CALLING ALL PATRONS: If you are a Patron, can you disable the orange DONATE ad?

Lichess.org 2026 Freemium experience: Big strobe light rainbow "DONATE NOW" popup that takes up your entire screen. Turns out you need Lichess Pro (5 EUR/month) to not be blinded.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware#Nagware

Nagware (also known as begware, annoyware or a nagscreen) is a pejorative term for shareware that persistently reminds the user to purchase a license. It usually does this by popping up a message when the user starts the program, or intermittently while the user is using the application. These messages can appear as windows obscuring part of the screen, or as message boxes that can quickly be closed. Some nagware keeps the message up for a certain time period, forcing the user to wait to continue to use the program. Unlicensed programs that support printing may superimpose a watermark on the printed output, typically stating that the output was produced by an unlicensed copy.

Some titles display a dialog box with payment information and a message that paying will remove the notice, which is usually displayed either upon startup or after an interval while the application is running. These notices are designed to annoy the user into paying.

bro if you hate it so much then by all means play on chess.com ... there, there won't be a "donate" option, just 5-6 ads on a page, plus you can do 5 puzzles everyday before you have to "go premium" (which only occurs 10-15 times and is not at all annoying) ... surely a little button is much more annoying than the repeated popups...

@ViratCarlsen said in #33:
> bro if you hate it so much then by all means play on chess.com ...
Virat, bro, if everyone blindly agreed with the status quo, made no suggestions for improvement, and told anyone calling for change to go away, then we'd still be in the Stone Age.

Having to go to Chess.com because I don't like the orange ad is a false dichotomy, which funnily enough doesn't support your earlier assertion that Chesscom doesn't monopolize online chess without Lichess. The third option I'm exercising is to play on the site I prefer, block the orange donate ad, and post a suggestion on the forums.

Besides the orange nagware, I don't have any specific complaint with Lichess advertising.

There are a lot of things that are much less annoying than the Chess.com advertising. It doesn't mean that all of those things are still okay, because they are still annoying.

The orange nagware going away once you pay Thibault is literally what makes it nagware and not just a donation link. If it was the same color and there for Patrons, it would be a simple donation link, no nagware, no complaint necessary.

@IbrahimMoizoos said in #32:
> These notices are designed to annoy the user into paying.

Perhaps you're a bit too easily annoyed. A single six letters word added to a pre-existing menu in an adequate and already used color is hardly annoying.

@IbrahimMoizoos said in #32:
> Lichess.org 2026 Freemium experience: Big strobe light rainbow "DONATE NOW" popup that takes up your entire screen. Turns out you need Lichess Pro (5 EUR/month) to not be blinded.

You may be concerned that Lichess become what you describe (a path that many free apps have followed). But for now this description is nothing but your own paranoid vision of the future.

(One last thing : if you consider Lichess a nagware for this single "donate" link, I'm amazed you dare to use Wikipedia who frequently displays popups to kindly ask people to donate. This great website must be such a nagware to you.)

I saw this button when I read this forum

@IbrahimMoizoos said in #1:
> I am aware of ways to hide it without paying, with adblocker etc.
>
> However, I think if you are a Patron, if it doesn't exist already, there should be an option unlocked under lichess.org/account/preferences/display to HIDE the Donate button.

as paid option?

#34
>if everyone blindly agreed with the status quo, made no suggestions for improvement, and told anyone calling for change to go away, then we'd still be in the Stone Age.

Here is the thing, you don't need to agree to anything. Just head over to lichess.org/source grab the code, hire developers, setup your own website, do whatever (as long as AGPL is honored) and live happily ever after.

@IbrahimMoizoos said in #32:
>
> Nagware

What about nagthreads? How can I disable them?

My name has been slandered in this thread by associating it with the words "competition" AND "ads" :) Two things I generally don't believe in.

What I said in that quote doesn't imply competition, and I don't see other chess websites as competition. We're a charity. If you are a charity that feeds the hungry, other people feeding the hungry (as a charity or business) aren't competitors.

It annoys me it is not more orange and blinking.

I want it blink every time I blunder a centi-pawn.

Thanks lichess devs!