I fell for a scam advertisement on this sites page. There was a banner at the top that said "Private Message." I clicked on it, thinking it was real. It took over my browser and went to a page I could not close, saying my computer was at risk and to call an 800 number immediately. The only way I could close the browser was to use task manager. This is not good! I would be happy to pay a subscription fee not to have advertisements.
Thanks Dutch, I did that and poof gone! I hate to block ads because I know they support the site, but ........ I would still be happy to pay a yearly (reasonable) fee for the site.
Services such as RV Park Reviews, Google, Facebook and thousands of others are provided for free. The costs to run the sites are offset by serving ads. It's unfortunate that some people abuse the system by showing deceptive ads. The best solution is to report them (as you did here) but the most actionable item to report is the domain name of the offending site. With that we report them to the ad network (Google) and black them from being served here. I understand why people use ad blockers but in the long run they will have unintended consequences. Services will have to keep evolving to keep the lights on so that might be charging for access. We don't have plans to do that at RV Park Reviews but wouldn't it suck if you had to pay to use most of your favorite websites because they can't afford to keep providing the services for free? Did you know Google and other big name companies pay the ad blocker add-ons so ads will still show up on sites? Kind of scammy that they will block ads unless you pay them so their blocking tools will not work on your site!
AdBlock Plus makes it very easy to disable showing the "non-intrusive" paid ads that are allowed by default. I don't object to ads on sites in general, but having had to rescue a number of PC's over the year for friends and family that were compromised by malicious ads, I'll keep them turned off as much as possible until there's a foolproof way to vet them. I would not mind paying small fee to access an ad free RVPR, just as I frequently pay for ad free apps.
Interesting feedback and something we might consider in the future. It's not our intent to try and squeeze every dollar out of the turnip and would like to thank our members who contribute reviews so we will also consider gifting some ad free upgrades in exchange for contributing reviews. In the end we just want to find a nice balance for everyone involved in making RVPR the best resource on the net for RVers.
I fully appreciate your efforts, Andy, as well as your willingness to consider differing points of view and new ideas. Thank you!
Thanks Andy for your well considered and thoughtful reply. I have gotten much benefit from this site over the years. Therefore I faithfully contribute reviews. Jim
How do I get the advertisements off the screen? I can not read what is on the review. This has been a problem more than once.
JAWS, there should be no ads covering up the reviews. Can you post a screenshot? Are you on a Windows computer?
