Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup • Hacker News Board

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#41

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:00 PM UTC

strictnein wrote: post #31

jacquesm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the logical extension of that is that you actually get paid to browse, that might be a gamechanger. Keep in mind that the supply side right now ends at the owner of the web property that starts the ball rolling when in fact it actually starts with the person sitting behind the computer looking at the page. So this is a giant cut-out-the-middle-men opportunity and Eich is fairly uniquely positioned to take advan…

We tried the "paid to browse" thing 15-20 years ago. Didn't go so well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_to_surf

Times have changed since then and it definitely would not be the first time that something that fell flat out of the gate the first time became a success the second time around. Lots of current successes are actually just warmed over past failures.

That's not proof in any way that this might succeed now but there is something to be said or giving that a shot with the number of eyeballs available today (and the harder to advertise to markets that have been unlocked by the web but where ad agencies are not yet capable of selling inventory).

If you could centralize that through the browser it would be a fairly powerful strategy if adoption would be large enough (that's the crux), which is why I wondered if it was on their roadmap.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#42

Post by mirap » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:01 PM UTC

Have you seen git of desktop version? It seems it's completely written in JavaScript: https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop

Could such thing be secure?

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#43

Post by iza » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:01 PM UTC

> With Brave, you can choose whether to see ads that respect your privacy or pay sites directly. Either way, you can feel good about helping fund content creators.

How do they plan on doing that? Not like it hasn't been tried before. The problem is you can't collect money on someone's behalf without them opting in, and if it is opt-in only you get the chicken and the egg problem for adoption.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#44

Post by lucaspiller » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

mrtron wrote: post #40

jacquesm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the logical extension of that is that you actually get paid to browse, that might be a gamechanger. Keep in mind that the supply side right now ends at the owner of the web property that starts the ball rolling when in fact it actually starts with the person sitting behind the computer looking at the page. So this is a giant cut-out-the-middle-men opportunity and Eich is fairly uniquely positioned to take advan…

Paying to browse, a terrible idea that has been tried before. Alladvantage.com raised about 200m on that idea. The wikipedia page isn't correct, they had a pyramid based payout system. Fraudulent users would create enormous numbers of fake users under them and simulate all of their browsing.

It seems to be working well for Wow, which is effectively the same but for phone calls:

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/wowapp-sets-sail-for-voip-a...

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#45

Post by anotherhacker » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

I'm doubtful of this taking off. People stick with the default apps and settings. The average person just really doesn't care that much about this kind of thing.

Maybe enterprise or businesses will like it - so they can avoid their employees visit whitelisted sites that mistakenly have malicious code in the ads. Eg. Flash

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#46

Post by probably_wrong » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

hapless wrote: post #16

It sounds like their plan is to block all ads, then sell the new ad inventory created by all the blank space on pages. Why on earth would users want this browser?

I can't really think why a user would prefer this, but I can imagine that companies would have an incentive to pre-install it: A browser with unblockable ads (and an integrated micropayment system, if I understand correctly) is the kind of browser I imagine bundled in OEM systems, along with the typical bloatware.

Whether that's their main focus or not, I can't tell.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#47

Post by tdb7893 » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

mirap wrote: post #42

Have you seen git of desktop version? It seems it's completely written in JavaScript: https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop Could such thing be secure?

It could be. Whether it is is very suspect, though

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#48

Post by _urga » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

matthewtoast wrote: post #28

_urga wrote: post #7

I would much prefer a new browser that makes true native web apps possible with a one-click install to indicate trust. A browser built with Electron that exposes Node.js and otherwise keeps away from the HTML5 kitchen sink, in order to push innovation away from the spec committees and back out to the community. Vital technology like TCP, UDP, DNS, and the filesystem is being locked up behind a fascade of poorly imple…

Are you aware of any existing, serious effort to build such a thing? I love the idea - and it strongly appeals to me as a developer - but what would make the average user switch to it?

Developers would drive adoption. I think adoption of new browsers has usually been driven by developers.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#49

Post by lmm » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #9

abhv wrote: post #2

How will Brave prevent anti-ad-blocking mechanisms from interfering with the page? For example, cbs/abc/nbc seem to detect muBlock and then stop serving content.

This is the most annoying thing about ad blocking going mainstream. It was a rare site that bothered to detect us before Apple got into the game.

I found web adverts got a lot more annoying after Firefox started including a pop-up blocker by default. That was when we started seeing pop-unders, animated Flash ads and all that.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#50

Post by mirap » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 4:04 PM UTC

strictnein wrote: post #35

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #27

Its by the same guy who donated to causes doing their best to make sure two people in love can't get married due to their gender. Sociopathy has many forms and its obvious to me that Eich is just an untrustworthy guy with a lot of bad ideas. Low-rent projects like these is just further evidence that you need a founder/leader you can trust. Its clear he's exhausted his social capital and at age 54 is far away from his…

Bad ideas like Javascript and Mozilla.

Btw the desktop version of Brave seems to be written in JavaScript: https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop