Posted on reddit and thought I would share here too since this is something that really concerns me...

I'm downloading content for TS2 and many of the downloads hidden behind paywalls show HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE ads. I mean 18+, NSFW, disgusting ish. I'm a grown adult and don't wanna see this, but I am also imagining the under 18 Simmers - literal children - seeing this while innocently trying to download new content. I'd be mad as hell if I had kids and this was the case. Simmers who make amazing CC, please use a different site from AdFly, and maybe test the links somehow to make sure NSFW content is not being displayed. There has to be another way...

Once again, I am not against people making a little coin off their contributions to this amazingly talented community, but these paywalls are a problem for the gross content they display.


ETA: I'm looking up more info on paywalls to see if this has already been said, and apparently paywalls aren't even allowed lol. My initial opinion on it still stands despite that. If creators are gonna violate terms put in place by the Sims Team over a decade ago, they can at least try harder to not potentially victimize minors. Or maybe that's too much too ask.

Where are you gettting your content? There's lots of good stuff (hair, clothes, etc.) all over Tumblr that isn't hidden behind a paywall or adfly. Maybe I've just been lucky?

I don't think anyone should be using paywalls. If you want to make money making CC, do what everyone else does and start a Patreon and just release new stuff to patrons a few days before releasing it to everyone else.

In all my years of downloading cc I've never come across this. There's plenty of free stuff out there.

There are plenty of well known, free, reputable creators without that crap.

MTS for starters
Leefish
Most of the links on Sim2 Cave finds goes to free Tumblrs http://simscave.mustbedestroyed.org...p?topic=36418.0 which includes realistic stuff if that is what you are after -I think that stuff tends more to the adfly crowd.
GOS
The default Database
Plumb Bob Keep for medieval and production type mods (farming, mining etc)

I have to point out that the Sims 2 is a game that was released in 2004 that you literally can't purchase a digital copy or a new copy of anymore-- aren't almost all the active players in their 20s or older? The game itself is nearly old enough to see NSFW content. Not that adfly is crap in general regardless of who gets stuck seeing their ads and likely getting their malware, but this just seemed a bit of a weird situation to outcry against it with "think of the children".

Think the problem is concentrated around creators that make for the young crowd using Alpha content. Though not my favourite, I suggest you satisfy your needs at TSR, they do modern clothes and Alpha hair and styles. I've never seen Adfly, can't understand what link you click on to get there.

I haven't seen a single adfly dl since I've been back to playing Sims in Sept. I used to see quite a few back when I was playing Sims 3 from about 2010-2014. I have the same attitude about them now that I did then , if someone prioritizes the .02 cents or whatever the hell they get off each click more than the safety of my ( and other's computers), you can keep your cc. Don't need it.

While there are several TS2 creators that I know of that do use Adfly (to be fair, most of them switched to Patreon and started offering content through SFS/Mediafire), it's probably way worse for TS3 and TS4 creators/downloaders - I don't play either so I really don't know. The adblockers seem to do a great job blocking whatever ads it's displaying (last time I opened an Adfly link, I only saw the "continue" link ^^), but still, on an unprotected computer, it can be really really messy. Adfly has also been notorious for infecting people's pcs with viruses so it's generally a good idea to avoid it.

"Simmers need to find another paywall site" no, they need to stop putting content behind paywalls at all. If EA can give the entire game away for free, CC creators can release their content for free. Charging for CC breaks the EULA anyway. I will die on this hill.
ETA: Unfortunately creators who put their content behind paywalls already know it's not allowed and do it anyway, they already don't care about virus threats and so I doubt they care about NSFW ads either. The only way to make them change is to stop buying their stuff, stop clicking their links. If you do go through ads, maybe share the direct link afterwards.

Never mind the shitty ads (why aren't you using uBlock Origin?), AdFly has gotten far more shady in recent years and now occasionally tries to force you to enable notifications on your browser before you can access the URL.

There are possibly a few TS2 creators who still do AdFly, but they are fortunately few and far between. Nowadays I think most of those few have jumped the bandwagon to Patreon...

It's a bigger problem for TS3 and TS4 content, though.

AdFly is a huge pain in the behind. You need a good adfly blocker/skipper, a good antivirus/antimalware program, and it doesn't hurt with a good adblocker as well. Even then they're not entirely safe. I don't even dare clicking them any longer, even with triple protection...

I was going on Lana's CC Finds and most of the content I encountered hidden behind AdFly (and their gross ads) were from Linda Sims or somebody.

Well she's put all her content behind a paywall now after being called out for charging for conversions of other people's free TS4 CC, so at least you don't have to worry about her AdFly links any more, I guess.

I think LindaSims is one of the very few TS2 creators who uses AdFly now. Then again, I think they're the same creator who also recieved some negativity lately for converting items from other creators' TS3/TS4 content and then putting the items behind adfly and/or patreon (possibly without asking if it was okay to monetize?), so there's a lot going on there. I don't know the full details of what was going on, though.

Just so you know, the content they convert/make tend to be very high poly and may not be good for your TS2 game, so you may be better off staying away from it, adfly or no adfly. A lot of TS3/TS4 CC is very high poly and a lot of it also has very large texture maps, so you'll probably want to be careful with which items you download. If shaders aren't enabled, it seems TS2 gets in trouble with more than 25-30.000 polys per item (possibly per mesh group? it's still a bit unsure), and shows them as invisible. Large textures and high-poly items can be a drain if you have the pink-flashing (texture memory) issue.

Well switch to SimCave, any adfly and they notify you on the find in red with a

You are using one of the very few bad creators with adfly and horrible polys.

