Ads & Banner in Plesk 8.4!

[crnunez]

Hello,
Has someone remove this logo, link to Parallels?

Thanks!

[wsani]

You can remove the logo on the top left. Parallels license agreement doesn't allow customers to remove the logo from the top right corner.

[exi1ed0ne]

Man is that logo distracting. There should be a way to turn it off. There is absolutely no need for my customers to see it.

[crnunez]

Man is that logo distracting. There should be a way to turn it off. There is absolutely no need for my customers to see it.


I am really agree with you. Parallels should pay to us for advertising with this ugly logo and link.

Regards.

[DanLuria]

I wouldn't mind it so much if it atleast blended in with the blue.. and the top left image looks pretty shoddy.

Overall thumbs-down for the new style updates.

[meto]

In general i wouldnt mind if it was freeware or opensource... But we pay quite a lot of many for Plesk (it's one of the most expensive admins...). Even if it's there it should be nice and not disturbing, not a shitty logo on white background...

[ACID25]

here is a hint for that but not really a solution

http://forum.swsoft.com/showthread.php?t=52651

regards
ACID25

[frankylol]

As far as I can tell, all Parallels has done to put there logo in the top right of the cp is they have taken the logout icon replaced it with their logo, which can be found in the theme files (def_parallels_logo.gif) under the images directory, and have changed the logout link to be a link to their site.

The link code is not part of the theme files and resides in the encoded php. In other words you can’t remove it without some serious css modding (div overlays) or by using the same background colour as the txt. However According to the terms of service this constitutes a licensing breach.

Also the news section framework, clearly build to give hosts the ability to supply their clients with news updates about their services has been encrypted so only parallels news will show and the admin option to turn news off no longer works.

Parallels attempt to brand their control panel has resulted in a grave loss of functionality. This software is supposed to be a control panel for web hosts. No administrators i know who currently use Plesk will accept having a large, badly coded logo at the top right of their customer control panel.

A Warning: Parallels should seriously take time to consider which direction they are taking this software in. You are in danger of losing a large proportion of your client base if this over branding continues and is not reversed in the next version.

I’d like to further point out that users can now see which add-ons are enabled and which are not. More importantly users can see which add-ons have been paid for and which have not. This software is no longer suitable for Webhosts looking to manage their marketing and branding carefully. In this day and age the quality of the control panel is what sets webhosts apart from each other. Anyone thinking of using this software in its current state should stop and think:

1. You cannot remove large parralleles logo from the control panel
2. You cannot remove parallels news section or replace it with your own news.
3. You cannot stop your clients seeing add-ons which have not been payed for.

I have to say I am disappointed. This software has lost many of its most valuable features and I guarantee you I am not the only one who will be forced to change control panel if a compromise is not reached before the release of the next version.
By over branding and encrypting this software Parallels is putting itself in a risky position. Admins are more likely to try and hack you're software now you have removed the ability to brand the control panel. Can you not simply be satisfied with a copyright like everyone else?

I look forward to your reply,

Frank MacDonald
Redforrest.net Staff
0601415@abertay.ac.uk

[exi1ed0ne]

Well said Frank. Nobody at parallels is listening or cares since they already make their money off of large box farms like 1and1. Hosting fees include the Plesk tax, so why should they care if their customers go with another control panel? This forum exists for customers to blow off steam only as far as I've seen, with the occasional "official" post for appearances.

I for one am sick of the extreme lack of quality, free advertising for parallels, and half done features in new releases - or missing entirely: postfix, DomainKeys implementation without DKIM? If it wasn't for the appvault and ARTs wonderful ASL add-on I'd be gone already.

[zapp-a-lot]

parallel sucks since 8.4

[PixyPumpkin]

I for one am sick of the extreme lack of quality, free advertising for parallels, and half done features in new releases - or missing entirely: postfix, DomainKeys implementation without DKIM? If it wasn't for the appvault and ARTs wonderful ASL add-on I'd be gone already.Amen! ......

