Newsletter - Old 2014 news

Otohits Webmaster

2015-09-09

Newsletter

This is a copy of an old Othits newsletter

# 2014-21-09

The first version of the semi-automatic validation is now active. That's the first step that will lead to a true automatic validation for websites. It will require some time to improve his accuracy, but from now you will maybe notice a faster validation than before. Don't hesitate to report any website that has not been put in the correct category.
You can now see the list of all your surf instances on the autosurf page (http://www.otohits.net/account/wfautosurf). The list provides the IPs and will indicate if it's a browser or an application session. The list is refreshed automatically every 2 minutes.
I'm happy to tell you that the new version of the application is a success. Only few issues have been raised and there are already more members that use the application rather than the browser.
We jumped from 600 000 to 1 million hits delivered per day and from 150 to 320 active surfers at any time of the day! Good job everyone!

As usual, thank you all for your participation and hello to all the members who joined us recently (we are more than 8100 members).

# 2014-08-30

As I promised at the beginning of the week, the update of the website and the new version of the application are now available. Everything went well during the update. For all your website, you are now able to put a ranged timer between 10 and 180 seconds. This option is available on the details pages. With this change, the remaining visits counter is now approximative and based on the highest timer.

All efforts have been made to provide you a better experience with the new application and to ensure a 24/24h surf without any issue. I hope you will like it. Don't hesitate to report any issue you encounter.

There are also other good news:

Don't forget that in 2 days the contest for September will start (http://www.otohits.net/home/contests). there are 10€ and 1 400 000 points to win!
August was a better month than expected. We now reach 600 000 visits per day, with at least 200 active surfers at any time of the day. Don't forget that you can now use your account with multiple IPs.

As usual, thank you all for your participation and hello to all the members who joined us recently (we are 6700).

# 2014-08-25

The new version of the application is ready. Thanks to all the beta testers that helped me to track all the bugs. This version should be much more stable than the old one. It will be released on Saturday 30 at 10am GMT. The automatic update process will not be ready for this version, it will come in a further one.
The contest for september is ready. It will be a referral contest. Point contest will be added when I will find an elegant way to handle multiple IPs per account for the contests.
A new feature will be added on Saturday: you will be able to define a range for the timer of your websites. Like so, each visit on your website can have a different duration (the limits of 10/180 seconds still remain).
I also want to thanks all the member that report bad websites. I gave some rewards until recently, since the development of the new version of the application required a lot of time and effort. I will think about having a semi-automatic system to reward members that make Otohits a good autosurf.

As usual, thank you all for your participation and hello to all the members who joined us recently (we are 6500 and we generate more than 500 000 visits per day!).

# 2014-08-16

New version of Otohits has been deployed few days ago. As I said in the previous mail, here are the new features:

The maximum timer has been be upgraded to 180 seconds (3 minutes).
The cost of overriding the referer has been decreased (from x8 to x4).
The anticheat system has been be updated to support multiple IPs per account.
You can unsubscribe to the newsletter on your settings page.
The "My sites" and "Add a site" pages has been updated.
The efficiency system is in place.

The main subject of this email is in fact that I'm looking for beta testers for the new version of the application. It already seems much better than the current version, so if you are motivated to discover it, please reply to this email or contact me at webmaster.otohits@gmail.com

Please respond with the following information:

Your date of registration on Otohits.
Did you already tried/used the current application ?
Your OS system (Windows Xp/Vista/7/8).

Your missions will be simple:

Use this new version as much as possible.
Report any bug or weird behavior.

The new application should be delivered as scheduled (before the end of the month) if everything goes well.

# 2014-08-09

A lot of changes will arrive in the next version of Otohits. Here are the most important ones:

