Ask HN: Browser add-on: Have you or your friends made any money from them?

6 points·rgovind··4 comments

I have a few ideas around Browser add-ons but from what I read earlier, browser add-ons are hard to monetize or very hard. Do you have any experience with monetizing them? How much did you make. What is so tough about monetizing them?

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The hard part about monetizing them is there are really no popular ways to run ads, and the browser addons that DO run some sort of ads are immediately called out as "adware" and shunned from the network.

In my experience, most add-ons/extensions fall into these categories:

-open source and generally want to help UX holistically -corporate and looking to advance their brand by way of addon -individuals looking to create some sort of monetization strategy

We built one that gives movie/tv show suggestions with every new tab. There's a link to buy that movie on Amazon which uses our affiliate code. Here is the extension: http://goo.gl/eiYqco

It was published last month and two purchases were made through our Affiliate code, so I would say about $5/month

We once tried to make a VBScript add on for Netscape and Firefox. I don't think there was that much interest in it after JavaScript was more widely adopted. A lot of websites used to be written in VBScript instead of JavaScript for Internet Explorer only. But then they also used ActiveX controls as well.

Your best bet would be something that searches for prices on Amazon and uses your Amazon Affiliate code for when they buy something you get a commission. You could do that for any affiliate program.

Thats a useful. Thanks. I will use Amazon affiliate code.

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