SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Hey. I use Firefox and all my settings were eaten when FF decided to eat them in an attempt to force me to create a web browser account (which I think is stupid).

Can some one PLEASE help me?? The GR with out Stylish is unbearable. The whole page ads are insulting and overwhelming. Can someone help me get rid of this crap?? I literally cannot go on book pages right now. the full black screens really hurt my eyes and piss me off.

whole page ads? I use Firefox and don't see a single ad that takes up a whole page, just one or two small ads on the right side

First of all, that sounds horrible! Thank goodness for ad blockers. Which is what you should start with. Whichever one you're most comfortable with. Popular ones are Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin.

I agree that css editing on Goodreads is a must, but mine is set up for my tastes, so I don't think it's a good idea to share. Someone made a GR style back when they launched the new homepage, were you using that? I think it might be the one called Goodreads Fix:

https://userstyles.org/styles/browse/...

CBRetriever wrote: "whole page ads? I use Firefox and don't see a single ad that takesu p a whole page, just one or two small ads on the right side"

Yup. And its extra irritating.

Anna wrote: "First of all, that sounds horrible! Thank goodness for ad blockers. Which is what you should start with. Whichever one you're most comfortable with. Popular ones are Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin...."

Oh GOD. THANK YOU!!!!

This is EXACTLY what I needed!

Glad to help! I can't imagine anyone having to live with using this (or any) site with the amount of ads they seem to have.

Anna wrote: "Glad to help! I can't imagine anyone having to live with using this (or any) site with the amount of ads they seem to have."

Yes! It's a straight up NIGHTMARE. I was avoiding book pages and then constantly reloading when I HAD to be on a book page.

And the black is just so aggressively a "fuck you" to people's eyes and sensibilities.

If I ever had plans on watching Dark Materials, I certainly don't have them anymore!

I though you were talking about the whole page, to me whole page ads that blot out everything on the page until you click on an X to close them, are far, far worse. And the sites that auto run video ads or parts of the story are even more irritating. There's one website I visit that redisplays and starts the video in a floating widow every time you scroll down the page. There's even one site where it overrides my mute button.

CBRetriever wrote: "I though you were talking about the whole page, to me whole page ads that blot out everything on the page until you click on an X to close them, are far, far worse. And the sites that auto run vide..."

That is pretty much the whole page to me. I can't read it. The extreme black/white contrast basically blinds me and makes my eyes hurt. In fact, most extreme contrasts mess with my vision so whenever they do that, the page is worthless for me.

I can do a small ad on one or both sides - but something small. If you don't want to call it a full page, it's certainly a full page wrap.

I've seen those videos, etc, too. I'm extremely glad I haven't run into one of those lately.

My eyes aren't as young as they used to be.

I'm glad my ad blocker is working then. I think mine is uBlock whatever it is. Couldn't handle ads anymore.

Hope you get it fixed soon Mrs J. Wouldn't want you to be grouchier than normal.

I get bigger adds on my computer than on my iPad. I find them annoying too, so I usually stick to the iPad.

Candice

Anna wrote: "First of all, that sounds horrible! Thank goodness for ad blockers. Which is what you should start with. Whichever one you're most comfortable with. Popular ones are Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin...."

These are Firefox specific but are available with other browsers; agree with uBlock Origin (make sure origin), prefer Privacy Badger, add HTTPS everywhere and Malwarebytes

This will block most ads, browser fingerprinting, malware, and encrypt if not already encrypted.

@ Dianne, Allison. if there is a thread for browsers, addons, password managers, please send me link.

Nope, not that I'm aware of!

I think Goodreads is an incredible value vs. the ads. what irritates me are the shills pretending to be plain folk.

I use NoScript - it's mainly for blocking scripts, not ads, but since 99% of ads these days are scripted, it works against them as well.
Also, what's 'Stylish'?

Stylish is for creating/using user styles/themes on websites. I have css scripts on Goodreads to change fonts, font sizes, background colors, image sizes, etc. because I couldn't live with the changes they made some years ago. Many people felt the same, which is why I linked to the Stylish GR themes in my first post. Lots of people made styles specifically for Stylish back then, and MrsJ mentioned it. Of course there are other ways to edit css, Stylish is just one specific browser extension.

I edited my original message to take out Stylish, since it's not something I'd recommend to someone interested in user styles right now. I was answering MrsJ's question, and I was assuming she meant those member-created css styles that were popular at the time of the Great Homepage Catastrophe, when everyone was talking about Stylish. If anyone wants to change how GR looks, maybe look into which browser extension you're comfortable using. I don't feel comfortable recommending a specific one.

There is a different kind of ad I've seen recently. It doesn't start like an ad but at the bottom, if you read that far, there is a convenient announcement for the author's upcoming book.

These adds are not blazing in your face like most ads; in fact, they are sneaking in under "Notifications."

I'm not following these authors, and the notes/highlights they are sharing are not from anything on a favorite shelf--or anything I've highlighted or necessarily even bought). They only thing they have in common so far is that they were group reads.

Would I be interesting in seeing these author comments in another forum? Maybe. But I don't want to see them framed as a notifications. It's just another sneaky way to advertise.