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uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

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Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#351

Post by 14 »

traverseda wrote: post #97
shwaj wrote: post #94

I know it’s not necessarily the same people, but it feels contradictory for this community to say “copyright infringement isn’t theft” when we’re talking about movies, but use the opposite language when talking about GPL source code.

You can live in the gift economy or the money economy. Taking stuff from the gift economy and selling it is gross.

One thing I see over and over again is that those with lower moral standards often seem to prosper. The saying cheaters never prosper has never seemed to hold true from what I have seen. Still I hold myself to a high standard in life even if I could get away with something I believe in morals. If I find a wallet I return it with all it's cash. Sadly if you have no morals you take the cash and come out ahead. My son last year had $900 in his wallet and dropped it. Returned with no money. I could never do that as I would be thinking that is someones rent money or bills or food for their family. The person with low morals however gets a new ps5 and some games or whatever else they wanted. I can only hope the person who took it was in a worse situation and paid their rent or something. Thankfully my son only learned a hard lesson and was not without food or rent or anything.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#352

Post by happymellon »

mcny wrote: post #271
benjaminl wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The only thing that I never understood was why brands would allow Honey to be an affiliate. Why would they want to pay Honey any money when Honey doesn’t originate any traffi? One YouTube channel, theo dot gg has a conspiracy theory about it which is honey: 1. amassed a huge (rabid) user base 2. Offered "protection" to companies The evidence presented is Amazon dot com affiliates walk on eggshells to avoid breaking…

> However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago.

I missed this, do you have any more information on it?

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#353

Post by mcny »

happymellon wrote: post #352
mcny wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only thing that I never understood was why brands would allow Honey to be an affiliate. Why would they want to pay Honey any money when Honey doesn’t originate any traffi? One YouTube channel, theo dot gg has a conspiracy theory about it which is honey: 1. amassed a huge (rabid) user base 2. Offered "protection" to companies The evidence presented is Amazon dot com affiliates walk on eggshells to avoid breaking…

> However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago. I missed this, do you have any more information on it?

Here is an article from January 2020

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/amazon-te...

---

PayPal Holdings Inc. made a big bet in November with its $4 billion acquisition of Honey, a web browser extension that helps online shoppers find the lowest prices. Now Amazon.com Inc. is warning customers not to use the tool.

Shortly before Christmas, Amazon said Honey posed a security risk, which was reported Thursday by Wired. The warning perplexed some online shopping experts since the tool has been available for several years and Amazon makes no similar warnings about other browser extensions such as price tracker camelcamelcamel.com.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#354

Post by 14 »

NikkiA wrote: post #215
derac wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual pirates are rarely profiting from it. I'd wager most people who think pirating a movie is fine aren't cool with printing 1000 bluerays and hawking them at the flea market.

Also most pirates abhor people that charge for access to pirated content.

I once paid for a Plex share that initially was very convenient. Some free stream sites can be very slow and constant buffering. The plex share had high bandwidth connection and a huge library with content from basically all major streaming services at a great price so it was an easy buy. Plex started cracking down hard and it would disconnect way too often and require the guy setting it back up again which could take a half hour or a half a day so I ended up moving on.

I was paying for netflix until my kids could no longer watch from my house and my exwife's house. After that nonsense I just taught my kids how to find stuff for free.

I used to pirate all my games but now pay for all of it. I am trying to rack my head around why I stopped with games but having a hard time thinking of what made me change. For PC I just think it probably is risky running pirated software that may be malicious. For things like the switch well I have a older switch that can be fully modded but haven't due to not having the time to fully research all the ins and outs and not wanting my kids switch to be banned or something.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#355

Post by 14 »

ndriscoll wrote: post #45
slowmovintarget wrote: post #2

If any software ever deserved being sued into non-existence it is the Honey browser extension, and any other scam software they turn out (Pie Adblock in this case). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk

From what I've gathered, honey basically replaced affiliate codes with their own and then gave the user part of the commission back? Is there something they did that users should be unhappy about?

Well some people actually do believe in giving credit to the person who helped them make an informed purchase. I have gone into a store and had a worker spend like 20 minutes showing me things. I wasn't ready to buy but when I was and came back I had another worker try and help me but said to them the other worker spend a lot of time helping the other day I would like to buy it through them and was sorry.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#356

Post by notpushkin »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #343
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you until the final sentence. From my perspective, that's the current state of software development. Hundreds of megabytes of JavaScript and "assets" for what could be a 60KiB bundle of HTML, or a 500KiB Win32 program.

