Feral Heart

Game & Forum Discussion => Forum Discussion => Topic started by: Litten on January 09, 2020, 09:01:31 pm

Title: a problem with adfly
Post by: Litten on January 09, 2020, 09:01:31 pm
normally, I don't post on the forums (or even log in); however this is a glaring issue that I haven't seen addressed anywhere yet and it's.. incredibly important, considering the age of a good portion of FH users (18 or below).

Adfly forces you to disable your adblocker in order to go to links outside of feral-heart.com, forces you to click "allow" on a pop-up, and only THEN does it let you go to whatever link you clicked.

I don't know how long it's been going on, because it certainly wasn't a couple of years ago, but.. it is now, and it's going unchecked.

The problem with this?

If you happen to misclick anywhere on the page, it opens a new tab.. with ads for pornographic games. Ads that clearly show genitalia, compromising positions, etc etc. I would provide images, but 1) that would be incredibly inappropriate and 2) I was too disgusted to stop and take a screenshot of the fullscreen images of naked women before closing the tab.

If you happen to luckily avoid misclicking, then there's still a massive problem. Those pop-ups you click "allow" on? Well, that website sends notifications to your computer through your browser for.. ad-filled magazine articles, antivirus scams, and more pornographic game ads! How lovely!

You can clear your cache to get rid of those, I THINK, but.. the damage has been done. Adults and minors alike were exposed to the kinds of ads and whatnot. And gullible kids will probably fall for the antivirus scams, too, since they certainly don't want their computer infected with a virus just because they clicked a link to someone's deviantArt!

Point is, whoever manages the forums, please get rid of adfly. I know it makes you money, but there's plenty of other link shorteners that allow you to do so and don't expose people to porn, popups, or viruses.

apologies in advance if this is the wrong board to post in, I didn't know where else to go though.
Title: Re: a problem with adfly
Post by: Bawfle on January 09, 2020, 09:31:55 pm
Adf.ly is a really inappropriate re-director. Absolutely. There's no doubt about that. However, we rely on ads to pay to keep the forum online. Not that this comment justifies the usage of Adf.ly. I'm not entirely sure how Ad.fly links or works with the forum, but I do think it's involved with the upkeep of the forum somehow. I can only assume to pay for the forum itself. I can't give a 100% accurate answer about that so someone would have to come correct me if I am wrong about it. So don't take my word for it. I don't remember which ads do and don't help pay for the forum. I think Adf.ly is just one of those things the forum uses to collect some pennies for the upkeep of the forum itself.

Only thing I can suggest to avoid seeing Adf.ly advertisements is by taking away the https:// from the beginning of the URL you're trying to get to. That's what I do, at least. To avoid it. Though I'm sure there are other options, I haven't really taken the time to look for any since the method I use right now is perfect enough for me. But yeah, I cannot agree more that minors should not be exposed to the absolute trap Adf.ly is. I'm sorry this troubles you.
Title: Re: a problem with adfly
Post by: BirdieBeep on January 10, 2020, 01:40:11 am
I feel there could be better re-director while still keeping some additional revenue going for the site. I'm sorry you're getting inappropriate advertisements though, that stuff isn't always good to see. As well as what Bawfle suggested, I use a plugin called universal bypass that skips over re-directors, I suggest you take a look at that as another option to get around ad.fly
Title: Re: a problem with adfly
Post by: Kuri on January 11, 2020, 06:49:19 pm
Sometimes i use a web browser from 2008 and there's no adbug at all.  Although for most people, this method might not be advisable, old browsers can be exploited.
Title: Re: a problem with adfly
Post by: zRichtofen on January 12, 2020, 08:22:18 pm
If you use chrome, Ghostery is a great extension. Its both an ad-blocker but it bypasses the detectors. Used this extension for years and haven't had any pop ups since. You can even block trackers too.

When you use the extension, be sure to click on the ghost head at the top right, and have these settings:

Enhanced Anti-tracking: On
Enhanced Ad-blocking: Off (If you have this on, it will detect it.)
Smart Blocking: On (This is what makes it the "invisible adblocker")

Hope it helps!