17 ms·

Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

416 points by doppio19 1y ago

xnx 1y ago
Did Fakespot work? I can't see how it would stand a chance against LLM generated reviews without even having the log (keystroke?) data that Amazon does.
- doppio19 1y ago
  I found that it did a pretty decent job. Certainly not 100% accurate, but it often picked up on signals that made me give a closer look at a listing than I would have otherwise. I'm sure detection is getting harder as LLMs' writing patterns become less predictable, but I frequently come across reviews on Amazon that are so blatantly written by ChatGPT. A lot of these fake reviewers aren't particularly sneaky about it.
  - markrages 1y ago
    I think a lot of real reviews are written by ChatGPT. People are lazy!
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  Better than nothing. Not sure how well it worked or if it used any particularly advanced AI similarity checker or sentiment analysis. It's pretty easy to spot obviously unrelated reviews that talk about or include pictures of completely different products. What's hard to spot is similar reviews written by bots or people paid to write as many reviews as possible using similar language, especially when there are thousands of reviews.
- bb88 1y ago
  The last year it's been a mixed bag. One issue is that seller warnings would appear on Prime delivered products, which meant that the risk is then pretty much zero for the buyer. The ratings gradings system wasn't very reliable either. I bought a few things that were rated "F" but were fine. Today I go for a combination of sales + ratings. Amazon also has a warning for some things that are "frequently returned items" or a notice that "customers usually keep this item." And then I buy Prime delivered items, and a return is not an issue for me then.
gnabgib 1y ago
Discussion (1222 points, 1 month ago, 761 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44063662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44063662 (62 points, 27 days ago, 15 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44184974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44184974
- doppio19 1y ago
  Yup! And today's the day.
bdcravens 1y ago
Still working for me, but I see the notice on their page. I assume it'll go dark at the end of the day.
bentcorner 1y ago
> Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable business model for Fakespot despite its popularity I don't know if it's fair for me to armchair quarterback, but still - what was their business model when they decided to do the acquisition? From the outside looking in barely did anything whatsoever. I browse Amazon using Firefox extremely often and I don't recall seeing any helper UI pop up. Even so, what would have been their strategy to monetize me? User data? Commissions? Some kind of Mozilla+ subscription? I love FF and cheer Mozilla on where I can, but honestly these decisions are inscrutable.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  They could have slid in their referral link, which would probably make them decent money, but the "ick" factor is pretty high from consumers. I'm sure there will be a replacement though, and I'm sure they will go hard with referral links.
  - guappa 1y ago
    Just make it opt in
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  Mozilla seems infected by corporate board members who probably have conflicts of interest including investments in Amazon, Google, etc.
  - TylerE 1y ago
    Mozilla seems to be infected by upper management that feels a need to justify ever spiraling salaries.
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      It's easier to justify a new thing than it is to make an improvement in an existing thing. Why do you think VPs love new projects / products so much?
    - 1y ago
wetpaws 1y ago
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ravenstine 1y ago
I've never even heard of it, yet it was acquired by Mozilla? Seems like the problem is right in front of them; they didn't really try.
fambalamboni 1y ago
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pogue 1y ago
I did search around looking for alternatives and the landscape isn't great. There's ReviewMeta.com which doesn't work 100% of the time and is no longer actively maintained as far as I can tell. TheReviewIndex.com I didn't find to be very helpful, as it doesn't index all products and sometimes just refuses to check on listings you ask it to. It seems to have some kind of subscription model, but they don't list the price and offer some kind of enterprise model that doesn't sound like it has anything to do with checking reviews. SearchBestSellers.com isn't for checking individual products, but it will show you the top sellers for each category so you can get an idea of what could be good in the category you're looking for Camelcamelcamel.com is a price watch tool that will also show you some historical info on a product & notify you if you sign up and want to be emailed when a price drop occurs There are a few others on AlternativeTo that weren't there the last time I checked. https://alternativeto.net/software/fakespot/ https://alternativeto.net/software/fakespot/ On Reddit, some people were mentioning alternatives, including asking ChatGPT about the product and it might have some kinda helpful advice, but nothing like Fakespot offered. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ktm4g4/now_that_fakespot_is_shutting_down_what_are_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ktm4g4/now_that_f... If you use something else, have found a good alternative or a particular prompt you've tried in your favorite LLM to get info on an Amazon product, let us know!
- doppio19 1y ago
