Comment by chrisacky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrisacky | Hacker News Reader

Original poster here. I came across this when one of my friends accounts was clearly compromised. They posted one of those "OMG! LOOK AT WHO VIEWS YOUR ACCOUNTS!" on lots of friends walls.

I wanted to check out what this link actually did, so I did a simple:

    wget www.facebook.com/?redirect=somebadlink.com > site.txt

But the wget failed because of the lack of a supported user agent, and Facebook instead served me up this page.

I really just had a little chuckle to myself, because, while this is extremely passive aggressive, it's not really hard to expect otherwise. I would do exactly the same if I were Facebook.

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I'm just suprised that they don't link to either webkit based browsers (Chrome/Safari). You can only assume that when one of your biggest threats is Google (and MS own 1.5%~) you probably aren't going to send more users to Google's way.

All in all, it just made me laugh, since if you are going to suggest a modern browser, you surely can't ever give props to Internet Explorer ahead of any webkit based browser? IE is still struggling to implement the most basic HTML5 features.

Seriously? Not really hard to expect otherwise? I guess it's ok then for Google to drop FB from its search results, after all it's one of its biggest threats, right?

It's not the same at all - an equivalence would be if facebook didn't support Chrome at all and made people choose another browser.

Ahah yeah. That's true.

All in all this is bad for the open web (both ways).

At least, there's no Facebook browser yet. But hey, it might happen as well.

They both want control over the net. Complete control. Client, servers, data.

Is it? It seems to me that suggesting browsers that are not the most common, actually does much more for the open web than the alternative.

All in all yes. Sure they put Opera in there but those are actually very common and well known browsers. You know... IE, Firefox. (and Opera is still quite well known).

That being said it's their little war for total web control (again client+server+data) which is really bad, and what I meant to express in the comment.

They don't control IE, Firefox, or Opera. This seems really like they are fighting against Google's war for total web control. Which I'll reiterate, is a good thing.

> At least, there's no Facebook browser yet. But hey, it might happen as well.

They should buy Opera and open source it :)

No idea if that makes any sense for Facebook from the business point of view, but it’d be really cool. And they definitely can afford it.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, Facebook getting their own browser makes a lot of sense. They have a real chance of pulling off the mythical Social Browser.

Opera already has an extensive email client which they could integrate with Facebook Messaging, they have widget system which would also fit nicely with Facebook apps. Opera was always about integrated experience, full functionality out of the box, and Facebook could take it to the next level.

If people talk about the Chrome botnet I can only imagine what would be said of a facebook browser.

HELL no. Please keep Opera private, play your open source wars with other browsers.

> They should buy Opera and open source it :)

No need to buy anything. Webkit is free.

Err, Opera isn't Webkit based at all. It runs on their own custom, proprietary layout engine.

I think geon knows this, but is saying that Facebook could just build their own Webkit browser for free rather than having to buy a layout engine.

Was this the start of the current rumour?!

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/25/facebook-could-be-looking...

It’s most likely just a coincidence, but it was very eery seeing that post on the frontpage just a day after I’ve made that comment.

I’ve googled "Facebook+buy+Opera" that day to see if anyone had similar idea. The top story was something mentioning Facebook Opera in a literal sense, as an emotional roller coaster about some random privacy issue. 15 hours later, it’s all about the rumors. So weird! :)

Yep - I saw the headline and immediately thought back to your comment. And after reading the article, I wasn't convinced they had any substantive evidence. Either they thought the same thing independently or they simply crafted a news story from your comment!

> They both want control over the net. Complete control. Client, servers, data.

This is ridiculous. I don't trust Facebook/Google with all of my private data, but this claim is outrageous. Care to back this assertion up?

I'd be fine with that. In fact, it'd probably be an objective improvement with regard to my search results.

Not all of us believe search engines have some magical obligation to be complete or impartial. If you don't like the results you get from one, try another.

... because in the long-run, everything will work better if everyone just behaves selfishly ... ?

I decline to engage in a debate with someone who has decided he can divine my worldview from a single comment about privately-owned search engines.

Hint: I'm a socialist.

Agreed. The most frustrations I've had with google lately is when it assumes I care about some cluster of social chatter that vaguely intersects with my search terms.

  curl -I -A "Firefox" "www.facebook.com/?redirect=somebadlink.com" | grep Location

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