All Advertising Questions

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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#481 » by MAQ » Thu Jul 23, 2026 10:17 pm

MickeyDavis wrote:Most people have no problem blocking ads, either with extensions or using specific browsers. Paid memberships wouldn't be worth the effort to implement.

I think the effort to please your userbase is always going to be worth it. But what do i know.

Like, even if you did believe this, you didn't think of wording this differently? Tell us more about your real feelings here...
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#482 » by MickeyDavis » Thu Jul 23, 2026 10:24 pm

MAQ wrote:
MickeyDavis wrote:Most people have no problem blocking ads, either with extensions or using specific browsers. Paid memberships wouldn't be worth the effort to implement.

I think the effort to please your userbase is always going to be worth it. But what do i know.

Like, even if you did believe this, you didn't think of wording this differently? Tell us more about your real feelings here...

I don't work here. I have no vested interest. How should I have worded it?

Let me break down my 2 sentences. 1. It's a fact it's easy to block ads. If you don't know how to do it you can spend 5 minutes and learn now. I agree that the ads are obtrusive and I hope they fix it. But in meantime there are solutions. 2. My paid membership comment was simply my opinion as someone who works in IT. You can disagree if you wish, who cares?

Hopefully this clears things up.
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#483 » by Duffman100 » Mon Jul 27, 2026 1:11 pm

MickeyDavis wrote:
MAQ wrote:
MickeyDavis wrote:Most people have no problem blocking ads, either with extensions or using specific browsers. Paid memberships wouldn't be worth the effort to implement.

I think the effort to please your userbase is always going to be worth it. But what do i know.

Like, even if you did believe this, you didn't think of wording this differently? Tell us more about your real feelings here...

I don't work here. I have no vested interest. How should I have worded it?

Let me break down my 2 sentences. 1. It's a fact it's easy to block ads. If you don't know how to do it you can spend 5 minutes and learn now. I agree that the ads are obtrusive and I hope they fix it. But in meantime there are solutions. 2. My paid membership comment was simply my opinion as someone who works in IT. You can disagree if you wish, who cares?

Hopefully this clears things up.


I work in software eng for 15 years. It would in fact probably have a high level of effort to do a paid membership. The ROI on how many people would sign up vs the build and maintenance doesn't add up.
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#484 » by BBallFreak » Sat Aug 1, 2026 10:36 pm

This is getting ridiculous. Not only have you guys not gotten rid of the obnoxious ad in the corner of the screen on mobile, but now, I get the "turn off ad blocker" on mobile, as well! No ad blocker! And it happens on my PC when I turn off my ad blocker! No matter what I do, I get a message about turning off my ad blocker!

So what's the point of turning off my ad blocker of I'm going to get the message no matter what?!?!

You're just pushing me to try a different browser on mobile or just leave all together!

This is beyond ridiculous at this point!
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#485 » by miamiheat319 » Sun Aug 2, 2026 5:41 pm

Seriously two huge middle fingers to you guys for that pop up every time I come to this site
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#486 » by iserp » Tue Aug 4, 2026 6:44 am

miamiheat319 wrote:Seriously two huge middle fingers to you guys for that pop up every time I come to this site


Besides, call a spade a spade: It is not about "ad blocking", it is about "tracker blocking", which is what you are really complaining. I do not have an ad blocker, I have always seen all the ads, and I still have to see the popup. Besides, I have disabled tracking protection (Firefox in openSUSE linux) and I still got the popup.

If you want people to see the ads, even with ad blocker, host the damned ads yourselves (but, hey, nobody really pays for ads, they pay for tracking).
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#487 » by ReasonablySober » Wed Aug 5, 2026 1:52 pm

What the hell, guys. I get a pop up saying that I have to turn off my ad blocker or subscribe. But when I click on Subscribe or Login, the buttons do nothing and go no-where. Your site is unusable.
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#488 » by GoRapstheoriginal » Wed Aug 5, 2026 8:08 pm

Yup agreed with the posters above me! On Google Chrome desktop on Bazzite Linux.
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#489 » by MickeyDavis » Wed Aug 5, 2026 8:54 pm

ReasonablySober wrote:What the hell, guys. I get a pop up saying that I have to turn off my ad blocker or subscribe. But when I click on Subscribe or Login, the buttons do nothing and go no-where. Your site is unusable.