  I mentioned it briefly in the blog post, but this is exactly what I'm working on! Essentially, a spiritual successor to Fakespot that combines LLM analysis, more traditional ML techniques, and rule-based heuristics to detect fake reviews. I'll likely go the "subscription with generous free trial" route, to avoid meeting the same fate as Fakespot. I'm actively working on a prototype and have a landing page at https://www.truestar.pro https://www.truestar.pro if you want to get notified about when I launch.
  - pogue 1y ago
    I saw that actually. I mentioned in another post on here recently that I figured that the only way a Fakespot v2 could exist is with a subscription model, but on the other hand, it's probably not something I could afford. Good luck with it though! You could always try advertising & affiliate links as a test to monetize the service as well.
Dwedit 1y ago
With removal of reviews that the seller doesn't like, there's really no point to taking Amazon's star ratings or reviews seriously. It's all a big lie.
- SamuelAdams 1y ago
  I’ve started resorting to the “x bought this month” metric instead. If a product works for thousands of people and they continue to buy 500+ units a month, clearly it is a good option. If it does end up being a bad buy, Amazon typically has a 30 day return policy for most items. Use that and get something else.
  - derekp7 1y ago
    They also tell you if a product has a high return rate, which is helpful.
    - Loughla 1y ago
      Except with clothes and especially belts, I've noticed. It seems like everybody buys three of the clothes they buy and returns two of them. It makes it harder to identify shitty clothes.
      - haiku2077 1y ago
        > It seems like everybody buys three of the clothes they buy and returns two of them. Amazon used to offer this as a service!
  - yablak 1y ago
    Pretty sure that metric can be gamed
  - dylan604 1y ago
    How do you know that 500 people didn't buy a scam product this month? I put as much faith in the X people bought this as I do the X people have this in their cart. It's all a way of trying to stoke FOMO
Animats 1y ago
Could you fund this via a firm that litigated under consumer protection laws?
DrNosferatu 1y ago
Anyone in the know care to sum up / list alternatives?
- doppio19 1y ago
  I'm actively working on one at https://www.truestar.pro https://www.truestar.pro because I couldn't find a drop-in alternative to Fakespot. I also wrote a blog post last week about the state of alternatives: https://blog.truestar.pro/fakespot-alternatives/ https://blog.truestar.pro/fakespot-alternatives/ (spoiler: there's not much)
CommenterPerson 1y ago
Sadly, chalk up a victory for enshittification. I was a Firefox fax, now mostly use DuckDuckGo. Doesn't most of Mozilla's funding come from Google?
midtake 1y ago
9 years? I could have sworn I saw it in 2015, maybe even 2014.
pnw 1y ago
"Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable model" seems to be a recurring theme.
hnthrowaway_423 1y ago
I think by now I have quickly learnt that they can just read all the worst reviews and see if they can: 1. put up with the drawbacks, 2. see how frequent manufacturing defects are. 5* reviews are only useful if they upload real images.
Solomoriah 1y ago
I sell books on Amazon.com through their KDP Direct platform, and I have one book with two different covers; each is its own "book" in their catalog. FakeSpot repeatedly marked reviews I knew were valid as fake; I knew this based on the fact that the same reviewer reviewed the "other" book and that review was NOT flagged as fake. And this happened multiple times, and sometimes the wording of the two reviews were different. Further investigation showed FakeSpot had rather a poor reputation overall due to too many false positives. Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned.
- doppio19 1y ago
  That's interesting! Did you have any guesses as to what might have been setting it off to mark those reviews as false positives?
- kirykl 1y ago
  I have managed some Amazon product pages, which I know have never used fake reviews. Fakespot consistently had false positives for these items
- veunes 1y ago
  It's just hard to build a blunt tool that doesn't occasionally whack honest users too
- advisedwang 1y ago
  It is possible that that reviewer writes diverse reviews on random books so that the paid reviews it leaves have some cover.
dankwizard 1y ago
It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up. You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review. You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE. Then an expensive option I was suprised happened - I bought a Dyson clone vacuum cleaner off of Amazon. A few weeks later, the company emailed me and said 'We have a new model. Buy that one, leave a review, we'll refund the purchase'. So I did it. This happened about 10 more times in 2024. My outdoor shed is entirely stick vacuums. Feel a bit dirty doing it but that's ok I've got 12 vacuums that can clean my conscience. I think Fakespot would have difficulty with all 3 of these scenarios.
- dawnerd 1y ago
  Some company paid be 100 bucks to change my review to be positive so they sent the money via PayPal no problem then I changed the review to say they paid me to write a glowing review and of course Amazon ended up removing the review for being harmful to their customers
  - rsync 1y ago
    Thank you for sharing that anecdote… just terrible behavior on Amazons part.
  - hydrogen7800 1y ago
    So they _can_ do something about fake reviews.
    - brookst 1y ago
      Sure, just like the highway patrol can do something about speeding. Note that “do something” does not convey “completely eliminate with perfect fairness and accuracy”.
    - jonhohle 1y ago
      Nope, only real reviews.
quitit 1y ago
Some online retailers (such as galaxus for those in Europe) include return statistics on the sale page against comparison brands as well as price history graphs. This helps stamp out two of the core complaints about amazon: fake reviews and fraudulent discounts.
