Comment by propogandist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by propogandist | Hacker News Reader

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Honey, a browser extension that harvests user data and injects its own affiliate links was acquired by Paypal for $4 Billion.

Publishers are shilling amazon's prime day because they're all amazon affiliates wanting to earn their commission. Similarly, all those "price comparison" and coupon sites are injecting affiliate codes and just redirecting you to the merchant.

I don't see how Brave did something egregious injecting affiliate codes to earn commission from certain vendors, if one of their users signed up for a service. Keep in mind the dominant, alternative browser (Chrome), built by an advertising company, is privacy hostile and trying to use new tracking technology (FLOC) as they phase out cookies. Firefox is kept alive largely by $ paid by Google and seems to be getting worse with each release also. I'd rather see a competitive browser that doesn't have to take $$ from Google to stay alive.

Patching a few things in chrome is radically easier than maintaining and improving a completely different browser engine. And just because Google pays some money to firefox for their own selfish reason to not be caught in monopoly busting doesn’t create any twisted incentives for Firefox. It is the privacy-oriented browser fighting for a worthy case. Also, it is improving all the time - it’s just that for some reason the few missteps are way overpronounced.

> Also, it is improving all the time - it’s just that for some reason the few missteps are way overpronounced.

I don't understand why Firefox gets this benefit of doubt and other browsers (e.g. Brave) do not.

Well for one, because Mozilla has contributed significantly to the world and have a long history of doing so. (Thunderbird, mdn)

Brave's co-founder (and CEO) is also the co-founder of Mozilla. Our other co-founder (now CTO) was also an engineer at Mozilla for many years, and behind many of those contributions (several other Brave staff is directly connected to Mozilla as well). They started Brave in the same spirit, to improve that which is broken, and create a better, more equitable Web for all.

Thanks, that's a good point. BAT and the associated concept of rewarding content creators or Brave Search could be seen as contributions to the world as well, I think.

Almost all of Mozilla's revenue is from Google. I don't see how bad incentives could possibly be avoided, assuming Mitchell Baker wishes to keep herself in the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. I do believe they engage in copious moral bargaining to maintain their image as plucky underdogs sticking it to the man.

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