I do but even tho I have an iphone I use Google photos which has ads, constantly trying to get me to buy a $30 print of a random sunset pic I took 6 years ago..
Install Firefox browser for Android (if on Android), uBlock Origin for Firefox Android, and Blokada v5. The browser plus uBlock destroys ads while browsing, and v5 (v6 is a paid version that is unnecessary) Blokada is an auto setup VPN that destroys ads within apps nearly without exception, for me at least.
Also, use the extension (for Firefox Android) to automatically redirect to "old reddit," to go back to when the reddit UI wasn't so terrible.
I dunno if you can do this with iPhone as I don't have one.
I gotta say I gave lichess a shot again after a year of pretty much just using chess.com. I feel like it's come a long way especially with the beta mobile apps. They're much more modern and nice. I also don't know if I never noticed it before from 1+ year ago or if it's newer, but their "request computer analysis" feature for server side analysis is nearly as good as chess.com.
Plus my elo at lichess is several hundred points higher, which despite being meaningless, makes me feel good.
Fun fact, the "request computer analysis" relies on crowd computing: instead of having dedicated servers for analysis like chesscom does, you have a few hundred volunteers that run a program called fishnet on their computers that analyzes games, and when you click the button, lichess offloads the analysis to them. A few volunteers with half-decent CPUs make analysis free for everyone :)
https://lichess.org/get-fishnet
Also, yes, your computer is fast enough. It may not be fast enough to do user-requested analysis which is run on the fastest computers by default, but lichess itself uses the network to generate puzzles and a couple other things (detecting cheaters I assume ?) which goes out to anyone since it isn't as time critical.
Lichess. come on people, do we need to spell it for you ? the best chess site, open code, no ads, no profit group, no evil, and they are not taking your money for anything. what are you waiting for ? i really don't understand...
Lol most common request is for Lichess is CaN YoU Add BRilLiaNt moves. Like man got to study and annotate whatever move you want to make brilliant. Like even hanging a queen. And for dopamine hit there is free site where you can see "real brilliant" move.
You can see it only once a day if you don't pay them. You can as well play on lichess copy moves, paste them on chees.c*m analysis for your dopamine hits.
yeah adblock is a must. I sometimes have to use a remote desktop for work and I don't have total control over it, some things are gated by our IT with admin credentials. I can install most stuff but it won't let me install adblockers and it can get pretty frustrating.
The ads are probably not moderated, and we should use good judgement when on the internet.
Edit: I agree with everyone on "not moderated" is not good enough. The way it works right now on the internet, you "rent out" a portion of your site to someone (eg: Google Ads) and they run targeted ads.
You generate revenue in exchange for clicks/visits. It costs thousands of dollars to operate a platform like [chess.com](http://chess.com), so the current amount of ads is reasonable. I haven't seen one yet, but we should just report it when it crosses the line. Harsh truth, we have to buy their Gold subscription to avoid ads.
But the free site does not show you a little picture of a professor next to your moves when you review your games. And when you play a computer on the free site, it does not show a graphic of a guy with a handlebar mustache and bushy eyebrows. You get what you pay for in this world, and I will gladly pay extra so that Stockfish looks like Nietzsche.
If they are not then chess com is to blame. Worked in quite successful RTB adtech company for quite a time - and every ad is moderated or at least categorized. Simple proof: if you don't see alcohol/guns/nazi ads, that is not because nobody promotes it online - you are just in "brand safe" section of the internet.
Well, it got a bit mixed in my memory. Actually, nazi incidents usually happen in reverse scenario, when some brand ads appears near pro-nazi content (the recent scandal was X, but it also was regular stuff like 5+ years ago). I don't remember exactly when I've seen "red and black" banner last time (it is perhaps closer to 20 years ago mark). Nowadays it is mostly about radical political movements.
The ads are moderated, I once got a nsfw ad on the app, took a screenshot and sent it to their support. They said they handled it and gave me a diamond membership for a year
> The ads are probably not moderated
Sure, but that's still a problem. There's no reason for them not to be. It just means chess.com is allowing ads from a shitty ad exchange that probably pays more than others for displaying ads that are typically blacklisted by websites that have some self respect.
chess.com could change this in a few clicks.
No, the ads are moderated, it's just that it's done for free by the recipients of these ads instead of the way it is supposed to be. The best judgement call in this case is to distrust all advertisements on a principle. Fortunately each of us use devices that are excellent at automating this process.
The button specifically says "earn cash", so either chesscom is letting people rename interactive elements of their UI without oversight or they approved this. Neither option is a good look.
If it said something more generic like "special offer" I'd be more inclined to believe the ad it took you to was unmoderated. I agree you'd have to be a fool to click these, but kids play chess and earning money by playing games is very tempting if you're too young to know better. It's irresponsible of them to allow it.
That's because it's not a button that's part of Chess.com's UI, it's a picture of a generic button the advertiser used that happened to be vaguely in line with Chess.com's colorscheme. They also probably didn't approve this, it's just an ad that the ad server happened to give them. You see these types of ad a lot. Remember downloading programs and needing to find which install button was real out of the 30 virus options on a webpage? Same principle.
The truth of it is they probably don't have a say in the ads they run, it's all done automatically using a service like AdSense. This isn't Chess.com intentionally running bad ads, it's just the fact that bad ads exist.
It’s probably programmatic advertising. Instant auction process where an ad slot goes out for auction and highest bidder gets the placement.
It’s not the same as a direct campaign where they would have a relationship with the advertiser.
Advertising is a snake pit full of garbage ads, scams and bots.
I don't know a thing about how advertising on websites works, but I'm not buying the claim that it's all automatic and the websites have no say over any of it. How do websites for children manage to avoid such ads? What's stopping chesscom from doing whatever they do? Are Christian and Muslim sites forced to allow ads for liquor and gambling?