- zdragnar 1y ago
  If you look around, you'll see products on Amazon occasionally marked as "frequently returned". It has steered me away from a few purchases. Unfortunately, they haven't really countered the "keep creating new accounts" drop-shippers. Some categories are especially bad about this- if you find a back massager that you like, buy it in bulk right away, because the model and probably seller won't be around by the time you want another.
  - zulban 1y ago
    If you have to buy a back massage in bulk as backups, doesn't that means it's crap quality? Are your standards that low?
alister 1y ago
There's a discoverability problem with this tool because I've never heard of Fakespot or Mozilla Review Checker until today. > Mozilla integrated Fakespot's technology directly into Firefox as the "Mozilla Review Checker" feature, making it easier than ever for users to verify product reviews without installing separate extensions. If it was integrated directly into Firefox, it's funny that I don't recall ever seeing it. I wonder if it gets disabled if you set your security and privacy settings too high, or if you use the Firefox ESR versions (Extended Support Release).
ozgrakkurt 1y ago
Reading reviews for the thing you are buying on the platform that you are buying it sounds a bit sketchy anyway. Searching the product and reading about it from different review sites seems more reliable. Also can combine this with marketplace reviews considering reliability. If there is no review than have to trust the brand and if there is no brand then it is a gamble
- logifail 1y ago
  > Reading reviews for the thing you are buying on the platform that you are buying it sounds a bit sketchy anyway Although at least the platform can know if the reviewer actually purchased the product(?) > Searching the product and reading about it from different review sites seems more reliable Unless they use affiliate links, which is a great big red flag that the incentives are already stacked against you.
mohsen1 1y ago
مشک آن است که خود ببوید نه آنکه عطار بگوید “Musk is that which smells by itself, not what the perfumer says (about it).” This line is from Saadi Shirazi, the classical Persian poet which has become a proverb in Persian speaking world. Reviews are at this point what the seller wants you to read. As long as Amazon is the seller, and host of the reviews there is no way to trust Amazon would be fair in hosting those reviews. The only way to know about a product is to read about it elsewhere like New York Times which is not selling the product themselves.
- the_sleaze_ 1y ago
  More often than not those sources are getting paid for product placement. Wire-cutter, NYT, JD Power, Wired - they all get advertisement money for "reviews".
  - shermantanktop 1y ago
    Of course. But they have a reputational stake in their recommendation as well. I take a Wirecutter top pick as meaning something very different from Bobby123's glowing review. Wirecutter may have been influenced by ad money a bit. Bobby123 may not even exist or may be entirely driven by seller compensation. And I'll never see Bobby123 again.
b0a04gl 1y ago
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veunes 1y ago
This shutdown feels like another case of "big org can't monetize, so good idea gets shelved"
UberFly 1y ago
My own form of Amazon punishment for allowing fake reviews is to send back their falsely reviewed crap on their own dime. If they want to save $$ they should clean up the review process.
- aucisson_masque 1y ago
  What about things that break after a while, when you can’t anymore send it back ?
  - account42 1y ago
    Reviews don't work well for those anyway since the product will have been discontinued by then and replaced with a slightly different one.
irrational 1y ago
This is so odd. Firefox is my primary browser and this is the very first time I have ever even heard the name Fakespot.
jen729w 1y ago
Me and my partner just don't trust any reviews any more. Blogged about it here: https://johnnydecimal.com/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.00.0123-online-reviews-are-dead/ https://johnnydecimal.com/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.00.... So you know what we do now? Ignore the overall rating: it's worthless. Instead, go directly to the 1*. They're the only true indicator of a product/place/service. I'm not saying take them all at face value. You still have to put in some work. But all the data is in the one-stars.
- piokoch 1y ago
  Unfortunately 1* are often bragging of some maniacs who bought a fork and they complain it is not working great as a spoon, or just black PR from the competitors. Whole reviews system is not working.
  - sothatsit 1y ago
    The key is the ratio of crazy to sane 1 star reviews. Mostly crazies? Then the service is probably good. But if there are many sane 1 star reviews? Might be a bad place.
    - the_sleaze_ 1y ago
      2 and 3 star reviews as well. If 5 of them mention the battery went out, amazon is denying service and the company is non-responsive? Next.
smusamashah 1y ago
