This is my first time(?) posting on the forum, so I hope I don't screw up something. Search bar did not reveal any duplicates of this kind of question so...

Recently I have noticed that Danbooru has been utilizing a pop up advertisement in the corner which is a bit annoying but I understand the need for funding. That being said, I believe that Danbooru utilized an advertisement bar in the top and bottom margins years ago and I was wondering if there would be a push to use that style again instead, or if pop ups are here to stay.

As a side question, how does Danbooru handle it's funding? Is it purely membership fees with advertisements as a last resort? Are the other boorus related in any way to Danbooru like an extension and do their advertisements help fund Danbooru?

Thanks for any insight to this newbish question.

Hm, where do ads appear, exactly? I don't see anything even when logged out and with all blockers disabled, and I see no changes to source code regarding the ads placement.

I don't see any ads either. 79248cm/s, are you using a browser to view the site, or some kind of mobile app? If you're using a browser, have you tried turning off add-ons and toolbars?

AFAIK the only relation between Danbooru and the other booru sites is that they all use a version of the Danbooru image board software. If there's any kind of money changing hands, no one has ever mentioned it here before. The funding for the site is a mystery, really.

You should run some malware scans. Sounds like some adware might be on your system.

fossilnix said:

AFAIK the only relation between Danbooru and the other booru sites is that they all use a version of the Danbooru image board software. If there's any kind of money changing hands, no one has ever mentioned it here before. The funding for the site is a mystery, really.

Github repo has FreeBSD license aka "do what you want with the code, just keep my name somewhere and don't hold me responsible if it breaks something".

As for funding source, well, there were at least 10 promotions to gold/platinum in the past 3 days. Very rough extrapolation says it's about $2000 a month - not an astronomic sum of money, but probably just enough to keep servers up and running.

Also, yes, if it's not Danbooru's own ads, then it sounds very much like malware.

No ads with my system either. I even tried it out on two different browsers while not logged in just to confirm.

Are you accessing the site directly (danbooru.me) or through another url?

You know, I actually experienced that earlier this year when a process slipping through the Google Analytics code embedded in the site "puts" a transparent GIF over the page to activate the pop-up.

I don't know what you use to browse the site and if you use a home wi-fi. On my end, I mainly use IE, but I also use Firefox as a sort-of guinea pig. The annoying pop-ups happened no matter if I use a laptop or a handheld device (iPhone/iPod Touch or Android phone). However, I didn't get the pop-ups when using mobile data (using my cellphone as a pocket wi-fi modem).

My own drastic solution was to add "*.google-analytics.com" to the Restricted Sites list on IE. The near equivalent for Firefox (as well as Chrome) would be through the add-on BlockSite.

But at the very least, the culprit URLs (for me at least) would be "t.cttsrv.com" and "p.ctpsrv.com". I added those URLs to my "ad filters" and I haven't had that problem since. I also added those URLs to the home wi-fi modem's URL filter to be doubly sure.

BTW, Danbooru's not alone during my experience as I also experienced this while checking an page at a site called StackExchange. Also, what other sites did you visit recently? It may also be connected. Mine happened due to frequent visits to 4chan during that time.

Thanks for the speedy replies guys. I didn't realize until I had this question how little I actually know about our little cardboard box.

nanami said:
...

That makes a lot of sense. I did a manual check through my processes and a reboot cleared up the problem. I went to operatorchan for a bit, but I never had this going there before. I went on some FBI.gov for some research articles, RAIDSonline and medpub but I doubt any of those caused that problem. Either way, looks like the ads are gone. (Wanted me to take bellydancing lessons or something...)

Thanks again everyone for the fast replies.

I havent seen danbooru ads in YEARS ever since I paid for a Gold account. Even logging out, I don't see them and I don't have adblock enabled.

danbooru hasn't had ads for 3-4 years at this point, yeah.