81Coupe

In the last weeks or so. I start seeing more links in the forum posts. All seems extraneous. Now my own post got one, too (the word "umbrella"). I certainly didn't put it there.

Do all of you get it? Is it AudiWorld's new "feature"? Or, is there something wrong at my end?

I don't know what to think. If it is me, than I have something on my computer. If not, and it's here to stay, then we will have to stop doing this:
own post
in favor of this:
https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho....php?t=2850274

Yikes!

idale

It's some ad-related thing, hovering over the link says it was added by "VigLink", which is one of those auto-linking ad systems. Those always get annoying.

scrmorling

It's the commercial reality of our "no cost" forum. The alternative would probably be some kind of subscription for each of us.

snagitseven

Hmm. I tried both links to your post above and also went back your original thread and I don't see the word "umbrella" as a link. Not sure why you are getting that on your end. We'll keep an eye on it to see if anyone else is getting that behavior. What browser are you using?

Telate

I'm using firefox and I'm getting it.

idale

Most likely you've got an ad- or script-blocker that's blocking the script (http://cdn.viglink.com/api/vglnk.js, probably) from auto-linking the text. Something in the chain, anyway. I can toggle my adblocker on Chrome to go between the text being linked and not linked, and would expect that something like NoScript would end up blocking the behavior as well (and isn't necessarily something people usually think of whitelisting for frequented sites unlike adblockers).

snagitseven

Just checked and no ad blockers but I have a plugin called "DoNotTrackMe installed in my browser. Turned it off and I see it now. Must be something relatively new as this is the first I've seen someone comment on it.

Actually, there are quite a few tracking sources on AW but viglink is the only one that seems to do these links. Get this plugin if you don't want to be tracked at all; works well and it's compatible with both Mac and PC on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari browsers. (You didn't hear it from me )

https://www.abine.com/dntdetail.php

81Coupe

I re-enabled Ad-Block which was inadvertently left off a while back, now I don't see the links.

As long as the moderators are aware of them (i.e., not malware), I guess it's something I can live with. I am not against ads per se, there is certainly an economical need for them. I do, however, get irritated when an ad from a website that I have recently browsed (only once) keeps showing up (many times) on a banner in AW, or when a link which I thought was part of a post turns out not to be.

It seems that nobody respects the "do not track" preferences in browsers, anyways.

Thanks everybody!

MP4.2+6.0

I first saw it a few days ago, on this forum, when I used the word iPhone. I put a space in between which fooled it a bit. I use a Mac and Safari for reference; it seemed evident quickly it wasn't a fluke but some new AW site change.

Assuming its advertising related linking or mining crap or some such, frankly I don't like it and I'll be blunt here as a long time contributor. My posts--thousands of them across a variety of boards--have a lot of content and help, and I don't like further commercial exploitation. I "give" 95% of the time, rather than ask much. The quality of AW overall has gone way down in terms of its core support in recent years in my opinion. Some boards barely hang on or have become almost nothing but advertiser ghettos. Wheels and Tires for example. The model year guides have fallen into disrepair. Take a look at the Q5 for example; it doesn't even exist there after 2010 ! That's bad, and on the highest volume Audi now shipped, not explainable other than neglect, inattention and cutbacks to me. Seldom any news posts any more or feature stuff; all not the quality it once was.

Fortunately this board is lively, as is my D3 board. But that's due to content provided by posters like us, and not due to what I (don't) see AW doing. If AW is going to further exploit our created content, frankly I expect more investment by them. And sooner or later if it doesn't happen, people lose interest or go elsewhere, and things wither more.

MP4.2+6.0

Take a look at my post one level above this add-on. It linked to the word "Tires" of all things, and then points at eBay [later edit: and now it points at their main site from this post too; really useless!]. Let's see, only 386,000+ listings there on eBay to focus my attention. What genius came up with that sophisticated targeting--both the word that was selected and the web pointer to eBay in turn? It makes the link provider/scraper, AW and eBay all look amateurish in my opinion.

I'm not impressed, and this change isn't ready for prime time as a commercial matter either.