The maximum timer will be upgraded to 180 seconds (3 minutes).
The cost of overriding the referer will be decreased (from x8 to x4).
The anticheat system will be updated to support multiple IPs per account. You were a lot to ask for this feature. You will not need to create multiple accounts anymore. Because of this upgrade, the Points contests will be momentary unavailable since members with a lot of IPs will have a huge advantage. Also, the rewards of the achievements will maybe be re-evaluated.
You will be able to unsubscribe to the newsletter. You will find the option on your settings page. All the news will be available on the website on a new page as well.
The "My sites" page will be updated. the websites table design will be changed and will bring more options: clearer and simpler presentation, filtering and sorting.
The "Add a site" page will be updated, you will be able to set the Timer as well as if you want to hide the referer. This will surely save you some time.
You will be able to add points even on website that are waiting for validation.
Last but not least: As you maybe know, since few months you are not forced to surf on PTP if you have some. I don't want to force it but I think it's normal to add a counterpart. And here it is: The efficiency system. The new version of Otohits will introduce an efficiency percentage based on 2 criteria, your categories and the number of websites you own. The less your efficiency is, the less points you will earn for each visit you make. Let's take an example:
I have 1 PTP website, but I don't want to surf on them, so I didn't checked it on my settings page.
On the autosurf page, I will be warned that my efficiency will be at 90%, since I didn't select the PTP category.
When I will surf on a website that has a timer of 100 seconds, I will only earn 90 points.

Also, the more websites you will have, the less your efficiency will be.

The penalties will be: -10% if I have websites in a category and I didn't select it in the settings. -5% for each steps of 10 websites (ex: you have 30 websites, that will be -15%) with a maximum of -50%. These penalties will be adjusted if needed.

Why putting this in place ? You should not take this update as a punishment. You can perfectly have a 100% efficiency and earn as much points as before. As always, the main goal is to ensure that Otohits will continue to grow and to work as long as possible. This efficiency system is to maintain a good balance between points, categories and websites. Anyway, Otohits will remain one of the rare (maybe the only one) autosurf where you can have a 1:1 ratio without paying anything. Your efficiency and the penalties will be displayed and explained on the autosurf page.

All these changes should be available before the end of the next week.

I want to give you some news about the new version of the application. It is almost done and I'm happy to say that it seems much more stable than the actual version:

It does not crash as much as the old one.
It's more lightweight.
The support for PTP website under shortlinks will be better.
A report button will be added.
You will be able to open a new browser page outside the application if you want to visit it.
The only limitation for the moment is that we can't interact with the visited website under the application. I will propose you in another email to take part in a beta test of this new version.

As usual, thank you all for your participation and hello to all the members who joined us recently (we are 6000).

# 2014-07-20

The new design for Otohits has been integrated yesterday afternoon. You should not feel too lost and I hope you will like it. It also comes with some new features:

a new dashboard
more statistics
the list of visited websites stay on the autosurf page even when you stop surfing and go on another page
the amount of points on your account in the top right corner is updated automatically every 2 minutes
some new pages: white and black lists for website validation
even if a new version is currently under development, the application has his own page now

No big issues has been reported so far, I just discovered one that you will surely like: yesterday and for 6 hours, if you had the automatic attribution activated, you won 2 times more points (1 time on your website and 1 time on your account). My bad, you can consider this as a bonus to celebrate the update of Otohits:).

The new version of the application is under active development and should be available before the end of august, as well as a first version for the automatic validation of your websites.

Last but not least, the contests will come back in September! So get ready to win some points and real money!

# 2014-07-13

The new design is almost over. The website will be updated in few days. Some of you seem a bit afraid about this change. Don't worry, Otohits will remain as simple as before. The main goal of this new design is it will be easier for me to add new features and update the existing ones. I hope you will like it. Here are some new stuffs that will come with it:

A new dashboard with more useful information
More statistics for your PTP page
More statistics for your websites
The websites that will be validated automatically will be shown on a white list page
The websites that are forbidden will be shown on a black list page
New statistics on the stats page
A new help page for those who have hard time to get started on Otohits.
A refresh of all the articles

The next challenge will be the application. I already started to work on it and here are the features I want to add in the new version:

(obviously) Make it more stable than the current version
Add native flash and html 5 support
Add an automatic update system (check if there is a new version when you launch the application + update itself if you are surfing with it)
Automatic restart if the embed browser crashes
A better support for overriding the referer
Add the possibility to control the user agent for your websites Time and effort to make it will be bigger than updating the website, but I'm pretty confident on the fact that it could be finished before end of August.

Finally, website validation started to be a problem on my side. It takes a lot of times to validate all the websites added. Since I don't want to limit the amount of website you can add, in parallel of the creation of the new application, I will also put in place an automatic validation system to help me on this task. The goal will be to validate websites automatically depending on multiple criteria like their content and weight. This could have a huge impact as it could let me more time to work on new features and it will help you to have your website validated faster. A first version should come in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

As usual, thank you all for your participation and hello to all the members who joined us recently (we are now 5200).