Their privacy policy / licence allowed collection of passwords and whatnot. Copying from older comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38204923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38204923 https://www.fakespot.com/privacy-policy https://www.fakespot.com/privacy-policy Look at Section 2B B. Personal Information Collected Automatically We may collect personal information automatically when you use our Services. Automatic Collection of Personal Information. We may collect the following information automatically when you use our Services: Contact Information: Your email address Identifiers: User ID: Such as screen name, handle, account ID, or other user- or account-level ID that can be used to identify a particular user or account. This information could be provided via your Fakespot account, Apple ID, Google Account, or other accounts you may use on the Services. User ID also includes your account password, other credentials, security questions, and confirmation codes. Device ID: Your device information which includes, but is not limited to, information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device. Usage Data: Product Interaction: How you interact with our Services and what features you use within the Services, including Fakespot’s sort bar, highlights, review grade, seller ratings, alternative sellers, settings and popups. Other Usage Data: Individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Service, and other information about how you interact with the Service. Browser Information: Information your internet browser provides when you access and use our Services. Application Search History: Information you provide when you perform searches in our Services. Purchase Information: Your purchase history or purchase tendencies which we may use to recommend better products and sellers. Location Information. We may collect your location information, such as geolocation based on your IP address in connection with your use of our Services. Publicly Available Information. In providing our Services we may collect data (including personal information such as profile names of reviewers) that is made publicly available via the internet on the websites analyzed and crawled by our Services.
gadders 1y ago
I saw an instagram ad the other day offering to buy established Reddit accounts, presumably so that can post fake reviews. I also got offered some money over telegram to review a hotel from a large chain and leave a positive review.
- is_true 1y ago
  Governments should block Instagram and Facebook until they start doing something about ads about ilegal offerings. I've seen ads selling fake clothes, real clothes but with a fake store, money exchange scams, and a few others.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Governments should block Instagram and Facebook. Period. No takesie backsides. And Google, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Hacker News, ....
z3t4 1y ago
As most humans are afraid to be against the consensus of the room, fake reviews and sentiment seeding is extremely effective against the general population. Also note that bad actors use it to create bad sentiment to it's competitors.
nirav72 1y ago
Amazon is pretty much Aliexpress now (and Temu in some cases). With bit of a markup on the price.
account42 1y ago
Do we need to start a killedbymozilla.com?
skimmed106 1y ago
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johncole 1y ago
I really loved their plugin.
micromacrofoot 1y ago
AI has made it completely impossible to detect fake reviews now, so it would have died naturally. Amazon (and other retailers) has the access to heuristics on their end that could help with fake review detection that fakespot doesn't, but it's likely a very low priority for them (if it is one at all)
PUSH_AX 1y ago
There is one clear route to solving this problem and I already pay money to get it, it's an independent third party consumer review site. They are good at objectively evaluating consumer products, they simply buy all the main models of a thing and review them all. I trust them (which is very important in this space). I happily pay for this service.
y-c-o-m-b 1y ago
Do you even need Fakespot anymore for Amazon? I think we can fairly assume that whatever is purchased on that platform will be junk. I rarely purchase anything from Amazon these days except protein bars or items I treat as disposable. More often than not, when I order legitimate items, I get either counterfeit items or previously refunded items that are certainly not in "new" condition. I go into actual stores these days for any serious purchases.
doppio19 1y ago
For the unfamiliar, Fakespot was a browser extension that flagged suspicious product reviews on sites like Amazon. Mozilla bought it just two years ago and integrated it directly into Firefox as their "Review Checker" feature. Today, to my dismay, they're sunsetting it. As someone building in this space, I wrote about Fakespot's history, the problem it solved, and why we need sustainable alternatives.
- rasz 1y ago
  Did Mozilla score some absolutely unrelated deal with Amazon by any chance recently? They killed DeepSpeech very same day NVIDIA paid them $1.5mil
  - i80and 1y ago
    DeepSpeech shuttered in 2021. The repo was just made read-only the other day
    - rasz 1y ago
      April 12 2021 https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-partners-with-nvidia-to-democratize-and-diversify-voice-technology/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-partners-with-nv... https://venturebeat.com/business/mozilla-winds-down-deepspeech-development-announces-grant-program/ https://venturebeat.com/business/mozilla-winds-down-deepspee...
  - doppio19 1y ago
    Not that I'm aware of. But I do know that in late 2024, Amazon made a change where users now have to be logged in to view product reviews beyond the ones that appear on the first page (about 8 reviews). From what I can tell, Fakespot scraped the Amazon product listing pages on their backend, so that simple change would have pretty much killed its current implementation.
    - rasz 1y ago
      Indeed. You would need a plugin running on user computers, or maybe even control over User Agent. Insurmountable blocker for Mozilla.
FakeFind_ai 1y ago
Fakespot paved the way — respect to 9 years of helping shoppers stay informed. At FakeFind, we’re building on that mission with AI that digs even deeper into review authenticity across Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and more. The fight against fake reviews isn’t over. If your interested: https://fakefind.ai https://fakefind.ai