[Linulex]

The solution is pretty simple: Dont upgrade to plesk 8.4.

Always read/follow the forum and only upgrade if the first bugs are resolved AND the version has important new features you cant live without. Personally i find there is not one single new feature that makes me want to upgrade to 8.4, atm we use 8.3 and the next time we will be looking to upgrade is MySQL 5.1 support.

[shoggy24]

parallel sucks since 8.4

Believe me, it started before that version

[joeybutterface]

The solution is pretty simple: Dont upgrade to plesk 8.4.

Always read/follow the forum and only upgrade if the first bugs are resolved AND the version has important new features you cant live without. Personally i find there is not one single new feature that makes me want to upgrade to 8.4, atm we use 8.3 and the next time we will be looking to upgrade is MySQL 5.1 support.

You are aware there are security vulnerabilities in some of the packaged software bundled with Plesk 8.3 and earlier?

If you don't upgrade, you don't get the updated packages that patch security issues.

[shoggy24]

The solution is pretty simple: Dont upgrade to plesk 8.4.

Always read/follow the forum and only upgrade if the first bugs are resolved AND the version has important new features you cant live without. Personally i find there is not one single new feature that makes me want to upgrade to 8.4, atm we use 8.3 and the next time we will be looking to upgrade is MySQL 5.1 support.

Dont upgrade? If everyone do that how do you suppose bugs will be fixed because believe me there will always be bugs, in any software (although Plesk sometimes takes the cake).
The best advise is dont upgrade a production box use a backup to ensure what could go wrong. Afterall you are an administrator and part of your job is to test,implement and maintain

[Linulex]

You are aware there are security vulnerabilities in some of the packaged software bundled with Plesk 8.3 and earlier?

If you don't upgrade, you don't get the updated packages that patch security issues.

and what packages would that be?

Proftpd? you can install an update pretty easy yourself. From Dag Wieers for example
http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/proftpd/ just remember to backup your config file.

courier-imap? plesk version is 3.0.8, official latest version = 4.3.1

qmail? thats been 1.03 for years now

or do you mean the appvault?

postnuke? plesk = 0.671a, official version is 0.764 (released in 2006)
joomla? plesk = 1.0.15, official = 1.5.2 (released mar 2008)
Gallery? plesk = 2.2, official = 2.2.4 (released dec 2007)

etc..... etc...

need i go on?

[PixyPumpkin]

and what packages would that be?This would be:

Horde Turba Vulnerability CVE-2008-0807: detected [MODERATE]
Horde Vulnerability SA28382: detected [MODERATE]
Horde Turba Vulnerability SA28382: detected [MODERATE]
Horde Mnemo Vulnerability SA28382: detected [MODERATE]
Horde Kronolith Vulnerability SA28382: detected [MODERATE]
Horde Vulnerability CVE-2007-6018: detected [MODERATE]
Horde Vulnerability CVE-2008-1284: detected [MODERATE]
Horde Kronolith Vulnerabilty BugtraqID 28898: detected [MODERATE]

[exi1ed0ne]

The point about testing is well understood, as is the ability to hack in fixes. However, this is not a free product. It is not even in the realm of cheap. I expect a lot more from paid for software than I would from $random_project on Sourceforge. We should be getting security fixes ASAP without having to chance an upgrade, as you say with little to get excited about in the way of new or improved features. I pay for working software, and I don't appreciate it when I have to spend time monkeying around doing their job for them.

Ads in my paid for software is a slap in the face. They are trying to sell virtual hosting to MY hosting customers. At the very least they are trying to create brand identity on my dime. That is just not acceptable for paid for software. I would have thought they would have gotten the message when they first started pulling this crap, but I guess not.

They are telling us loud and clear that they don't value helping us to build OUR business thought their tools. They only seem to want to build their own and waste my time fixing things that should already be taken care of. Have fun hacking your plesk to work. I have better things to do, which is why I paid for it in the first damn place.

