Stop using Brave Browser
https://www.spacebar.news/p/stop-using-brave-browserOpen linkView original on lemmy.ml972
Comments271https://www.spacebar.news/p/stop-using-brave-browserOpen linkView original on lemmy.mlhttps://www.spacebar.news/p/stop-using-brave-browserOpen linkView original on lemmy.ml
I don't usually judge by looks, but you can just tell that Brendan Eich is an insecure fragile person with many mental problems.
I don't know what's worse: The whole anti same-sex marriage deal or inventing Javascript.
Probably Javascript..
Oh he's THAT guy?!
Fuck that guy. He basically is the reason popups was so damn widespread.
JavaScript is also the whole reason that the web is interactive. Without JavaScript the web would be mostly just static pages without any client side dynamic behavior.
Brendan Eich is a tool, but JavaScript is a useful tool, at least.
I think I'd prefer a mostly static web. Guess I should finally check out ublock origins medium mode or whatever its called.
Forms are interactive and dont require me to run your shitty code and execute it on my computer.
Keep that shit running on your server. I dont need another vector for malicious code to run on my machine
If there's no JavaScript, there will be another language developed to fill that void. We don't know whether it'll be better or not. But with TypeScript, working with JavaScript has been quite painless for me.
JavaScript?
Like, we use JavaScript everywhere.
I'm viewing this comment without JavaScript.
Oh my bad, clearly no relation to JS or Brendan Eich there.
Lol nice
I'm literally replying to this because of JavaScript
Heh. Made me smile.
Here, have an upvote! ;)
oh sorry! forgot about it adding a description. will do next time.
Say no more fam.
Truly no atonement can be sufficient for a sin that grave
TL;DR: The article claims that the Brave web browser is bad and should not be used.
The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage. Along with making the claim that Brave's goal is not to act as an ad-blocker, but instead to build and grow their own advertisement network, and he also believes that the network has several flaws:
In addition to these key points the author also:
Finally, the author lists Firefox and Vivaldi as alternatives to Brave, and ends the article with "Brave Browser is irredeemable, and you should not use it under any circumstances."
I am human, please let me know if I've made a mistake.
Edit: Fixed bat emoji and typo.
Volatility :-)
But Volatilability sounds cool
Very volatibable word
Agree :-D
Thank you, I fixed it!
These guys tried to get a previous employer of mine to advertise with them. It works great if your entire audience is tech bros. Ours was not.
If he's bad, shouldn't everything he touches be bad? Why web site that uses JavaScript should be just as bad. Any browser based on Mozilla should be bad. Why is it just Brave that's bad for what he did in 2008?
As I understand it, the argument isn't so much "if you use a thing made by a bad person, you are a bad person by association" but rather that using a commercial product made by a bad person, who spends his money on bad causes, is directly helping him spend more money on said bad causes. Since he has never apologized or shown any indication that he has become a better person, not wanting to monetarily support him is a valid reason to not use his product.
It's really hard for the creator of Javascript to make money off of javascript, and it's unlikely he has any financial interest in the Mozilla corporation anymore since they're a nonprofit and thus don't have share holders. However, he directly profits off of Brave.
Because it is cool thing to cancel everything in 2023.
Brave is still bad. With their "incidents" they had. Brave is chromium = Google controlled in a way. Brave is a coorperation, yes a PROFIT seeking company. Mozilla does nit promote google, it uses duckduckgo as its default search engine. There are forks from Firefox too that hardens the browser and the develop/ceo is not a complete *ss. The referal link "scam" was real, they injected it in Amazon links....
Screw Brave go search for a real alternative to google.
Firefox does default to Google. If you see DDG, it's likely an edit by your distribution.
Also, Brave Search is a real alternative. It's one of the few engines aside from Google, Bing and Yandex that has its own crawler.
Oh yeah i forgot i used librewolf too much XD. Brave Search creeps on you. Privacy Policy is unreadable and unreachable. Tbh. if you want a privacy protecting search engine. Use Searx(ng).
I host my own instance of SearxNG, in which I enabled Brave search engine.
Good :)
These people are basically a cult. Do not bother trying to enlighten the Brave browser
communitycult. If you use brave, you are a certifiable idiot.I'm open to suggestions for a workable alternative on iOS that blocks ads.
-An idiot, apparently
Hopefully the Digital Markets Act in EU will put an end to iOS's browser monopoly. When that happens Firefox might be looking to port their Android browser to iOS which supports addons like uBlock but nothing is for certain right now.
I know it isn't hope you're looking for, but it's the best I can do with my current knowledge.