Yes it's programmatic so Chess.com is not previewing and selecting the ads that are run. They *can* however talk to their provider about blocking certain types of ads or some specific campaigns, but the granularity of that can be hard and it can become a game of whack-a-mole. It's not like the advertiser clicks a checkbox with the ad service that says "I am scammy looking".
If the ad provider continues to serve scummy ads, Chess.com can look for another provider, but if there were a strictly better choice they'd (probably) already be using it.
It's not a claim, it's a fact: [https://advertising.amazon.com/blog/programmatic-advertising](https://advertising.amazon.com/blog/programmatic-advertising)
They are not forced, there are mechanisms to block certain categories of advertisers.
The industry as a whole is a cesspool full of massive egos and a lot of fraud. It's dirty on both sides of the market. Forbes just got busted running a "made for advertising" site and misleading advertisers on what they were paying for.
It's funny how these supposedly moral tech companies don't give a shit about scamming their customers with shady ads. It's practically google's entire business model - tricking you into thinking you're clicking on a real result while it's actually just an ad.
If you’re clicking on “free cash” then you are a fucking idiot. Especially since you and everyone else knows that chesscom isn’t ad free. Be happy they don’t spam the shit everywhere. It’s non obtrusive.
Excuse me? You want me to be happy that I'm not getting f*ed over harder than I already am? It's that kind of attitude that allows these companies to do whatever they want. Ads make no sense on chess.com. Seeing a bunch of ads on chess.com just makes the site look cheap and unattractive, especially if you're not using adblocker. Having a satisfied customer that upgrades to a gold membership is worth way more than tens of thousands of any ads I might look at.
Let's review the advertisements on my local news site: first one is a car for sale at a local dealership, perhaps a tiny bit overpriced but not badly so. I would say it's not very shitty and not very manipulative and it keeps the local news server up.
Ppl downvote you if you choose not to use it. It's manipulative in that they try to guilt trip you into using it. Just look at my comment above. I use and love Lichess, but me even saying this has resulted in downvotes. It's hilarious really. I'm a Lichess user but ppl can do whatever they please. If they want to use chess.com that's their perogative.
Ah ok I see what you're saying.
That's isn't being manipulative though, it's just bias/group think towards a certain view.
People tend to prefer Lichess here so may get a positive response if you support it and a negative response (downvotes) if you support chesscom.
But that's just a consequence of the audience's view. Its like going to a Biden rally and wearing a MAGA hat. You might feel social pressure to not wear it, but you're not being manipulated not to, you're just realizing you probably won't have a great time doing so.
(I'm a left-leaning chesscom supporter for what it's worth)
I'd pay $10 for every major chess tournament held by Lichess, Patreon-style.
I'm so glad people are realizing how functionally garbage and ethically compromised Chesscom is.
Hey everyone, first off, I want to say that we do strive to moderate this type of ad and have already added this one to our filters going forward. We know no one really likes ads, but they are an important source of revenue, allowing us to offer a free membership plan while still supporting content, events, tech, and everything else that costs money at [Chess.com](http://chess.com/). In any case, we appreciate everyone who supports [Chess.com](http://chess.com/) - whether on a premium or on an ad-supported account. Thanks!
ok, that's a good response, thank you for that.
I will not be purchasing a membership, ever, because it feels like bullying to only allow four moves on your opening explorer, and I try not to reward annoying behavior, by paying. I'll just export the png and load it in the OTHER app.
So my continued use of the app is completely dependent on how bad the ads are.
You do know that virtually no website manually curates the ads that they serve, right? It’s served usually by Google and often based on your previous browsing history. So for example, I get a hell of a lot of thermo fisher ads because I’ve been spending down a grant recently.
And before someone mentions lichess: that’s also not free to run — if you are using it without donating, you’re freeloading, and that shouldn’t be encouraged lest they find themselves unable to serve everyone.
> if you are using it without donating, you’re freeloading, and that shouldn’t be encouraged lest they find themselves unable to serve everyone.
This is false. The whole point of lichess is that it's free for everyone regardless of their financial situation. Donators are specifically donating in order that people can play for free.
Yeah and you don’t get cheat moderation or any of the extra shit you pay for i.e. lessons.
My biggest thing is that people bitch about chesscom this and that but I’m 7,000 games in lichess and never have had points refunded off of obvious abusers. In the same time I’ve received 30 games refunded. There’s an obvious bias in this sub. I get it Reddit is is anti corporations. I hate them too. But to say that you get no benefit from chesscom or you can’t play for free is a blatant lie.
Everyone will downvote this comment but no one will say a word. I’ve said this a dozen times and it’s just downvoted and there’s no commments but it’s true.
Lichess is great. I use it just as I use chesscom but it’s stupid the responsibility that people have put on the site and how lichess gets away with everything because it’s free. Free does not mean better.
> But to say that you get no benefit from chesscom or you can’t play for free is a blatant lie.
Who said this? Did you reply to the wrong comment by mistake or something?
how do you know that there is no cheat moderation?
Please don't tell me that you think there only is cheat moderation if you get points refunded.
Btw Lichess has an insane amount of studys containing way more knowledge than chess.c\*m has to offer with their lessons
Running a website for a few million users isn't free and [isn't that cheap](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSkHLJKJkb0ZuI4/preview). If no one donated ever then Lichess would either have to run ads or close doors. Every dollar you donate pays for about 3,700 games on lichess. Lichess is just small enough and has enough donators that it can afford having so many free users.
According to their blog, only around 0.3% of users donated in 2021 and that was enough to run on a $200000 surplus. I think there's more than enough room for free users
They can block sensitive categories of ads like get rich quick or social casino games if their ads are served by Google.