[wsani]

Andy made good points. I've challenged their support people on why we need to pay to have bugs fixed, their answer has been nothing but marketing non-sense.

Anyways, the Linux version lacks a lot of needed functionality and updates. The Windows version isn't better off but at least it has a few more features...

[zapp-a-lot]

first of all: i've to manage some 250 domains for my company, and it was pretty hard to do this only by editing httpd.conf


plesk was a perfect solution in 2004 (like for many others) - but nothing special has changed since years
most of the packages are not-up-to-date and many features are not worth a cup of cold piss

[johnham]

Can anyone say "Class Action"?

It goes like this. Google makes millions off of selling little pieces of web "ad" space all over the internet. They make so much in fact that a majority of their enterprise is funded off of it.

Web "Ad" space is a marketable commodity. It's a billion dollar market. So parallels is actually stealing "Ad" space by doing this. In fact by doing this they have easily gotten hundreds of thousands of free "Ad" space. They are stealing opportunity costs from us on our dime.

This doesn't even address the fact that my customers link over to their site and find hosting services like domain registration, SSL Certs, and virtual hosting or even other web hosting companies.

Parallels is stealing ad space that they should be paying us for as well as grifting my customers from me.

Again I ask, "Can you say Class Action?"

[wsani]

Class Actions on what bases? How are you going to prove the bases of a lost revenues?

Please don't get me wrong. I don't like what Parallels or SwSoft is doing or has done. I don't care about their lame excuses about the license agreements, etc. I'm paying them for the license, that should be enough.

[johnham]

A Class Action could simply be based on fair market price for the advertising they are stealing.

No need to even go into "lost revenue".

Say that they had to pay even $5/month for an Ad on each server they deploy to. With their customer base, that would not be worth their while.

My point is that they should not be getting a free meal ticket out of paying customers.

If they were to let us opt in to a "pay-per-click" affiliate program and remove the ads for those people who did not opt in, I'm sure the response would be overwhelming. They'd get just as much advertising and we'd get a kick-back. Right now I instead pay for hosting their ads. I pay for any customer who finds someone else through them and I pay for every five minutes of time that one of my technicians that has to answer "what is parallels" or "I thought I was hosting with you guys".

I'm no lawyer but there is a class action in here somewhere. I can smell it. Even if it is not super solid. There should be enough here to at least scare them into ripping the ads off of our servers.

Didn't they learn their lesson the first time they tried this. They did it. Within a week it was taken out of the software because there were too many users pissed off.

Until they respect me as a customer and not a means of advertising I am working on moving away from Plesk. Even if they did attempt to buy up all the competition, there are many other... cheaper means of doing the same thing.

[DanLuria]

What's the point of a class action lawsuit? Just stop using Plesk if it's that big of a deal.

[Linulex]

Question from the non-americans here

you know that part of the world that isnt used to have 3 lawyers watching every click you do.

Whats a class action lawsuit ????????

Like the man sayd: stop using plesk, or if you have 20+ servers .... hire some indiers, malaisians, ... whatever and have your own programmed for about $3000.

regards
Jan

[Blackbit]

Whats a class action lawsuit ????????


A lawsuit (klaag) brought by a representative member of a large group of people on behalf of all members of the group

[leondupree]

I am not sure I am following what the problem is. This is a simple update if you know css. Took me a matter of 3 min to find and change.

If you create your own template open \css\top\custom.css or on the fileserver with root access go to /usr/local/psa/admin/htdocs/skins/YOURSKIN/css/top where YOURSKIN = the default skin you are using and change "withTopRightLogo" "#topRightLogo" "#topTxtBanner" to be as follows:

.withTopRightLogo {margin-right: 0px;}
#topRightLogo {visibility: hidden; position: absolute;}
#topTxtBanner {visibility: hidden;position: absolute;}

Since they built this all using css and divs I think it would be safe to say that they are not forcing you to use keep that so should be all good.