Dear All, My name is mclean007, and I have a Guilty Secret to share. I have been using adblockplus on my Firefox installation and have for some time neglected to whitelist bit-tech. Today is a special day, for I have seen the light and whitelisted the site. Aren't I virtuous? There is a serious side to this post - I actually feel bad about not having done this sooner - bit-tech is a top quality publication and a great community, and if a few cheeky ads here and there will help to support that and to reward those whose hard work makes it all possible, then looking at those ads is the least I can do. I also made the remarkable discovery that, unlike 99% of sites out there, where ads are intrusive, frequently irrelevant and generally irritating, bit-tech's ads are pretty on-target, don't intrude, and blend well with the look and feel of the site. I even saw some ads for some products I might consider buying, so how about that? I would urge anyone who uses an ad blocker and who enjoys bit-tech to whitelist the site - it's easy to do and is really only fair. And you never know, maybe you'll see an offer you like. Instructions for adblockerplus: (1) click the dropdown on the ABP icon (2) click preferences... (3) click the "add filter" button at the bottom left (4) type "@@|*bit-tech.net/" (without the quotes) (5) click "okay" and you're done! You might need to force refresh the home page to see ads (CTRL-F5). See, they're not that bad, are they?
IIRC, they are, but click fraud (yes, that includes senseless clicking on *your* part) helps nobody. By all means, click them, but only if you're actually interested in the product. Don't do it just to try and earn Bit a few bucks, because when advertisers see lower click-through rates, they either pay less per click or advertise elsewhere. Which is bad. In any case, I'm glad you've whitelisted Bit. It's one of the only sites that I feel really worth of it, especially since - as you said - the ads are generally on-target and unobtrusive, and the quality of the content certainly justifies putting up with a few ads. I'm glad they added the new shopping section; much more relevant for me, as the geo-targeting of the normal banners seems to be iffy at best (I'll often see ads for UK stores). geez... reading through that, it sounds like I work here. Heh, don't I wish
Well, on ABP it's a left click on the dropdown, but yes you can. Only caveat is you will have to separately whitelist www.bit-tech.net, forums.bit-tech.net and shopping.bit-tech.net. My method wildcards it so anything on the bit-tech.net domain is unblocked.
Your secret is so dirty, i'm thinking of telling everybody that I 'am' a dwarf with a 8ft penis! IT'S OK!!
forums isn't technically a subdomain - it's forums.bit-tech.net, not www.bit-tech.net/forums. Anyway, it didn't work on my copy of adblockplus - I had to add www.bit... and forums.bit... separately, but (because I'm anal about this sort of thing) I manually added the filter instead, as per my instructions above. @JinkzUK - there's a market for that kind of thing you know. This time next year, you could be a millionaire!
I don't even block many ads, basically I don't carea bout ads as long as they aren't too obtrusive or make annoying noises even when you haven't moved your cursor over the ad itself. The main point that bit-tech has been successful in its implementation of ads is the fact that they are ON TARGET and fit the interests of the people who visit..
The only ad I've found annoying on this site has been the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ads. The flashing is so annoying and I can't always practically scroll it off the edge of the page. Maybe I should take this to the feedback forum.
