i will sponsor this site for a month to remove the gold seller ads

[Hetzer]

pm how much. :pinch:

[Gadaí]

Or....

Install Firefox with the Adblocker Plus extension and never realise that there are ads until someone else posts a thread regarding them....

[Kicksome]

Well, the reason their are ads is so the site can afford to pay for hosting. And the only way the site gets money is if people click on ads. So blocking ads = screwing over the site.

And a dedicated web server is in the $150 - $400+ range per month. Ads might pay .05 a click.

[Svpernova09]

The problem is that we can only have a certain amount of sites blocked at a time and there's many more gold sellers than the number of sites we can have blocked. It is also a manual process so it isn't an instant removal once we start blocking the domains. If you want to sponsor the site, that's great, hit the Donate button.

http://www.halosrealm.com/images/donate.gif

[heyaz]

Well, the reason their are ads is so the site can afford to pay for hosting. And the only way the site gets money is if people click on ads. So blocking ads = screwing over the site.

And a dedicated web server is in the $150 - $400+ range per month. Ads might pay .05 a click.

No way you need a dedicated server for this site...

[Suvega]

Well, the reason their are ads is so the site can afford to pay for hosting. And the only way the site gets money is if people click on ads. So blocking ads = screwing over the site.

And a dedicated web server is in the $150 - $400+ range per month. Ads might pay .05 a click.

No way you need a dedicated server for this site...
From my discussions with Ellay, you couldn't be further from teh truth :P

Site probably uses on avg 75% of hte dedicated server's resources.

When slashdotted from ZOMG 36 BOXER, it uses around 135% of the server. Hence the flaming and smoke and ddOS affect people experienced.

[Meeo]

Well, the reason their are ads is so the site can afford to pay for hosting. And the only way the site gets money is if people click on ads. So blocking ads = screwing over the site.

And a dedicated web server is in the $150 - $400+ range per month. Ads might pay .05 a click.

No way you need a dedicated server for this site...
From my discussions with Ellay, you couldn't be further from teh truth :P

Site probably uses on avg 75% of hte dedicated server's resources.

When slashdotted from ZOMG 36 BOXER, it uses around 135% of the server. Hence the flaming and smoke and ddOS affect people experienced.

Teh Truth! In regards to your comment Heyaz, this site does get more traffic then what you can visibly see, over the last few months its picked up dramatically, including the point Suvega made.

[heyaz]

Well, the reason their are ads is so the site can afford to pay for hosting. And the only way the site gets money is if people click on ads. So blocking ads = screwing over the site.

And a dedicated web server is in the $150 - $400+ range per month. Ads might pay .05 a click.

No way you need a dedicated server for this site...
From my discussions with Ellay, you couldn't be further from teh truth :P

Site probably uses on avg 75% of hte dedicated server's resources.

When slashdotted from ZOMG 36 BOXER, it uses around 135% of the server. Hence the flaming and smoke and ddOS affect people experienced.

I don't have any doubts about the load, I just think a *physical* dedicated server isn't appropriate for this type of site. With all the grid/vps based options out there, you could easily handle the burst traffic for a lot less cost.
Services like Mosso, Joyent, and Media Temple use either clusters of servers or virtualization where if you have to burst it will expand your partition to use the power of a $100,000 server. I've run a lot of big sites and done research on this and unless yuo need huge amounts of disk space (hundreds of gigs or terabytes) or some other need of a physical server, the cluster hosting is just more cost effective.

[Rin]

To kill the ads on this site

I'm using a work pc right now, but these instructions should be similar for Vista (this is for Win XP)

Go to Start->Run

Paste this into your Open: [ ] command box: c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

* NOTE: This assumes that Windows is hosted in the C:\ hard drive, if your windows install drive is E, or G... then you would put E:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Once you do this, you should see a prompt asking you how you would like to open the host file.

Select notepad (any text editor would work)

Add this entry:

127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

Save your host file.

Close all web browsers (the host file typically wont release until the browser restarts)

Go back to dual-boxing.com

The ads should be blocked. :)

===================================

FAQ:

How does this work?

