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Question

No access to Comments forums

Mar 31, 2016 10:23AM PDT

I am unable to view the Comments discussion forum for the Cheapskate column, but I have noted similar problems across other CNET features.
This occurs despite having greenlighted CNET.com in all ad blockers, and having made cookie exceptions in the Firefox browser for the CNET.com domain.
I've exhausted all the suggested fixes that CNET offers.
Something else is causing this problem.
I have witnessed multiple cycles over the years in which CNET features such as comment forums, or video display, work, and then they don't work, and then they work for a while, and then they don't.
The one thing that is consistent is that CNET pays insufficient attention to QA consistency testing while failing to provide adequate advisories to site readers.
We shouldn't have to waste our time searching the haystack of "user forums" for answers that CNET staff should be providing proactively.
By the way, we're advised to search these forums without benefit of a site search tool. Ponder that to conclude just how much CNET cares about providing adequate site support.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
About ad blockers.
Mar 31, 2016 10:28AM PDT

I found I had to green light more than CNET.com so there's that.

I've alerted your post so you can get a personal reply from a very nice person I know. But for forum issued, try the Forum Feedback forum as it's a place I know he checks all the time.

Me? Just a mod, I don't run this joint.

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Answer
Hi there proteusedits.
Apr 4, 2016 1:40PM PDT

First I like to thank you for your many years of being a loyal CNET member. I appreciate your candid feedback and your patronage means a lot to us.

Unfortunately using an ad blockers is by choice and it is not something that we support. We also do not QA our sites against ad blockers as our site's functionality works without ad blockers, unless of course something is seriously broken on our end.

If we were to support ad blockers, it would be like a brick and mortar store without cashiers --with everything being free. I'm sure you know this already, but I just want to reiterate that serving ads is core to our business revenue and in return it is what pays for the content you read and watch on our site at no cost to you. Without ads simply our site would not exist. So I hope you understand our position.

Sometimes ad blockers block more than just ads, but our site's JavaScript as well. And when it prevents our JavaScript from executing, certain functionalities like commenting, watching videos and all the things that you listed will not load properly or function correctly. There are also many variations of ad blockers and we have no control what each one does when used in conjunction with our site. Some of the more aggressive ad blockers even when whitelisting our sites=, will still render certain functions on our site unusable and unfortunately I do not have a solution for you. Just a thought, we do use a third party commenting platform by Livefyre, is there something in your adblocker that maybe blocking "cnet.fyre.co"? Is that something you can unblock? Give it a try and I hope that does the trick.

Anyways I hope you understand our position with ad blockers and the lack of support for it.

Sincerely,
-Lee