416 points by doppio19 1y ago

xnx 1y ago

Did Fakespot work? I can't see how it would stand a chance against LLM generated reviews without even having the log (keystroke?) data that Amazon does.

doppio19 1y ago
I found that it did a pretty decent job. Certainly not 100% accurate, but it often picked up on signals that made me give a closer look at a listing than I would have otherwise. I'm sure detection is getting harder as LLMs' writing patterns become less predictable, but I frequently come across reviews on Amazon that are so blatantly written by ChatGPT. A lot of these fake reviewers aren't particularly sneaky about it.
- markrages 1y ago
  I think a lot of real reviews are written by ChatGPT. People are lazy!
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Better than nothing. Not sure how well it worked or if it used any particularly advanced AI similarity checker or sentiment analysis. It's pretty easy to spot obviously unrelated reviews that talk about or include pictures of completely different products. What's hard to spot is similar reviews written by bots or people paid to write as many reviews as possible using similar language, especially when there are thousands of reviews.
bb88 1y ago
The last year it's been a mixed bag. One issue is that seller warnings would appear on Prime delivered products, which meant that the risk is then pretty much zero for the buyer. The ratings gradings system wasn't very reliable either. I bought a few things that were rated "F" but were fine. Today I go for a combination of sales + ratings. Amazon also has a warning for some things that are "frequently returned items" or a notice that "customers usually keep this item." And then I buy Prime delivered items, and a return is not an issue for me then.

gnabgib 1y ago

Discussion (1222 points, 1 month ago, 761 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44063662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44063662 (62 points, 27 days ago, 15 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44184974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44184974

doppio19 1y ago
Yup! And today's the day.

bdcravens 1y ago

Still working for me, but I see the notice on their page. I assume it'll go dark at the end of the day.

bentcorner 1y ago

> Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable business model for Fakespot despite its popularity I don't know if it's fair for me to armchair quarterback, but still - what was their business model when they decided to do the acquisition? From the outside looking in barely did anything whatsoever. I browse Amazon using Firefox extremely often and I don't recall seeing any helper UI pop up. Even so, what would have been their strategy to monetize me? User data? Commissions? Some kind of Mozilla+ subscription? I love FF and cheer Mozilla on where I can, but honestly these decisions are inscrutable.

Workaccount2 1y ago
They could have slid in their referral link, which would probably make them decent money, but the "ick" factor is pretty high from consumers. I'm sure there will be a replacement though, and I'm sure they will go hard with referral links.
- guappa 1y ago
  Just make it opt in
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Mozilla seems infected by corporate board members who probably have conflicts of interest including investments in Amazon, Google, etc.
- TylerE 1y ago
  Mozilla seems to be infected by upper management that feels a need to justify ever spiraling salaries.
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    It's easier to justify a new thing than it is to make an improvement in an existing thing. Why do you think VPs love new projects / products so much?
  - 1y ago

wetpaws 1y ago

[dead]

ravenstine 1y ago

I've never even heard of it, yet it was acquired by Mozilla? Seems like the problem is right in front of them; they didn't really try.

fambalamboni 1y ago

[dead]

pogue 1y ago

I did search around looking for alternatives and the landscape isn't great. There's ReviewMeta.com which doesn't work 100% of the time and is no longer actively maintained as far as I can tell. TheReviewIndex.com I didn't find to be very helpful, as it doesn't index all products and sometimes just refuses to check on listings you ask it to. It seems to have some kind of subscription model, but they don't list the price and offer some kind of enterprise model that doesn't sound like it has anything to do with checking reviews. SearchBestSellers.com isn't for checking individual products, but it will show you the top sellers for each category so you can get an idea of what could be good in the category you're looking for Camelcamelcamel.com is a price watch tool that will also show you some historical info on a product & notify you if you sign up and want to be emailed when a price drop occurs There are a few others on AlternativeTo that weren't there the last time I checked. https://alternativeto.net/software/fakespot/ https://alternativeto.net/software/fakespot/ On Reddit, some people were mentioning alternatives, including asking ChatGPT about the product and it might have some kinda helpful advice, but nothing like Fakespot offered. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ktm4g4/now_that_fakespot_is_shutting_down_what_are_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ktm4g4/now_that_f... If you use something else, have found a good alternative or a particular prompt you've tried in your favorite LLM to get info on an Amazon product, let us know!

doppio19 1y ago
I mentioned it briefly in the blog post, but this is exactly what I'm working on! Essentially, a spiritual successor to Fakespot that combines LLM analysis, more traditional ML techniques, and rule-based heuristics to detect fake reviews. I'll likely go the "subscription with generous free trial" route, to avoid meeting the same fate as Fakespot. I'm actively working on a prototype and have a landing page at https://www.truestar.pro https://www.truestar.pro if you want to get notified about when I launch.
- pogue 1y ago
  I saw that actually. I mentioned in another post on here recently that I figured that the only way a Fakespot v2 could exist is with a subscription model, but on the other hand, it's probably not something I could afford. Good luck with it though! You could always try advertising & affiliate links as a test to monetize the service as well.