# 2014-06-30

Let's begin with a funny fact: We almost accumulated 1 billion seconds on the autosurf. It represents 31 years of surf!
Some of you report a lot of PTP websites that block the surf. I already moved some of them, but it will be hard to move them all. This problem already happened in the past, some ads that are used on a lot of PTP trigger alert message or redirection. Please notice that surfing on PTP includes some risks. If the surf is too complicated for the moment, don't hesitate to use plugins for your browser like AdBlock or NoScript.
The PTP category is not selected automatically anymore if you have PTP in your websites. So you are not forced to surf on PTP if you don't want to. For the moment, there is no penalty to do so, but in the future the idea is to have a little fee (points) if you don't surf on PTP and you have some.
Please review the categories you have selected in your information page. It's possible that they changed since the update that occurred at the beginning of the month. That could also explain a bigger instability on the application for some of you.
Some cleaning will be made on the database (like deleting the websites that have not been seen since a long time).
The PTP page of Otohits is a success, you already share it 3.5 millions times!
The new design is on his way. I will try to deliver it before the end of July. The next big step will be to redo the application. It's not stable enough so I will try to redo it. Let's plan this for the end of august.

Finally, I wish you a nice holiday if you have the chance to have some 😃. I also wanted to say hello to all the new members that joined Otohits recently. We were 4000 at the beginning of June and now we are 4900. Good increase!

# 2014-06-12

Here are the new features:

The with/without popup categories does not exist anymore. They have been replaced by the "Safe" category.
The "Application only" category no longer exists, it is now an option. Like so, your website can be a PTP and only visible in the application. You can enable or disable this option in website's details pages. Please notice that for security reasons, all the websites that were in the AppOnly category have been put in the PTP category and they have been forced to be only visible on the application.
On your referral page, you can now see your referrals ordered by the points they earned.
If someone register on Otohits from your promote page, he will be correctly added to your referrals.
The new design is on his way, but it will surely take time to be released.

But there is also other good news. We are now 4200 members and almost 50 millions hits have been made. That's +700 members and 10 millions hits in only 2 weeks!

# 2014-05-25

1 year ago, Otohits has been launched. So, this is the occasion to share with you my thoughts about this first year and what is planned for the next one.

First, I want to thank you all for your participation and your surf. Managing Otohits is a pleasant adventure, especially when I see the motivation of some of you 😃.

Here are some nice figures:

We are almost 3500 members.
There are more than 7000 websites.
There are at least 100 members that use the autosurf at any time of the day.
Otohits delivers between 300000 and 400000 visits per day.
Since the beginning, 40 millions visits have been done!

I was so exited to tell you that Otohits never went down, but that's not the case. Otohits was unavailable at the end of April (almost 24h) and few hours on the 15th of may. For an entire year, it's not bad, but I want to maintain a very high availability for the website. Both issues have been identified and they should not come back. Also, the application is still not stable enough, so it will stay as a Beta for the moment, I hope I will have time to work on it. I know that some of you think that the website validation take a lot of time. It's kind of true, but remember that I do my best to validate them under 24 hours. I have around 100 websites to validate per day so it could take a lot of time and we're maybe not on the same timezone. I'll try to think about a solution for this.

I have a lot of ideas to make Otohits better, but here are the one I want to put in place as fast as possible:

I want to merge the Without and with popup categories into a "Safe" website category.
I want to remove the obligation to see PTP websites if you have one. Instead, I'm thinking about a little penalty if you don't check categories of website you have (like 1 point fee for each visit).
Instead of having an AppOnly website's category, I want to make it as an option. Like so, a website can be AppOnly and have his own category as well (Safe, Sounds, PTP, Adult).
I already told you that I wanted to update the design of the website. Well it's harder than I thought but the idea is always on my mind. I want to make Otohits looks more professional and easier for members to manage their websites.

Oh, and I almost forgot. For the anniversary, every member will receive 50000 bonus points 😃. I will give them to you on Monday evening (10pm GMT), so if you want to refer new members, it's the perfect time! They will receive the bonus as well.

Again, thank you all, the adventure has just started, have a great surf and a good weekend.

# 2014-04-07

Since some of you reported that the last version of the application was much more unstable than before, a new version of the application is available.

Your current version should continue to work but I strongly suggest to download it again if you experience random crash since Saturday.

