The new olympus banner ads...

[HowLowCanYaGo]

...are QUITE ANNOYING! Not only do I have to watch the same flash animation repeatedly, it slows down my browsing of the forums immensely! It is enough to make me want to stop visiting the forum because of the headaches I endure by waiting on my page to load as a mountain biker repeatedly flies down the center of my screen.

Can something be done to minimize this? I understand it helps pay the bills, but this is just irritating.

[Mr Yuck]

agreed.

The ads are entirely annoying.

[mwfanelli]

...are QUITE ANNOYING! Not only do I have to watch the same flash animation repeatedly, it slows down my browsing of the forums immensely! It is enough to make me want to stop visiting the forum because of the headaches I endure by waiting on my page to load as a mountain biker repeatedly flies down the center of my screen.

Can something be done to minimize this? I understand it helps pay the bills, but this is just irritating.

I use Opera rather than IE and never see these. Opera blocks these super-annoying pop-up ads while maintaining the static ones. I am almost sure that Firefox has plug-ins that do the same thing.

[HowLowCanYaGo]

I'm on safari and opera and have problems with both...I even tried it in IE and still had the same problem. It is a flash ad banner.

[SmartWombat]

I'm sure that Flash causes my IE to crash.
But installing FoxFire with AdBlock, NoScript, and FilterSet G updater makes it all work faster.
Plus the exceedingly annoying Olympus adverts don't appear - that's a bonus.

[Copy_Kot]

...are QUITE ANNOYING! Not only do I have to watch the same flash animation repeatedly, it slows down my browsing of the forums immensely! It is enough to make me want to stop visiting the forum because of the headaches I endure by waiting on my page to load as a mountain biker repeatedly flies down the center of my screen.

Can something be done to minimize this? I understand it helps pay the bills, but this is just irritating.

The banner ads and green links are just too much. I would rather pay a monthly due than be subjected to the cheesy advertising. You shouldn't need FoxFire or Opera to view this site without the annoyances, maybe it is time to move on.

edit, LMAO! "banner ads" is a green link in my post :lol: Why not just make ever word in ever post an ad?

[HowLowCanYaGo]

I don't mind a typical gif or jpg banner ad (I never click/use them anyway!), but flash is just way to intrusive on my internet bandwith and it hogs my browsing capabilities. Especially when it extends half-way across my monitor.

John, do us a favor and get rid of these!

[Photo-John]

I'm sorry the ads are bothering some of you. I'm sure you don't know how much we need them. These ads make the site possible. And it's been a while since we actually had a good camera ad campaign. The Olympus campaign is a much needed shot in the arm for the business. And this is a business. I know that flash ads may seem a bit intrusive. But remember pop-ups? We're sensitive to how advertising affects your site experience. There are limits to what we allow and we require that they include a button to close the ad. Look for that button.

Thanks for letting me know how you feel. And thanks for considering that this is a business and advertising makes this free site possible. If you enjoy this site you'll support our advertisers. They pay for the servers, developers, software, writers, and manager (me) so that you can share photos, reviews, and learn from other photographers.

[JSPhoto]

I'm sure that Flash causes my IE to crash.
But installing FoxFire with AdBlock, NoScript, and FilterSet G updater makes it all work faster.
Plus the exceedingly annoying Olympus adverts don't appear - that's a bonus.

It's not the ads causing your crash SW, it's something else. I have tried it on three different machines with three different OS's and versions of IE and none of them crash with the ads. It may have to do with your CPU though...which one are you running in that machine?

JS

[mwfanelli]

I'm on safari and opera and have problems with both...I even tried it in IE and still had the same problem. It is a flash ad banner.

In Opera, you can shut down Flash on-the-fly. Flash is heavily used for ads, I leave it shut off and just click in on for those rare occasions when its used for something useful.

[HowLowCanYaGo]

I'm sorry the ads are bothering some of you. I'm sure you don't know how much we need them. These ads make the site possible. And it's been a while since we actually had a good camera ad campaign. The Olympus campaign is a much needed shot in the arm for the business. And this is a business. I know that flash ads may seem a bit intrusive. But remember pop-ups? We're sensitive to how advertising affects your site experience. There are limits to what we allow and we require that they include a button to close the ad. Look for that button.

Thanks for letting me know how you feel. And thanks for considering that this is a business and advertising makes this free site possible. If you enjoy this site you'll support our advertisers. They pay for the servers, developers, software, writers, and manager (me) so that you can share photos, reviews, and learn from other photographers.

I understand what it takes to keep the site running, but these ads aren't JUST a "bit" intrusive. They hog everything.

I guess this means I'm leaving PR, I enjoyed my stay...good luck to everyone on their photographic journies....HLCYG.

[SmartWombat]

It's not the ads causing your crash SW, it's something else

It's other sites ads that cause the crash, these just get rendered before the rest of the page and so they play before the page displays.
I'm running a P4 Prescott 550 dual core.
I usually blame it on graphics driver problems, and flash itself in using the graphics in non-standard ways.

