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

davidgerard.co.uk

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

#371

Post by Havoc »

fastball wrote: post #360
Havoc wrote: post #94

Wow. They appear to have a death wish. If your entire raison d'etre is privacy and clear stated model then one covert shady move like this can wreck trust irrevocably. If they had just declared that their model includes inserting affiliate codes then that would all be fine. The codes aren't the issue here its a violation of trust. If I'm OK with mystery monetization stuff happening behind the scenes I'd be using Chro…

Except mystery monetization is a pre-req for heavily maintained software that you don't pay for. I'd rather the mystery be "affiliate deals" than "selling my data". Mozilla's mystery monetization is getting paid lotsa dollars to make Google the default search engine in Firefox. And Google can only afford that because of ads. If Firefox integrated ad-blocking by default like Brave did, Google might be inclined to pull…

Very valid point :)

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

#372

Post by Marsymars »

tygrak wrote: post #33
alexruf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Not sure what else needs to happen to encourage Chromium users to finally give Firefox a try.

I still don't understand why everyone moved away from Firefox back in the day. Is it really just the fact that Google put up so many ads everywhere?

I've never used a Chromium-variant as a primary browser. Used Opera until they switched to Chromium and their Presto-based brower became untenable, then switched to Firefox.

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

#373

Post by ketamine__ »

jedimastert wrote: post #318
ketamine__ wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For tips Brave would keep 5 cents and give you the 95. I have seen a lot of commenters speculating about how Brave works. It is possible to look these things up before posting.

Was the affiliate link thing documented anywhere? I can't find it anywhere as and Googling I attempt is clogged by the current news cycle about it, so it might be buried somewhere (or it was much more obvious and people weren't paying attention; I know I wasn't) but if it wasn't it wouldn't be completely unreasonable that they might have other undocumented revenue streams

Brave has a partnership with Binance. A link to Binance is on the new tab page.

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

#374

Post by ketamine__ »

drusepth wrote: post #247
ketamine__ wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For tips Brave would keep 5 cents and give you the 95. I have seen a lot of commenters speculating about how Brave works. It is possible to look these things up before posting.

Why would your browser keep any instead of giving all 100 to the recipient that was intended?

It's a startup and startups have to make money so that they can fund future development.

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

#375

Post by kyuudou »

jerf wrote: post #210
trickldwn8nxjf wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Perhaps such platforms aren't necessarily about selling advertising. Gold mine for big data analytics though!

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

#376

Post by me_smith »

nine_k wrote: post #240
me_smith wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm considering trying FF on mobile and I am curious what QoL features are missing? Thanks!

From my perspective, none of them. The browser is reasonably fast, and you can still share bookmarks and logins with other installations if you create a Mozilla account (or host your own sync server!). But, from my perspective, just having uBlock Origin installed in the extensions is a huge differentiator, that gives most pages a lot of speedup. Stylus can also be helpful to fix some suboptimal mobile designs.

Thanks for sharing! I think I will give it a go.

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

#377

Post by me_smith »

Sevaris wrote: post #298
me_smith wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm considering trying FF on mobile and I am curious what QoL features are missing? Thanks!

One of the things that annoys me on a daily basis is how FF handles the address bar. In Brave, if I click on the address bar. It gives me a button to copy the link. If I have a link copied, there's a paste button. If I use FF, I have to go through the whole monkey dance of clicking on the address bar, tap holding the address until the copy menu shows up, then I can copy. Then there's absolutely infuriating stuff like…

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I think I will give FF a try. I can understand why the address bar / tabs disappearing while scrolling would be annoying but I'll see if it is enough for me to revert.

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

#378

Post by basch »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #150
egypturnash wrote: post #144

From the same browser that brought you “Hey we’ll just start taking donations for everyone whose ads we block, and we won’t put any effort into contacting anyone to tell them about this - and if they do find out, the process to start getting those donations is a giant pain in the ass!” I’m tempted to add some browser sniffing to my site just so I can block this scammy thing. I don’t even have ads on my comics any mor…

Nothing I've read about Brave has ever made me want to use it instead of any other browser with a basic ad blocker, and this whole "we will save the web by substituting other people's ads with our own and making them all party to our business model whether they want to be or not, also something something cryptocurrency woo" shtick was the main reason. It continues to be the main reason.

From a technical perspective, if its the fastest and most efficient ad blocker, doesnt that give you some interest?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236121

Especially since (sans this most recent incident) most/all the most disliked features are opt in.

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

#379

Post by basch »

Ayesh wrote: post #176
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.

I'm all in Firefox too, but Brave is not just a Chrome privacy thing. Brave goes out of its way to make money by ripping off publishers. As a publisher myself, I respect ad blockers. If they block ads, they aren't gonna click the ads in the first place, so it's their choice. I even respect DNT header and not put my pixel tracking for the users. Brave, on the other hand, is doing these sneaky stuff to earn from my eff…

>accumulated about $10 worth of BAT currency (their own shitcoin) in exchange of showing ads.

Thats not how it works. The user receives BAT for opting into OS notification tray ads. Then the user is tipping your blog with their earnings. It may be somewhat of a moot argument, but there is a distinction. The user is accumulating BAT from having the browser open, not necessarily when they are on your site.

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

#380

Post by basch »

_bxg1 wrote: post #215
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.

Its goal was to create a sustainable alternative to ads, not just block them. I haven't been keeping up with it so I don't know how successful that's been, but it's a noble task that nobody else is really working on.

Ill go a step further, with a likely very unpopular opinion. I think they should leave this feature in the browser, and make it one of the opt in options along with viewing ads.

If I like the product, I may not have a problem supporting them with affiliate link rewrites, if it funds technical development and engineering.

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