This is a copy of an old Othits newsletter

A new feature will be released soon, it's called the "High quality mod". The concept is quite simple: activating this feature will considerably reduce the visits from proxies/VPS/Servers and low quality computers and thus provide a more natural traffic from natural connections. Beta tests results are really promising. However, the impact of bringing the high quality mod on Otohits is still unknown on a full scale, that's why it will be considered as experimental and the fixed cost for it can evolve in the future. Also, as it will only target a part of the surf instances, there is a high chance of getting less unique visits when activating the feature on your links at this time. Finally, if the results are good and if we see that you use and enjoy this feature, we will surely find a way to reward the members that use instances on machines that are considered as "high quality" (decent machines with home connections).

This mail is also the occasion to talk about an important subject: we want to retire the browser surf. Currently the browser surf represents less than 8% of the total traffic on the platform. Even if it is here since the beginning and helped a lot to make Otohits what it is today, it also has a lot of flaws and weaknesses:

• More prone to various problems during the surf (JavaScript alert, malware).
• Hiding the referer is pretty weak compared to the App.
• Unable to use most of the features for links.
• A browser visit produce more overhead for the server than an App visit and it also has a non-negligible cost in terms of maintenance and management.

The potential disappearance of the browser surf will also have additional impacts on the system:

• The "With sounds" category will probably disappear, links in this category will be redistributed in the other ones. As an example, the video links could be considered as "Safe".
• Links validation will also be faster, which will probably result at some points to an increase of the maximum links you can add per day.

The more the site is growing, the more it is important to keep you informed about his future, but also to give you the opportunity to participate in its evolution. We would like for this question, and also for all the future ones, to give you the possibility of expressing your thought. A vote system will appear in few days, you will be able to choose if we should keep the browser surf and to give us any comment you will find useful. The vote will be available only for members that have at least 2 months of seniority. We will then take into account your opinions about the shutdown of the browser surf.

Few other updates have been pushed on the platform over the last months. To make sure you are up to date with them, don't hesitate to follow us on Twitter (opens new window) or Facebook (opens new window).

As usual, thank you all for your participation and hello to all the members who joined us recently. Thanks to all of you, we now regularly generate more than 25 million hits per day, with a lovely record at 37 million!

Have a good surf,