Advertisements on WinWorld

Duff

Given a recent topic on the new advertisements I want make a brief post outlining our policy regarding advertisements on WinWorld.

After much discussion, it was decided that we would start placing advertisements on WinWorld. This effort is aimed entirely at recouping the costs associated with running WinWorld, namely dedicated server rentals. If at some point in the future WinWorld generates more than our expenses; which I will say is extremely unlikely; any excess will be used towards improving WinWorld. That could range from acquiring new servers to act as library mirrors to purchasing impossible to locate software off eBay to add to our collection.

stitch has made a good effort to ensure our advertisements are safe, clean and as minimally intrusive as possible. Two key things I would like to note for the privacy conscious and those with adblocking software:

• Our advertisements have absolutely no tracking embedded in the code. They are simple JPEG/PNG image files, nothing more. The only tracking is in the actual advertisement URL with our referral code, for obvious reasons.
• All advertisement image files are hosted on our server. This means when you load WinWorld, you are not being connected to any third party ad agency servers. This also enables us to ensure no inappropriate, unsafe for work advertisements appear on WinWorld.

This is a sample of the exact code loaded in your browser to show our advertisements:

<a href="http://www.kqzyfj.com/REFERALCODE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">
	<img src="/res/img/affiliate/company/company.png"></a>

With that in mind, it would be greatly appreciated if you don't use adblocking tools and tolerate our privacy-minding, non-invasive advertisements while browsing to help support WinWorld. We know nobody likes ads, which is why we've made the effort to make them as tolerable as possible. Thank you.

BOD

This is how advertising should be done; no bullshit, no annoying flashing noisy crap, and no tracking.

Hypothesys

People who complain about adverts on a website clearly don't know how much it costs to RUN a website

dosbox

BOD wrote:

This is how advertising should be done; no bullshit, no annoying flashing noisy crap, and no tracking.

Don't forget, no viruses or malware!

Doqtor Kirby

Especially no viruses or malware.

You sir, have won my AdBlock exception.

psychobat

I personally don't mind the ads on this site too much, they could be much much worse. I don't find too much of a need to block them.

BOD

Hypothesys wrote:

People who complain about adverts on a website clearly don't know how much it costs to RUN a website

I know everything about the running costs and time associated with running a website. But I have no patience for ridiculous, distracting, overbearing, annoying, and malicious adverts. No flashing bullshit, no noise, no adware, and worst of all, clickbait. Advertising *can* be done exceptionally well, but running ads that are going to have the effect of either driving users away or forcing them to use adblock isn't good for anyone, especially the website owners. Hence why I install adblock, and at least whitelist sites that I know use decent ads.

Vote with your feet, people.

dosbox

Hypothesys wrote:

People who complain about adverts on a website clearly don't know how much it costs to RUN a website

It is safe to say you don't block ads and that you have a bunch of viruses and malware from malvertisements.

BlueSun

malvertisements are ridiculously common place to the point where running without adblock software today is almost akin to running without anti-virus back in the day.

Personally, I don't whitelist anything. While it's true that there are ads that are benign, I still resent the fact that I have advertising being shoved down my throat. I never click on ads anyway, so it really doesn't do any good.

dosbox

BlueSun wrote:

malvertisements are ridiculously common place to the point where running without adblock software today is almost akin to running without anti-virus back in the day.

+1 on that!

One thing haven't pointed out before is: How does the fact that website owners need to eat and sleep, at all justify putting ads (especially malvertisments) delivered by evil corporations (like Google) on your website? That is the one question that people should be asking many bloggers and web admins. It certainly doesn't justify data mining at all.

Both malvertising and data mining should be outlawed practices, as they only do damage and don't do any good whatsoever.

I want to see Mr Hypothesis try to make a valid response to what I said.

Skora

The thing I love most about these advertisements, is that they aren't in the software libraries or the forums at all, and the ads that there are on the homepage are very few.

When you said unobtrusive, you meant it Duff.