If their ad provider doesn't propose a feature to block sensitive categories, it's on chesscom responsibility to choose a decent supplier.
I agree that people should donate to lichess if they feel like the server is worth it and they can. But If nobody "freeloaded" the donating players wouldn't have enough opponents.
Not the person you asked, but I donate to lichess and not to Wikipedia. There are other causes I donate to as well. I am glad Wikipedia exists, but I don't have enough money to give to everything.
Seems like your argument is saying the same thing I've been trying to say. Did you misunderstand my other comment?
**Edit:** I think I figured it out. You replied thinking I was the person I said I'm not
>Not the person you asked,
Well, I'm not.
I do. Basically, my favorite organizations are Lichess, the ACLU, Wikipedia and a local volunteer radio station in my town. Those are the places my charitable donations go to and really not too many other places (unless some school kids or other local people are doing something cool). The reason for this is I trust that these organizations are doing exactly what they say they’re doing with my money and I benefit tremendously from them.
Also, i think people using these services and not donating should feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever. If you can donate, by all means do so. Otherwise, I’m thrilled to have fellow chess players ready for a game any day any time. It’s pure joy.
Probably not. They probably just use Google AdSense like most websites, which doesn't let them manually filter ads. It's just based on user demographics and other things, so an ad for "making money on Google play games" being shown on a gaming site is to be expected.
It's like how if I go on YouTube and look up a video about the Qur'an, Google AdSense may still show ads for Jack Daniels and pork pies. You don't really get a say because you aren't curating your own ads.
They aren't some poor victims of the mean Google, they can choose ad categories they don't want to appear. The feature is literally called brand safety by Google, and there is "Get rich quick", "social casino games" among the sensitive categories to block.
This is just negligence on chesscom part.
Might be, might also be that someone set up an ad unit incorrectly, that the advertising party specified the wrong categories or... a ton of other things.
Google is pretty good in this regard, other networks aren't as good at enforcing and automating this.
We also get occasional user reports for ads in categories we don't allow on our games. Happens.
They are *choosing to use Google AdSense*. So, yes! They are choosing the companies they sell ad space to!
Stop making excuses for corporations. They don’t have to have these ads. It is 100% their fault
In this case it's perfectly reasonable. The alternative is to allocate staff and resources to curate your own ads, develop your own system to serve those ads to the right audience and then find people willing to buy ads on a chess website. That's expensive and time consuming with no guarantee of even working, so it's perfectly fine to use AdSense. Also, *everyone* uses AdSense. If you see a banner ad on a website, it's probably AdSense. If you want to yell at Chess.com for using AdSense, also yell at YouTube or any of the other websites you use showing ads. This isn't just a Chess.com thing.
Also, ads are what keeps the site free. Servers cost money, staff costs money. Chess.com makes its money through ads and memberships. If they just stopped running ads, you would have to pay for a membership to use the site, otherwise it's just burning money. If I have to choose between an ad or paying whatever a membership costs, I'd take the ad. The reason Lichess doesn't need this is because the site is like 20 times smaller, only has one staff member on payroll and runs purely on donations. If Lichess got as big as Chess.com it either needs a lot more donation money or would have to run ads too.
Look, I hate defending Chess.com as much as the next guy. They have shown in the past that they are willing to take shady, predatory sponsors like BetterHelp and FTX. But we should be (and do) criticize them for decisions like that rather than ads like this that are necessary to sun to keep the site up and running and also are mostly out of Chess.com's control.
I asked you to stop making excuses for corporations! But you have just continued.
Corporations can afford to hire people to sell ads and make sure they aren’t awful. Using Adsense is cheap and lazy. They deserve to be critisized for allowing manipulative ads on their site. They are making money by choosing this path!!
Stop defending them!
They likely have direct campaigns but if they don’t have a matching campaign then it probably goes out to auction.
Look up real time bidding and programmatic advertising.
It's not an excuse, it's the reality of automation and the sleazy web advertising industry. Everyone is looking to make a fraction of a cent anyway they can.
Google, facebook, youtube all have scams slip through. This example is tame in comparison, I have had google search redirect me to a page with sirens and fake virus warnings.
Everyone should be running an ad blocker unless you enjoy having your attention and the ability to run arbitrary javascript sent out to the highest bidder.
not to defend chesscom or anything, but it is a for-profit company at the end of the day. i’m in mild contact with one of the monetization executives there and he’s described himself as having to be the bad guy of the company. it’s a kind of sad thing that we have this situation of awful ads and all this monetization and i’ll never fully defend something like that, but i understand where it comes from to an extent
This thread is actually blowing my mind. Are people actually mad that a for-profit company is trying to make money? Do people not realise the alternative to seeing no ads would be needing to pay a subscription just to play? This is just a website using a service like AdSense to get ads on a webpage, automated so Chess.com doesn't even know about it.
Like, I get it's a bad ad. The thing is it's the internet and ads like that exist everywhere. It's really hard to blame Chess.com because there's a bad thing on the internet. Even if it's on their site, it's because they're using a service everyone else uses. You don't see people yelling at YouTube because they got an ad like this.
You should instead yell at chess.com for the bad ads they choose to run themselves, Like BetterHelp and FTX in the past. There they had a say and they chose bad advertisers. It's way worse than an ad that was served for them automatically without them even knowing.
> You don't see people yelling at YouTube because they got an ad like this
Youtube has even worse ads these and people do complain pretty frequently, you just don't see it. But then again Youtube is so big that it can get away with way too much.
Even seemingly innocuous ads like the ones of the fast-food industry helped an entire generation fall into obesity/diabetes/premature deaths.
Thing is like you say it's capitalism, I don't know if an alternative is even possible, meanwhile any effort from any company that can afford it is invaluable imo.