Dwedit 1y ago

With removal of reviews that the seller doesn't like, there's really no point to taking Amazon's star ratings or reviews seriously. It's all a big lie.

SamuelAdams 1y ago
I’ve started resorting to the “x bought this month” metric instead. If a product works for thousands of people and they continue to buy 500+ units a month, clearly it is a good option. If it does end up being a bad buy, Amazon typically has a 30 day return policy for most items. Use that and get something else.
- derekp7 1y ago
  They also tell you if a product has a high return rate, which is helpful.
  - Loughla 1y ago
    Except with clothes and especially belts, I've noticed. It seems like everybody buys three of the clothes they buy and returns two of them. It makes it harder to identify shitty clothes.
    - haiku2077 1y ago
      > It seems like everybody buys three of the clothes they buy and returns two of them. Amazon used to offer this as a service!
- yablak 1y ago
  Pretty sure that metric can be gamed
- dylan604 1y ago
  How do you know that 500 people didn't buy a scam product this month? I put as much faith in the X people bought this as I do the X people have this in their cart. It's all a way of trying to stoke FOMO

Animats 1y ago

Could you fund this via a firm that litigated under consumer protection laws?

DrNosferatu 1y ago

Anyone in the know care to sum up / list alternatives?

doppio19 1y ago
I'm actively working on one at https://www.truestar.pro https://www.truestar.pro because I couldn't find a drop-in alternative to Fakespot. I also wrote a blog post last week about the state of alternatives: https://blog.truestar.pro/fakespot-alternatives/ https://blog.truestar.pro/fakespot-alternatives/ (spoiler: there's not much)

CommenterPerson 1y ago

Sadly, chalk up a victory for enshittification. I was a Firefox fax, now mostly use DuckDuckGo. Doesn't most of Mozilla's funding come from Google?

midtake 1y ago

9 years? I could have sworn I saw it in 2015, maybe even 2014.

pnw 1y ago

"Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable model" seems to be a recurring theme.

hnthrowaway_423 1y ago

I think by now I have quickly learnt that they can just read all the worst reviews and see if they can: 1. put up with the drawbacks, 2. see how frequent manufacturing defects are. 5* reviews are only useful if they upload real images.

Solomoriah 1y ago

I sell books on Amazon.com through their KDP Direct platform, and I have one book with two different covers; each is its own "book" in their catalog. FakeSpot repeatedly marked reviews I knew were valid as fake; I knew this based on the fact that the same reviewer reviewed the "other" book and that review was NOT flagged as fake. And this happened multiple times, and sometimes the wording of the two reviews were different. Further investigation showed FakeSpot had rather a poor reputation overall due to too many false positives. Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned.

doppio19 1y ago
That's interesting! Did you have any guesses as to what might have been setting it off to mark those reviews as false positives?
kirykl 1y ago
I have managed some Amazon product pages, which I know have never used fake reviews. Fakespot consistently had false positives for these items
veunes 1y ago
It's just hard to build a blunt tool that doesn't occasionally whack honest users too
advisedwang 1y ago
It is possible that that reviewer writes diverse reviews on random books so that the paid reviews it leaves have some cover.

dankwizard 1y ago

It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up. You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review. You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE. Then an expensive option I was suprised happened - I bought a Dyson clone vacuum cleaner off of Amazon. A few weeks later, the company emailed me and said 'We have a new model. Buy that one, leave a review, we'll refund the purchase'. So I did it. This happened about 10 more times in 2024. My outdoor shed is entirely stick vacuums. Feel a bit dirty doing it but that's ok I've got 12 vacuums that can clean my conscience. I think Fakespot would have difficulty with all 3 of these scenarios.

dawnerd 1y ago
Some company paid be 100 bucks to change my review to be positive so they sent the money via PayPal no problem then I changed the review to say they paid me to write a glowing review and of course Amazon ended up removing the review for being harmful to their customers
- rsync 1y ago
  Thank you for sharing that anecdote… just terrible behavior on Amazons part.
- hydrogen7800 1y ago
  So they _can_ do something about fake reviews.
  - brookst 1y ago
    Sure, just like the highway patrol can do something about speeding. Note that “do something” does not convey “completely eliminate with perfect fairness and accuracy”.
  - jonhohle 1y ago
    Nope, only real reviews.