[Copy_Kot]

I'm sorry the ads are bothering some of you. I'm sure you don't know how much we need them. These ads make the site possible. And it's been a while since we actually had a good camera ad campaign. The Olympus campaign is a much needed shot in the arm for the business. And this is a business. I know that flash ads may seem a bit intrusive. But remember pop-ups? We're sensitive to how advertising affects your site experience. There are limits to what we allow and we require that they include a button to close the ad. Look for that button.

Thanks for letting me know how you feel. And thanks for considering that this is a business and advertising makes this free site possible. If you enjoy this site you'll support our advertisers. They pay for the servers, developers, software, writers, and manager (me) so that you can share photos, reviews, and learn from other photographers.

Dang it! I love this site and would really hate to go... I meant it when I said that I would rather pay a monthly due/fee to post here (nothing in life is free). There has to be a different/better way of paying the bills, I don't see this kind of intrusive and annoying advertising on any other site that I visit (which are many).

The straws are piling up on the camels back

[jorgemonkey]

I've got firefox & I block all the ads, so I never see any of them.

What I do though is when I'm bored (usually at work) I'll click a couple of those green links in the text & do a few searches & get to a few different web pages to bring this site a few extra $$. I also make sure that when I order anything I try to click through the "Hot Buys" section so PR gets some $$ as well.

[Greg McCary]

I am an Olympus guy so the ads have helped me. I am thinking of a system later this year for my wife so information about product avalablity and price has helped me. Advertisments are a part of the business. TV, magazines, newspapers and radio it pays the bills so all can enjoy.
One of the things that I love the most about this site is the "free" gallery. Most sites make you pay for a premium membership for a gallery which no one ever sees because you have to pay to see it. I think that having premium memberships hurts most sites in the long run because it restricts the amount of members that it has.
I have satellite radio which is suppose to be ad free. But it's not. There are ads on some stations. I also like to listen to Clark Howard and Paul Harvey and the ads don't bother me becuase I enjoy listening to them so much.
I also haven't had any problems with my computer crashing either. I run Firefox and IE on two different computers.
Greg

[SmartWombat]

I reckon with the focus on biking those Olympus ads might go down well on mtbr.

[Photo-John]

I reckon with the focus on biking those Olympus ads might go down well on mtbr.

Except that the gear is 20 years old - at least. Ad agencies never check that stuff. Drives me crazy. It's not like great photos with current gear aren't available.

[mjs1973]

I don't mind the ads for the most part, but when they keep me from clicking on the link I want, it gets very frustraiting. I was on the last page of a thread, and wanted to go back to page four to see something. I clicked on page 4 several times, and nothing happened, all while the Oly ad was playing. I gave up and never did get to the page. This isn't the first time that has happened with this ad either. I have looked, and I don't see a "close" button on the ad. If it's there, please tell me where so I can use it.

There have been several times that I have clicked on a link and been taken to an Olymps page. I could understand that if I had clicked on the ad, but the MTB flash ad was no where in site when I clicked on the link.

[WsW-WYATT-EARP]

my only complaint about the ads is when i try to click the link to the last post (little blue arrow) and it takes me to the olympus ad instead of the last post ... otherwise i really don't care about the flash ad that pops up ...

[walterick]

I personally think they're a good compromise considering what we get. I'll take PR.com with dropdown adds over no PR.com any day. I appreciate you guys hanging in there and not getting too frustrated with it

[Orgnoi1]

Have you thought about doing Google Ads? They are far less intrusive... and we make enough to get by with our site... These really are a bit much here... I dont mind because I am patient (sometimes) but I am right at an ISP (I work for Verizon Telephone) and these things slow down browsing to mere dialup speed... I am a new guy here so if I stay or go really doesnt matter too much... but you are going to REALLY turn off new members when they have to wait upwards of a minute for a page to load...

[Photo-John]

Have you thought about doing Google Ads? They are far less intrusive... and we make enough to get by with our site... These really are a bit much here... I dont mind because I am patient (sometimes) but I am right at an ISP (I work for Verizon Telephone) and these things slow down browsing to mere dialup speed... I am a new guy here so if I stay or go really doesnt matter too much... but you are going to REALLY turn off new members when they have to wait upwards of a minute for a page to load...

We run Google ads when we don't have a well-paying campaign like this one. There's a reason why you don't see these banners all over the place. We have to work hard to earn this kind of advertising. It pays much better than Google banners.

For the past couple of days there has been some sort of performance issue related to the banners. It's outside of our control but it's being addressed.

Thanks!

[Orgnoi1]

Well I hope it gets worked out... its a pretty nice forum... but for a 33K+ member forum... seeing 12 people online at a prime time of the evening definately should be telling ya somethings wrong...

[mjs1973]

I can see the "Close" button now!!! I clicked on it 5 times before the add finally went away. Of course by that time, the add was done and went away on it's own. Then the Olypus web page popped up. :mad2:

[mjs1973]

Good news!!!! The close button was working great today! The bad news, I had to close the ad 4 times while reading a single thread. The ad just kept popping up, over and over and over again...