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Brave Search beta

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Re: Brave Search beta

#471

Post by Naracion »

zzyzxd wrote: post #46

Previous related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26328758 If things go as planned, this may become a paid, ad-free, zero-tracking search engine. I can't express how exciting this is to me. Over the past few years, I have made several attempts to replace Google Search with DuckDuckGo. But they have all failed and I always ended up changing the default search engine back to Google. I mean, DDG worked f…

For the other 5% of the time, use the !s bang for Startpage. Anonymized Google search results, with an option to visit the websites on the results page anonymously.

Re: Brave Search beta

#472

Post by 55555 »

jonathansampson wrote: post #379
howolduis wrote: post #367

> On 6 June 2020, a Twitter user pointed out that Brave inserts affiliate referral codes when users type a URL of Binance into the address bar, which earns Brave money. Further research revealed that Brave redirects the URLs of other cryptocurrency exchange websites, too. In response to the backlash from the users, Brave's CEO apologized and called it a "mistake" and said "we're correcting". Brave is just a "pop-priv…

That's not accurate. Brave offered affiliate link options to users who were searching for particular terms (screenshot: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image3.png ). These were presented to users as a way of optionally supporting Brave development. Our mistake was matching fully-qualified URLs too (screenshot: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image2-1.png ). When we were made aware of this, w…

> No revenue was made from this feature either.

You definitely would have made some sales instantly with your userbase. The only way this can be true is if you refused any payouts because you saw it would be bad PR. I judge based on intentions. The choices Brave makes over and over show you guys are a shady affiliate type company with a mask of developer and privacy friendliness.

> Compare this with traffic attribution

This is really not the same thing. It's barely relevant. What Brave did is much closer to cookie stuffing. ie: zero value provided to the businesses. I have to now ask you to please not reply with a myopic technical or legal definition of cookie stuffing as you will otherwise do so. You are missing everyone's points on purpose. It's a strange coincidence and is only easy to understand when one realizes you are paid to do so.

Lastly, the first screenshot you linked is egregious. Thanks for providing an honest one. That is absolutely insane. You have an aggressive legal team, for sure. Anyone else would put "AD" float:right on that menu item. (If this was there and you cropped it out then actually I take back this criticism.)

You have a tough job mate. You have a shady employer and your job is to trick everyone into thinking they aren't shady even as they relentlessly do shady things.

I actually don't care about any of this stuff, I just don't like this community being lied to or manipulated. Hackernews is smart but can be manipulated just like reddit as you are seeing. You're only having luck because everyone here hates Google and tracking so much and so desperately wants to believe. But even if you guys do shady stuff I'm all for more competition in the browser and search space.

Anyway, what are the CPMs on your pops and the min daily buy/commitment and is anyone else actually making money with them? Is it pops or more like PPV (url based targeting?) I buy Opera and recently looked into your program.

Re: Brave Search beta

#474

Post by easrng »

jonathansampson wrote: post #395
smoldesu wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX Yep. The missteps that they've made over the past few years do not give me any confidence in the future of the project.

What missteps? The only notable UX issue we've had was years ago, and was a matter of naïve design. When we were made aware of the issue, it was corrected within 48 hours. Hard to portray that as a "culture of hostile UX".

I'd say only allowing BAT withdrawal to a single hosted wallet provider that requires KYC is a pretty significant UX issue.

Re: Brave Search beta

#475

Post by 55555 »

jonathansampson wrote: post #409
someperson wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave blocks webpage's existing ads then replace the ads with their own ad network that earns the website owner Brave-money that the website owner then has to redeem. That tactic is definitely a red flag.

That's not how it works. Brave blocks third-party ads and trackers (which are known to be dangerous) on behalf of its users (the same users who were installing uBlock Origin in Chrome and Firefox before coming to Brave). This is a security and privacy necessity on the Web today. Users are then able to opt-in, if they like, to a novel advertising platform within the Brave ecosystem. These users can earn rewards for th…

Where can I buy these (banners?) and what's the min daily budget? I'm skeptical this will work long term as you're overlapping two of the worst sources of traffic: technically-inclined users and incentived attention. Would love to test it out for fun.

Re: Brave Search beta

#476

Post by Aaronn »

jonathansampson wrote: post #393
smoldesu wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Their attitude towards advertisement and cryptocurrency is the reddest flag imaginable.

