[Nykwil]

anyone have a copy of the original hosts file? i believe apps like last.fm stopped working because of this file

[saurik]

Originally Posted by TheYoungHustla

This makes my safari slower, but most sites w/ ads are gone, EXCEPT MMi. Oh and it's a good way to get an ad-free Cycorder

Which pretty much means that when this becomes even remotely widespread I become forced to start charging for Cycorder and not offering any free versions at all.

The core problem here is that BigBoss and I are spending most of our lives writing software that everyone here uses, and yet we have to pay the bills related to that (which aren't cheap at all, I spend a couple thousand dollars a month on bandwidth just for Cydia's main repository, and I do a fraction of the transfers the community sources do) as well as make a living for ourselves (when it becomes more attractive to my future to go back and work at my old day consulting job rather than writing iPhone software, I will).

The result is that producers have to make decisions: do we charge for things directly or go after indirect revenues. We are under serious pressure from people to not charge them directly, so we often figure out ways of getting paid from other people. In the way of websites (and even programs like Cycorder) a good way to do that is ad revenue. In essence that's our contract with you: you pay us by seeing the ad (you see the ad and we get paid, either because you saw it or because you acted on it some percentage of the time) and in exchange we give you content.

What that means in turn is that running software like adblock or messing with your dns resolution to bypass ad servers is pretty much stealing a product from someone. It is no different from walking into a store and taking something from them: you are violating the monetization model. Just because its easy to do and just because someone doesn't notice doesn't make it right. If you don't like the ads that someone has you should simply not go to their website. This in the same way that if you don't like the cost of someone's product you don't buy it.

That all said, the fact that people are now promoting mobile ad blocking solutions on the iPhone is forcing BigBoss and I to rethink our current monetization strategies (and also work out some technological solutions to figure out how to maintain our in-application advertisements even though people have started blocking them).

Originally Posted by colmiak

Ok i hit the link for the actual post on how to do this on the first post, and i downloaded the hosts file from that website and it worked much better, i also deleted the line "127.0.0.1 mm.admob.com" out of respect for BigBoss and i can see the ads in Cydia, i don't want to blocks his ads because im sure he has them there for a reason, money/income to make more great apps and be able to host them for us. Don't wanna make him angry...lol

EDIT:

just open up the file in notepad, hit ctrl+F to bring up the find feature, type in "127.0.0.1 mm.admob.com" and just hit next and it'll find it for you, after that just hit delete/backspace and then save the file and SSH it into your phone

Thank you, btw, for doing this.

[BigBoss]

I want to second what Saurik said. I could have spent the last two months putting paid apps into AppStore (we all need another tip calculator right?) and trying to make money there, but I'd rather work on giving the community apps that they do not have to pay for that fill a hole of the types of things that cannot be put into AppStore. I do not take donations even when offered and do not want to charge anyone. I know ads are annoying, but using ads allows us to make some back for our time, expenses, and effort without charging anyone. The admob ad is a very small 48 pixel ad that sits at the bottom of the window. I even run it in the apps that have it myself.

I did not put it in the two places that would have made me the most money: 1) Bossprefs 2) Categories launcher (the folders). I believe it would ruin these two apps. Categories launcher thrives on looking nice and bossprefs thrives on speed of loading. Both those apps get enough traffic that I believe I could make an additional $300.00 per day by putting the ads there. Yet I do not. (Note: yes, I have an ad in categories settings app, but that is not loaded nearly as much as the launcher, the folders).

I apologize if the ads in apps and Cydia are annoying to you. But this is what keeps everything going and keeps me motivated to keep making new stuff without selling out to AppStore. I hope you can all understand.

Originally Posted by colmiak View Post
Ok i hit the link for the actual post on how to do this on the first post, and i downloaded the hosts file from that website and it worked much better, i also deleted the line "127.0.0.1 mm.admob.com" out of respect for BigBoss and i can see the ads in Cydia, i don't want to blocks his ads because im sure he has them there for a reason, money/income to make more great apps and be able to host them for us. Don't wanna make him angry...lol

Thank you very much

[saurik]

Originally Posted by BigBoss

I do not take donations even when offered and do not want to charge anyone.

I will say, for the record, that I do take donations ;P. A lot of my work, like Five Icon Dock or Veency, isn't really supportable by advertisements as there isn't a good place to put an ad that people would actually see or that wouldn't be intrinsically intrusive. Pretty much the only way I've been able to pay for the time spent on them has been due to the very kind contributions of happy users.

[LaZARuZ]

Well i dont mind the ads at all there not bugging me at all. I respect both of your hard work on everything you guys put out there great.. My friend has a website that he put ads on and he told me one day he got payed, and told me why, so i understand where you two are coming from and for that i will not put this ad blocking thing on my phone ads on sites are not that big of a deal anyways for me..

Thanks for the hard work you two put in everything ..

[persichini]

I will say that i love your apps, and I don't mind the ads except when I’m not on my wifi and i open a program like gpsphone and it pulls up an ad, some of us are not on unlimited internet. I get charge for ever little bit that I use.

I don't care if I’m on wifi, I’d even open that app for no reason if it help make up for the times that I’m one edge service.

Is there a way for you to restrict them so they don't pull from edge service? Understandably the programs that use internet service should not be included in that because obviously you’re using the edge like Cydia, but on like Cycorder it doesn't need internet. I'm very careful what apps I open when I’m not in wifi.

Edit
On a side note i did remove 127.0.0.1 mm.admob.com
I can live with only opening this on wifi don't use it unless i install a program which i only do on wifi.
saurik whats Cydia ad server thing so i can remove it too? seeing i only open it on wifi

[sterickson]

I agree with everything BigBoss and Saurik have said.

I live on the revenue generated by the ads on packages I host in Cydia. I pay for the server, the bandwidth, the mortgage on my home and the food on my table with the money these ads bring in.

If you block the ads, I make nothing. Hard to pay the bills with nothing.

As BigBoss said, I apologize if the ads in Cydia are annoying. But the ads are the life-blood of a repository now. Without them, we cannot provide you with the apps you want. It's as simple as that.

-ste

(Ste Packaging)

[persichini]

It not that the ad are annoying, we understand you need them... post your ad servers so we can remove them from the ad blocker, or make you app only use add when conected to wifi. i have no problem what so ever looking at ads on wifi, but when you have tmobles edge service with out a data plan some of your apps take forever to load and i have to pay those data useage charges. If i'm going to have to pay for the data usage and deal with a slow app at that point i'd rather pay the 2.99 or 3.99 for the app and have it run faster

[nickh]

To the above dev's, personally adds don't bother me that much & if I was that clever making great apps that you guys do & charge nothing for it, I would like some thing return to cover cost, time etc. My hat comes off to you all & thanks are given as I am using quite a few of them.

I have no problem paying for apps like MMS & Intelliscreen to name a few & surely would have paid for many you guys have done.

Its a real pity that the greedy people who charge $40+ don't take a leaf out of your book.

[Nykwil]

I ended up doing a restore getting the old hosts file back.

While ads are annoying, it's even more annoying knowing that blocking an ad is blocking a great developer's revenue stream.

In the end it doesn't matter to me if there's an ad or not long as the application is great and the ad is tastefully done and unobtrusive and doesn't take away from the application.

much respect to developers out there like big boss saurik and sterickson and thank you

[Eurisko]

Originally Posted by sterickson

I agree with everything BigBoss and Saurik have said.

I live on the revenue generated by the ads on packages I host in Cydia. I pay for the server, the bandwidth, the mortgage on my home and the food on my table with the money these ads bring in.

If you block the ads, I make nothing. Hard to pay the bills with nothing.

As BigBoss said, I apologize if the ads in Cydia are annoying. But the ads are the life-blood of a repository now. Without them, we cannot provide you with the apps you want. It's as simple as that.

-ste

(Ste Packaging)

No offence to you personally, but your financial concerns aren't mine. If you're spamming me, I have every right to stop you. Bigboss has no authority and quite a bit of arrogance to tell someone not to block his ads.

[Nykwil]

Originally Posted by Eurisko

No offence to you personally, but your financial concerns aren't mine. If you're spamming me, I have every right to stop you. Bigboss has no authority and quite a bit of arrogance to tell someone not to block his ads.

This is not very mod like behavior.

In fact this is the kind of behavior that will alienate developers from a site like this.

I've yet to see any of the ads in any of the apps to be considered "spam like"

[ksiphone]

or make a pay option that generates a s/n specific unlock code that gets rid of the ads for good. this would provide end users frustrated by ads the ability to pick and choose which programs will have ads and which won't at the same time still providing revenue for developers. i'm sure you guys have forecasted how much you will make on average based on download numbers and estimated end user usage.

on a side note, do programs like cycorder or categories send statistical access info back to the developers or merely access and display ads? Do you guys have access to real data showing how much these programs are used or how often these programs are accessing the ad sites for content? This seems like useful information to build your "monetization model".

i'm still using 2.0.2, but i hear lag time is fixed with 2.1. it is pretty frustrating waiting so long at times for things to open. knowing that the program is accessing the web looking for ads while what i was trying to record is now gone, gets pretty frustrating.

the bottom line is, if its a great program, then people will be happy to compensate you guys for your time and effort. i happily paid the $8 for swirlymms and i don't use it nearly as much as others. please consider a dual method to generate revenue. if folks are willing to pay to remove ads, maybe its time to give them that option. if the ads don't bother others, they should have the option to keep them.

[persichini]

Originally Posted by ksiphone

or make a pay option that generates a s/n specific unlock code that gets rid of the ads for good. this would provide end users frustrated by ads the ability to pick and choose which programs will have ads and which won't at the same time still providing revenue for developers. i'm sure you guys have forecasted how much you will make on average based on download numbers and estimated end user usage.

on a side note, do programs like cycorder or categories send statistical access info back to the developers or merely access and display ads? Do you guys have access to real data showing how much these programs are used or how often these programs are accessing the ad sites for content? This seems like useful information to build your "monetization model".

i'm still using 2.0.2, but i hear lag time is fixed with 2.1. it is pretty frustrating waiting so long at times for things to open. knowing that the program is accessing the web looking for ads while what i was trying to record is now gone, gets pretty frustrating.

the bottom line is, if its a great program, then people will be happy to compensate you guys for your time and effort. i happily paid the $8 for swirlymms and i don't use it nearly as much as others. please consider a dual method to generate revenue. if folks are willing to pay to remove ads, maybe its time to give them that option. if the ads don't bother others, they should have the option to keep them.

Very Well Said

[one1]

conveniently it is made to block every ad except on this site

Dunno why though, backbeatmedia is indeed on the hosts list, but it isn't blocking any of the ads here.