META: Autoplay video ads on the blog
Other than an adblocker (can't use due to needing to see ads for work) does anyone know a good way to prevent the video ads from autoplaying with sound?
It's ridiculous to try and listen to the WTKA Roundtable while also hearing about Realtor dot com every 30 seconds.
Any solutions? Can they be set to autoplay without sound?
January 27th, 2022 at 11:44 AM ^
I am so sick of Realtor.com
January 27th, 2022 at 11:52 AM ^
To the good guys who run MGoBlog: please tell me you don't need the money these auto play ads bring in. It is truly detrimental to the MGoBlog experience. And, in my humble opinion, it makes the folks who run it look like money matters uber alles. And I don't believe that is the case.
January 27th, 2022 at 11:56 AM ^
I totally get that they have to make their money and want them to make boatloads! I just wish it was in a different way.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
The rub is we're not even getting money from that. We've got them blocked and they're sneaking through pretending to be something else.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
Asshats. Maybe a little Stalinist justice? Take 10 random Realtor.com employees out back and shoot them. Just joking! Though it would work.
I admit it. Two years of COVID and I've got a LOT of unresolved hostility in me.
January 27th, 2022 at 11:58 AM ^
Please make it stop!
January 27th, 2022 at 11:59 AM ^
Seconded. Thanks for speaking up about this. I lost my voice yesterday or else I would've made a post about it.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:31 PM ^
Broken keyboard?
January 27th, 2022 at 12:24 PM ^
there is a "disable HTML5 autoplay" extension you can install in chrome. i've used that for forever since autoplaying vidoes became a thing. i dont use firefox, edge, etc. but i would bet they have a similar extension you could find if that is your preferred browser
January 27th, 2022 at 1:23 PM ^
+1 for this extension, that plus an ad blocker (and turning off personalized ads and not using google.com) has really changed my internet experience, it would be hell otherwise
January 27th, 2022 at 12:28 PM ^
Get paid MGoBlog proprietors but the Realtor.com trolls have made some awkward Zoom hurried muting a few times this week
January 27th, 2022 at 12:40 PM ^
Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember Seth making some sort of adjustment to these ads about a year ago. He said it had something to do with one of the ad providers turning on that feature from what I recall. I could be wrong but I wonder if he can make the same fix again.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:05 PM ^
diDNA automatic-audio-play-ads must die!
January 27th, 2022 at 1:07 PM ^
Are you able to have a second browser that has an ad blocker installed for this?
January 27th, 2022 at 3:19 PM ^
Multiple browsers: Absolutely key to a pleasant and safe internet experience.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:17 PM ^
Unrelated (sort of) to the topic does anybody else feel like they're playing "wack-a-mole" when they try to make a selection on your phone? It always seems like the nano-second before I hit mgoboard for the 2nd time (because it requres selecting it twice to open up) the whole site moves up or down an inch or two so I can to click on either an ad or some portion of the site I have no interest in. And no matter how long I wait it always does that small movement up or down righ before I make contact with the phone just to fuck with me.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:34 PM ^
Yep, happens to me all of the time.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:29 PM ^
Yeah I work from home but still had to stop accessing the website during work because TWICE now I've had the page in the background while on a Teams call and the "moving to the desert" ad started playing.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:32 PM ^
We've reported this to Didna. It's coming from a certain blocked advertiser (Realtor.com) who's breaking through everyone's security protocols. They're trying hard. Sometimes these just get in the system and there's nothing to do but wait them out. A political campaign was running these same bugs in 2020 and it was a constant headache.
What bites is we aren't really making any money off of those ads. They're sneaking them in as low-rent ads that would have been replaced by something from Google.
I did move Google up in the priority tree which seems to have lessened the Realtor.com bug, but if I could actually track them the smart people could get rid of them.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
that description puts what they're doing into the criminal arena. a letter to that effect might be useful.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:42 PM ^
Oh, we are quite aware.
January 27th, 2022 at 1:47 PM ^
I kind of thought it might be something like that. I do a lot of ad placement for work and know that some places get very scummy with their tactics. Don't want it to come across as blaming you all for this happening!
January 27th, 2022 at 1:52 PM ^
You do a lot of ad placement for work, huh? Let me know if you ever want some highly educated sports fans in the $100k-$300k demographic in Michigan, Chicago, New York, LA, or Ohio.
Unless your ads have autoplay sound or sweatshirts with hair on them.
January 27th, 2022 at 2:12 PM ^
Is there an email that I can reach out to in the future?
January 27th, 2022 at 2:19 PM ^
Yup.
seth
at
mgoblog
dot
com
January 27th, 2022 at 1:40 PM ^
Same thing has been happening to me. You are trying to listen to something else, or you just want to read a piece/comments, and the damn ads start playing,
Make this site "modern" with recognition of Youtube, ease of pasting picss, etc. and I am happy to pay to use it,
January 27th, 2022 at 1:44 PM ^
You're going to laugh but we have a full site upgrade on staging right now and what's holding it back is we have to basically write the whole points system on our own to get it to work.
January 27th, 2022 at 3:44 PM ^
Bugger that Seth. Just freeze the point totals where they are right now and make the change.
I'm sure the poors will understand.
January 27th, 2022 at 6:43 PM ^
Let them eat cake.
January 27th, 2022 at 5:37 PM ^
I'm only going to laugh if you were dumb enough to "upgrade" but the upgrade is still Drupal.
January 27th, 2022 at 2:38 PM ^
People listen to them on the blog and not Spotify/wherever you get your music/podcasts?
January 27th, 2022 at 4:14 PM ^
I know it's been said, but I'd gladly pay a subscription that allows me to have an ad free experience. I don't want to use an adblocker because I think the team deserves the revenue, but it's getting to the point that the experience here is making it impossible to not have an ad blocker.
January 27th, 2022 at 6:18 PM ^
Use brave browser. Super easy
January 31st, 2022 at 1:49 PM ^
This is actually getting worse. I can't open any message board thread without the auto-play ads starting within seconds.