If you want to look into MM like DeeDee or Poppet or Keoni they all have lovely CC, completely free, as low poly as is reasonable and often include a recolour template with an open TOU.
https://deedee-sims.tumblr.com/tagged/dl-clothes
https://keonidownloads.tumblr.com/t...nload%3Aclothes
https://poppet-sims.tumblr.com/tagged/cc

I know there are other realistic CC creators though because I see their pictures on Simcave.

I swear by combo of ublock origin and universal bypass. The latter gets around most ad and other shortened links almost all the time without me even having to see the adfly page pop up and in case it still does ublock blocks the ads.

Is that the case with hairs? I recently downloaded a bunch of 3t2 hair conversions, and they didn't look like they were high-poly meshes, but I don't know. I haven't had any problems with them in game, though.

^ Not always. It depends a lot on the creators of the original content. Some creators make quality low/mid poly content that shouldn't cause any issues when converted for TS2. If it's converted 3t2/4t2 EAxis content it's mostly low(ish) poly, and also shouldn't cause shader-related issues.

It's mostly the 30k+++ poly content, or anything with texture sizes above 1024x1024 you need to be wary of, though even a lot of 20k meshes and/or a lot of 1024 textures can be tough on the game.

@kestrellyn, I would always check poly count for hairs. After spending months going through my Hair folder and weeding out the ones that were broken (wouldn't show up anymore because it's too high poly), I've learned it's always the simplest hairs that are ridiculous high poly. I have a large DL folder, so I've started to ban everything over 20,000. I had to let a lot of things I love go, because they wouldn't show up anymore. (How to find your POLY COUNT and what is reasonable by tiggerypum, in case anyone needs.)

But yeah, adfly type links are still around. As someone else mentioned, I see it from mostly realistic cc creator types. They don't all do it, mind you. It's just when I see it, that's the type of content it usually is. LindaSims is a big culprit, and I think Aklira. E-neillan, too, at least a while ago. A quick check back and that tumblr now seems to be more patreon exclusive heavy. Anyway, I don't spend a lot of time on these sites/tumblrs, so I can't say for sure, but my general impression is that these creators are younger and newer to the TS2 community, often coming from the TS4 crowd where this seems to be rampant. I know this doesn't really excuse them, as anyone who has ever browsed the internet knows how annoying it is to have ads completely take over a web page, mess with a page's formatting, slow down loading, and autoplay videos over your own music/content. And then there's just the plain facts that ad links are not about trying to get customers to view ads, but 100% about trying to give people a virus. There's just no way they can't know that.

But it does sort of explain their attitude and confusion, if they're young and seeing everyone else online getting paid to be creative and do their hobbies in other media, and then thinking why not with sims cc? And of course they wouldn't really know that the TS2 community already fought that war. Hard. Paid sites have been pretty much dead for a long time and they don't understand that it's weird for us older/long-time simmers to see paid cc rising like a zombie. And that when you see a zombie outside the sims, well, the only logical reaction is to shoot it in the head, ya know?

Personally, I equip Adblock and Universal Bypass. That gets me around most things, about 90-95%. Anything I can't get around with those I just take as a lost cause. And I do this with everything, be it cc or a news article. It's not really worth it. I also much prefer the donation model, as long as it's reasonable. Most things should be free; extra bonus content can be paid. Or things should go free after a certain amount of time. If 90% of the things you make are exclusive, well, then that's just basically paid content. And honestly, I don't think anything I've downloaded from these sites lately is something I would subscribe for on a monthly basis. I don't think it's worth it, quality or quantity wise--sometimes both. Ironically the creators I would subscribe to are 100% free, not even a tip jar. And believe me I look for those. Now that I'm older, I try to give back when I can. I didn't have the money and/or the discretion to donate to my favorite sites back in TS2's heyday. I've been playing TS2 since it was first released, way back when I was starting high school. The idea of getting my mom's credit card to go buy some TS2 cc was laughable to me. But I did swear to myself that when I grew up I would give back to all the creators that I frequented, especially the ones that made an effort to make donation items rare or eventually free. And I did. I went back and donated and still do. I'm lucky enough to be in a position that can afford to do that, and so I try to support my hobby and the community I spend so much time in. Every year around holiday time, when I do my donations and coat drives, I make it a point to do my creator and sim site donations, too.

So I guess *my* PSA to creators is to put out your tip jar, ! I know that others may not agree, but surely some must feel like I do and want to say thank you with money, occasionally. I'm not sure if I could articulate why adfly and paid content are bad but optional donations are okay. It's just that sometimes I want to support the creators who have given so much to me, I guess.

Hmm, I don't see what they are showing in that thread when I open the GMDC in SimPE. Instead it is blank and SimPE spawns a pop-up that says "Warning: You need to install MANAGED DIRECTX". Ugh, I don't want to have to mess with DirectX.

1) 0.01 USD for every 5 visitors.
2) it's not Adfly itself that's the problem when it comes to malware, etc - it's the ads themselves. Same problem TSR has with the ads on their site.
3) EA is actually fine with creators making money off their creations as long as they're made free for all within 2/3 weeks.

All that said: Adfly sucks and if that's how you want to monetize your creations... you suck even more. Unfortunately the creators who use it don't care what anyone else thinks.

Well, LindaSims managed to gather 13 subscribers total so - yay for her, I guess? Klira switched to Patreon, but also offers a nice number of downloads on SFS. Not sure about the others - there are many active creators out there who produce awesome items, as Phantomknight said, even without a tip jar out. To each his own I guess - bottom line is (1) it goes without saying that people should really be careful about what links they click on, (2) jerks will be jerks - I want my 0.01 USD and your pc is really not my concern , and (3) there are always alternatives.

@kestrellyn what file are you looking at? Maybe it's not just you.

This one.