Good news: likely reducing ads soon

[Moonchild]

Some good news for a change: enough people have been supporting us with donations to start looking into reducing the amount of ads required to sustain us. I'll be looking into removing ads from the forum first and foremost, since it sees the most direct user interaction and has the largest tracking exposure/attack surface for individual users (due to its nature of being user-content driven).

Thank you to all who have been donating to the project to make this possible!

I hope this is a first step of many to reduce our reliance on draconian ad networks and potentially risky third-party content to sustain us.

This thread will be updated when more details are available.
Note: we won't be ad-free any time soon, but reducing when/where possible has always been a priority, budget and expenses allowing.

[adisib]

Could you look into possibly allowing opt-in ads for forum users?

Though I know there are some people who would very much like to see advertisements completely gone, I personally would rather see the money go towards things like the bounty program. Especially since the ads are already very sparse, un-intrusive, and out of the way, such that they aren't even all that noticeable. I certainly would like the development to be non-reliant on such a revenue source, but would like to offer it regardless when there isn't much else I can offer at the moment. I would like to have at least one method of contributing in a way in my current situation, so an opt-in for ads (or a tiny increase in ads) would be nice.

[Moonchild]

Could you look into possibly allowing opt-in ads for forum users?

It's simply not technically feasible to do this. In addition, having a very low volume of ads on a site only from users who opt-in will reduce the value of the ads to pretty much 0, anyway (advertisers won't bid on very low volume positions).

[petrus]

I don't think people even mind simple banners, the problem are script heavy iframes which slow things down.

[Moonchild]

I don't think people even mind simple banners, the problem are script heavy iframes which slow things down.

Good luck trying to find ad networks in 2017 that still use straight-up image banners as an option.

[Avari]

good news indeed

[van p]

Moonchild, what if the donation revenue falls off? Maybe you should just keep the ads. As stated, they're fairly benign (at least, visually). I'll put up with ads, if that helps keep Pale Moon going. Thanks.

[Moonchild]

Please re-read my original post.

[petrus]

Good luck trying to find ad networks in 2017 that still use straight-up image banners as an option.

You could enter into a direct deal with someone now, and place a static banner on the bottom of the forum, for example.

Nobody would mind that, because a 50KB imagine wouldn't slow anything down really.

[Moonchild]

LOL. Right. And you think I have time for the overhead of making specific deals with a bunch of individual people, making sure they pay, having a proper rotation, maintaining contact with the advertisers, etc.?