Freep has lost it!

[Ray1936]

Well, on the web, anyway.

On occasion, out here in the desert boondocks of southern Nevada, I like to see what the local papers has to say about this or that. Today, when booting up freep.com I ended up with everlasting advertisements popping up and preventing me from really going anywhere within the Freep. Someone really needs to kick their webmaster in the ass, hard.

On the other hand, I can usually find out what I want to know about goings on in the old town by clicking on DetroitYes.

Thanks to all of you for keeping me up to date on the old Fort!

In fact, now I even forgot what I was trying to find out in the Freep.

[Meddle]

Most of the media sites sold their souls to the Devil [[advertisers) years ago. I used to try to keep up, but it just wasn't worth it.

[Scottathew]

I don't mind the advertisement, but what I do mind is irrelevant videos that accompany an article.

For example, I just clicked on their top headline, "FCA's head of US sales, Ram trucks files whistleblower suit". However, a video automatically plays with an advertisement. The content in the video after the advertisement was about the "most stolen cars".

I don't mind advertisements, but irrelevant videos push me away from a lot of the online media.

[Jimaz]

... I ended up with everlasting advertisements popping up and preventing me from really going anywhere within the Freep....

Anecdotes like this are ironically the best advertising for ad blockers. It's not the first time advertisers have undermined their own business.

I recall an extremely popular but now defunct gaming website where rogue ads would completely occlude the game window — which was the only reason anyone would go there in the first place. Did I mention they went defunct?

Someone here recently recommended Outline.com. It's worth bookmarking and is surprisingly simple. It's not a permanent ad blocker. It works on one webpage at a time.

[NSortzi]

Personally I find the spelling mistakes and grammar issues in every single article the Free Press or News puts out to be much more annoying that the ads.

[Richard]

Personally I find the spelling mistakes and grammar issues in every single article the Free Press or News puts out to be much more annoying that the ads.

Yea and those are professional writers and people cry when an adverage Joe misspells a word on an anamous wib site.

I find that after price searching or listing something on Faceback that is what comes up in the adds,everything is targeted,or the stories that you want to read but they drag it out over 20 pages of clicks.

[EGrant]

It's Gannet's stupid template. Sites like Freep and USA Today are rendered useless by multiple auto-play videos, popups, banners and scrolling ads.

[jcole]

If you pay the buck a week to read the paper on line and receive the Sunday paper, you don't get the ads, folks.

[Smirnoff]

Never "had it" to begin with - next.

[Bong-Man]

Since I'm not paying a dime, I can handle the ads. What I can't handle is 2 minutes of page bouncing because of them, or closing my browser session and coming back 4 hours later, opening it, and I'm still stuck on the same Freep page because of ads that refuse to close. Doesn't happen anywhere else. If any of our local sports teams were competitive, I would probably enroll for the on-line edition. At this point though, I don't need to verify that half the team can't cross the "Mendoza line". Watching it live is torture enough.

[Uncledave54]

I will not pay for the rags both papers have become.

We used to have two fine, nationally respected papers. They have both become bottom feeders. Imho.

[K-slice]

Newspaper income used to be two fold, they sold ads in the paper, and customers bought the paper. They lost 95% of their physical circulation, no one wants to pay for online content, so they have nothing else to do but blast visitors to their page with ads.

[Zads07]

Support local journalism and local journalists.

[bust]

Zads, I agree: local journalism is essential. But Gannett has no excuse for that awful website and the terrible reader experience it provides. This is not a criticism of the actual journalistic content, which is another story I've touched on here before.

[Zads07]

Zads, I agree: local journalism is essential. But Gannet has no excuse for that awful website and the terrible reader experience it provides. This is not a criticism of the actual journalistic content, which is another story I've touched on here before.

I've argued for the support of journalism in that thread.

I'm no fan of Gannett either, it sucks, but it shouldn't stop anyone from buying papers, from supporting the people that write them.

[wolverine]

Support local journalism and local journalists.

What is local journalism? I thought this thread was about the free press?

[Zads07]

What is local journalism? I thought this thread was about the free press?

Local journalism is just that, news that is local to your area. The Free Press covers the Detroit Metro Area, hence it's a local newspaper.

[Bigb23]

Since they follow us like a bloodhound online, at least give ads that are revelent to US. I look at ads for ladies sandles all day, and am a single man with size 13 feet.

[Honky Tonk]

Since they follow us like a bloodhound online, at least give ads that are revelent to US. I look at ads for ladies sandles all day, and am a single man with size 13 feet.

Sibley's can fit anybody!

[Maof]

^^^^ok, last two post are too funny!

[jcole]

Since they follow us like a bloodhound online, at least give ads that are revelent to US. I look at ads for ladies sandles all day, and am a single man with size 13 feet.

Hey, you're getting MY ads!!!

[Honky Tonk]

Hey, you're getting MY ads!!!

Big girls don't cry.

[jcole]

Big girls don't cry.

That's just an alibi

[Bobl]

Been gone a while. Still a Luddite, but might take jcole's advice and pay the dollar or whatever.
ps: is tponetom still here?

[Maof]

ps: is tponetom still here?

I think of him often. His last post was July 2018.