Angelfire Toolbar / Performance Improvements / Other Updates
Topic: News
Today, the Angelfire Team has launched a new toolbar feature on all free member pages. This toolbar replaces the search box and text links which were previously placed around the top ad. On most browsers, the space requirements for the bar is almost exactly the same as for the old text links-- we have been careful not to take up more space and "push down" member content with this change. The new bar includes two completely new features: a "share" feature that lets email pages to friends and a "Top100" list of member sites that we happened to like at the time. (This is a new feature and the criteria for inclusion hasn't been strictly defined yet. There are also more than 100 pages in the list. I'd like to move that to list pages which are well done and frequently updated, but that is still a work in progress.) The bar also includes links to the member directory, a link to report abuse, and an "edit" button so you can go right from your page to the builders if you are logged in.

I'm also happy to say that site performance has increased significantly in the last two weeks, but there is still room for improvement. Although the speed at which Angelfire responds to page requests has not changed, we have however made downloading files faster. We also have about 30% more server capacity coming on line soon and that will also improve things.

We will also be tightening our "remote loading" restrictions somewhat in upcoming weeks. Free users that use Angelfire solely to host files for other websites may find that ceasing to work. (They may also have their accounts removed.) However, we will be making more lenient other restrictions (such as with image search engines) to make things better for real Angelfire members. If you are just using AF to host your files, please consider creating a webpage or two or upgrading to any paid account.

Also: last week's issue reported here with Angelfire members sending email to AOL has been largely resolved. We have been advised that users that send a lot of mail to AOL may still be blocked, but the situation has been corrected for most.

If anyone sees any problems with the new release, please respond in this thread and the team will work to fix them. We are aware of problems currently with some small number of bottom ads in the rotation on some sites which can cause pages not to display properly for some users. (Other users will simply not see a bottom ad, but I don't think anyone will complain about that...) The team is looking at these problems.

This is a longer update than I had expected. I'll try and keep it shorter next time. :)