Fridae

People dislike change. As a developer you get used to this. Whenever you make a change to a system that has been in place for quite some time you will always get messages that tell you the changes are bad, why change something that worked fine and requesting that you change them back.

Well we have just made such a change to one of our core systems, our website messaging service, and I want to explain why such changes are necessary and how they can benefit all users.

Firstly the existing messaging service was over 7 years old. In technology terms this is an eternity. It means that the technology is vulnerable to those who would choose to take advantage of it and it runs the risk of not working with modern browsers. You have to keep in mind that technology around us is advancing, if we like it or not and the likes of Microsoft and other tech giants release new versions of their software and Fridae is reliant on these technologies to run. So when a new browser came out like Microsoft Edge, we have to make sure we support it. These tech companies will try and make as much as possible backwards compatible, as do we, but there comes a point when they simply say, we no longer support this.

The new Chat Windows are fixed to the bottom of the screen and multiple windows can be open at once. Once the width of the screen is full a number will appear to show how many windows are open but not viewable. Clicking this number will show a list of these windows to enable you to select them. This is very specific to stop spammers opening multiple windows or getting automated message spamming systems to do it.

The method to see historic messages has not changed. On the profile menu (left hand side) click on Messages and you will see all new and past messages. Clicking on either the message box or the View link will open the chat window. You can then scroll up to see previous messages in this window. 

Fridae has also launched two new mobile apps in the last two years and these have become very popular with the members. As a result most messages or chatting is done via the apps, and here was our other issue. The website was missing many features found on the mobile apps, including sending and receiving pictures. Many users rightly pointed out that this is standard functionality in many other websites of this type.

It should be noted that many of our competitors do not operate any service on a website and only operate through apps. This is not a direction we are looking to go in.

So we have launched Live Chat. We have been working on it for some time. This is the foundation for many new functions that will be coming to Fridae including a new Voice calling service through the app and website similar to WhatsApp but without the need to give out your telephone number.

We have tried to keep the format familiar, using the same format used by major systems like Facebook. This seemed sensible as we have also used very similar technology to the big chat giants in the market.

Live chat will also allow you to send messages back and forward without receiving a huge number of emails.

I want to also talk about spammers on the system. Recently we introduced an interim measure to ask people to confirm suspicious messages with a captcha code. This has radically reduced spamming on the system. However there were users that used the inadequacies of the message system to encourage you to send them an email to see a picture. Now you have the option to say no, send me a picture on Live Chat. We encourage you to be careful sending out your email address to people you do not know, once you leave our chat system we can not take action on a spammer.

We know that there will be bugs and that we will be releasing patches for Live Chat over the next few weeks. Already two patches have been release, one because of a formatting issue with Internet Explorer and one to increase the size of the area you type your message. (this now dynamically increases up to five lines as you chat.) We are currently looking at a way to make the chat window more obvious when it appears.

However if you experience an issue we would be grateful if you would let us know, giving us as much information as possible. Specifically it would be useful to know the browser you are using and the version of that browser. If you can send a screen shot it would also be very useful. You can find how to do this with a very simple google search, but it is different for different operating systems.

We have also launched a number of new functions on our mobile apps. These include, locking the app, updating your location when the app is in the background, the ability to request to view adult pictures, and a new abuse reporting system. The apps are now also in Italian. Do not forget to update your app to take advantage of these new functions.

We must move forward as a product, because our competitors will also. We face many challenges in advancing technology and we are already looking at new features including Apple Watch compatibility, An Apple TV app and integration with Car Play. If we are to compete in this ever changing market change is essential.

Some interesting Stats for you:

99% of all Chat is currently via the mobile apps

Since introducing the new website live chat we have seen a 78% increase in chat usage.

Update: We will be launching a further update today that will give an audible notification, a message in your browser title bar and a flashing header to the chat when new messages are received.

Update 3rd January: We have made a change to the background colour of the chat window to resolve an issues that members found it difficult to distinguish it from the website background.

We are very please to see that the use of chat has continued to increase today now up 100%, i.e double the usage we were seeing before the upgrade.

Dear Fridae User,

Over the last few weeks we have been upgrading our systems to try and stop you receiving spamming messages.

Unfortunately we live in a world where some people do not play by the rules and we want to help protect you from these people. 

Now that all members have unlimited messages on Fridae we want to make sure the experience is as good as possible. 

We have now put a number of safeguards into our systems that attempt to identify spamming messages which are flagged up on our systems. These are the first steps in a much larger program of security updates to protect you, our members.  