Have a good surf.

# 2014-04-05

The application has been updated this morning. Please get the latest version if you use it (http://www.otohits.net/account/app). Here are the new features:

Full support of "override referer" feature.
A link will be displayed on the login screen if you doesn't have the latest version of the application .
If the application crash, a report will be automatically sent to check last websites that have been visited.
The application icon should flash if there is a problem with the application. Meanwhile, we are almost 2500 members and we are close to 30 millions hits delivered! Another funny fact: Otohits encountered his first attack attempt. Someone had fun by trying to scan urls and inject sql and javascript code. Otohits 1 - Hackers 0 This is also to remember you that even if Otohits is a simple autosurf website, I'm not joking with security. Have a good surf.

# 2014-04-01

A new version of the application will be deployed next Saturday (05/04/2014 at 09:00 GMT). Here are the main improvements:

If there is a problem when surfing (invalid anticheat, connection issue...) the taskbar icon of the app will flash. Like so, you will be noticed quickly.
The "override referer" feature will be improved. At this time, only the http header is modified. With the new version, it will navigate to the referer website and then to your website. Like so, even the referer on javascript side is spoofed.
The current version of the application has a "Chrome 25" user agent. The new version will pick up a random user agent. Like so, your website will receive visits in a more realistic way.
If you launch an outdated version of the application, you will have a link to download directly the latest version on the login screen.

Another good news, you can now buy points from text messages with Allopass.

Website is running well, we have around 60-70 members surfing at any time of the day. Thank you all!

# 2014-03-22

As announced last weekend, a new version of the application is available. If you use it, please get the latest version. Overriding the referer is now activated. I hope you will enjoy it and don't hesitate to contact me if you have any question or issue. The application should also be more stable and it now fully support PTP (if you don't use url shortener for them). Also, for those who use the classic autosurf (browser), you don't need to disable adblock to surf on Otohits! A bug has been identified on the websites statistics. You maybe noticed it since your websits had maybe inaccurate figures compared to real visits. Everything should be back to normal starting today.

Otohits is almost one year old, there have been a lot of updates, lot of new features to try to make the best autosurf. Here are some ideas that are under investigation and I want to integrate before June:

Overriding the UserAgent for "App only" websites with the application.
Adding a random Timer: being able to choose a range to make the visit duration dynamic.
A revamp of Otohits design.

As always, Thank you all and welcome to all new members (we are almost 2300).

# 2014-03-14

Here are some news about Otohits. The application's launch went well. 300000 daily visits and almost 100 active members at any time of the day, that's 2 times more than 2 weeks ago! Only few bugs have been detected. If you have any problem with it, don't hesitate to contact me.

Like I said in the last newsletter, I confirm you that now it costs 2 times more points to hide the referer. Your "My sites" page has been updated to indicate how much points it costs you for each visit and the details page is now clearer about this feature.

This is also the occasion to present to you one of the biggest feature I wanted to add on Otohits since his creation: overriding the referer. You can now find a new section on details page for your website where you can manage the referers for your site! Concretely, you will be able to make your sites believe that the visit come from legit addresses (google for example). This feature will be available for "App only" websites. As the "Hide referer" feature, it will be free, but it will cost you more points if you activate this option. You can already play with it, but the feature will be activated with the next version of the application. Speaking of it, I announce you that an update for the application is scheduled for the 23 of march at 11h GMT. You will be forced to install the new version, otherwise you will be unable to surf. The new version will correct minor bugs, add a better support for PTP and handle the referer overriding.

Last but not least, you can now buy points with Allopass! It's available right now in the shop (https://www.otohits.net/account/shop).

I wish you a good surf.

# 2014-03-02

I promised you a surprise for the beginning of march, here it is: Otohits has his own surf application! I present you OtohitsApp, built to make you surf faster, safer and without opening your browser!

Fast and easy install process
Secure: no popup, no javascript alert, no download!
Light: OtohitsApp has an exclusive mechanism to be able to surf on any website, even PTP, without slowing down your computer!
A new category of website has been added: "App only". Websites in this category will be only visited by the members who use the application.

You will find all the information about OtohitsApp here: http://www.otohits.net/account/app I invite you to test it and send back to me your comments if you want to. Even if it's already pretty stable, the application will stay in "BETA" until all the bugs will be fixed. Also, the file could be reported by chrome or windows as potentially dangerous, this is normal since it's the first executable that is available on Otohits. New features will be added to the application really soon.

