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What exactly makes "chess" baked in? It sounds like they struck a deal with chess.com to put a bookmark that opens a regular web page. It's no more "baked in"

by qsort 3y ago

What exactly makes "chess" baked in? It sounds like they struck a deal with chess.com to put a bookmark that opens a regular web page. It's no more "baked in" than accessing the same website via Chrome or Safari. By the way, check out lichess.org. Free, open source, no ads, interesting architecture, servers that don't crash, feature parity with chess.com.

22c 3y ago
Opera has been doing this "custom version" thing for a little while as a kind of marketing tactic. I've seen it with a few popular content creators getting their own "custom version" of Opera where it has an on-brand theme and links to their content directly baked into the browser download. Presumably there is some kind of customisation pass that thinly wraps the regular installation process. I don't personally get the appeal but maybe big brands are more likely to feature the browser if it's customised (eg. live streaming a big chess.com game where the "official" tournament client is the Chess.com Opera Browser).
- RockRobotRock 3y ago
  Opera GX's Twitter marketing is so insane...Probably to help push their games site: https://gx.games/ https://gx.games/
rmbyrro 3y ago
I hear chess.com is better at combating cheaters. Hard to prove / disprove the claim. Anyways, I guess this is one reason for some people. Sponsoring players and influencers certainly helps cementing their brand.
- 317070 3y ago
  > I hear chess.com is better at combating cheaters. That contradicts what I have been hearing. And it makes total sense. Unlike on lichess, the incentives are wrong for chess.com to remove whale cheaters.
  - not1ofU 3y ago
    posted 5 days ago - chess podcast with: Fabiano Caruana and Cristian Chirila Special guest - Vladimir Kramnik, who has being researching cheating in chess with stats, quite intersting / disturbing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng3lTBAi4Ps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng3lTBAi4Ps
- rectang 3y ago
  Related,because it’s another human problem: lichess is way better than other free options I used to play (freechess.org, yahoo chess) at keeping comments under control.
perihelions 3y ago
- "It sounds like they struck a deal with chess.com" Well yeah, it says that right in the first sentence ("exciting new partnership..."). It'd be unlawful if they didn't prominently disclose that this is a paid endorsement. There's a diversity of both paid and free chess servers, and the paid ones don't hold any particular advantage today. This kind of ad (it *is* an ad) takes predatory advantage of people unaware of the internet chess landscape, to funnel them into handing over their wallet when it's completely unwarranted. (See e.g., lichess.org [0]). And all this Opera stuff is baffling to me. Why would anyone choose to put advertisements in their browser, in any form? Ads don't inform you–as this example shows, they mislead and prey on you. The conventional defense of ads is they fill in information gaps: they tell you about services you want but didn't know were available, like an interesting restaurant on a nearby side street you've never visited. But it's so much more often the opposite: this ad convinces people to pay for a service they don't want and don't need. It takes advantage of information asymmetry, of the consumer's lack of familiarity with the product domain: it doesn't flatten that asymmetry, but exploits it. It takes authentic humans, like me right here, to tell you "internet chess is free and you probably don't want to pay for it like all the ads tell you to". No commercial agent will do that. [0] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=lichess https://hn.algolia.com/?q=lichess
- stevage 3y ago
  As a keen chess player, although I prefer lichess, there are definitely lots of features that chess.com has that it doesn't. Lots of interesting variants for a start, and some pretty cool analysis tools.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    The main thing chess.com has going for it is it's monetised, so it can sponsor more professional chess.
woah 3y ago
How do you bake a web browser in the first place?

by qsort 3y ago

22c 3y ago

Opera has been doing this "custom version" thing for a little while as a kind of marketing tactic. I've seen it with a few popular content creators getting their own "custom version" of Opera where it has an on-brand theme and links to their content directly baked into the browser download. Presumably there is some kind of customisation pass that thinly wraps the regular installation process. I don't personally get the appeal but maybe big brands are more likely to feature the browser if it's customised (eg. live streaming a big chess.com game where the "official" tournament client is the Chess.com Opera Browser).

RockRobotRock 3y ago
Opera GX's Twitter marketing is so insane...Probably to help push their games site: https://gx.games/ https://gx.games/

rmbyrro 3y ago

I hear chess.com is better at combating cheaters. Hard to prove / disprove the claim. Anyways, I guess this is one reason for some people. Sponsoring players and influencers certainly helps cementing their brand.

317070 3y ago
> I hear chess.com is better at combating cheaters. That contradicts what I have been hearing. And it makes total sense. Unlike on lichess, the incentives are wrong for chess.com to remove whale cheaters.
- not1ofU 3y ago
  posted 5 days ago - chess podcast with: Fabiano Caruana and Cristian Chirila Special guest - Vladimir Kramnik, who has being researching cheating in chess with stats, quite intersting / disturbing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng3lTBAi4Ps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng3lTBAi4Ps
rectang 3y ago
Related,because it’s another human problem: lichess is way better than other free options I used to play (freechess.org, yahoo chess) at keeping comments under control.

perihelions 3y ago

- "It sounds like they struck a deal with chess.com" Well yeah, it says that right in the first sentence ("exciting new partnership..."). It'd be unlawful if they didn't prominently disclose that this is a paid endorsement. There's a diversity of both paid and free chess servers, and the paid ones don't hold any particular advantage today. This kind of ad (it *is* an ad) takes predatory advantage of people unaware of the internet chess landscape, to funnel them into handing over their wallet when it's completely unwarranted. (See e.g., lichess.org [0]). And all this Opera stuff is baffling to me. Why would anyone choose to put advertisements in their browser, in any form? Ads don't inform you–as this example shows, they mislead and prey on you. The conventional defense of ads is they fill in information gaps: they tell you about services you want but didn't know were available, like an interesting restaurant on a nearby side street you've never visited. But it's so much more often the opposite: this ad convinces people to pay for a service they don't want and don't need. It takes advantage of information asymmetry, of the consumer's lack of familiarity with the product domain: it doesn't flatten that asymmetry, but exploits it. It takes authentic humans, like me right here, to tell you "internet chess is free and you probably don't want to pay for it like all the ads tell you to". No commercial agent will do that. [0] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=lichess https://hn.algolia.com/?q=lichess

stevage 3y ago
As a keen chess player, although I prefer lichess, there are definitely lots of features that chess.com has that it doesn't. Lots of interesting variants for a start, and some pretty cool analysis tools.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  The main thing chess.com has going for it is it's monetised, so it can sponsor more professional chess.

woah 3y ago

How do you bake a web browser in the first place?