Our system is designed to learn and will analyse messages for typical spamming activity. 

You might be asked to complete a captcha question when sending messages. This happens when the system identifies something suspicious in a message. If you receive one of these, all you need to do is confirm that you are a real person by performing the simple task and your message will be sent. 

Please help us to stop these people taking advantage of our members by remembering the following points.

1. If someone you have never heard from before sends you a message which includes their email address and asks you to email them they could be collecting email address. Talk to them before you send personal contact information.
2. People claiming to be in the military, especially in the USA are often spammers. They would usually use a picture of themselves in military uniform.
3. People asking you for money or asking to help them get money out of their country should be viewed as highly suspicious. 

Recently we have seen some spammers trying to get people to sign up to a personal authentication website. They claim this is to prove you are a real person. These are in fact sites designed to get your credit card details from you. Please do not fill in any information on these sites. If in doubt as us to check it out. If the site is suspicious we will contact the hosting company and ask them to investigate and if necessary shut the site in question down. 

In general please be careful, giving out your email address or telephone number could lead to you receiving more spamming messages on those mediums or worse. If you view something suspicious let us know by emailing support@fridae.asia. Any account acting in a suspicious way will be suspended until the member can justify their actions. 

It has been many years since the Perks Prices changed. Over the last few weeks we have been looking at what we offer for Perks and the cost.

We have also been looking at the new features we have coming in the next few months, not only for Perks members but also for free members. 

It is our wish to make all features of the platform accessible to as many people as possible. We would love to make everything completely free but unfortunately the Fridae platform has fairly substantial running costs that must be covered. 

So we have taken the decision to substantially reduce the Perk costs. Our 12 month package has now been permanently been reduced by 20%.

Fridae gives more flexibility in pricing options than any of its competitors and now with prices that give great value for money.

Perks Prices will now be the following:

1 Week - $1.99

1 Month - $5.99

3 Months - $15.99

6 Months - $22.99

12 Months - $39.99

This morning I watched Anderson Cooper read the names of the dead from the Orlando attack and I found myself starting to cry. I suppose it is the natural evolution of emotions to such an event, that started with shock, moved through anger and has ended with such sadness at the injustice of people loosing their lives for no fault of their own. 

The news is so full of stories of heroism, escape and messages that were sent from sons, daughters and loved ones that would not survive the night. I suppose crying is a natural reaction for a civilised human being.

Then on the other side we see the reaction of the not so civilised and not so human. So called Christian preachers that celebrate (in their words) “50 less paedophiles on the street”. The people who peddle hate, who find ways to twist words from books that are meant to promote love and acceptance and of course the members of the group that at least seem to have inspired this atrocity. 

However I find myself turning my mind to those stories we have all seen on the internet of executions carried out by the so called Islamic State against other members of the gay community that haven't taken place in our back yard but in Syria and other countries where this organisation operates. I haven't cried for them and I should have. I haven't found myself so moved that I had to make a statement on this site, and I should have.

I hope I can speak for all that work for Fridae that we must as human beings stand firm and redouble our efforts to speak up when these abominations happen not just when the death toll hits a high mark and not just when it is close to home.

Managing Director

Fridae

Last week we launched our new Fridae iPhone app and for me this marks a pivotal moment in our stewardship  of Fridae.

It has been just over a year (April 2015) since we took over the running of Fridae and I hope that members have been able to see a discernible improvement on the service being offered.

It is a shame that many of you can not sit where I do. Many of the changes that have been made in Fridae will not have been noticed by any of you. The developers here at DragonStack have slowly been wading through the millions of lines of code and have been enhancing and fixing many aspects of the site.

We are currently looking into making it easier to download the Android App in China. We have put a direct download on the site itself, but we are in the process of listing the app on some Chinese App Stores. Also you can expect to see both apps becoming available in multiple languages including Chinese.

We have also made a commitment to keep improving on our own development work. Both the iPhone and the Android app are now part of a regular updating progress. We receive daily reports of any issues directly from the apps and our coders immediately work on updates. You may have noticed that the apps have lots of updates. However, this is not only just to fix bugs, we also have a development schedule and we hope to bring you new functionality on a regular basis.

This is one of the advantages of having an in house development team and although they are not solely working on Fridae it does mean that we can react relatively quickly to new developments.

You may have noticed that we have made a few changes to the site as well. New headers, and new colour schemes have given the site a small face lift. We are still working on a complete rebuild of the site but we thought these changes  would help make the site look a little more modern.

Managing Director
Fridae