SchelleFire posted at 4:55PM Fri, 17 April 2020 - #4383855

We have disabled the pop-up ads across the site.

Just dropped by to see if things had changed. Glad to see that you decided against Infolinks adds on your website!

Since there are now fewer popups, my guess is that the "test" is over, and this is what they decided on. I for one don't need it, can't use it (and makes browsing with a tablet or phone extremely difficult). I may come back in another couple of weeks, or I may be done, not really sure. I was so excited to make it onto the art charts about a month ago, now I'm just sad to see what is happening here. Been here since 2003 IIRC, and I hate to say bye to the place I started at so long ago. I guess times change, and It seems Rendo has too.

Just thought I'd drop by to see if Rendo had come to their senses yet. The popup occurrences have dropped off quite a bit, so they aren't over the top annoying, but they are still annoying. I also have issues with a "software" company that subjects it's customers to this type of marketing (and really, why would you send potential customers elsewhere to spend their money??). Anyway, I guess I'm out of here until the "2 week test" is over. Then I'll decide if I'm staying around or gone from here for a lot longer.

Odd that they would do this when a competing site is having one of their annual sales. I was hoping to see some good deals here, but since I won't be around, I guess DAZ gets my money, or I save it. This has lowered my trust here quite a bit as well. I'm definitely not thinking about upgrading Poser now (dang it, I was really beginning to warm up to the idea too), I really don't trust what sort of tracking software they might feel the need to put in it (or who knows what else they might do to it). Yes, I could install an ad blocker, and depending on what the end results are after the two week test, I might decide to do that. But, the bottom line here is trust. Why should I have to install an add blocker for a site I trust? I've been a member of for 18 years, and it's sad to see this happening. If I feel the need to block third party ads on a web site (ads delivered by a company with a rather suspect reputation), do I trust purchasing anything on that web site???? I'm kind of feeling ..... um ..... no, I don't. The only real option that I would feel comfortable with now would be to get a prepaid credit card, I definitely don't want Rendo to have access to anything else now.

Oh well, later.

Thanks for all the info and help Rob! I'm going to log off and clean things up (get rid of infolinks cookies). I might be back in a week or so to see if Rendo has come back to their senses.

What a wonderful way to push their customers away

RedPhantom posted at 12:00PM Sat, 22 February 2020 - #4381433

I'm not involved with the test and have not been told any more than you. Please give it some time. If I had to guess, the test was set to run for a specific time length, and those running it will act accordingly when the test is complete. Please be patient.

And please keep in mind the Admin are humans that need sleep and food, like the rest of us. They are not tied to their computers 24/7. It may take some time for them to respond.

True, I fully understand that staff need time off. I was the guy in charge of IT for many years, and it can be a thankless, high stress job. However, there is a tendency for IT staff, and companies to initiate ill will all on their own. This "test" is a prime example. Start it on Friday, with the people responsible off for the next two days. Brilliant if you want to really upset people. I had staff do similar, or try to do similar things. If I got wind of their plans, I would always stop them in their tracks, it's not the proper way to do business IMHO.

After further research, it appears the the real "Infolinks" is a "legitimate" company. They provide targeted ads (based on your browsing activity) like we are getting here. They also provide tracking info and analytics to other companies. They do collect machine/user specific information (they don't say what that information is), but "do not provide user specific information" to anyone else (do you believe that???).

They use tracking cookies to gather the information. If you have clicked on any of their adds, they have place a tracking cookie on your system. If you went to their site using the "?" on the ad, and opted out of seeing their ads, they placed a tracking cookie on your machine that will keep the ads silent, but track your browser usage. It's unclear if simply by going to a page where the adds show up if they are now tracking you or not (i.e just by coming to the forum, but not clicking on the add, though by closing the add, my guess is that they are placing a tracking cookie on your system). My guess is that since the first add that showed up when I saw the first "infolinks" add was from the last search I ran, they did either immediately place a cookie on my system, or maybe read the search history from my browser (also not cool). But for sure, if you have clicked on an ad, or opted out of the ads being shown, you are now being tracked.

Now the question is, just how much does Rendo get for running this "test" which is going to place tracking cookies on many (all??) of their patrons computers. By just running a "test", they have exposed their patrons to additional tracking, which no doubt they are getting compensated for (i.e. If you run a 7 day "test", we will pay you x amount for every cookie we place on a new un-tracked computer/tablet/phone, and you will get x payment for each of those computers for the next x number of months/years). So simply by running a test, then "listening to their users and stopping the activity", they have allowed .... no, actually they have encouraged or possibly ensured that their customers would have tracking cookies from a third party unknowingly placed on their devices. This is seriously un-cool, very unethical, and has seriously eroded my trust in a place where I have been a member for 22 years!!!