quitit 1y ago

Some online retailers (such as galaxus for those in Europe) include return statistics on the sale page against comparison brands as well as price history graphs. This helps stamp out two of the core complaints about amazon: fake reviews and fraudulent discounts.

zdragnar 1y ago
If you look around, you'll see products on Amazon occasionally marked as "frequently returned". It has steered me away from a few purchases. Unfortunately, they haven't really countered the "keep creating new accounts" drop-shippers. Some categories are especially bad about this- if you find a back massager that you like, buy it in bulk right away, because the model and probably seller won't be around by the time you want another.
- zulban 1y ago
  If you have to buy a back massage in bulk as backups, doesn't that means it's crap quality? Are your standards that low?

alister 1y ago

There's a discoverability problem with this tool because I've never heard of Fakespot or Mozilla Review Checker until today. > Mozilla integrated Fakespot's technology directly into Firefox as the "Mozilla Review Checker" feature, making it easier than ever for users to verify product reviews without installing separate extensions. If it was integrated directly into Firefox, it's funny that I don't recall ever seeing it. I wonder if it gets disabled if you set your security and privacy settings too high, or if you use the Firefox ESR versions (Extended Support Release).

ozgrakkurt 1y ago

Reading reviews for the thing you are buying on the platform that you are buying it sounds a bit sketchy anyway. Searching the product and reading about it from different review sites seems more reliable. Also can combine this with marketplace reviews considering reliability. If there is no review than have to trust the brand and if there is no brand then it is a gamble

logifail 1y ago
> Reading reviews for the thing you are buying on the platform that you are buying it sounds a bit sketchy anyway Although at least the platform can know if the reviewer actually purchased the product(?) > Searching the product and reading about it from different review sites seems more reliable Unless they use affiliate links, which is a great big red flag that the incentives are already stacked against you.

mohsen1 1y ago

مشک آن است که خود ببوید نه آنکه عطار بگوید “Musk is that which smells by itself, not what the perfumer says (about it).” This line is from Saadi Shirazi, the classical Persian poet which has become a proverb in Persian speaking world. Reviews are at this point what the seller wants you to read. As long as Amazon is the seller, and host of the reviews there is no way to trust Amazon would be fair in hosting those reviews. The only way to know about a product is to read about it elsewhere like New York Times which is not selling the product themselves.

the_sleaze_ 1y ago
More often than not those sources are getting paid for product placement. Wire-cutter, NYT, JD Power, Wired - they all get advertisement money for "reviews".
- shermantanktop 1y ago
  Of course. But they have a reputational stake in their recommendation as well. I take a Wirecutter top pick as meaning something very different from Bobby123's glowing review. Wirecutter may have been influenced by ad money a bit. Bobby123 may not even exist or may be entirely driven by seller compensation. And I'll never see Bobby123 again.

b0a04gl 1y ago

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veunes 1y ago

This shutdown feels like another case of "big org can't monetize, so good idea gets shelved"

UberFly 1y ago

My own form of Amazon punishment for allowing fake reviews is to send back their falsely reviewed crap on their own dime. If they want to save $$ they should clean up the review process.

aucisson_masque 1y ago
What about things that break after a while, when you can’t anymore send it back ?
- account42 1y ago
  Reviews don't work well for those anyway since the product will have been discontinued by then and replaced with a slightly different one.

irrational 1y ago

This is so odd. Firefox is my primary browser and this is the very first time I have ever even heard the name Fakespot.

jen729w 1y ago

Me and my partner just don't trust any reviews any more. Blogged about it here: https://johnnydecimal.com/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.00.0123-online-reviews-are-dead/ https://johnnydecimal.com/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.00.... So you know what we do now? Ignore the overall rating: it's worthless. Instead, go directly to the 1*. They're the only true indicator of a product/place/service. I'm not saying take them all at face value. You still have to put in some work. But all the data is in the one-stars.

piokoch 1y ago
Unfortunately 1* are often bragging of some maniacs who bought a fork and they complain it is not working great as a spoon, or just black PR from the competitors. Whole reviews system is not working.
- sothatsit 1y ago
  The key is the ratio of crazy to sane 1 star reviews. Mostly crazies? Then the service is probably good. But if there are many sane 1 star reviews? Might be a bad place.
  - the_sleaze_ 1y ago
    2 and 3 star reviews as well. If 5 of them mention the battery went out, amazon is denying service and the company is non-responsive? Next.

