[valtam]

A note on advertising on the website

We've had some feedback recently about the number of ads on the Linux Lite website, and it's fair — so I want to address it openly rather than quietly.

First, the honest part: Linux Lite is free, and always will be. But the servers, the download mirrors, the forum, and the time that goes into the OS aren't free, and advertising is one of the ways we keep the lights on without putting the distro itself behind a paywall or a mandatory donation. That's the trade-off, and we don't pretend otherwise.

That said, “we need revenue” is not a licence to make the site unpleasant to use, and if the ads are burying the thing you actually came for — the ISO download — then they've stopped doing their job and started getting in the way. That's on us to fix, and we're going to.

A couple of things worth knowing in the meantime:

• Those flashing “Download”, “Free Account”, and “Click here!” banners are not ours. They're third-party ads served by the ad network, and some advertisers deliberately design them to look like download buttons to trick you into clicking. The real download link is the plain one in the middle of the page — never a blinking banner. Please don't click the flashy ones; they don't lead to Linux Lite.
• We're reviewing ad placement and density across the site, trimming the worst offenders, and making sure the genuine Download button is unmistakable and near the top of the page.
• We're also able to block certain categories of misleading ads at the network level, and we'll be tightening those filters.

If you've hit a page where the layout is especially bad, reply here with the page and, if you can, a screenshot — that helps us target the cleanup rather than guessing.

Thanks to everyone who raised this. Feedback like it is exactly how the site gets better, and it's taken seriously.

— The Linux Lite Team