This works by pointing the Google Ad DNS to your local computer (127.0.0.1). Odds are you're not running the Internet Information System (IIS), and even if you are, you probably don't have a site setup on your localhost with the A-record: pagead2.googlesyndication.com. What happens here is that when Firefox, IE, Google Chrome (or whatever browser you're using), goes to check for the ad, it's checking aganist your computer (which doesn't return a record, hence the ad will not display).

[Meeo]

Well, the reason their are ads is so the site can afford to pay for hosting. And the only way the site gets money is if people click on ads. So blocking ads = screwing over the site.

And a dedicated web server is in the $150 - $400+ range per month. Ads might pay .05 a click.

No way you need a dedicated server for this site...
From my discussions with Ellay, you couldn't be further from teh truth :P

Site probably uses on avg 75% of hte dedicated server's resources.

When slashdotted from ZOMG 36 BOXER, it uses around 135% of the server. Hence the flaming and smoke and ddOS affect people experienced.

I don't have any doubts about the load, I just think a *physical* dedicated server isn't appropriate for this type of site. With all the grid/vps based options out there, you could easily handle the burst traffic for a lot less cost.
Services like Mosso, Joyent, and Media Temple use either clusters of servers or virtualization where if you have to burst it will expand your partition to use the power of a $100,000 server. I've run a lot of big sites and done research on this and unless yuo need huge amounts of disk space (hundreds of gigs or terabytes) or some other need of a physical server, the cluster hosting is just more cost effective.

Indeed, that to be true as well, there are several options out there for server hosting and getting good response to daily traffic and have the website response when getting bombarded. My company, Hostforweb.com, which i am a partner/owner of, houses many website and traffic loads, of course there are other options, but it basically comes down to what options ellay has now, and available at this moment, we can go all day and talk about other options and things available out there today, but does it really fit with what ellay has/wants/etc...

Did we just hijack this thread??!?!

LOL

[Vyndree]

The problem with a VPS is that, unless set up very strictly -- if you get slashdotted, you're screwing over the rest of the people on your VPS. The impact is bigger, and (given enough complaint) could get your hosting company very angry at you for upsetting the other customers.

With a dedicated server, we're only screwing over ourselves when we get insane bursts of traffic. We are in a little sandbox of happiness.

[Rin]

I think a lot of us can give more appropriate information if someone would answer the following:

What are the specs on this dedicated server that you're running?
What are you paying per month for the server?
What kind of bandwidth is your hosting company providing (Edit: I'm assuming you're not running this out of your house on Comcast :D )?
I'm assuming that you're running a Linux box for this (php default base), but do you have any needs for .NET or CF components in the future?
Is this the only site that you're running on your server? As others have stated, for this one site, you shouldn't be hitting capacity on this server (unless you're in the tens of millions for hits). I run several Win Server, Quad Core boxes, and typically play with 3-5 million uniques / month; and I havent' experienced any issues.

What kind of up times are you getting when the site hits max capacity?


Cheers

Rin

[heyaz]

The problem with a VPS is that, unless set up very strictly -- if you get slashdotted, you're screwing over the rest of the people on your VPS. The impact is bigger, and (given enough complaint) could get your hosting company very angry at you for upsetting the other customers.

With a dedicated server, we're only screwing over ourselves when we get insane bursts of traffic. We are in a little sandbox of happiness.

Well with budget VPS that's definitely true. But the ones I suggested are either cluster based (10000+ machines) or use these huge monolithic servers to handle the load. May or may not be an option for this site, but I'd definitely look at it. I know the grid services were specifically designed for this type of thing. Just trying to save you guys some money :)

[Ellay]

I upgraded to a dual core processor, blah blah from a VPS the only issue I was having previously was the amount of RAM which was 512 mb and was non upgradeable. MySql couldn't handle that amount of ram and caused insane amounts of downtime on the site until I did a ghetto reboot of the server. It's on 1.5 gigs and is upgradable at anytime. Paying $200 a month currently as I stuck with the same hosting company since they transferred all the data exactly the same as was on the VPS, that way there was no issues on the user's side.
I'm still open to better options out there, setting up a fresh copy of the site is a PITA though :) and involves many headaches. I'm about $50 off or so from covering the costs of the site up until the new year, and the ads will be dropping then.

