Ad blocking vs. private browsing

Mac4 2020-04-13 15:51:16 UTC #1

RPS has introduced a new nag screen to ask those using ad blockers to turn it off for the site, effectively stopping them from browsing the site if they don’t.

Dropping a note here that I surf the web using private browsing, which gets flagged as ad blocking. I have nothing to turn off though, so the only option I’m left with is to visit RPS in regular browsing mode. For one website maybe that’s no great bother, but I’m sure I’m not alone in this and to me it’s an unwelcome development. I mean it undermines the whole point of our private browsing, in the first place.

If the powers that be read this, hopefully they’ll want to consider this as un unwanted side effect.

alms 2020-04-13 19:14:21 UTC #2

Perhaps it’s due to cookies: there were other discussions recently on the effects of changes in the way those were being handled.

Mac4 2020-04-14 00:13:02 UTC #3

No, it’s a result of anti-ad blocking measures, as described. Private browsing (temporarily) accepts cookies alright, that’s no issue.

alms 2020-04-14 05:41:14 UTC #4

What ad-blocking measures do you have active during private mode that are not available during regular browsing?

Grizzly 2020-04-14 06:57:50 UTC #5

Firefox’s private browsing mode does block tracking cookies by default

Mac4 2020-04-14 09:05:13 UTC #6

Yes, I wasn’t aware it may not be so in other browsers.

Alms, the issue is as I described it, and I wish you stopped derailing this thread by suggesting it isn’t. Maybe you can tell me if RPS take note of this forum at all, because if they don’t, this is less fruitful than it already isn’t, and I’d be better off dropping them an email if I can be bothered.

UristMcBlind 2020-04-14 09:44:27 UTC #7

I have also run into this issue, even while not private browsing. As far as I can tell to load the site you have to allow tracking cookies, otherwise no ads will load and the site will insist you are blocking them. I’ve gotten it to work by clicking the little shield left of the url bar and disabling enhanced tracking protection. I’ve done a quick test in firefox private browsing mode, and it seems to work there as well.

Mac4 2020-04-28 19:24:49 UTC #8

A belated thanks for this, wasn’t aware this works. Oddly, Firefox in default mode seems to treat me to fewer ads than by this method (so presumably by default it blocks some trackers that it no longer does in the latter case).

Anyway, the issue seems to have subsided at RPS for the time being, so we’ll see where it all ends.

Telkir 2020-05-09 19:02:38 UTC #9

Didn’t think it worth starting a new topic so I thought it better to bump this instead. I just wanted to add my voice to the murmur of discontent about requiring tracking cookies to see all content. Do other sites do this? I don’t know of any (though I don’t really visit any mainstream vidyagame sites apart from RPS and MassivelyOP).

I don’t expect me complaining here to accomplish anything more than venting against the howling winds of progress, but I do feel strongly enough to complain nevertheless. It sucks, and I feel it’s a decidedly non-excellent move by RPS.