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Ultimate-Guitar Gets Flak for Pop-up App Download

Here’s something interesting from Reddit, popular guitar tablature website Ultimate-Guitar received strong criticisms for their app download prompts.

Ultimate-Guitar Obtrusive App Download

A Reddit user recently aired his complaint about the annoying pop-up app download prompts on the above mentioned site, and it didn’t take long for others to air their own frustrations as well.

After changing the landscapes of our highways with their billboards, and cutting up our favorite TV shows into smaller sections, advertisers have moved on to target cyber space. There’s no denying that the more websites became popular the more advertisements took center stage, and it could even be said that these ads are quickly taking full control over what we see and hear on the internet, even assimilating social media and streaming video sites!

With this situation in mind, we should expect to see them creep into everything we do, and that includes the precious time we spend looking for guitar tab and other resources. I’m pretty sure that guitarists are already used to seeing ads, even pop-up ads at that, so what has led to this current outcry? According to the original post, he was annoyed due to the “pushy advertising”, prompting him to look for alternative websites that feature a guitar tab database with less intrusive ads.

The advertisement in question is the “Get mobile version” pop-up prompt that for some users doesn’t seem to want to go away. Users complained that it persists every time they access the website and at times it even makes it impossible to access content from the site. There was even one user who already paid for the app and still get the same pop-up!

Based on the description of some users, the pop up ad is one that can be considered as obtrusive. The pop-up is strategically placed to block content and annoy visitors enough to opt in and pay for an ads free access. Unfortunately, some were complaining that even after paying for the app, or contributing guitar tabs, they still get the same annoying popup.

To be fair, I tried visiting Ultimate-Guitar on my laptop and on my mobile phone. I found that the ads were well placed on my laptop, I did get the pop-up advertisement on my phone but the advertisement worked properly. After closing the full screen ad once, it did stop bugging me and left a smaller ad at the bottom that pops up every time I’m idle. To double check, I also tried it on a tablet and got the same results, the only difference being that the pop-up ad was bigger and wider. In my short experience with the site, I didn’t find the ads to be annoying, so it’s either the ads are buggy for some users or Ultimate-Guitar has already fixed the pop-up ad problem.

At the time of this writing, the Reddit post has gathered a substantial number of upvotes, which would translate to guitarists who consider the ad to be obtrusive. You can voice your opinion by joining the discussion over at Reddit.

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