tablet pc is not an ARM based unit but a Windows based working maschine (core i5/WACOM pen etc, used as a digital notepad among others) even a "mobile view" model that gets activated upon detecting Fragmentdroid or iThingy would not help me.