I appreciate that but my response was more intended to chastise the guy blanket labeling people cultists and idiots for no good reason because they hate a browser someone else uses.
The system-wide AdGuard app handles most things well enough, and Brave does its thing on YouTube ads without issue.
Firefox Focus will also take care of YouTube ads (if anyone else stumbles down this rabbit hole), but it's too heavy-handed for me because I actually stay logged into my account and use my history.
My Pi-hole install also handles all but YouTube if I'm at home, so there's that.
Doesn't iOS only use webkit based browsers? I would imagine the reason you can get ad blocking through brave is some kind of deal they have with google. Which probably means they're just giving them all the data google would collect normally.
Firefox on iOS doesn't have ad blocking because apple took support away in webkit. The only way brave could be doing it is by being white listed by the company serving the ad to you somehow.
Both Mac and iOS have issues with VPN usage too but that's unrelated to webkit.
Yes Apple forces everyone through webkit and won't allow third-party blockers. Brave on iOS was forked from Firefox anyway, and iirc uses the same API to block ads as Firefox Focus. Google is most definitely not involved, particularly because both block YouTube ads (and is my primary reason for using Brave anyway).
I'm not sure what you're referencing in regard to VPN usage; I have had zero problems with mine.
Brave is way worse using Chromium. That is the point. Its dependent on google 100%. I dont know Fitefox? What is it? Is it a rare fox? Brave injects ads (targeted ads) into your websites. Injects referal urls into their results. The CEO is a corrupt bad person. They implemented in their earlier stages a hidden crypto miner. Recommending Extensions? Are you sure that chrome doesnt do it too?
Bro spitting facts.
Mozilla Fandogs are attacking
well thats a bunch of lies
With how much revenue comes from those deals, we might say it's practically financed by Google. FF is more Google than Chromium-based Brave if you follow the money.
No. Couldn't care less what the founder did or didn't do. We need as many non-Google browsers as possible. The problem with Brave is that it is a chromium browser.
I'd say being chromium makes it a Google browser...
I mean, does that mean Edge is a Google browser, too?
Chromium is open-source. Even if Google adds something malicious to the source code (such as that Web Environment Integrity stuff), it can be removed by someone else creating their own browser based on Chromium. That's the very definition of open-source.
Related side-note: Lemmy itself is open-source, too. If the creator of Lemmy added something to the software that someone running an instance didn't agree with, they could simply fork the original software and remove the unwanted addition. Some people do disagree with that person's views, and yet they're still here. Many of them joined .world and other instances instead of .ml because they disagreed with the creator's views.
While Google, the creator of Chromium, isn't a good company for the consumer, I personally think Chromium itself isn't a bad idea. It's just that Google and some other companies modify it for their own means, and those means aren't always consumer-friendly.
All that to say: while the company that originally created Chromium is bad, the software isn't. And while some of the companies and people using that software are bad (including Brave, IMO), some of them are looking out for their users' interests, and those forks of Chromium are generally ok. (You should still actually do research and not pick a fork because the company developing it said it's okay, though. Take a look at what others are saying and verify it.)
Yes.
Only to the extent that websites are built for chromium compatibility, due to its monopoly on the internet. It's great software because it's the most popular software so all other smaller providers that serve that software have to focus their resources into ensuring compatibility. Chromium(Blink) itself is pretty mid, and definitely equal to WebKit or Gecko, not better or significantly worse.
Brave works for what I need it to do. I don't like lending credence to bigots(secret or otherwise) but if someone is gonna say "don't use this browser" they need to list a replacement that has the same functionality. And it can't be "just use duckduckgo" because we all fucking have that on our phones and none of us can use it as our primary browser and we all know exactly why. 😒
What's wrong with Firefox?
Nothing. I use it all the time.
A little slower, but nothing. Mullvad is pretty good. A mix of Firefox and Tor.
From Privacy Guides. Firefox on desktop though!
For me personally, the one and only reason I don't main Firefox is because it doesn't work with Chromecast and I use that a LOT. I would switch to FF tomorrow if I could easily and reliably cast with it.
getting addicted to proprietary software is a terrible idea. this is just the first of many losses you will have if you stick to that tech
It works almost exactly the same as Chrome.
It has a monopoly on being non-Chromium based
Chromium is the browser monopoly.
Woosh
Why?
As far as I'm aware, the ddg browser collects data and they sell it to Microsoft. The search by itself is fine though.
Do you have a source for the claim that DuckDuckGo browser is selling user data to Microsoft?
You might be referring to the time when the DuckDuckGo browser was blocking all known trackers except Microsoft trackers. After that information was made public and users complained, DuckDuckGo was able to renegotiate its agreement with Microsoft so that it can block their trackers.
