Why are newspaper websites so awful to navigate?

[LotusOmega375D]

Sorry if covered before. I don’t usually frequent N, P & E.

Is there any reason why seemingly all newspaper backed websites from your smallest local paper right up to Fleet Street’s ahem “finest” are nigh on impossible to navigate sensibly? What’s the point cluttering up every page with dozens of adverts and taking so long to load the text that the reader just gives up and goes elsewhere? Eventually they just end up advertising to nobody.

[KAgantua]

News paper sites do seem to salt the earth when it comes to advertising...

[amusingduck]

LotusOmega375D said:

What’s the point cluttering up every page with dozens of adverts and taking so long to load the text that the reader just gives up and goes elsewhere? Eventually they just end up advertising to nobody.

Chrome + the following (free) extensions, and you won't have that problem again - anywhere!
uBlock Origin
Privacy Badger
Adblock for Youtube

[Oakey]

amusingduck said:

Chrome + the following (free) extensions, and you won't have that problem again - anywhere!
uBlock Origin
Privacy Badger
Adblock for Youtube

Except more and more sites are now nagging the st out of you for using an adblocker and preventing you from reading the articles. I just had a couple of these after clicking links on here for the Daily Mail and the Independent, at which point I just closed the tab and didn't bother trying to read the articles.

[LotusOmega375D]

I don’t mind a few adverts and I don’t want to upload 3rd Party software just to try and avoid them. All of the sites I regularly visit like this one have adverts. If they help keep the forum free to use, then do be it, as long as they don’t impair the experience. But the adverts on those newspaper websites are out of control and frankly render the websites not fit for purpose. It makes me wonder if the editors ever actually try and read their own content, or whether they’re too busy trying to squeeze in some more ads to care.

[BigGingerBob]

Ghostery is good too. Also quite scary when you see what's tracking you. PH is the worst for this.

[amusingduck]

Oakey said:

amusingduck said:

Chrome + the following (free) extensions, and you won't have that problem again - anywhere!
uBlock Origin
Privacy Badger
Adblock for Youtube

Except more and more sites are now nagging the st out of you for using an adblocker and preventing you from reading the articles. I just had a couple of these after clicking links on here for the Daily Mail and the Independent, at which point I just closed the tab and didn't bother trying to read the articles.

Those websites may as well not exist as far as I'm concerned, and quite possibly, soon won't

[amusingduck]

LotusOmega375D said:

I don’t mind a few adverts and I don’t want to upload 3rd Party software just to try and avoid them. All of the sites I regularly visit like this one have adverts. If they help keep the forum free to use, then do be it, as long as they don’t impair the experience. But the adverts on those newspaper websites are out of control and frankly render the websites not fit for purpose. It makes me wonder if the editors ever actually try and read their own content, or whether they’re too busy trying to squeeze in some more ads to care.

That's the problem, they cannot be trusted to use these features responsibly.



14% of all requests have been blocked by this extension since I installed it. Not sure how it's measuring "since install", since I use it on a variety of devices, so cannot give you a timeframe unfortunately. 14% of all the requests your browser makes is a complete pisstake, especially if your costs are usage based.



That's how it looks for me I'll never go back

[williamp]

Yes they are terrible. Worth remembering most of them are owned by reach mirror- left wing publishers of nationals including the mirror...

[jimmyjimjim]

14% is low. My pi-hole ad-blocking dns is running at 46%.

[ZedLeg]

Because the purpose of news websites isn’t actually to give news but to generate income from selling advertising space and harvesting user data.

[LotusOmega375D]

It must get difficult to sell the advertising space and harvest user data when the consumers simply stop visiting a website due to the dreadful user experience.

[LordGrover]

jimmyjimjim said:

14% is low. My pi-hole ad-blocking dns is running at 46%.

Says a lot about the sites you visit?

Mine typically runs at about 30%

[ZedLeg]

LotusOmega375D said:

It must get difficult to sell the advertising space and harvest user data when the consumers simply stop visiting a website due to the dreadful user experience.

I can't explain it. The Daily Mail is apparently the most viewed news site in the world despite being practically unusable without adblock and not having any actual news.

[Last Visit]

I do agree newspapers websites are a total clusterfk.

A mess of pop ups and adverts, enough to make you go elsewhere.

[jimmyjimjim]

LordGrover said:

jimmyjimjim said:

14% is low. My pi-hole ad-blocking dns is running at 46%.

Says a lot about the sites you visit?

Mine typically runs at about 30%

To be fair, it's a bit high - It's normally around 35%.