smusamashah 1y ago

Their privacy policy / licence allowed collection of passwords and whatnot. Copying from older comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38204923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38204923 https://www.fakespot.com/privacy-policy https://www.fakespot.com/privacy-policy Look at Section 2B B. Personal Information Collected Automatically We may collect personal information automatically when you use our Services. Automatic Collection of Personal Information. We may collect the following information automatically when you use our Services: Contact Information: Your email address Identifiers: User ID: Such as screen name, handle, account ID, or other user- or account-level ID that can be used to identify a particular user or account. This information could be provided via your Fakespot account, Apple ID, Google Account, or other accounts you may use on the Services. User ID also includes your account password, other credentials, security questions, and confirmation codes. Device ID: Your device information which includes, but is not limited to, information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device. Usage Data: Product Interaction: How you interact with our Services and what features you use within the Services, including Fakespot’s sort bar, highlights, review grade, seller ratings, alternative sellers, settings and popups. Other Usage Data: Individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Service, and other information about how you interact with the Service. Browser Information: Information your internet browser provides when you access and use our Services. Application Search History: Information you provide when you perform searches in our Services. Purchase Information: Your purchase history or purchase tendencies which we may use to recommend better products and sellers. Location Information. We may collect your location information, such as geolocation based on your IP address in connection with your use of our Services. Publicly Available Information. In providing our Services we may collect data (including personal information such as profile names of reviewers) that is made publicly available via the internet on the websites analyzed and crawled by our Services.

gadders 1y ago

I saw an instagram ad the other day offering to buy established Reddit accounts, presumably so that can post fake reviews. I also got offered some money over telegram to review a hotel from a large chain and leave a positive review.

is_true 1y ago
Governments should block Instagram and Facebook until they start doing something about ads about ilegal offerings. I've seen ads selling fake clothes, real clothes but with a fake store, money exchange scams, and a few others.
- immibis 1y ago
  Governments should block Instagram and Facebook. Period. No takesie backsides. And Google, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Hacker News, ....

z3t4 1y ago

As most humans are afraid to be against the consensus of the room, fake reviews and sentiment seeding is extremely effective against the general population. Also note that bad actors use it to create bad sentiment to it's competitors.

nirav72 1y ago

Amazon is pretty much Aliexpress now (and Temu in some cases). With bit of a markup on the price.

account42 1y ago

Do we need to start a killedbymozilla.com?

skimmed106 1y ago

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johncole 1y ago

I really loved their plugin.

micromacrofoot 1y ago

AI has made it completely impossible to detect fake reviews now, so it would have died naturally. Amazon (and other retailers) has the access to heuristics on their end that could help with fake review detection that fakespot doesn't, but it's likely a very low priority for them (if it is one at all)

PUSH_AX 1y ago

There is one clear route to solving this problem and I already pay money to get it, it's an independent third party consumer review site. They are good at objectively evaluating consumer products, they simply buy all the main models of a thing and review them all. I trust them (which is very important in this space). I happily pay for this service.

y-c-o-m-b 1y ago

Do you even need Fakespot anymore for Amazon? I think we can fairly assume that whatever is purchased on that platform will be junk. I rarely purchase anything from Amazon these days except protein bars or items I treat as disposable. More often than not, when I order legitimate items, I get either counterfeit items or previously refunded items that are certainly not in "new" condition. I go into actual stores these days for any serious purchases.

doppio19 1y ago

For the unfamiliar, Fakespot was a browser extension that flagged suspicious product reviews on sites like Amazon. Mozilla bought it just two years ago and integrated it directly into Firefox as their "Review Checker" feature. Today, to my dismay, they're sunsetting it. As someone building in this space, I wrote about Fakespot's history, the problem it solved, and why we need sustainable alternatives.

rasz 1y ago
Did Mozilla score some absolutely unrelated deal with Amazon by any chance recently? They killed DeepSpeech very same day NVIDIA paid them $1.5mil
- i80and 1y ago
  DeepSpeech shuttered in 2021. The repo was just made read-only the other day
  - rasz 1y ago
    April 12 2021 https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-partners-with-nvidia-to-democratize-and-diversify-voice-technology/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-partners-with-nv... https://venturebeat.com/business/mozilla-winds-down-deepspeech-development-announces-grant-program/ https://venturebeat.com/business/mozilla-winds-down-deepspee...
- doppio19 1y ago
  Not that I'm aware of. But I do know that in late 2024, Amazon made a change where users now have to be logged in to view product reviews beyond the ones that appear on the first page (about 8 reviews). From what I can tell, Fakespot scraped the Amazon product listing pages on their backend, so that simple change would have pretty much killed its current implementation.
  - rasz 1y ago
    Indeed. You would need a plugin running on user computers, or maybe even control over User Agent. Insurmountable blocker for Mozilla.

FakeFind_ai 1y ago

Fakespot paved the way — respect to 9 years of helping shoppers stay informed. At FakeFind, we’re building on that mission with AI that digs even deeper into review authenticity across Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and more. The fight against fake reviews isn’t over. If your interested: https://fakefind.ai https://fakefind.ai