Chrome for a Cause | Hacker News Reader

Chrome for a Cause

google.com

114 pointstwapi31 comments

For your information (from Google Chrome for a Cause's Terms of Service):

  Terms of Service
  [...]
  The Charitable Donation
  Google has set a maximum contribution of $1,000,000 associated
  with the Google Chrome for a Cause extension.
  [...]
  Limit on tabs submitted
  Google Chrome for a Cause sets a daily maximum for the number of
  tabs you may submit, presently equal to 250 tabs per day. You are
  also limited to accruing one tab per second towards your daily maximum.

tl;dr:

  1) maximum contribution of $1,000,000
  2) maximum 250 tabs per day
  3) you get only one tab per second

well without these restrictions my browsing habits would have saved the planet in 2 days :)

That shouldn't stop anyone from installing it and making sure they reach the maximum of 1 million dollars.

I am pretty sure they were aiming to reach that maximum since the beginning anyways.

Exactly. They just want some publicity so that people use Chrome. What better way than encouraging people to open lots of Chrome tabs?

It seems you need a Google account to be able to send your tabs, so it does not seem that they were aiming solely to publicize Chrome. Probably they boosted-up the Google's account registration and post-registration page just before announcing the campaign.

It looks like it matches the maximum donation Microsoft was making for the "browser for the better" campaign. The only difference is IE donated per download, not for usage.

A quick contribution:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aohhkkllpkopbboneo...

Super quick, small chrome extension that turns all non-relative links on any page you browse to open in new tabs...

It has a maximum of 250 per day, and one per second, so I don't think this will help much.

Perhaps not - but I generally don't open too many tabs (I keep a lot open - but I don't open new tabs constantly). Since I posted that link I have been using it and I have only reached 109 tabs so far in that time. It's helping me try to reach that quota a lot sooner in a day than I normally would do in my standard day to day browsing.

Other than that, it's pretty useless :)

Um... I don't see $/tab specified anywhere. Perhaps the distribution of "tabs" will just decide how they allocate their $1,000,000?

That actually adds some slightly negative overtones to it -- each choice you make is reallocating away from the other fine charities. Even if it's accrued per tab, the probability of them hitting their maximum is virtually guaranteed, so it's simply voting for distribution.

So go ahead -- contribute to books, knowing that really you're just taking away from clean water and shelter. Merry Christmas!

Those aren't just "books", it's going to helping "literacy and gender equality" in third world education. For example, fact that women are often under-educated is a major source of issues in these countries. So yes while it's still about having to allocate things differently, don't just write off "books".

After you install the plugin, you will notice that it tells you how many vaccinations/books/water/shelter/trees you've raised. It is almost certainly absolute.

From my unscientific evidence, it seems like opening a tab is .1 trees and .1 books, and .05 vaccinations. Still at 0.0 people with clean water and 0.0 shelters.

It would seem like you can accrue up to your 250 a day. I don't know what happens when it pushes up against the million global limit.

From http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/12/browse-for-good-cause.htm... :

10 tabs = 1 tree planted

10 tabs = 1 book published and donated

25 tabs = 1 vaccination treatment provided

100 tabs = 1 square foot of shelter built

200 tabs = 1 person's clean water for a year

The going rate for donations to plant trees is around $1/tree (see http://www.google.com/search?q=plant+a+tree). Assuming the conversion rate is constant, that would mean the conversion rate is $0.10/tab.

Google has absolutely no idea how much damage I'm about to do. I probably open tabs in my sleep.

Google has set a maximum contribution of $1,000,000 associated with the Google Chrome for a Cause extension. You agree Google may change this maximum contribution at its sole discretion.

From: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/p/cause/tos/

Quite possibly the most brilliant way of increasing their browser share that I've seen in a long time. Well played, Google's marketing dept.

One million dollars is a drop in the bucket for Google. Still if you want to hit 250 easily just open 5~6 chrome browsers and click ctrl+t every second. Just by opening a new tab your counter goes up. If you want to donate over 250 tabs, just create a new user on your computer and download chrome for a cause there and repeat. 500 tabs donated.

I really dislike gimmicks surrounding charitable donations - open browser tabs, collect soda can tabs, etc.

I've never seen evidence that they really work well as marketing, and every single one ends up being more bother to me and less money to the cause than my just giving them $20-$50.

Go ahead - each cause has a 'donate directly' link next to it.

http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/p/cause/charities/

"Please use our browser. We might donate some money to charity, if we feel like it."

Perhaps I have not paid much attention, but I wasn't aware this community was so fond of companies tracking their internet usage.

I'm going to cost Google a lot of money over the next few days.

RSA Animate - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce http://vimeo.com/13852158

Has anyone written a script to automate this yet?

Auto-it could be used for that.

I just wrote one that should work. The only thing is you need to write in your chrome's install directory in the Run method right now. AutoIt script is as follows:

Func chromeTabs($num) Run() ;Insert Chrome's install directory here While $num > 0 Send("^t") $num -= 1 $time = TimerInit() While TimerDiff($time) < 1000 $time = $time WEnd If $num < 249 Then Send("^w") WEnd EndFunc chromeTabs(250)

I was going to write an extension this weekend. Worth my time?

A little late and a little funky, but here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2021205

Reply on news.ycombinator.com