Yeah I was completely locked out for awhile. Finally it worked again. Even if they someday go to a subscription option I'd be very hesitant to use it because it probably wouldn't work right. If a free site is buggy a paid site would be worse.
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#490 » by BBallFreak » Fri Aug 7, 2026 7:16 pm

I'm very disappointed in the lack of response to these concerns. It seems that either no one is monitoring this thread, or no one cares. Either way, I'm not overly happy.
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#491 » by Loaf_of_bread » Sat Aug 8, 2026 1:25 am

MickeyDavis wrote:
ReasonablySober wrote:What the hell, guys. I get a pop up saying that I have to turn off my ad blocker or subscribe. But when I click on Subscribe or Login, the buttons do nothing and go no-where. Your site is unusable.

Yeah I was completely locked out for awhile. Finally it worked again. Even if they someday go to a subscription option I'd be very hesitant to use it because it probably wouldn't work right. If a free site is buggy a paid site would be worse.


Powers above you have chosen an ad revenue method which is somewhat sketchy. As others have mentioned, it falls on deaf ear.
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#492 » by BBallFreak » Mon Aug 10, 2026 4:05 pm

CR Reina wrote:We consulted with an expert in the field and we have quite a few new answers regarding our advertising, which should prove helpful and constructive going forward.

First off all, I would like to mention that we take this stuff extremely seriously. We think it works to everyone's benefit to have an ongoing dialogue that addresses all issues to make sure there are no problems with the ads of any kind.

For several years now we have had policy not to run any pop-up ads, sound ads or intermission ads. I think you will find that we are in the 90 percentile when it comes to these policies compared to other sites across the web. We don't want the ads to interfere with your experience on RealGM in any way. We also have been sensitive to your comments over the years in regards to suggestive ads and have a policy against those.

Most of the ads that appear on RealGM are through a third party. We work with only the most reputable ad networks and are in frequent contact with them to make sure the ads that appear meet our standards. The nature of this, however, is we almost never see any ads before they appear on the site, so sometimes we have to play catchup if there is something we don't like.

These advertisers have been in business a very long time and typically work good brands. They are not the type of advertisers who run any type of malware. We've searched through sites like this one (http://www.anti-malvertising.com/recommended-reading" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and they are in good standing.

As far as potential malware and viruses, we as a host cannot determine where these things came from without your help. If there is a blanket statement by a user about a problem, the only thing we can do is contact each ad network individually to see if they have had any problems.

We need users to provide something conclusive in order for us to determine if there is something we can do, or if it is even coming from our ads at all. We need to know what virus and the source page/request according to the virus scanner. Many times viruses are received elsewhere and pop up at random times; this has been what we have noticed from our experience.

The complaints we have received have been random and isolated, which suggest the ads that appear on RealGM are completely safe.

Also, a number of harmless things can be identified as viruses and false-positives are possible, which is something we've seen frequently with the warnings about user's avatars.

It helps to have latest updates and/or Mozilla, as Internet Explorer has long had vulnerabilities. Computers that aren't frequently updated run the risk of having problems when on unsafe sites, so we encourage you to update.

If you look up 'advertising virus' in Google, you will get very little back in terms of results. We don't run any advertising networks that aren't across hundreds of other sites, so if this were actually an advertising problem, it wouldn't be isolated to RealGM and it would be all over the news and blogs.

Try instead to look up 'Internet explorer virus' and you will get a ton of results. You could also potentially get viruses from email.

Our consultant has reviewed RealGM and also our advertisers and firmly believes that it is a safe place on the Internet.

We greatly appreciate your continued help and patience.

This topic will remain stickied, so please put anything ad related in here.

Is their any help coming?
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Re: All Advertising Questions 

Post#493 » by BBallFreak » Yesterday 7:12 pm

It's been over two months since I came here with concerns, and not a single reply.

That's really piss poor.

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