Author Topic: Regarding Ad.fly  (Read 1630 times)

Offline iico

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Regarding Ad.fly
« on: May 26, 2020, 03:46:01 am »
Please, god, find another way to generate revenue to keep the servers running!

I'm aware that the issue only effects mediafire links [as far as I know] but there have been several instances in the past and present of my antivirus detecting dangerous files [unwanted downloads, or links to dangerous sites] when trying to use Adfly. This is completely unacceptable on a forum that is accessible to and used by children/minors who may be exposed to pornographic or otherwise dangerous content and malware, especially on computers that may be owned by the family, don't have adequate antivirus software, or don't have adblocking capabilities. Without a competent adblocker, Ad.fly's proxy interface becomes redunant as the webpage is filled with popups and malicious links to download programs such as "open software updater," which has been regarded as adware that bundles with other potentially unwanted programs. Fake, "sketchy" download pages and links are especially dangerous as they may confuse some users into downloading dangerous software, when in reality they want whatever preset, map, etc they saw on the forums. Even when the user waits on the webpage and avoids Adfly's advertisements, the website will still redirect to websites that load dangerous scripts and/or attempt to download unwanted programs, as well as occasionally play fake audio that claims the user's computer has been infected with a virus and that they should install an even sketchier antivirus. Adfly may claim on their website that their advertisements are "strictly family-safe with no popups" and that "anti-virus and malware servers are scanning the adverts 24/7" but this is COMPLETELY falsified.
Until the issue is addressed it would be far easier and safer for users to link to downloads on Google Drive or Dropbox.
There are also Chrome extensions to bypass Adfly completely. Here is one for Firefox.

I suggest using Patreon (Lite) as a way to fund the servers. Of course there is no way to ensure that it would be effective until enough people have pledged. There is always a 5% fee + processing costs, there has to be a way to gather enough incentive to pledge in the first place, and there's no guarantee that the measly ~100-200 people that play the game as it is would be able to afford pledges to the Patreon page, given the fact that the userbase is very diverse in both age and financial abilities. I don't know how much the game server and website cost yearly to run, if they are based on monthly payments, etc, but based on averages as little as $75 a month on Patreon could potentially fund them.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 04:20:41 am by iico »

SpicyDirt

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Re: Regarding Ad.fly
« Reply #1 on: May 26, 2020, 05:43:52 am »
I do wish that we could use something like Patreon, but Raz has made it pretty clear that something like that won't be coming along anytime soon. It is difficult to raise the money to keep the servers around without asking for money from users (which is why we don't have memberships, donation pools, etc.). The goal is to keep everyone equal - which means money still has to come from somewhere. It does suck that we have to use adfly as it is not regulated at all when it comes to the dangerous content.

Offline Morgra

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Re: Regarding Ad.fly
« Reply #2 on: May 26, 2020, 07:47:06 pm »
SpicyDirt cleared a lot of this up. Raz would rather use the ads on the forum. From what i've seen most of the ads that appear to be misleading/malicious have been removed. I haven't run into any bad ads on the site for a long while now. And the pop up ads have been fixed to make them easier to close out of.

The only current issue is that Windows detects the .exe from the newest patch as a false positive virus when it is a completely safe file.

However, this doesn't have anything to do with ad.fly?

Which is where I want to clarify: Ad.fly comes from MediaFire specifically which has no affiliation with the funding of the FeralHeart servers. MediaFire usage is up to an individual person uploading their mod for people to download. None of the FH official links to downloads go through MediaFire nor do we endorse it as a platform. FH users just use MediaFire to upload their maps/presets/etc. and that happens to direct to ad.fly links.
 
- Ad.fly is not affiliated with the FH site in any way and it is not funding the servers.

Now, encouraging Google Drive/DropBox is the solution to the ad.fly problem, which you mentioned those above. More and more people have been moving to Google Drive lately which is a good sign.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 07:55:42 pm by Morgra »
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