[algol]

Well, the reason their are ads is so the site can afford to pay for hosting. And the only way the site gets money is if people click on ads. So blocking ads = screwing over the site.

And a dedicated web server is in the $150 - $400+ range per month. Ads might pay .05 a click.Seeing as I'm not going to click on gold seller ads anyway, what's the point?

[Fizzler]

As much as I do not like Ads they are a necessary evil.

[GizmoxLoW]

As much as I do not like Ads they are a necessary evil.

I agree with this, you cant go to google.com without seeing one of these ads, Honestly all this talk about it, if your not mature enough to handle it and ignore it then maybe you shouldnt be playing, its not like they are flashing porn or something really offensive..

[not5150]

Funny enough, I'm about 2 weeks away from popping for a full cabinet in downtown LA (530 W. 6th). I'm putting in 5 Dell PowerEdge servers and 2-3 SuperMicro servers.

If you want, you can move your hosting over here for cheaper. (assuming you are not locked in a contract)

I've got a couple dual dual-core Xeons with 4 GB RAM that could definitely run this site w/o problems.

[Carnage]

Virgin media ads also! oh deardear, what would athene say?

[Tasty]

As much as I do not like Ads they are a necessary evil.

I agree with this, you cant go to google.com without seeing one of these ads, Honestly all this talk about it, if your not mature enough to handle it and ignore it then maybe you shouldnt be playing, its not like they are flashing porn or something really offensive..

Thats not the point and just exactly how is it immature to state that something displeases you?

[zanthor]

Look, without the adds I'd never know that there was a site dedicated to chatting with single armenians! I mean seriously, how do you ever survive without that knowledge.

[valkry]

I was considering buying one of those screens with 10% off lol

[Millz]

Everyone just needs to start clicking the ads once a day.. That way Ellay get's more money and can take the ads off sooner :)

[Carnage]

Install Firefox with the Adblocker Plus extension and never realise that there are ads until someone else posts a thread regarding them.... Ive just had to install this, not because of ads - as long as they dont popup then i dont mind them, however there was a silly microsoft add blocking text i wanted to read (not on this site).

[Fuzzyboy]

I don't mind text-based ADs like for instance gmail has and I even click them on occassion if I like the website (I never ever buy anything from ad-links though), but i hate those animated/blinking/sliding graphics ads, so adblock+ is my friend :-)

[Ualaa]

I right click on the ad, and select open in new tab.

At the end of my session, I close them all down.
I don't actually go to the tab and view what I clicked on.
Does this still support dual-boxing.com?

I'm running noscript with my firefox, so hopefully nothing malicious is run on my system by blindly clicking a banner to open in a new tab.

[Skuggomann]

I love tese adds sooo much ?

[Kicksome]

The way the banner ads are implemented on this site:

The ONLY time this site makes money is if you click on an ad. Doesn't matter if you buy anything or not, they earn money when an ad is clicked - no where else.

Also, the site can never encourage users to click on the ads, it's against the ad providers policy. So draw your own conclusion on how to support the site (aside from donating).

[Drizzit]

It is just some adds that i don't like. Like the ones that just keep moving or flashing. The ones that do it for a couple seconds don't bother me, just the ones that continue to do it. It is hard for me to read something where in the corner of my eye i can see something flashing.

[Svpernova09]

I right click on the ad, and select open in new tab.

At the end of my session, I close them all down.
I don't actually go to the tab and view what I clicked on.
Does this still support dual-boxing.com?

I'm running noscript with my firefox, so hopefully nothing malicious is run on my system by blindly clicking a banner to open in a new tab.this is fine, and we do get credit for the click, but don't do this excessively. Google has a lot of fraud prevention built in and sometimes they can get a bit over zealous with it. But doing this to 2-4 ads a day spread across 5-7 hours is perfectly fine.