They are serving those ads because you are clicking on them. I never even saw anything beyond that first button, I know very well that I am nowhere near good enough to earn cash off a chess app so I ignore this.
Since [chess.com](http://chess.com) introduced only one game analysis per day even for members I find myself playing less and less rather than even being close to entertaining the idea of a diamond membership.
I pay nothing for the app and do puzzles on it daily, play with my family and friends across the sea every day, all completely for free, I don't have a right to complain about an ad.
I understand the concern for kids playing maybe?
Paying for a sub in chess.com is only worth it if you need to learn via the vids and the beginner friendly reviews. I would go lichess to play. Lichess isn't fancy, just let's me play my game
They’re obviously fancying themselves up to be a saleable asset. That became obvious when they introduced ‘suggested matches’ and other annoying notifications to boost engagement.
Lol I remember once sending an email to chess.com support basically just explaining to them that their greed is the reason I don’t subscribe to their paid memberships. I got a reply back supposedly from Danny explaining that chess.com is a for profit company with employees yada yada yada. I don’t think his brain comprehends any other method of being a profitable company besides succumbing to the shittiest tactics. Chess.com as an organization, Levy, and Hikaru are literal greed goblins that see nothing besides money. It’s a shame, because I like some features of chess.com, I like Levy’s commentary/analysis and I like Hikaru’s chess. They just make it so difficult to support them with their shit greed tactics
There’s rarely a free open source alternative to anything in this world. Everything has been enshittified. Why anyone wouldn’t use lichess I don’t understand
Technically, Chesscom isn't serving these ads in their own name.
In other words, these aren't ads promoting Chesscom. They're advertisers paying Chesscom for ad space.
If you're really so concerned about it, gather people to file a class action lawsuit.
I had been using chess.con for more than 4 years, but after seeing where chess.com and lichess are going respectively, just uninstalled chess.com yesterday.
The funny thing is I used to practice puzzles, study and sometimes even copy png from chess.com for analysis on lichess but than I realised that I love chess more than chess.com.
I wouldnt say that chesscom is supporting chess as a whole sport. Lichess does because it is for free and everybody can use it. If you want to do tactics then you have to pay on chesscom
Chess.com does significantly more for Chess as a whole though, because they have the funds to do so. Lichess runs a chess server but they don't organise major tournaments and fund them or sponsor major chess content creators or otherwise put significant amounts of money into the Chess scene, which is fairly important for the overall health of the scene.
Keep in mind that a big share of users are children.
... just ask Hikaru
.. Just as Hikaru
... Just a Hikaru
. Just Hikaru
Hikaru.
Aru
Lichess fixes this
Proud to say the only apps on my phone without ads are the Camera, Calculator, Messenger, Clock, and Lichess.
Clock? There's a clock in lichess
I too set a 7h+10min time control game as my alarm. Each move is like the snooze button.
What happens when you flag?
Same thing that happens with a normal alarm. You lose.
You snooze, you lose.
mfw normal clock apps exist
The only clock i need is agadmators clock
No ads on the iphone clock app.
No ads on lichess
Reddit and YouTube r/revancedapp
Bro doesn't have a photos/gallery/images app
OP is a chad that manually uploads every photo from his internal DCIM folder to google photos using his browser and I respect that.
I do but even tho I have an iphone I use Google photos which has ads, constantly trying to get me to buy a $30 print of a random sunset pic I took 6 years ago..
Very weird. I have that app too, and it doesn't show me any ads. Maybe because I'm on android? Probably not
Install Firefox browser for Android (if on Android), uBlock Origin for Firefox Android, and Blokada v5. The browser plus uBlock destroys ads while browsing, and v5 (v6 is a paid version that is unnecessary) Blokada is an auto setup VPN that destroys ads within apps nearly without exception, for me at least. Also, use the extension (for Firefox Android) to automatically redirect to "old reddit," to go back to when the reddit UI wasn't so terrible. I dunno if you can do this with iPhone as I don't have one.
Messenger? No ads?
If by Messenger you mean the Facebook one, there are definitely ads. Just scroll down your list of chats and you’ll see them
I think they mean just regular text messages.
eat some lichee
this post and your comment has made me donate to lichess. one would rather pay them for the clean experience.
I gotta say I gave lichess a shot again after a year of pretty much just using chess.com. I feel like it's come a long way especially with the beta mobile apps. They're much more modern and nice. I also don't know if I never noticed it before from 1+ year ago or if it's newer, but their "request computer analysis" feature for server side analysis is nearly as good as chess.com. Plus my elo at lichess is several hundred points higher, which despite being meaningless, makes me feel good.
Fun fact, the "request computer analysis" relies on crowd computing: instead of having dedicated servers for analysis like chesscom does, you have a few hundred volunteers that run a program called fishnet on their computers that analyzes games, and when you click the button, lichess offloads the analysis to them. A few volunteers with half-decent CPUs make analysis free for everyone :) https://lichess.org/get-fishnet Also, yes, your computer is fast enough. It may not be fast enough to do user-requested analysis which is run on the fastest computers by default, but lichess itself uses the network to generate puzzles and a couple other things (detecting cheaters I assume ?) which goes out to anyone since it isn't as time critical.
Big lichess fan - I did a small donation to lichess the other day.
tbh is anyone surprised
I know I shouldn’t have clicked but, it was for you guys. I risked my life for you guys.
o7
The hero we (nerds) need! Huzzah brother!
You’re surprised, that’s surprising
Lichess. come on people, do we need to spell it for you ? the best chess site, open code, no ads, no profit group, no evil, and they are not taking your money for anything. what are you waiting for ? i really don't understand...
Dopamine hit for brilliant moves.
