Revive Adserver is an
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
advertising server
An online advertising network or ad network is a company that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements. The key function of an ad network is an aggregation of ad supply from publishers and matching it with advertiser's d ...
that is licensed under the
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...
. It features an integrated
banner
A banner can be a flag or another piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or another message. A flag whose design is the same as the shield in a coat of arms (but usually in a square or rectangular shape) is called a banner of arms. Also, ...
management interface and tracking system for gathering
statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...
. It used to be known under different names in the past, most recently as OpenX Source. In Sep 2013, OpenX Source was sold to Andrew Hill and rebranded Revive Adserver. The current code base for OpenX Enterprise and Revive Adserver (formerly known as OpenX Source) are completely separate.
The software enables
web site
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...
administrators to rotate banners from both in-house
advertisement campaigns as well as from paid or third-party sources, such as
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
's
AdSense
Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advert ...
. Revive Adserver provides standard banner rotation, click tracking, zone-based ad selection, zone-based campaign targeting, direct ad selection, ad targeting (per browser, domain, language, etc.), ad capping and support for
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...
banners.
History
OpenX Source began as phpAdsNew, a
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...
from a similar project called phpAds, created by Tobias Ratschiller in 1998. When the phpAds project came to a halt in 2000, Wim Godden decided to create phpAdsNew by expanding the project with new features. He hoped the 'New' moniker would be temporary, lasting only until Ratschiller could update the phpAds website. Unfortunately, this only happened years later, after the name phpAdsNew was too well established to be changed.
During the time period between 2001 and 2002, Wim Godden led the phpAdsNew project and later received help from developers such as Niels Leenheer and Phil Hord, continually adding new features and improving the existing ones. After the release of version 1.9, a completely revised version 2.0 was created. This task was led by Niels Leenheer. The new version included many new features as well as a revised
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
.
After gaining in popularity and earning support from the open-source community, the project was renamed to OpenAds. Features that were built for phpAdsNew 2.0 were also integrated into the latest OpenAds software, which at this point had reached version 2.3.
When version 2.4.4 was released in 2007, OpenAds was once again rebranded under a new name: OpenX. The final 2.4 version is v2.4.11 and was released in March 2009.
In 2011, the
OpenX company disabled direct downloads of the software (a form must be filled out). Wim Godden subsequently made all GPL versions from phpAds 1.2.0 to OpenX 2.8.11 available.
Revive Adserver can be extended with help of
plug-ins.
In 2020 and 2021, compromised Revive ad servers were used to deliver malvertising (advertisements which led victims to install malware). Researchers estimated number of victims to be in "the tens if not hundreds of million of devices".
[{{Cite web, last=Goodin, first=Dan, date=2021-04-19, title=Millions of web surfers are being targeted by a single malvertising group, url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/04/malvertisers-use-120-hacked-ad-servers-to-target-millions-of-web-surfers/, access-date=2021-04-20, website=Ars Technica, language=en-us]
References
Online advertising