Digital_Dames posted at 12:14AM Sat, 22 February 2020 - #4381375

"infolinks" cookie they put into your browser to stop them has been considered malware for ages and info links considered intrusion ware.. Rendo's greed for more $$ from ads will end up finishing them off it this keeps up

Thanks for the heads up, a quick search on infolinks does bring up a lot of questionable practices, and unwanted activities. I didn't even consider that Rendo would invite such a questionable "business" into their web site, with the possibility of exposing all of their loyal customers to their nefarious activities.

To think I was actually considering upgrading to Poser 11. Given this obvious lack of judgment, and the fact that Poser 11 is phoning home, and will have links to the store built in (and who knows what else now), I'm no longer considering it. This is truly disturbing. This is the only 3D market place that I have been exposed to this type of dubious advertising, all for an extra buck. I feel perfectly safe at competing sites, in fact you won't see any off site ads or marketing at DAZ, Reallusion, Hivewire, Unity, or Unreal. Not to mention you won't get this type of treatment from any reputable software vendor like Pixlogic, Autodesk, SideFX, or even Adobe. Your user base has to trust your decisions, especially if they are installing your products on their computers. This move as severely undermined my trust here (and it was already rather low).

So sad that they have chosen to attempt to make money off of their patrons in such a dubious manner. Well, off to start running malware and spyware scans on this PC and the tablet I used. Thanks Rendo for nothing!!

I haven't sold anything, not that I have anything worth buying.

To the OP, when you make an image available for sale, Renderosity restricts the size of the image displayed, and the max size that can be downloaded. I didn't realize that until a few weeks ago someone mentioned the couldn't see an image at full resolution. I have since stopped putting my images up for sale, since I haven't sold a thing, and I really post to share my work with those that might be interested. If they can't see the image at full resolution, it defeats my real purpose of posting the image.

Seriously??? Just trying to look at the forums on my tablet in portrait mode and that d@#$ popup takes up half the screen,. To top it off, thanks to the "convenient" delay, Rendo got two free offsite clicks (that of course sent me to other sites) just trying to scroll the screen before the popup appeared. This is either a classic case of capitalism run amok, or Rendo having financial difficulties and abusing their users to try and improve financials. It is not a service to your clientele, and looks horribly unprofessional. I am now seriously considering my membership here, and needless to say I won't be purchasing anything until I feel more comfortable about your business practices.

Good you're here to solve the mysteries!!!

I thought I should probably mention this as well, since someone is monitoring our threads Things like this popup just scream "unprofessional" at me. I have a very poor view of sites that do this, and as a result it could easily make me never purchase from the site again. My thought process is "if they are willing to intrude on my privacy by sticking ads in my face that I need to close just to look at their site, do I really trust buying anything from them (or, continuing to be a "member" of the site, where they may be sharing my info with someone just to make a buck). Others may not be as critical, so it might not be a huge problem for your bottom line, but for me it is.

Glad to hear this is just a test. They really were very visually distracting, popping up over things I was looking at. Had RodS not clicked on the link and found out how to disable them, they would still be driving me crazy, because I never click on popups!!!

Thanks Rod! Your fix worked .... woohoo!!!

I just started a thread on the same topic. I haven't installed Firefox on this computer yet, it looks like I may have to.

Glad to hear your doing well, hang in there! Not fun, but better than the alternative.

Dim_Reapers results are kind of what I would have expected given results I've seen with RTX (Optix) enabled Cycles tests (see here for some test results). Keep in mind that RTX doesn't improve speed on all aspects/calculations in a render. So when using the 1080 + 2080, their should be speed improvements reflected for those calculations that can't take advantage of RTX, or at least it makes sense to me. Also keep in mind some scenes will show greater speed improvements with RTX, depending on what shaders/effects are used in the scene, since RTX doesn't accelerate everything.

Thanks for taking the time to test and post your results. Poser 11.3 is beginning to look quite interesting. If I weren't on a tight budget, I'd for sure be upgrading just to play. I hope there are more posts/threads in the forum that show exactly what can be done with P11 so those of us who haven't upgraded yet can evaluate it better.

Thanks Ironsoul! It definitely looks like it's using out of core memory.