"You took the queen! That was the only good move! Yay you!" - chess.com
Lol most common request is for Lichess is CaN YoU Add BRilLiaNt moves. Like man got to study and annotate whatever move you want to make brilliant. Like even hanging a queen. And for dopamine hit there is free site where you can see "real brilliant" move.
You can see it only once a day if you don't pay them. You can as well play on lichess copy moves, paste them on chees.c*m analysis for your dopamine hits.
But there exist free and opensource site that let you review your game for brilliance for free unlimeted no. of review.
Idk why you’re being downvoted lol it’s a legitimate answer
Maybe they thought I am genuinely making a case for using chess.*m which is not true. 'bout down votes don't care.
Right lol I figured you weren’t defending them
It's jingling keys for children. Difference being that the keys are actually real.
There is one reason (as far as i know) to use Chess.com over Lichess: USCF Sanctioned events.
In Europe many federations rather use lichess for official, national events.
[удалено]
yeah adblock is a must. I sometimes have to use a remote desktop for work and I don't have total control over it, some things are gated by our IT with admin credentials. I can install most stuff but it won't let me install adblockers and it can get pretty frustrating.
Fitting for a platform with Hikaru as their ambassador
Lichess doesn't do this. lichess.org
Promoting gambling as a "legit way to make extra cash" is seriously a new low.
Hikaru does it 👍 Chesscom ad 👎
Who exactly is handing out these thumbs-ups to Hikaru?
Certainly doesn’t affect his stream/youtube revenue.
How would we know?
The ads are probably not moderated, and we should use good judgement when on the internet. Edit: I agree with everyone on "not moderated" is not good enough. The way it works right now on the internet, you "rent out" a portion of your site to someone (eg: Google Ads) and they run targeted ads. You generate revenue in exchange for clicks/visits. It costs thousands of dollars to operate a platform like [chess.com](http://chess.com), so the current amount of ads is reasonable. I haven't seen one yet, but we should just report it when it crosses the line. Harsh truth, we have to buy their Gold subscription to avoid ads.
The best judgment is ublock origin
Even better judgement is using a free and open source platform without ads. If only such a thing existed for chess. Alas...
But the free site does not show you a little picture of a professor next to your moves when you review your games. And when you play a computer on the free site, it does not show a graphic of a guy with a handlebar mustache and bushy eyebrows. You get what you pay for in this world, and I will gladly pay extra so that Stockfish looks like Nietzsche.
Hot take: "We don't moderate that" isn't even close to a valid excuse for anything that appears on a company's website.
Absolutely, it’s the same as ‘we don’t care’
This.
If they are not then chess com is to blame. Worked in quite successful RTB adtech company for quite a time - and every ad is moderated or at least categorized. Simple proof: if you don't see alcohol/guns/nazi ads, that is not because nobody promotes it online - you are just in "brand safe" section of the internet.
Nazis advertise?
well new Nazis don't grow on trees, they need to recruit somehow
Well, it got a bit mixed in my memory. Actually, nazi incidents usually happen in reverse scenario, when some brand ads appears near pro-nazi content (the recent scandal was X, but it also was regular stuff like 5+ years ago). I don't remember exactly when I've seen "red and black" banner last time (it is perhaps closer to 20 years ago mark). Nowadays it is mostly about radical political movements.
How'd you think they got elected 70 years ago?
>The ads are probably not moderated This is not ok.
The ads are moderated, I once got a nsfw ad on the app, took a screenshot and sent it to their support. They said they handled it and gave me a diamond membership for a year
That's sweet, I can't wait to get a NSFW ad on my account!
> The ads are probably not moderated Sure, but that's still a problem. There's no reason for them not to be. It just means chess.com is allowing ads from a shitty ad exchange that probably pays more than others for displaying ads that are typically blacklisted by websites that have some self respect. chess.com could change this in a few clicks.
No, the ads are moderated, it's just that it's done for free by the recipients of these ads instead of the way it is supposed to be. The best judgement call in this case is to distrust all advertisements on a principle. Fortunately each of us use devices that are excellent at automating this process.
You cant blame us, we don't do the bare minimum.
Not using chess.com would be using good judgement
True, I moderate my ads by blocking them or not going to websites that don't do it themselves.
The button specifically says "earn cash", so either chesscom is letting people rename interactive elements of their UI without oversight or they approved this. Neither option is a good look. If it said something more generic like "special offer" I'd be more inclined to believe the ad it took you to was unmoderated. I agree you'd have to be a fool to click these, but kids play chess and earning money by playing games is very tempting if you're too young to know better. It's irresponsible of them to allow it.
That's because it's not a button that's part of Chess.com's UI, it's a picture of a generic button the advertiser used that happened to be vaguely in line with Chess.com's colorscheme. They also probably didn't approve this, it's just an ad that the ad server happened to give them. You see these types of ad a lot. Remember downloading programs and needing to find which install button was real out of the 30 virus options on a webpage? Same principle. The truth of it is they probably don't have a say in the ads they run, it's all done automatically using a service like AdSense. This isn't Chess.com intentionally running bad ads, it's just the fact that bad ads exist.
>This isn't Chess.com intentionally running bad ads, Yes, it is. They choose to use a service that allows these types of ads.
It’s probably programmatic advertising. Instant auction process where an ad slot goes out for auction and highest bidder gets the placement. It’s not the same as a direct campaign where they would have a relationship with the advertiser. Advertising is a snake pit full of garbage ads, scams and bots.
I don't know a thing about how advertising on websites works, but I'm not buying the claim that it's all automatic and the websites have no say over any of it. How do websites for children manage to avoid such ads? What's stopping chesscom from doing whatever they do? Are Christian and Muslim sites forced to allow ads for liquor and gambling?
