Forum: Moving to AniDB - Tired of other website`s bad conduct

Hello. I already had an account for quite some time, but I finally decided to move here and to never go back. I'm unable to keep going with MAL after I realized the "let's take every single penny out of you" approach. This forum post may be used as future reference to anyone wondering why switch to AniDB. Here goes a quick comparison:

MAL

1) Sells your data

Their privacy policy is not very direct and it leaves open the possibility that they may be selling personal information to 3rd parties. Even if they don't sell, they certainly share that information as it is stated in their Policy.

2) Is always trying to sell you some crappy product

They have worked towards implementing their own built-in manga store, instead of working on building a working platform. They also keep promoting other questionable companies like crunchyroll and TOM, which also have very bad privacy practices.

3) Everything you do will be tracked

MAL allows many 3rd parties to set cookies and track every single move you do, in order to make targeted ads or sell this information to other companies.

4) It has the Audacity to ask for premium membership after all of the above

yep, after trying to profit from every move you make on their website, MAL will then ask for your money if you want to fully utilize their services and customize your profile to the full potential. In addition, you have no way to know where that money is going (probably towards promoting partnerships with other bad companies).

AniDB

1) Will NEVER share your personal data

The Privacy Policy explicitly states that your data shall never turn into an asset to be sold.

2) It is not-for-profit

AniDB will not try to throw in your face a bunch of crappy products from third parties. Ads are non existant. Their only concern is delivering a working DB.

3) Does not have any built-in trackers

when you connect to AniDB you are not connecting simultaneously to another 20 domains you didn't know:

4) You donate if you want to help

You can utilize the website to it's full potential as soon as you register. The users donate to keep the service running. AniDB opens their wallet so that everyone sees what's going on and where the money is going.

BONUS - Customization Everywhere

You are free to make changes to the layout of the profile to your heart's content.

Final Note

A feature I liked from MAL is that they also have Manga and LN available, unfortunately it's something AniDB doesn't have. But that's the only thing MAL is doing better than AniDB, and just for that feature you have to abandon your data privacy and pay to get the full experience - Not worth it!

Now part of this community. Thank you for being the best Anime Database around
Gikkul.

Welcome fellow uBlock user!

Official statement about MangaDB:From here.

Interesting, will definitely keep an eye.

Welcome to AniDB! This comparison is actually quite good and captures many of the salient points; thank you for sharing. I'm going to pin it to the Introductions forum and cross-reference it in the Patreon thread.

MangaDB has always been something we want to do, but we simply lack the manpower to code it and then subsequently maintain it. We would probably need a full-time new volunteer to help us start coding it.

The coding part isn't even the worst of it. The hardest part is figuring out all the damn corner cases no other anime/manga database has solved so far. We want perfection. Even if it means we aren't as popular as other sites with a similar target audience, partly because our interface is "scary" due to its complexity and .. doesn't look enough like facebook.

Hi Gikkul! Nice endorsement!! And glad to have you here! Yeah, I can't imagine using anything other than AniDB. Another thing I like about AniDB beside the pure motives and actions of the site admin, and customization, is that it is an incomparable database of thorough and accurate information. To my knowledge, no one else compiles as much data or does so with as much care.

AniDB may not be absolutely every kind of perfect, but it's so indispensable that I find no reasonable choice but to throw my full support behind it.

I was researching for my own introduction post and stumbled upon yours. I also planned to compare AniDB to MAL, as I moved here from the latter. Very interesting and comprehensive post, thanks!