[deleted]
That is discrimination and you should be ashamed of it.
The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
71–80 of 394 posts
Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#72This is similar to when Pinterest did this back in 2012 and very quickly made large amounts of money but were crushed by public opinion and quickly shut the practice down. It’ll be interesting to see how Brave responds. 1. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...
Ironic that you posted an AMP link
https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2012/2/8/2783807/pintr...
Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#73Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#74Brave has to pay salaries - I suppose this is better than selling user data. Chrome is subsidized by search and Firefox gets money from Google. The revenue model for browsers is fucked up.
Ironically there’s only one browser with a sane business model and it’s Safari. You have to buy an Apple product to use it. Simple. That’s probably why it’s the only mainstream browser, outside of obscure open source browsers like Falkon and Gnome Web, that doesn’t have any built-in ties to third party services.
I think Apple still get revenue from Google (and probably Bing?) searches.
Could be wrong but I thought I remember details about Google paying Apple for this. But it was years ago I last seen it
Edit: quick search for “safari google search revenue” got me a few links from prior years about Google paying to be the default search engine. Last mention was 2019 so who knows how long that contract is or whatever
Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#75I would think the affiliate programs wouldn't like this either. The browser isn't doing anything to drive traffic. It's just taking credit for traffic that was coming already.
They theoretically could do things to drive traffic. For example, if they surface the domain sooner than they might surface other domains, or change the way the URL is displayed.
Eg. User types "B" and whilst "bbc.co.uk" might be very popular, Brave could instead surface the less popular "binance.com" ahead of BBC, and potentially give it a different visual treatment, too.
I don't use Brave, so I'm not sure whether they do either of these things, though.
Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#76Brave has to pay salaries - I suppose this is better than selling user data. Chrome is subsidized by search and Firefox gets money from Google. The revenue model for browsers is fucked up.
Ironically there’s only one browser with a sane business model and it’s Safari. You have to buy an Apple product to use it. Simple. That’s probably why it’s the only mainstream browser, outside of obscure open source browsers like Falkon and Gnome Web, that doesn’t have any built-in ties to third party services.
Safari is also mainstream because you have no choice but to use it on iOS. Even if you manually install another browser (which can't be made default), you're still using the underlying Safari engine.
Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree. Not sure what else needs to happen to encourage Chromium users to finally give Firefox a try.
I try it regularly but it just doesn't work for me. Here are just a few of the reasons why: 1. Chromium based browsers give me control over extensions that require access to everything. https://imgur.com/a/ENZkQyc 2. Firefox doesn't support media keys. Edit: Turns out it does if you enable them in about:config. See bad_user's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442732 3. There are still some areas in whic…
Firefox does support media keys, but it's experimental and you have to enable them in about:config:
- media.hardwaremediakeys.enabled
- dom.media.mediasession.enabled
#1 seems nice. Note however that Firefox was safer even before they introduced their permissions system simply by having a review system that works.
The review system of Chrome Web Store is broken, there's a lot of malware on it, extensions bought and turned malware and then you've got completely legitimate extensions being banned due to some automatic process flagging them. And then it's really hard to get in touch with humans. All the while reported malware take months to be taken down.
Of course, it's also true that Chrome is simply the bigger target. And what Mozilla is doing now probably doesn't scale. But for now Firefox's ecosystem of add-ons is much, much safer (and arguably more useful). Has been that way for some time.
I used to complain that it doesn't have a permissions system, I then complained that you can't disable add-ons in private mode. But it keeps evolving and I'm sure it will implement your favorite too, if useful.
Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to be able to use Palemoon, but I just can't get over the fact that it's a single main developer trying to maintain an entire web browser. That seems like a security nightmare waiting to happen. If I'm wrong about this, please let me know, I really like the idea.
Except they don’t “maintain the entire browser,” rather, they “maintain” a trimmed-down build.
Thanks for the clarification, that makes more sense. I'll download it and give it a shot.
Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#79I'm surprised people are surprised by this. Brave have said from the beginning that this is how their business model works. What I'm even more surprised about is that Brave has gotten any traction at all, as there is really no reason to use it instead of a normal browser with regular ad blockers.
> Brave have said from the beginning that this is how their business model works. This sounded like a pretty surprising claim. I looked at the terms of use ( https://brave.com/terms-of-use/ ) and the privacy policy for the browser ( https://brave.com/privacy/ ) and I wasn't able to find any reference to the notion of automatically inserting affiliate or referral links. Do you have a more specific source on this? I'm…
The substance of their business model has always been "we fight advertisers because money should flow to websites through us". They changed actual terms a few times when called up on their tactics being shady, but that's always been the end goal. In that framework, hijacking referral links is par for the course.
I don't blame them - a man's gotta eat, and they're not doing anything illegal or dangerous - but I've always found very curious that some people actually believe using Brave might be an "ethical" choice. It just isn't, it's simply a better mousetrap.
Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes
#80This is a nothingburger. Brave adds its own referrer code to a handful of crypto-related websites, if you type them into the address bar. It doesn't modify other affiliate links, as far as I can tell.