Back online!

So earlier today it was brought to our attention that there was another problem, either with the Linkvertise-service itself, or indirectly caused by Linkvertise. Basically if you were connected to an American IP-address, and you tried grabbing one of the .torrent files from here , it would re-direct you to a Brazilian-based loan (?) website. I don't speak Portuguese, though I want to learn it later on, so don't judge me.

It seems to only affect American IP-addresses. Interestingly enough, after some initial tests Canadian IPs are not affected. Neither are a few other countries we tested such as the UK, Australia or Switzerland. But either way, that is of course not intended by us. We believe it's a deliberate move caused by certain websites "not taking kindly" if referrals come from the Linkvertise. With the larger aim of discrediting the advertising agency - and by extension people or platforms that make use of it. Such as G4TW.

Realistically speaking, it was probably a matter of time until the advertising agency would start to attract wider attention. And we feel that time has come. Now, before the people who are "not fond" of our type of activities start getting overly excited, some of you might have guessed or at least had a suspicion that the survival of the platform does not - and never did! - depend solely on the Linkvertise revenue. 

We might only be a small fringe platform, but people would do well to not underestimate our resolve. Even if we hypothetically stopped using the Linkvertise today we would still have multiple other failsafes. We would not even have to resort to asking for donations!

Hypothetical commenter wrote:You're just showing us your pokerface Gh0stm4n, you're just utterly bull$hitting us!

What you make of my words is ultimately up to you. But what I'm trying to communicate is this. Since the problem is not as grave as it seems - it affects only American IP-addresses, and only the .torrent file links here - we will for now carry on as normal. If you come from America and/or otherwise use an American IP-address (VPN/proxy), then just use the magnet links or the direct downloads. Indicated by the following icons. And if the situation becomes worse over time that we are eventually forced to abandon the Linkvertise, then so be it.

But until the moment comes, why should we not try and build up additional funds?

I thought about removing .torrent files completely and/or editing them out of the download lists, but then re-considered the idea as not being worth the hassle. At least not for the moment. As usual, we have to ask for your (already-stretched?) understanding and patience. Another reason that has led us to make that decision is that the Brazilian site - although certainly weird - is harmless in our opinion. But just like with all other websites, don't fill out any information there unless you know what you're doing.

Now I imagine some people will be making a bigger deal out of this than it is necessary. But guess who stands to benefit the most if we started having more difficulties? Correct: copyright holders and other piracy platforms. In other words, people with their own (political) agendas. I've spoken about it many times in past announcements. Just because you use pirated stuff, we are not preventing you to spend money on legal copies, if you like certain games. And as for other piracy sites, I don't normally tell them what they ought to do. But for some reason, they (and/or people claiming to speak on their behalf) feel the need to tell us here how to run a tiny fringe Forum. Well, no.

Either way, we're back online.