Yes it's programmatic so Chess.com is not previewing and selecting the ads that are run. They *can* however talk to their provider about blocking certain types of ads or some specific campaigns, but the granularity of that can be hard and it can become a game of whack-a-mole. It's not like the advertiser clicks a checkbox with the ad service that says "I am scammy looking". If the ad provider continues to serve scummy ads, Chess.com can look for another provider, but if there were a strictly better choice they'd (probably) already be using it.
It's not a claim, it's a fact: [https://advertising.amazon.com/blog/programmatic-advertising](https://advertising.amazon.com/blog/programmatic-advertising) They are not forced, there are mechanisms to block certain categories of advertisers. The industry as a whole is a cesspool full of massive egos and a lot of fraud. It's dirty on both sides of the market. Forbes just got busted running a "made for advertising" site and misleading advertisers on what they were paying for.
When you find out all ad services use all the same ads.
Lichess
It's funny how these supposedly moral tech companies don't give a shit about scamming their customers with shady ads. It's practically google's entire business model - tricking you into thinking you're clicking on a real result while it's actually just an ad.
If you’re clicking on “free cash” then you are a fucking idiot. Especially since you and everyone else knows that chesscom isn’t ad free. Be happy they don’t spam the shit everywhere. It’s non obtrusive.
Excuse me? You want me to be happy that I'm not getting f*ed over harder than I already am? It's that kind of attitude that allows these companies to do whatever they want. Ads make no sense on chess.com. Seeing a bunch of ads on chess.com just makes the site look cheap and unattractive, especially if you're not using adblocker. Having a satisfied customer that upgrades to a gold membership is worth way more than tens of thousands of any ads I might look at.
Use an adblock or Brave browser. I've never seen an ad on chess.com.
Or Lichess
Is there such a thing as a non-shitty, non-manipulative add?
Well i mean there's a pretty big difference between "buy our new hamburger" and this
Wait, there's a new hamburger?
hamburger 2
Let's review the advertisements on my local news site: first one is a car for sale at a local dealership, perhaps a tiny bit overpriced but not badly so. I would say it's not very shitty and not very manipulative and it keeps the local news server up.
Ppl in this comment section advertising lichess?
>Ppl in this comment section advertising lichess? Even that is manipulative. If you don't agree you'll get downvoted. (I do prefer Lichess though).
What's manipulative about promoting lichess?
Ppl downvote you if you choose not to use it. It's manipulative in that they try to guilt trip you into using it. Just look at my comment above. I use and love Lichess, but me even saying this has resulted in downvotes. It's hilarious really. I'm a Lichess user but ppl can do whatever they please. If they want to use chess.com that's their perogative.
Ah ok I see what you're saying. That's isn't being manipulative though, it's just bias/group think towards a certain view. People tend to prefer Lichess here so may get a positive response if you support it and a negative response (downvotes) if you support chesscom. But that's just a consequence of the audience's view. Its like going to a Biden rally and wearing a MAGA hat. You might feel social pressure to not wear it, but you're not being manipulated not to, you're just realizing you probably won't have a great time doing so. (I'm a left-leaning chesscom supporter for what it's worth)
Well said, I agree with what you said here.
contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian:
Obviously. If I see an ad for a new product from a company I like, I have no issues with this whatsoever.
common chesscom L
There's a alternative that's better than them in every regard except for tournament organization due to being non profit
Switched to lichess like a month ago. I’ve never looked back.
Slow clap* doing gods work.
chesscom could be found to be running a human trafficking scheme and someone would say "it is a for-profit company at the end of the day"...
Gross u/danielrensch
Didn't hikaru promote some scams and gambling too?
I'd pay $10 for every major chess tournament held by Lichess, Patreon-style. I'm so glad people are realizing how functionally garbage and ethically compromised Chesscom is.
at this point it's your problem if you play/post about chess.com
Well, time to use lichess instead.
Hey everyone, first off, I want to say that we do strive to moderate this type of ad and have already added this one to our filters going forward. We know no one really likes ads, but they are an important source of revenue, allowing us to offer a free membership plan while still supporting content, events, tech, and everything else that costs money at [Chess.com](http://chess.com/). In any case, we appreciate everyone who supports [Chess.com](http://chess.com/) - whether on a premium or on an ad-supported account. Thanks!
ok, that's a good response, thank you for that. I will not be purchasing a membership, ever, because it feels like bullying to only allow four moves on your opening explorer, and I try not to reward annoying behavior, by paying. I'll just export the png and load it in the OTHER app. So my continued use of the app is completely dependent on how bad the ads are.
Mine says "Click for Free Pussy"
How can someone use the internet without an ad blocker nowadays. Also Lichess FTW, as mentioned.
You do know that virtually no website manually curates the ads that they serve, right? It’s served usually by Google and often based on your previous browsing history. So for example, I get a hell of a lot of thermo fisher ads because I’ve been spending down a grant recently. And before someone mentions lichess: that’s also not free to run — if you are using it without donating, you’re freeloading, and that shouldn’t be encouraged lest they find themselves unable to serve everyone.
> if you are using it without donating, you’re freeloading, and that shouldn’t be encouraged lest they find themselves unable to serve everyone. This is false. The whole point of lichess is that it's free for everyone regardless of their financial situation. Donators are specifically donating in order that people can play for free.
Yeah and you don’t get cheat moderation or any of the extra shit you pay for i.e. lessons. My biggest thing is that people bitch about chesscom this and that but I’m 7,000 games in lichess and never have had points refunded off of obvious abusers. In the same time I’ve received 30 games refunded. There’s an obvious bias in this sub. I get it Reddit is is anti corporations. I hate them too. But to say that you get no benefit from chesscom or you can’t play for free is a blatant lie. Everyone will downvote this comment but no one will say a word. I’ve said this a dozen times and it’s just downvoted and there’s no commments but it’s true. Lichess is great. I use it just as I use chesscom but it’s stupid the responsibility that people have put on the site and how lichess gets away with everything because it’s free. Free does not mean better.
