One more reason not to use WWF

By all means removed this thread if you disagree...

I have been a low-budget user of WWF for a long time. However IMHO the new version takes the piss.

Here is a screenshot of a default install of WWF 8 beta 2:


Now the simple copyright link at the bottom is bearable (when compared to IPB which requires $100 for a license and $300 for copyright removal). However the banner and adsense ads are ridiculous. I understand that borg needs to make a living but running WWF without the link removal key just makes your forum look like an advert.

I haven't yet checked the license to see if the moving gif and adsense can by removed but.....

If the adsense ads are required it will stop people making money to host their own non-profit sites. I assume you have a special deal with Google?

According to the standard adsense TOS you may only run ads on sites you own. If someone clicks on the adsense links many times on a WWF site then ALL your sites will get kicked out of adsense.

There is also ANOTHER advert for WWcaptcha on the login :o and there is a sneaky link back to WWG in other places. Maybe you could also link to a free RSS parser rather than feeddemon?

Although I have moved some of my sites to php and linux I still develop ASP-based sites. Looks like I am going to have to find other forum software.


Edited by huwnet - 11 March 2006 at 7:26pm

dpyers wrote: http://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=18063

Interesting thread. I post here to see what the long-standing members thought. I would be interested to know Bruce's replies to my adsense querys

I'm neutral in this controversy, but I think that huwnet brings up a good point.

Does having WWF google and adsense adds prevent you from having your own google and adense adds?

VBScript wrote: dpyers, You can still have you own google ads on your site. Because the javascript that displays them tells google the account number. So if you wanted you can have you own google ads but your own + WWF ads would lokk messy

However adsense TOS states only one adsense account should be used per page. And this also means you can only have two of your own ad-units.

I would still like to know if Bruce has spoken to Google about this.

I believe running adsense on sites you don't own is against the TOS. If someone fradulently clicks on your ads then Google will ban the whole WWG account.