Website redirects taking over

originally posted by: AtomicKangaroo
Using a decent browser and decent ad-blocker and never had an issue on this site.

I will whitelist websites who do ads properly and have at least a minor amount of someone maintaining them. or what we used to call Webmasters.

While I do understand revenue is important for websites, my computer not being screwed because lazy website design and management is always going to be more important.

The lack of a cheap SSL cert on ATS should be all you need to know you need to take matters into your own hands.
People have been complaining about this kind of thing for years. Nothings changed, don't expect it too, especially anytime soon.

yeah, lack of SSL in 2020 is a damn disaster. also, the server has random hiccups - it was hanging just now for literally minutes. not sure wtf is going on there technically, but this is just wrong. no other website i'm using ever had that kind of problems, and lack of SSL only shows how important user's privacy is to ATS.

i'm waiting for the day when web browsers start blocking non-secure websites altogether, refusing to load them. of course websites can claim that ads are the problem, since they're often served in a non-secure way and "that's not our fault" - but nothing stops server owners from setting up a proxy that will take care of that. oh, too much bandwidth usage? well, perhaps then you'll start to care what kind of ads you're serving.

Yeah just took 20 mins to amend my double post.

I browse this site daily on a mobile with Samsung internet browser and theres never a popup or ad visible. I don't even have to log in. Before switching to Samsung browser this site was practically unreadable for me.
Try the samsung internet browser.

a reply to: snowspirit


On topic post here: ATS keeps randomly redirecting me to other websites on my mobile and when I even try to hit the back button it won't let me go back. I end up having to completely close out the browser and then open it back up in order to get back to ATS. And this happens roughly every 10-20 minutes. It is very annoying and renders this site almost impossible to visit unless you are using a "special browser" which apparently cannot be mentioned here.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: Bigburgh

Never type in ATS...if it matters...ALWAYS compose elsewhere, save n cut n paste in

I call BS.

I always type in ATS and do everything the site allows me too.

I've personally never has an issue, AT ALL.

Maybe it's because I post using my Phone, I browse on my Note10+ for virtually EVERYTHING, to include this very post.

Some of these issues some are expressing I have to wonder if their device has been hijacked on some level.

A few posts are "New phone new browser and problems fixed"

To those people did you ever try factory resetting your phones that were having the issue?

I only want to lay blame with ATS where ATS and it's lacklustre maintenance are the obvious issue.

You cannot always trust every app even if it comes from the apple or play store. Wife hjas had problems with phones in the past and it's been a 'free' game she installed from the Google Play Store.
Reset her phone, problem gone. Then went through with her and got her to only install what we knew was legit and safe.
No further problems when she didn't reinstall the games I considered a risk.

Heck it just takes clicking on the wrong thing on the wrong website sometimes to get your browser hijacked.

All that aside though, ATS does need to get with the times. Because as I said earlier, a lot of the problems this site has been having it has been having for years. Support forum is full of posts from people asking and saying the same things.

No SSL and poorly implemented advertising being the main two.

It's annoying for a former web designer and host like myself to see when I know these problems are easily fixed in like 5 minutes by even an incompetent web master. And heck, many web hosts now include SSL certificates for free, and if not you can get free and cheap legit SSL certs elsewhere.

Not sure how much revenue ATS makes each year from ads and premium memberships, but you can literally make a forum site like ATS with better security and functionality for like $5 a month these days. (Especially if you have someone with coding experience on the crew volunteering their time. No that's not an offer.)

But what I do know is they're losing a tonne of potential revenue by not addressing the issues. As long as things stay 'broke' many like myself will not being seeing any ads on ATS.
Fix them and well, you will have at least one extra set of eyes turning off that blocker and looking at those ads.

But yeah, I didn't spend so much money on my PC to risk it on ads and such that have no interest to me.
An ad gives something nasty or decides to use my PC as a bitcoin miner, I doubt Springer is going to cough up $3000aud to fix it.

I mean heck, look how many are replacing their phones because of this issue. Might not even be the site either. But the existing issues of course people will direct blame at it.

C'mon Springer and Co. it's 2020, time to get your # together.
While some of us are clued in enough to get around and stay safe from the pitfalls, it's becoming clear many more aren't. I mean heck you have users saying they're replacing phones.

If I felt like I had to replace my computer or phone because of a single website, well I can tell you now I wouldn't be returning to that site in a hurray if I thought it was screwing with my expensive hardware.

In a way it's kind of hilarious that the worlds biggest conspiracy site has the worst security of almost any other site this size I frequently visit.
You'd think a site filled with so many paranoid people would be the most locked down site on the net......

Oh and whoever said 'browsers should block non-ssl sites' some browsers already do, or they give you a big red warning that 'the site your attempting to visit isn't secure' which no doubt will scare a lot of people away before they even get here.