Give me an option to turn OFF these ads, PLEASE?

[lamont]

If the ad at the top is there... then guess what... It loaded. There is no "streaming animation" involved... It loads and animates in 1 "swoop"

The content, number of users online, and size of our database is what slows down the page loads. Sorry we're so popular.

Spearboard - Threads: 60,950, Posts: 685,232, Members: 22,407
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The time it takes for the queries IS a factor of the size of the database.

The database should scale like O(ln(n)) though, so that a 4.6 increase in size only results in a 1.5x increase in query time.

I've got a lot of mysql databases of a similar size as scubaboard's at work and they're all pretty snappy. I've got one server that has a table with a quarter billion rows that is basically destroyed and it'll take all week to delete the 99% of that information that i don't need -- but up until you start talking about tablesizes that big, mysql should perform reasonably well.

 

[John_B]

We can discuss how quickly the ads are "served up", but the frustration most users have is that the ads themselves take to materialize on the screen (for example, while some silly animation plays), and the rest of the page waits for that to complete before the "real" content finishes loading. Its a JavaScript problem, specifically its usually a cross site scripting JavaScript problem. But its a problem that people notice because it impacts on their user experience.

Lamont, of all the solutions I've seen to deleting 99% of a large table its still the old-school, brute force method that's still the fastest: rename the old table, create a new table with the old name, copy the 1% of the rows you care about to the new table and drop the old one. A bit like a loaded gun without a safety, but much lower impact on the redo/undo/tlog/whatever, and light years faster than a mass delete.

 

[DandyDon]

I have a pretty decent setup and the time that I spend waiting for adserve.scubaboard to load drives me insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will even do a onetime donation if I can have that option

A "one time donation"...?? How cute...

 

[b1gcountry]

John_B's path to websurfing nirvana*:

• Firefox 3 (for Windows, Mac, or Linux)
• Adblock Plus, with:
  • EasyList+EasyElement (filter subscription for blocking ads)
  • ABP Tracking Filter (filter subscription for blocking tracking cookies)

If your favorite site D) sometimes leaves blank spaces where the ads used to be:

• Element Hiding Helper

And for good measure, some optional self defense against slow-tastic flash-based content:

• Flashblock

* Its not just the annoying ads, its about how slow and they make otherwise fast computers and web browsers. Not to mention that the tracking cookies the ads leave behind.

He beat me to it. AdBlock works great.

 

[HowardE]

I noticed the huge difference in the other vbulletion sites also...


For the OP, if you run it Suboard Display in MOBILE mode, you get no adds. only text. Much faster. (just an option).

Also - that bug.gif in your sig line is 400k. This is a larger file than most of the ads. Most ads are <300k - Also since this "bug.gif" image is hosted in the UK, and probably thousands of people are using it... This slows down the page loads.

If we prohibited the use of all 3rd party images, page load speeds would increase. Especially in the thread display pages. But why would we want to piss everyone off by doing that??

 

[John_B]

He beat me to it. AdBlock works great.

Adblock still works but gets intermittently abandoned by its author. Use Adblock Plus instead, it still gets performance tweaks and bugfixes.

Also - that bug.gif in your sig line is 400k. This is a larger file than most of the ads. Most ads are <300k - Also since this "bug.gif" image is hosted in the UK, and probably thousands of people are using it... This slows down the page loads.

Even though that bug.gif gets cached (its only downloaded once per session), I Adblock'ed that image a long time ago, and a few others including some pretty freaktastic avatars (OMG, my eyes!!! :11 and some that have bordered on NSFW.

 

[Digger54]

I don't see any ads. Not on this page or the main page or any other. I must be doing something right (or wrong??)?

 

[The Chairman]

OK gang,

We have been researching the problem, and the BIG issue seems to be a hardware limitation. We are getting over 100 queries/sec and our drives are being hammered. I will be discussing our options with our Data Center in the am.

If you look, you will see that the ads load WAY before the content: it's the access of the content that is slowing us down. Thanks to Lamont for helping us to narrow this down, and you can be sure we will be consulting with him as we move forward.

 

[Wayward Son]

I absolutely HATE the ads on the left side of the screen. I don't care that the ads exist, it's where they are placed. About 1.5 inches of screen get used up for them, but they only appear at the top, a bit over 1 screen in depth. After that, it's just wasted screen real estate.

I still use old monitors, I do not have the nice new wide screen format jobs. So what happens is I'm reading a thread, someone posts a pic & bam! Jammed page & now to read what anyone syas I have to scroll horizontally as well as vertically.

I would vastly prefer to be able to have these ads appear on the right side, with the page content shifted back to the left. It prolly ain't gonna happen, but it's been an ongoing aggravation since the format was changed a few months ago.

 

[Wayward Son]

FWIW, I don't even mind seeing the ads. Sometimes they may even be of interest. It's just the placement & how much it takes away from being able to enjoy the site that gripes my ass.