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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

I have a stupid idea. But first, a bunch of questions:

- Can you legally advertise a product you're not affiliated with? Is this OK by the ToS of major ad networks?

- Is it possible to target ads by user's browser?

I'm thinking, maybe we should crowdfund a public interest ad, targeted at people browsing from Chrome, with some attention-grabbing art or distracting colors, and a clear message: "Want to stop seeing this ad? Stop using Chrome, install a different browser and an ad blocker. Click here to learn more.", which links to a site directing people to install Firefox and uBlock Origin (and linking to crowdfunding campaign to keep the ad going). Alternative for A/B testing: "Don't click this ad, it costs us money."

Come to think of it, maybe someone like EFF should do that - they're well-known and reputable enough that people wouldn't immediately assume it's some weird Firefox ad, avoiding the effect being the opposite from intended.

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Good idea, but don't look to EFF for help. They rely on Google and Co funding to survive.

"Buying Silence

... most of these groups depended on funding from the very same corporations that they should be criticizing. Over the past years, EFF has taken millions in funds from Google and Facebook via straight donations and controversial court payouts that many see as under-the-radar contributions. Hell, Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s foundation gave EFF at least $1.2 million"

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/all-effd-up-levine

Even if it's not against TOS I would imagine most ad network just refusing to serve ads that encourage people to install ad blockers.

Yeah, I guess. But I imagine there's so much volume of ads that they can't all go through human review. Maybe it could sneak in undetected and work for a short while, until the first tweet mentioning it goes viral.

It would probably work, until it really works - when it will be stopped.

But if done right, it has the potential to create lots of attention. An add, that wants you to see less ads, that was finally taken down by the big corporations? Very clickbait article stuff - it is just that (almost) all those news networks live on ads so have no incentive to push up this news.

I can put up a "pretend ad" on my two blogs and maybe I can be a bit creative and get it feqtured elsewhere too if someone provides "artwork" and somewhere to point it too.

Anyone else in?

PS: If you do it later, send me a mail (it is in my profile, click my username to see it.)

you don't have to mention adblockers in the ad. The ad could imply a cleaner browsing experience, faster, and your activities won't be tracked!

yeah, people really trust those sites that offer to install something to improve your browser performance and keep you from being tracked.

well, at least this one ad would be true, and hopefully, those who would otherwise have clicked on that shady "web-accelerator" ad would've instead been saved by this one!

if there was one Nigerian prince who transferred 1 million dollars to a person's account that would set a bad precedent for all the gullible folks out there.

I am not sure, if that would change anything as reality is clearly perceived different with some people.

I heard a Duck Duck Go ad on the radio over the weekend and I thought it was so odd. But now having read your comment I realize it’s probably one of the most “trusted” ways to advertise privacy software/webapps because it relies on potential new users going to their site whereas online ads would probably (rightly) be looked at with suspicion.

I'm in Denmark, recently there have been Duck Duck Go posters at bus stops in my part of Copenhagen.

Not just that, Google are unlikely to serve ads about switching away from Google's browser on Google's ad networks.

There's a reason successful companies like to own the supply chain (or at least as much of it as they can).

Duckduckgo had been running similar ads on Texas billboards. Not specifically regarding ads, but about the value of not being tracked. Offline anti-ads may be the means to get around the FAANG wall. Edit for clarity

DDG is also doing heavy radio advertising. I don't normally listen to commercial radio, but my kids like these morning DJs for the ride to school, so I get to hear it.

They are occasionally listed as a sponsor on NPR programming as well.

Make this happen and I am going to do my best to publicize this. On the other hand, chrome is making it increasingly tough to use any other browser by sheer intuitive and useful features. Grouping tabs for eg. I know other would do it one day. But there is a lag. I wonder why other browsers (OSS) do not straight up copy any good features and release. Assuming there is good enough dev resources. Or is it really that hard to do it?

Other browsers don't so what you say or are slow to do so for the same reason that the EFF will likely never publicize such an ad campaign against ad-blocking. Not-for-profit organizations of all kinds optimize for either wasting revenue or wasting effort. Just look at where all these organizations are, like Mozilla/Wikimedia/EFF, compared to where they were 15 years ago. They consume more and more money while doing proportionally less with that money. What would have been obvious decisions back then that could be implemented in short order now require bureaucracy that ultimately sidelines what's important for what will inflate the egos of suits. (The same happens to for-profit companies, but that's usually more a function of time and scale rather than time and incentive.)

I suppose there are browsers like Brave that would be in the position to implement Chrome features, which I guess happens by default. But let's just say in the situation where Chrome implements something that doesn't show up downstream in Chromium; Brave's interests might not be in competing directly with Chrome but focusing efforts on BAT/crypto and replacing ads.

Grouping tabs is already possible in Vivaldi. There are also FF extensions, who offer alternative concepts. I think TabTree or something like that it is called.

You are probably thinking of Tree Style Tab.

Tab grouping is not a good example.

Firefox has the Simple Tab Groups extension, which works with containers. Chrome not only doesn't have containers, but its tab grouping is clunky and featureless in comparison.

For me Chrome's tab grouping is hands down one of the best implementations. Simple, deliberate and under control, and just feels good to use.

>intuitive and useful features

???

Vivaldi is the king of features. Too bad it is so slow.

Firefox has extensions for all you need. Vertical tabs, tab groups etc

Firefox used to have all the extensions I need.

There were thousands before and what, a handful now? Firefox jumped the shark years ago, and I loved it from day 1.

I use FF/brave but no browsers make me happy any longer.

I'd pay good money to have FF back before the bean counters killed it.

Now I just see FF as something google pays to make sure barely works so they can point and say there are other browsers.

Are you talking about firefox for mobile? Because the tabs category at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/ alone currently has 3,027 extensions.

Yes, mobile, apologies, I should not have posted while distracted, it didn't even dawn on me they meant desktop.

That's competition with Google, against ToS.

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