Forgot the name, but it's a variant of Hawthorne's laws for computers. If tech gets faster, programs will work to fill that newfound space and performance. even if it's just a simple web text page. But no one complains and it lets them ship faster. So not much will change here.

> But no one complains and it lets them ship faster

I think we’re past even that point by now. Not only the code we ship now is slow, it’s also harder to build and maintain, and expensive to run. I have no idea how we got here to be honest.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#357

Post by Thorrez »

tiborsaas wrote: post #322
kotaKat wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would they want to pay Honey any money when Honey doesn’t originate any traffi? Paying Honey means you can limit the discounts available through Honey, sort of like a shitty protection scheme. Because Honey bills itself to the consumer as the be-all-end-all coupon and discount app and advertises itself as "we know ALL the coupon codes and discounts", a consumer with the Honey extension will likely not look outs…

> Paying Honey means you can limit the discounts available through Honey, sort of like a shitty protection scheme. But the merchant controls the discounts, if they want to stop spreading higher discount codes they can do it any time. If I had an affiliate program, I would not allow Honey on my platform.

Does Honey get the full amount from the affiliate programs? What if Honey only gets a fraction? Then the merchant might be happy to pay Honey 1/10 of the normal affiliate amount if Honey puts its own affiliate code there instead of some Youtube reviewer's affiliate code, which would earn the Youtuber the full affiliate value.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#358

Post by exe34 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #295
Brian_K_White wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The body of gpl code is absolutely a commons. I don't know why you imagine otherwise unless you're confused about public domain or something. There is no joining any company or anything remotely like that no matter how hard you try to squint. The single rule in GPL is no more than any other usage-of-commons rule like don't pee in the pool or litter in the park. The park is still free for anyone to use, you just can't…

> The body of gpl code is absolutely a commons You cannot (re)use any GPL code unless you agree to license your own code under the GPL. You and I may agree that the terms of the GPL are essentially just a way of protecting the commons. I happen to spend quite a bit of time on HN and elsewhere debunking people who cite Hardin's "tragedy of the commons" precisely because that whole story ignores the fact that real comm…

> You cannot (re)use any GPL code unless you agree to license your own code under the GPL.

and you can't burn tyres in the park.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#359

Post by exe34 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #295
Brian_K_White wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The body of gpl code is absolutely a commons. I don't know why you imagine otherwise unless you're confused about public domain or something. There is no joining any company or anything remotely like that no matter how hard you try to squint. The single rule in GPL is no more than any other usage-of-commons rule like don't pee in the pool or litter in the park. The park is still free for anyone to use, you just can't…

> The body of gpl code is absolutely a commons You cannot (re)use any GPL code unless you agree to license your own code under the GPL. You and I may agree that the terms of the GPL are essentially just a way of protecting the commons. I happen to spend quite a bit of time on HN and elsewhere debunking people who cite Hardin's "tragedy of the commons" precisely because that whole story ignores the fact that real comm…

> "a carefully socially and civically managed resource available to all but notionally protected from abuse".

no it seems that you've just been triggered - I did mean it in the above sense. that's why it's offensive when somebody takes gpl code and puts it in proprietary code that they distribute.

public domain means do as you want, even burn tyres in the park.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#360

Post by happymellon »

mcny wrote: post #353
happymellon wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago. I missed this, do you have any more information on it?

Here is an article from January 2020 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/amazon-te... --- PayPal Holdings Inc. made a big bet in November with its $4 billion acquisition of Honey, a web browser extension that helps online shoppers find the lowest prices. Now Amazon.com Inc. is warning customers not to use the tool. Shortly before Christmas, Amazon said Honey posed a security risk, which was reported Th…

Yeah, that tiny blurb was all I could find, which doesn't really tell me anything.

> The evidence presented is Amazon dot com affiliates walk on eggshells to avoid breaking Toss that Honey completely tramples on so at the very least honey is not subject to the same tos as everybody. However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago.

I don't get this, if Amazon really thought that Honey was "trampling on Amazon's TOS" surely they would just ban Honeys affiliate status? If anything this implies to me that someone had a grudge.

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