Ad-financed hardware websites is tough business these days it seems, at least for small(er relatively - not that french is particularly small objectively speaking) languages. There are two major swedish PC news and reviews sites, and they both have increasing amounts of hardware vendor sponsored material, either ads made up to look like news, or giveaways, brand-focused questionnaires or hardware donated to be reviewed - with the 'guarantee' that the vendor has no influence over the review itself.
Okay, fine. Maybe that's true. And maybe it isn't. Who knows?
I didn't see all this stuff a few years ago. It kind of feels like the 'free', ad-financed web is sort of shuffling, moving towards its end - to be replaced by what I don't quite know. Subscriptions? Probably not, I doubt that'd be financially viable. Patreon-like sponsor shit, maybe mixed with (a lot of) ads? Hm, maybe.