This application is maybe the biggest change since the creation of Otohits: websites like adf.ly, linkbucks, blocking websites that has been always refused... will be able to be validated on the application!

Moreover, you can now change the category of your websites yourself. Just go to the detail page of your websites for further explanations. Another good news, we are now more than 2000 members. Thank you all and welcome to all new members. We have almost produced 20 millions of hits!

Despite of these great news, a change will be applied on the "Hide referer" feature. Points in circulation on the website are starting to increase exponentially. This is due to the ratio 1:1 and also to the fact that we are more and more members surfing all day on Otohits. More points = less view for your websites. To avoid this situation and maintain Otohits as long as possible, a decision has been made: starting from 15 of march, if you hide the referer on your website, it will cost you 2 times more points. For example, if you have a website with a 15 seconds timer and you hide the referer on it, it will cost you 30 points per visit. Goal of this change is not to make you lose points, it's to ensure that Otohits will continue to provide you good hits without paying anything (I remind you that on most of the other autosurfs, this option is not free). I know that some of you will be impacted a lot, especially the members who bought points in the shop. Every members who bought points in January and February will receive a unique bonus to compensate this change. I wish you a good surf in your browser or with the application.

# 2014-02-05

Regarding the javascript alerts from last week, the issue disappeared for "Safe websites" (with and without popup). The issue can still be randomly encountered for the PTP section. For those who have this category enabled, I recommend you to use Firefox which is more adapted for PTP than Chrome. Moreover, the last version of Firefox doesn't block the surf on javascript alerts!
Due to this problem, the website validation will be hardened. "Safe website" status will be harder to obtain. the objective is to maintain a pleasant surf for those who doesn't have PTP websites. You can check which category to choose for your website and explanations on the validation process on the related article page (https://www.otohits.net/article/content/Website-Categories). To encourage the members who submit websites without popup, I have the idea of making this category mandatory for all members. I added a whish about this idea, please don't hesitate to vote for or against it.
We're approaching the number of 2000 members. The number of active users continue to grow day by day. Thanks to all members for their participation.
One new big feature should be ready before the end of the month, as well as new announcements. In the meantime, I wish you a good surf.

# 2014-01-26

Great news for Otohits this week. First, I'm pleased to announce you that the Otohits shop is ready (https://www.otohits.net/account/shop). I always wanted to provide with Otohits a good and free experience of surf, that's why you don't find any special VIP Account to buy. But since a lot of members wanted the possibility to buy points, I added it. For the moment, you can pay with Paypal, feel free to propose other payment solutions if needed. The number of active users grows slowly but surely. Some bugs started to appear and even if it concerns very few members (around 10 errors for 100000 hits), major improvements have been made to support this load and to be able to welcome more members. Since these changes touch the heart of the autosurf system, don't hesitate to raise any bugs you encounter. Of course that's not all, the objective of increasing the performance today is to welcome more great features in the future. In the meantime, I whish you a good surf.

# 2014-01-20

A new feature has just been added on Otohits, simple, but asked by a lot of members. You can now open the autosurf in a popup (like it is today) or in a new tab. Just go to your information page (https://www.otohits.net/account/myinfos) and switch on the option you prefer! Have a good surf.

# 2014-01-05

Here is a little new year's gift for all of you: Otohits has his own PTP page. You can find the link in the menu. Please note that for the moment, it will make you earn points for the autosurf. Earning money by sharing the link will be available only when Otohits earning will be stable. Also, the goal to the ptp page is not to crash your browser like some others ptp. The promote page will remain lightweight. Have a good surf.

# 2014-01-01

Otohits wishes you a happy new year! I hope it will be full of joy and of course, with a lot of surfed websites 😃. 2013 was a good start for Otohits. Here is some figures of what have been accomplished:

11 millions hits delivered.
Almost 1500 members with at least 25 surfing members at any time, every day.
221 running days with only 4 hours of downtime due to a maintenance!
Almost 3500 websites registered and maybe some of you noticed it, I started to have some delay for validation due to the amount of websites submitted every day 😃. For 2014, Otohits will continue on these good bases and new features are already in development. Winners of the contests of December will receive their prizes in the next few days. Again, I wish you a good year and a very good surf.