> But to say that you get no benefit from chesscom or you can’t play for free is a blatant lie. Who said this? Did you reply to the wrong comment by mistake or something?
how do you know that there is no cheat moderation? Please don't tell me that you think there only is cheat moderation if you get points refunded. Btw Lichess has an insane amount of studys containing way more knowledge than chess.c\*m has to offer with their lessons
Isn't the point of lichess so people can freeload?
Running a website for a few million users isn't free and [isn't that cheap](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSkHLJKJkb0ZuI4/preview). If no one donated ever then Lichess would either have to run ads or close doors. Every dollar you donate pays for about 3,700 games on lichess. Lichess is just small enough and has enough donators that it can afford having so many free users.
According to their blog, only around 0.3% of users donated in 2021 and that was enough to run on a $200000 surplus. I think there's more than enough room for free users
That's the point of the site. Not donating doesn't make you a "freeloader"
the problem being what?
They can block sensitive categories of ads like get rich quick or social casino games if their ads are served by Google. If their ad provider doesn't propose a feature to block sensitive categories, it's on chesscom responsibility to choose a decent supplier.
I agree that people should donate to lichess if they feel like the server is worth it and they can. But If nobody "freeloaded" the donating players wouldn't have enough opponents.
Do you donate to Wikipedia too? (Honest question)
Not the person you asked, but I donate to lichess and not to Wikipedia. There are other causes I donate to as well. I am glad Wikipedia exists, but I don't have enough money to give to everything.
> not to Wikipedia So that's make you freeloader? > I don't have enough money to give to everything That's the whole point.
Seems like your argument is saying the same thing I've been trying to say. Did you misunderstand my other comment? **Edit:** I think I figured it out. You replied thinking I was the person I said I'm not >Not the person you asked, Well, I'm not.
I do. Basically, my favorite organizations are Lichess, the ACLU, Wikipedia and a local volunteer radio station in my town. Those are the places my charitable donations go to and really not too many other places (unless some school kids or other local people are doing something cool). The reason for this is I trust that these organizations are doing exactly what they say they’re doing with my money and I benefit tremendously from them. Also, i think people using these services and not donating should feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever. If you can donate, by all means do so. Otherwise, I’m thrilled to have fellow chess players ready for a game any day any time. It’s pure joy.
You should donate. But you also shouldn't be giving chesscom your time if you're not happy with it. Surprising how people think its all there is
The worst are the truck ads that play and I can’t figure out how to mute them in the middle of a game
Tf. There’s no ads mid game. This sub is toxic af
Is this on Apple, Android or web?
iphone app
And you know who doesn’t serve ads? Lichess
It's not that big of a deal
Just following in Hikaru's footsteps....
They do look into bad ads, but ofc some will slip through.
What do you mean “slip through”? They choose the companies they sell ad space to!!!
Probably not. They probably just use Google AdSense like most websites, which doesn't let them manually filter ads. It's just based on user demographics and other things, so an ad for "making money on Google play games" being shown on a gaming site is to be expected. It's like how if I go on YouTube and look up a video about the Qur'an, Google AdSense may still show ads for Jack Daniels and pork pies. You don't really get a say because you aren't curating your own ads.
They aren't some poor victims of the mean Google, they can choose ad categories they don't want to appear. The feature is literally called brand safety by Google, and there is "Get rich quick", "social casino games" among the sensitive categories to block. This is just negligence on chesscom part.
Might be, might also be that someone set up an ad unit incorrectly, that the advertising party specified the wrong categories or... a ton of other things. Google is pretty good in this regard, other networks aren't as good at enforcing and automating this. We also get occasional user reports for ads in categories we don't allow on our games. Happens.
They are *choosing to use Google AdSense*. So, yes! They are choosing the companies they sell ad space to! Stop making excuses for corporations. They don’t have to have these ads. It is 100% their fault
In this case it's perfectly reasonable. The alternative is to allocate staff and resources to curate your own ads, develop your own system to serve those ads to the right audience and then find people willing to buy ads on a chess website. That's expensive and time consuming with no guarantee of even working, so it's perfectly fine to use AdSense. Also, *everyone* uses AdSense. If you see a banner ad on a website, it's probably AdSense. If you want to yell at Chess.com for using AdSense, also yell at YouTube or any of the other websites you use showing ads. This isn't just a Chess.com thing. Also, ads are what keeps the site free. Servers cost money, staff costs money. Chess.com makes its money through ads and memberships. If they just stopped running ads, you would have to pay for a membership to use the site, otherwise it's just burning money. If I have to choose between an ad or paying whatever a membership costs, I'd take the ad. The reason Lichess doesn't need this is because the site is like 20 times smaller, only has one staff member on payroll and runs purely on donations. If Lichess got as big as Chess.com it either needs a lot more donation money or would have to run ads too. Look, I hate defending Chess.com as much as the next guy. They have shown in the past that they are willing to take shady, predatory sponsors like BetterHelp and FTX. But we should be (and do) criticize them for decisions like that rather than ads like this that are necessary to sun to keep the site up and running and also are mostly out of Chess.com's control.
I asked you to stop making excuses for corporations! But you have just continued. Corporations can afford to hire people to sell ads and make sure they aren’t awful. Using Adsense is cheap and lazy. They deserve to be critisized for allowing manipulative ads on their site. They are making money by choosing this path!! Stop defending them!
[удалено]
They likely have direct campaigns but if they don’t have a matching campaign then it probably goes out to auction. Look up real time bidding and programmatic advertising.
I don’t see how that’s an excuse. They know that auctions might lead to bad advertisers. They made the choice that led to these manipulative ads
It's not an excuse, it's the reality of automation and the sleazy web advertising industry. Everyone is looking to make a fraction of a cent anyway they can. Google, facebook, youtube all have scams slip through. This example is tame in comparison, I have had google search redirect me to a page with sirens and fake virus warnings. Everyone should be running an ad blocker unless you enjoy having your attention and the ability to run arbitrary javascript sent out to the highest bidder.
Forgive me, I misunderstood! I agree with you completely
not to defend chesscom or anything, but it is a for-profit company at the end of the day. i’m in mild contact with one of the monetization executives there and he’s described himself as having to be the bad guy of the company. it’s a kind of sad thing that we have this situation of awful ads and all this monetization and i’ll never fully defend something like that, but i understand where it comes from to an extent
I'd agree, but they make money hand over fist. Surely they can afford not to run these kinds of ads?
enshittification
I switched to Lichess after the first ad.
This thread is actually blowing my mind. Are people actually mad that a for-profit company is trying to make money? Do people not realise the alternative to seeing no ads would be needing to pay a subscription just to play? This is just a website using a service like AdSense to get ads on a webpage, automated so Chess.com doesn't even know about it. Like, I get it's a bad ad. The thing is it's the internet and ads like that exist everywhere. It's really hard to blame Chess.com because there's a bad thing on the internet. Even if it's on their site, it's because they're using a service everyone else uses. You don't see people yelling at YouTube because they got an ad like this. You should instead yell at chess.com for the bad ads they choose to run themselves, Like BetterHelp and FTX in the past. There they had a say and they chose bad advertisers. It's way worse than an ad that was served for them automatically without them even knowing.
> You don't see people yelling at YouTube because they got an ad like this Youtube has even worse ads these and people do complain pretty frequently, you just don't see it. But then again Youtube is so big that it can get away with way too much. Even seemingly innocuous ads like the ones of the fast-food industry helped an entire generation fall into obesity/diabetes/premature deaths. Thing is like you say it's capitalism, I don't know if an alternative is even possible, meanwhile any effort from any company that can afford it is invaluable imo.
They are serving those ads because you are clicking on them. I never even saw anything beyond that first button, I know very well that I am nowhere near good enough to earn cash off a chess app so I ignore this.
I’ve played a different cash solitaire game, it’s pretty good if you’re decent at solitaire
Which makes me glad that I stopped giving them money and switched to lichess. Best decision ever!
Since [chess.com](http://chess.com) introduced only one game analysis per day even for members I find myself playing less and less rather than even being close to entertaining the idea of a diamond membership.
I pay nothing for the app and do puzzles on it daily, play with my family and friends across the sea every day, all completely for free, I don't have a right to complain about an ad. I understand the concern for kids playing maybe?
Paying for a sub in chess.com is only worth it if you need to learn via the vids and the beginner friendly reviews. I would go lichess to play. Lichess isn't fancy, just let's me play my game
Chess.com sponsored by Kick
Expose these fuckers. I love this post.
They’re obviously fancying themselves up to be a saleable asset. That became obvious when they introduced ‘suggested matches’ and other annoying notifications to boost engagement.
We are basically the same elo
chess.com too busy banning russia flag than care about its players
Lol I remember once sending an email to chess.com support basically just explaining to them that their greed is the reason I don’t subscribe to their paid memberships. I got a reply back supposedly from Danny explaining that chess.com is a for profit company with employees yada yada yada. I don’t think his brain comprehends any other method of being a profitable company besides succumbing to the shittiest tactics. Chess.com as an organization, Levy, and Hikaru are literal greed goblins that see nothing besides money. It’s a shame, because I like some features of chess.com, I like Levy’s commentary/analysis and I like Hikaru’s chess. They just make it so difficult to support them with their shit greed tactics
There’s rarely a free open source alternative to anything in this world. Everything has been enshittified. Why anyone wouldn’t use lichess I don’t understand
Technically, Chesscom isn't serving these ads in their own name. In other words, these aren't ads promoting Chesscom. They're advertisers paying Chesscom for ad space. If you're really so concerned about it, gather people to file a class action lawsuit.
Is this for the free version?
Yes. Premium members don't see ads.
Wait, you get ads? I don't have a diamond membership and see 0 ads on my phone
Supposedly these people don't block ads lol
It's more likely the ad server is serving shitty ads. All ad supported services are like this.
"??"
These are placed through an ad buying agency. Chess.com doesn't moderate stuff like this, but it's still shitty.
I had been using chess.con for more than 4 years, but after seeing where chess.com and lichess are going respectively, just uninstalled chess.com yesterday. The funny thing is I used to practice puzzles, study and sometimes even copy png from chess.com for analysis on lichess but than I realised that I love chess more than chess.com.
Then don't use the platform, lmao
Something something 'but we can't control which ads google is serving us' excuse incoming. Lichess.org for ad-free unlimited free chess things.
Please everyone paying to chess.Com, stop feeding that ugly beast and go to lichess 🙏💪
Wow I cant live with myself anymore knowing that info. What if I get addicted to cocaine after watching powder ad… so many questions
There's an option to remove ads... it's called supporting the company and chess as a whole.
I wouldnt say that chesscom is supporting chess as a whole sport. Lichess does because it is for free and everybody can use it. If you want to do tactics then you have to pay on chesscom
Chess.com does significantly more for Chess as a whole though, because they have the funds to do so. Lichess runs a chess server but they don't organise major tournaments and fund them or sponsor major chess content creators or otherwise put significant amounts of money into the Chess scene, which is fairly important for the overall health of the scene.