Submitted 4 months ago by Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca to technology@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/85bbd4de-47e1-40e5-ba2a-67e1e4ba529f.png
This was on the official videolan.org - tested on a couple computers. I thought they had a commitment to be ad free :(
I just suck it down through apt or flatpak or homebrew or whatever is appropriate for the system I’m on. I tend to avoid manual download/install processes unless it is specifically recommended, or there’s no option to do it through a package manager.
On the page there is: google syndication, google tag manager, google analytics.
For me it seems to be when you go through to download the windows binary, you get an iframe on the page containing another site. That has ads and serves up the download. So I’m guessing the ads are on the website that provides videolan with hosting for its binaries?
They are old fashioned intrusive ads pretending you need to click then to start your download. But the download starts already.
Weird. As a Linux user, I don’t remember the last time I visited their website since I just install it from the package repos.
I still can’t believe how badly Windows fucked that up. It’s crazy.
I deploy it through PowerShell.
Just make sure you don’t accidentally use the ads-apt-repository or yum-config-manager --ads-repo commands
sudo service unskippable-direct-neural-adserver start
Gonna need a bit more info than you’ve provided.
What I will note, from the information that you’ve provided, is that you shared an internet exchange screenshot showing a couple of low key ads (with the usual opt out bullshit links), so any ads are not on the VLC site - it’s on their download partner site, a la 1995 - and they’re probably the most tame ads (repeat: not benefiting VLC) that I’ve seen in 30 years.
tl;dr: Late-stage PSTN/POTS dialup configuration of binaries hosted on a third party (pre-CDN) download site -who are free to inject whatever spam they like - (but have been astonishingly restrained here) along with the download link.
I wouldn’t call fake download links on a download page ‘restrained’
First indication of fake I’ve seen so far, based on OP’s detail-light post. I’d assumed the FOMO timer would eventually download the genuine binary.
So, share with the class…
Super weird. Maybe they’ve been compromised. I turned off my blockers and got some pretty intrusive ads on mobile.
What a nice, large display. Here, have a 9px tall sliver of content. Enjoy!
Back in my day we had to make do with 5px of content. People nowadays are so spoiled with their 9px, they don’t know how good they have it!
Not sure, but I can reproduce it on my end. The actual download pages on get.videolan.org have ads, the main site does not.
Probably to recoup hosting costs for downloads
I don’t know. They are still a non-profit, according to Wiki.
There are no ads on my computer or my phone when running no adblocker.
Your network or multiple devices have been hijacked, someone is injecting ads.
Just tested myself, there are definitely ads that show up after a download has been selected and started.
Try actually downloading a binary, I only saw them after a download had started
I did that too. Still nothing appears. There us a donation box in place of those advertisements.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 4 months ago
There is a difference between a software being ad free and a download site being ad free (or in this case, not). As long as the tool is OK, I don’t mind ads on the site. I don’t see them, anyway.