Blockpage changes

[sky-knight]

There is no need to fear Untangle forcing ads you have blocked with other means. Untangle currently lacks a mechanism with which to control IPTables that completely. Heck, do you guys realize that all those ads are a packet filter rule away from simply not happening?

I have no idea what the revenue from the ads will be. But I do know something has to be done. The free product simply produces too much load on the back end. I for one, am tired of Untangle's servers falling over every time a new version ships. I'm equally tired of having to wait a month for the privilege of upgrading the equipment I use to Q/A.

I do feel that Untangle would be better served here by advertising themselves, instead of other stuff.

[mdh]

I for one, am tired of Untangle's servers falling over every time a new version ships. I'm equally tired of having to wait a month for the privilege of upgrading the equipment I use to Q/A.

Its all part of the big plan to make sure you stay sharp.

I do feel that Untangle would be better served here by advertising themselves, instead of other stuff.

Roger that. Word of mouth is nice. Word of mouth takes forever.

[scot1967]

....
.
.
.
.....

One more thing: someone said that free users have contributed nothing, and I know there are replies already, but I also have to disagree. Free users come in all shapes and sizes and some are vocal advocates for the product. One should not underestimate the value of word-of-mouth, especially in open source.

The main reason I've recommended Untangle to people is that it starts out free.

Agreed. I would wager that many purchases are the results of referrals from free users.

http://community.spiceworks.com/product/3925-untangle

That said, the something for nothing policy does not make money. I am in favor of anything that helps keep a free version of Untangle out there.

[jigglywiggly]

This is pretty funny, if you click the ads Untangle blocks them ROFLMAO. (The sites to visit that is, if you have the adblock function)

[nosajesahc]

Hello all,

I spoke at a FOSS conference last summer. My topic was packet fence. The other half of the session was on Untangle. Since then I have been exploring alternatives to replace our aged Cisco Pix (and a number of other firewalls) with a single system/product. I just started evaluating Untangle and ran into the ad immediately. My first thought was it must be part of the blocked page bleeding through. I couldn't believe that it would be part of the product. Then I did a quick search on the forum and found this conversation. I've read the entire thing.

Here is the outcome:

1. I'm now looking at other products seriously. I've heard of Astaro on TWIT and now here. I plan to evaluate it against Untangle.
2. This move makes Untangle look like a sinking ship. I'm looking for a solution for the next 5 years (at least).

Not only are ads run but Untangle sent the blocked site hostname as part of the ad request. Here is an example of the URL GET request sent to Untangle during my first test (trying to load xvideo):

hxxp://guide.untangle.com/bp/dd/db-ifr.php?u=hxxp://xvideos.com/&h=xvideos.com&r=Adult%20and%20Sexually%20Explicit&c=2041050348

Why did you need the site that was blocked? Were you planning on sending an ad based it?

We were planning on buying the educational package for 300 users. The feature set looks great but we really only need a subset.

I understand that if we do buy Untangle we will not get the ads. I just find it bizarre that you would send the site that was blocked back to the ad server. It make me worry that you are leaking other information in other modules. Do you store and sell the information like other ad companies? Smells like a web bug.

[mrunkel]

Hello all,
Not only are ads run but Untangle sent the blocked site hostname as part of the ad request. Here is an example of the URL GET request sent to Untangle during my first test (trying to load xvideo):

hxxp://guide.untangle.com/bp/dd/db-ifr.php?u=hxxp://xvideos.com/&h=xvideos.com&r=Adult%20and%20Sexually%20Explicit&c=2041050348

Why did you need the site that was blocked? Were you planning on sending an ad based it?

That form of the request is no longer used by the ads server, if you wait 24 hours, your untangle should update your blockpage to a newer version.

It was initially thought that we'd use that information to serve better ads, but the information was never used by the server and is not stored there.

That information is also not passed along to any 3rd party.

[nosajesahc]

That form of the request is no longer used by the ads server, if you wait 24 hours, your untangle should update your blockpage to a newer version.

It was initially thought that we'd use that information to serve better ads, but the information was never used by the server and is not stored there.

That information is also not passed along to any 3rd party.

Thanks for the reply. That test instance of Untangle is running at home. I'll check it out tonight. Do you have any other applications that sends user generated data back to untangle.com?

[sky-knight]

Not unless you tell it to, there is a tick box that will tell Untangle to send usage stats.