Elaborate, please? The blockchain enables everybody to participate, earn, and support content creators in an low-friction, anonymous manner. Advertisements serve as a great way to introduce revenue into the system (by way of advertisers who wish to reach an audience). Brave pulls it all together into a single, OPTIONAL component, which guards the user's privacy and security by conducting its operation locally, on the…

> in an low-friction, anonymous manner

Ah yes completely anonymous, unless you want to withdraw https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032158891-Wha...

Re: Brave Search beta

#477

Post by firexcy »

eloisius wrote: post #447
zzyzxd wrote: post #46

Previous related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26328758 If things go as planned, this may become a paid, ad-free, zero-tracking search engine. I can't express how exciting this is to me. Over the past few years, I have made several attempts to replace Google Search with DuckDuckGo. But they have all failed and I always ended up changing the default search engine back to Google. I mean, DDG worked f…

I've stuck with DDG for about the past year and a half and I have to agree. I want it to be good, but when debugging some obscure problem (like trying to learn SwiftUI lately) Google is able to dig up more result. Of course the "there were not results for so displaying results for 'computer programming instead'" is frustrating so I preemtively add quotes around every term more frequently. Lately I've noticed a weird…

> a weird problem with DDG where it will load a blank page of results

I've noticed the same problem too. My guess is that DDG pulls search results from 3rd-party engines such as Bing and for some technical issues it may fail from time to time.

Re: Brave Search beta

#478

Post by kristopolous »

zzyzxd wrote: post #46

Previous related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26328758 If things go as planned, this may become a paid, ad-free, zero-tracking search engine. I can't express how exciting this is to me. Over the past few years, I have made several attempts to replace Google Search with DuckDuckGo. But they have all failed and I always ended up changing the default search engine back to Google. I mean, DDG worked f…

DDG almost fails in the same way as goog.

The only advantage I have seen in results is Google has removed nonsense and conspiracy garbage from their results.

It's the general rush towards infantilism. I want to see the kind of nonsense that has assuaged so many people into effective insanity and apparently Google has decided that I'm not enough of an adult to view it.

It's like their Android dictionary. It lacks lots of words that I have to go and check manually because they've decided that someone using a nuanced word is only done in error

Or with their search where they remove all the important stuff from the query and return the results that I was specifically trying to avoid with those important modifiers "there's not many results with x" - Yes! That's the point.

All over the place they're just on some endless campaign to patronize the userbase. From the address bar that simply just refuses to do http: to a painfully dumb search in Gmail, it's really a company wide systemic problem they need to address.

At least back in the say AOL days, which were renown for this kind of mentality, they kept things at a stable sophistication for the lifetime of the product. It wasn't in some unending rush to become ever more stupid and childish with every subsequent release

Re: Brave Search beta

#479

Post by kup0 »

jonathansampson wrote: post #243
annoyingnoob wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm concerned about what happens to data Brave collects when Brave decides to sell itself. At some point they could be attractive to acquire.

Brave doesn't collect user data. We believe in Can't be Evil over Don't be Evil .

Repeating this bumper sticker mantra is honestly consistently unhelpful and comes off smug, IMHO

Re: Brave Search beta

#480

Post by approxim8ion »

distrill wrote: post #454
jay_kyburz wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Jonathan, here is my hot take on the issue. When a user installs uBlock Origin, they are attempting to protect themselves from ads, not just privacy, but because the ads themselves attempt to manipulate them into buying things. When Brave blocks ads in one place, but shows others ads instead, the users are not actually protected from the ads, any potential money that may have been generated by the ads is effective…

> When a user installs uBlock Origin, they are attempting to protect themselves from ads, not just privacy, but because the ads themselves attempt to manipulate them into buying things I'm not sure where you're getting this statistic. Most people that I know, myself included, aren't trying to protect themselves from buying things, rather from annoying ads that clutter everything up and slow everything down. Perhaps b…

I'm part of the group GP refers to. I have no interest in ads. I might even be aggressively against them in most contexts. At best, they are a nagging distraction, and worst they are manipulation. I understand the value they bring to creators but where possible I opt for subscriptions or donations rather than ads, and have very few qualms about it.
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