The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes • Hacker News Board

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#201

Post by hendersoon » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

meerita wrote: post #15

Being a happy Firefox user and watching all the browser drama from the backyard. I still don't understand why people uses Chrome or Chrome variants claiming privacy things.

As of last year, Firefox pinged telemetry every time you visit certain targeted sites, controlled by the "Recommend extensions as you browse" feature. They may actually still do this.

In 2018, Mozilla surreptitiously installed a mysterious plugin named Looking Glass to every installed browser as part of a marketing deal with the Mr. Robot TV show. Thus plugin altered websites for an alternate reality game promoting the show.

Back in 2017 Firefox Focus, one of their iOS efforts marketed as being about user privacy, collected telemetry and sent it to Adjust GMBH, a tracking/analytics company based in Germany.

Also in 2017 Firefox integrated a Cliqz plugin to recommend content in the searchbar based on your browsing history, which was sent to the Cliqz servers and theoretically anonymized. Cliqz GMBH is another German company involved in analytics/tracking, and a notoriously scummy one to boot.

I mean, I could go on. Mozilla's hands ain't clean, they make mistakes, but at least their _manifesto_ is worthy.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#202

Post by LeoPanthera » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #98

Typing this on Brave for iOS. What is the best browser for iOS from a privacy standpoint? Firefox doesn’t have uBlock Origin. I don’t trust Microsoft Edge or Chrome. What do you suggest?

Safari, as it has a built in cross-site tracking blocker. Optionally add an ad-blocker, such as AdGuard.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#203

Post by egypturnash » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

secr3t0 wrote: post #179

RandomBacon wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox: type in Binance.us and immediately press enter - no referral code. Chrome: type in Binance.us and immediately press enter - no referral code. Brave: type in Binance.us and immediately press enter - yes referral code.

Yeah so it seems you don't know how suggestion boxes work - If I have more relevant links like some logged in binance page that I visited and type binance.us it will also not show binance.us at the top. If you have problems with how suggestion boxes work though, why don't you just disable them - it's pretty easy, it's a toggle in the settings and it's not hidden or anything. U can disable it and the list still works…

I just downloaded Brave onto a computer that has never had Brave on it and typed "binance.us" into its address bar. Hit return. Oh look, I seem to be at "https://www.binance.us/en?ref=35089877".

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#204

Post by _eht » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:21 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #79

Shank wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 al…

You can believe it, they are really good at advertising and marketing. They know the arena very well. Ad Ops is their biggest dept, if I had to guess. Everything they do is intentional with an end goal of getting a market share of the ad industry. It’s huge. They want a piece of it, and you’re right, who can blame them.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#205

Post by mthoms » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:22 AM UTC

davidgerard wrote: post #132

OP here. Brendan Eich is now publicly calling me a liar, though he's inexplicably failed to detail the claimed lies. I've asked him to do so. https://web.archive.org/web/20200606232839/https://twitter.c...

Your title is, at the very best, poorly phrased. At worst, intentionally misleading. Whether or not you approve of what they are doing, and regardless of whether what they are doing is moral - they are not "hijacking links". That practice of "hijacking links" specifically means re-writing/modifying existing links on pages that you don't control (hence the term "hijacking" - or taking what belongs to someone else).

A URL typed in an address bar is not "a link". It's a typed URL.

Curiously, your article seems to describe what is happening pretty accurately so it's hard to see why you chose the title you did (other than to be clickbait-y and sensationalist - you are selling a book on the topic after all).

Again, that's not to excuse what they are doing. At all. But link hijacking has come to have a specific meaning and this isn't it.

TL;DR - Link is short for hyper-link. There are no hyper-links involved here.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#206

Post by thezdroids » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

chance_state wrote: post #120

thezdroids wrote: post #58

I support businesses that don't support bigotry toward me- their lead dev @jonathansampson is a vocal supporter of Trump. Nah I’m good.

You're going to be in for a rude awakening when you discover that not every FAANG engineer hates Trump too. I guess you have the option of giving up all those products and services too.

If FAANG leadership was out there tweeting pro Trump rhetoric, I would.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#207

Post by _eht » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:27 AM UTC

noxer wrote: post #66

this_user wrote: post #13

I'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.

Collecting sh*tcoins is a reason for a lot of the crypto people. Also many many people put brave download ref links all other their web-presents to generate revenue. Even people who do not use it and openly admit that, still gladly collect the bucks form other downloading it. The whole ref thing is the classic ponzi and it always works for a while because people do whatever you want if the work/reward ratio is good.

To your point, they are collecting contributions for URLs that are not signed up on the platform. When I heard this I checked a few of my publishing URLs and sure enough they are accumulating ETH/BAT without me doing anything.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#208

Post by thezdroids » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:30 AM UTC

jccalhoun wrote: post #82

thezdroids wrote: post #58

I support businesses that don't support bigotry toward me- their lead dev @jonathansampson is a vocal supporter of Trump. Nah I’m good.

Ugh. Between him and Eich's past with opposing the legalization of gay marriage, I think I'll stay clear of brave.

I completely forget about Eich’s antigay stance! Thank you for reminding me: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26868536

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#209

Post by djsumdog » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

atombender wrote: post #193

this_user wrote: post #13

I'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.

I use Brave because it's a "degoogled" Chrome. Having good blocking built in is a plus. Being able to use Chrome extensions is also a plus. I've tried Firefox many times over the years, and only recently has it gotten to a point where it's fast and nice enough on macOS. There are still corners of the app I dislike (it doesn't always feel like a native app, for example), but this may be a reason to finally switch.

Vivaldi is another Chromium based browser, although it's closed source.

Firefox was getting much better for a while right after the Quantum release, but recently it has fallen way behind.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#210

Post by jerf » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

trickldwn8nxjf wrote: post #134

flarex wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get paid for using the browser by being shown replacement non-targeted ads. Although it's a trivial amount.

Ah, the cornerstone of trickle down economics! “If you buy into the idea I’m super important, lift me up unreasonably, I’ll pay you back pennies on the dollar!”

It's more profound than that; as I've pointed out on HN a few times, despite what you may think, advertisers don't make that much from you. The problem with the whole "pay people to watch ads" or "share the ad profits with people" plan is that there isn't anywhere near enough money in advertising to make it worth while. We're collectively selling out our social media for an outrage factory, our entire news industry for clickbait, our privacy for everything we do online, and all the second-order effects of all that and more for on the order of $50/year. I worked out the numbers for Facebook once: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19459604#19462402

Aggregated across all of humanity it's worth it to spending millions of dollars to pick up a few more fractions of a penny per person, but if you try to "share the wealth" it just isn't nearly enough.