FLYER Forums

Have to say I'm yet to see a compelling argument for using anything other than Safari on Apple devices.

The only thing I use Google Chrome for is making voice calls on FB Messenger 'cos Safari won't let me do that. Messenger, yes. Messenger calls, no. Of course, this wouldn't be needed if a certain spouse of mine would just listen for two seconds on how to use FaceTime or even WhatsApp

(She doesn't "like all that technical stuff")

Must say, no problems with the experience on my £150 android Huawei phone. There are ads between some posts.
On my work laptop, most of the ads seem to get blocked by the company access gateway (I don't have ad blocker installed).

Of course, this wouldn't be needed if a certain spouse of mine would just listen for two seconds on how to use FaceTime or even WhatsApp

Do you have a number of spouses?

For those who have not seem my recently started topic about I-pad (and then PC) issues with the Forum, it looks like the ads might have been the cause.

Until a few minutes back, ads were missing, from the right column whilst maintenance was in progress and whilst that was the case both PC and I-pad were back to normal.

Now ads are back up, I-pad and PC are still fine.

Thus far, looks like the "fixers" have cleared an issue which was slowing my I-pad to a crawl and throwing up alerts (one genuine and one seemingly bogus) on my PC.

flybymike wrote:

Of course, this wouldn't be needed if a certain spouse of mine would just listen for two seconds on how to use FaceTime or even WhatsApp

Do you have a number of spouses?

Isn't that spousi? Spi?

Grelly wrote:

flybymike wrote:

Of course, this wouldn't be needed if a certain spouse of mine would just listen for two seconds on how to use FaceTime or even WhatsApp

Do you have a number of spouses?

Isn't that spousi? Spi?

Trouble

stevelup wrote:Don't forget that Chrome ignores your system wide DNS settings and -always- makes sneaky requests to Google's DNS servers. And even if you block 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 on your firewall, it tries using myriad other addresses as well. But if you're cool with that, that's also fine!

I mean, on that basis you could argue that it's virtually malware.

I've seen various similar claims about this - so have been monitoring for a few days.
Firewall level monitoring catching all port 53 requests.
Not seen any DNS requests going to anything other than my own DNS servers, and to OpenDNS servers for the kids devices.
Content is correctly blocked with opendns as expected, which wouldn't work if DNS was being bypassed. I see similar behaviour in e.g. public wifi networks that use DNS blocking - if I change my system DNS to 1.1.1.1, then Chrome seems content to use it.
That's across Android, Mac, Windows, and iPad versions of Chrome.

From a bit of Googling - the implication is that Chrome did/will attempt to use Google DNS servers if you are on an IPv6 enabled network, and your DNS server returns invalid AAAA responses - not sure if that's the only scenario.

rikur_ wrote:

stevelup wrote:Don't forget that Chrome ignores your system wide DNS settings and -always- makes sneaky requests to Google's DNS servers. And even if you block 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 on your firewall, it tries using myriad other addresses as well. But if you're cool with that, that's also fine!

I mean, on that basis you could argue that it's virtually malware.

I've seen various similar claims about this - so have been monitoring for a few days.
Firewall level monitoring catching all port 53 requests.
Not seen any DNS requests going to anything other than my own DNS servers, and to OpenDNS servers for the kids devices.
Content is correctly blocked with opendns as expected, which wouldn't work if DNS was being bypassed. I see similar behaviour in e.g. public wifi networks that use DNS blocking - if I change my system DNS to 1.1.1.1, then Chrome seems content to use it.
That's across Android, Mac, Windows, and iPad versions of Chrome.

From a bit of Googling - the implication is that Chrome did/will attempt to use Google DNS servers if you are on an IPv6 enabled network, and your DNS server returns invalid AAAA responses - not sure if that's the only scenario.

I haven't the faintest clue what you guys are talking about!

rikur- try putting some garbage in the address bar rather than real addresses. Something that will trigger a search.

Yes, but that's then actually contacting the google search engine to do a search rather than going to a specific address. You're *asking* it to "google" something.

stevelup wrote:rikur- try putting some garbage in the address bar rather than real addresses. Something that will trigger a search.

Tried as requested - no stray DNS calls observed.
Some https calls made to Google servers - presumably doing the search for what I've entered.

I guess that's the grey line between features and malware - is the software doing what you would reasonably expect it to do. For me, this seems like a feature - I've typed a search term in a browser provided by Google and it's searched Google for it. I guess others could regard it as malware if they didn't expect or want that feature. Or bloatware.

It reminds me of a colleague who proudly blocks all cookies on his browser - and then always curses Google maps when he goes to plan a journey with "you would think this stupid thing would have learnt where I live by now rather than having to type it in every time".

I wonder if those seeing weird adverts on here, might also be cookie blockers, as all the ads I'm seeing are in some way related to previous searches or websites I've visited - or clearly targeted at Flyer.

is it at all possible to make the top-of-page ads stay one size?
I get frustrated, the page starts to load; I move the mouse to the thread I want to read
and as I click the ad size changes and I click entirely the wrong thing

I'd pay a modest fee to remove ads (premium subscription)
poll anyone?

how much does Ian make per user from advertising?
I'm guessing notalot

I would do that.

I can imagine that most many some a few current forumites might be willing to contribute a small amount to go ad free (me included), I think it would represent a significant barrier to entry for newbies, and as such could end up being counter-productive.

Colonel Panic wrote:I can imagine that most many some a few current forumites might be willing to contribute a small amount to go ad free (me included), I think it would represent a significant barrier to entry for newbies, and as such could end up being counter-productive.

if t'were an option then you can choose your own flavour

@Ian
go for it!