OK. One more try before I give up and demand a refund...

This morning I logged in, and imagine my surprise when I was told to disable my adblocker. So, after wanting to just delete this site from my regular reading routine, I calmed down and realized that I do read this site every day, and have been a member for a very long time, so I should throw some $$ your way and resubscribe. After all, this will get me an ad-free experience and then I wouldn't need an ad blocker for gamedev right?

So I did this. I signed up for GDNet+ Ad-Free but I still see ads (see attached picture). What the hell guys? When you say ad free , I expect it to be just that: no ads. Period. I can't help but feel that I just wasted $82 CDN ($64.99 after exchange). So thanks.

Also, this business of disabling for ad-blockers? Kinda scummy. Ads are constant vectors for malware. I don't know where your ads come from, and I don't trust any site on the internet that delivers ads. That's my rationale for using a blocker and it's not paranoia, it's a fact. Ads with malware happen. So, unless you can guarantee me, in writing, that your ads are 100% vetted for malware, I will not disable my blocker. You might want to consider a gentler approach and ask people to subscribe instead for an ad-free experience (and thus, no need for a blocker)

That angry rant being what it is, I value this site, and I've subscribed to show that. But I've paid for zero ads, so please fix it.

I've attached an image showing the ads that I'm seeing.

We changed the ad blocker detection last night to be more strict, and an ID wasn't setup right for the Ad-free group. It's fixed now.

So, unless you can guarantee me, in writing, that your ads are 100% vetted for malware

FWIW (we've covered this a few times), we vet ads through Adsense and Amazon CPM, and right now these are the only ad networks we work with because others have not been able to execute to our standards. Everything else is either affiliate marketing (buy something through us) or direct ad sales (advertiser came directly to us).

Ads are a touchy subject, but let me outline the rationale behind blocking ad blocking.

Our decision to directly challenge ad blockers stems from a situation where the community's use of ad block software led GameDev.net to losing credibility as a valuable advertising space. We detected that over 60% of visitors were using ad blockers, which is well above the 20% Internet user average.

The breaking point was when AdBlock was blocking an industry survey infographic in a blog post - not even an ad - for a direct customer of ours who had paid for a sponsored blog post. Ad blocking is an issue for the Internet, as much as advertising and tracking is an issue for Internet privacy, but when AdBlock started being intrusive and blocking actual content they overstepped their bounds. It makes you wonder - what other content have they deemed inappropriate? And what place do they have to say that a website can't show its own content?

The threat of ad blocking is very real to sites like GameDev.net that have enough traffic (and 18 years of data) for expenses to be more than somebody's expensive hobby. Advertising subsidizes the expense. We're actively evaluating ways to eliminate banner ads altogether, but we're not there yet. In the end nothing on the Internet is free, and it all has to be paid for somehow.

We definitely appreciate those that either now support GameDev.net directly through GDNet+ or choose to whitelist - it has made a huge difference, and we have some great benefits coming. As we continue to evolve we hope we can reduce banner ads - particularly ad networks - while continuing to improve GameDev.net.

We changed the ad blocker detection last night to be more strict, and an ID wasn't setup right for the Ad-free group. It's fixed now.

So, unless you can guarantee me, in writing, that your ads are 100% vetted for malware

FWIW (we've covered this a few times), we vet ads through Adsense and Amazon CPM, and right now these are the only ad networks we work with because others have not been able to execute to our standards. Everything else is either affiliate marketing (buy something through us) or direct ad sales (advertiser came directly to us).

Ads are a touchy subject, but let me outline the rationale behind blocking ad blocking.

Our decision to directly challenge ad blockers stems from a situation where the community's use of ad block software led GameDev.net to losing credibility as a valuable advertising space. We detected that over 60% of visitors were using ad blockers, which is well above the 20% Internet user average.

The breaking point was when AdBlock was blocking an industry survey infographic in a blog post - not even an ad - for a direct customer of ours who had paid for a sponsored blog post. Ad blocking is an issue for the Internet, as much as advertising and tracking is an issue for Internet privacy, but when AdBlock started being intrusive and blocking actual content they overstepped their bounds. It makes you wonder - what other content have they deemed inappropriate? And what place do they have to say that a website can't show its own content?

The threat of ad blocking is very real to sites like GameDev.net that have enough traffic (and 18 years of data) for expenses to be more than somebody's expensive hobby. Advertising subsidizes the expense. We're actively evaluating ways to eliminate banner ads altogether, but we're not there yet. In the end nothing on the Internet is free, and it all has to be paid for somehow.

We definitely appreciate those that either now support GameDev.net directly through GDNet+ or choose to whitelist - it has made a huge difference, and we have some great benefits coming. As we continue to evolve we hope we can reduce banner ads - particularly ad networks - while continuing to improve GameDev.net.

Thank you for fixing the ad problem.

I would like to point out that I realize AdBlock are a pretty scummy bunch and I haven't used their system in quite some time. I do use uBlock, but I don't know if they engage in the same behavior or not. Regardless, there's also the possibility that infographic thing was a false-positive, and in this case there should be some recourse for websites that run into this issue. I certainly didn't mean "AdBlock (tm)", so my bad there.

I am fully aware that ads are a revenue stream. I also have an idea of what it costs to run sites like this. But given the proliferation of malware injection through ads, I have to be a bit of a jerk here and say I'd rather see a website go out of business than have my machine infected with something nasty which could obliterate things (they're backed up, but still, I'm paranoid) that are worth more than all the money in the world to me, or install a keylogger and get access to everything I have online.

That said, you guys offer a paid service that removes my need to run uBlock (I really have to stop typing Adblock) on this site, and since the content is quite valuable to me, it's worth paying for that convenience. More than anything, this has just been a kick in the ass to get me to re-sub (which I should have done ages past... just didn't think about it), so I appreciate that.

I do have a suggestion for your ad blocker blocking: On that ad blocking screen you should ask them to either disable the blocker, or subscribe for an ad-free (or ad-lite) experience. And for the love of all that's holy and good, please disable the ad blocker blocking on the pages where you subscribe for a GDNet+ account (if that's possible to target individual pages like that). I really found it infuriating when trying to sign up (I don't want ads, especially when I'm trying to pay you for removing them), and that almost made me give up and not bother coming back.