I got some replies on my adf.ly rant post, which is great because I think itâs a question many of us have opinions about and talking about it wonât hurt. Iâll answer shortly here:
peacemaker-ic wrote about the potential harm adf.ly could do to our computers and that he/she would want people to at least mark their downloads with an adf.ly warning (read full post here)
me: Thatâs of course a huge problem if adf.ly is a container for viruses and it would be horrible if someone got their computer destroyed because of it. Though I have personally never gotten a virus warning or a virus from adf.ly links, so I havenât yet been confronted with that problem. A 100% safe ad service would undoubtedly be the best solution of all. For those of you who havenât got computer protection I can recommend Avira free antivirus. Make sure you download it from a safe site. And I agree, all of us should do better when it comes to marking adf.ly downloads so users can make smart choices.
boolparty wrote that most users in fact multitask when downloading but that you still have to press âskipâ, and that ads have pop-ups that could be harmful for people with for example epilepsy. That the point of sharing our content is that it should be free and fun so we can make each other happy (read full post here)
me: Youâre right, the multitask thing was superfluous, thatâs why I referred to myself as a smartass. I know about the âskipâ part but thereâs actually ways to make that pretty smooth too. I just open a bunch of tabs with cc, when one loads I go to the next and click skip, and go back and forth like that (I know, still superfluous). The pop-ups are add ons i.e users have to choose to add those as well as the 5 second wait. Pop-ups are a bit more problematic, still havenât got too much against them, but they can interfere with the download so youâll have to update the page a lot of times. Iâm not epileptic so I canât say anything about the safety aspect, but thereâs where the heads up for adf.ly and pop-ups would be of benefit. But yes, pop-ups are as said more problematic. I also agree about the fun and happy part, though since the creating process is so time consuming I really do like the idea of giving something back to creators.
Thank you for giving your opinions!