Furthermore, DuckDuckGo now publish their blocklist on GitHub.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/05/duckduckgo-microsoft-tracking-scripts
So this privacy issue has been rectified now. But even if it hadn’t, failing to block Microsoft trackers isn’t the same as collecting data and selling it to Microsoft.
But if you are aware of DDG browser selling data to Microsoft, please share a source.
Really? I thought that used Bing search as backend but not that they sell your data
No, you have it right. That person is just conflating the controversy over their agreement with Microsoft as "ThEY're sELLiNg yOuR DaTa". 🙄
In fact. Mozilla rely more in Google. If i wasn't mistaken 90% of their money came from Google and they rely Google safebrowsing wherein it exposes your IP to Google
no one wants to secure their web render so they'll always use whatever is native to the platform.
on windows that's chromium. on macos that's webkit.
What does this even mean. Chromium or Webkit are not "native" to an OS. OSs don't magically include browser engines, its not a critical component of an OS either.
Most OSs do come with browsers preinstalled, but they are programs just like any other. You can remove Safari from macOS (albeit its pretty hard because root is read only and signed), you can remove Edge from Windows. In my desktop with Windows 10 the only browser I have is Firefox (not even Edge), does that make Gecko the "native" browser engine?
If anything, the native browser engine for Windows would be MSHTML from Internet Explorer.
you're overthinking the word native.
You're still not clarifying what you mean.
https://lemmy.ml/comment/3235821
So what is "native to the platform" according to your definition?
https://lemmy.ml/comment/3235821
By your definition. If I bought a phone and Facebook came pre-installed it means that Facebook is native to my phone?
Yes. That's exactly what his definition means.
I can kinda appreciate what he's trying to say, but I think "default" might be a better word than "native", but I'm not an expert.
What?
@gingernate
@pivot_root
How do you read and post from lemmy.world?
I use sync for lemmy
what's your confusion
Chromium isn't native to Windows. iOS is the only OS (I'm aware of) where browsers are forced to use a specific engine, but even that will be changing
you're overthinking the word native.
No, I'm not. Chromium doesn't exist in Windows unless you install a program that includes it. Chromium web engine is "native" to the chromium web browser, not to any OS (except maybe ChromeOS). As espi mentioned, Internet explorer's mshtml is the only engine "native" to Windows. Just look at the Opera browser, they changed web engines from Presto to chromium; that's not using "what's native to the platform" (Opera works across all OS's with chromium, except for iOS for the restriction I mentioned before), it's using what the developers/company want to use to render their pages. Nothing in Windows itself provides any of the chromium engine "pieces"
This was true until Edge transitioned to Chromium. Now the natively installed browser in Windows is Chromium based.
Edge is using EMET for memory protections.
Chrome has EMET disabled because it's own memory protections conflict and it just won't execute.
When you're make a web view for Windows you're either bringing a long your own rendering or using Edge because it's included.
No one wants to secure their own rendering which is why they all use whatever is already there which is EMET which is a pita to test so they just go with Edge.
native is just jargon for "what is already there."
@whou Don't forget the time they made it possible to 'donate' to creators, but when creators weren't signed up with their program #Brave would just keep the donation. So users would think they have donated for example to Tom Scott, but in reality he never received anything. Overall just a scummy company.
He could receive it, if he signed up though, right?
Even though I do not agree at all with the donation and support - out of the things that influence me into choosing a browser, 15 year-old private donations of appointed CEOs is pretty low on that list.
And the whole BAT thing is opt-in and they're very transparent about it. I don't get why people get so triggered when the C word - crypto - is involved.
I think the only relevant criticism I see is adding affiliate codes to urls (until they were caught).
The author also forgot the polemic of adding twitter and facebook trackers to the whitelist, and impersonating people in their ads. There are some interesting criticisms against brave, I don't understand why their detractors are obsessed with the CEO and crypto.
Exactly. They do a lot of things I don't like, which is why I don't use them. However, I do recommend them over Chrome if someone isn't willing to use Firefox (or Safari on iOS with an ad blocking extension).
That said, the ad replacement thing was an interesting idea, and if it got better click-through rate while preventing sites from stealing PII, they probably could've cut a profit sharing deal and users would've been better off vs the status quo. They could also have a "premium" option where they pay a certain amount for no ads, and that amount gets split with websites who would normally serve ads.
There are some good ideas there, but unfortunately the good ideas don't seem to have really worked out as intended. I still think they're better than Chrome, but things can change.
BAT can be distributed to publishers of content you go to based on percentage of visiting those sites. You can purchase BAT or subscribe to the ad program. Nobody in this thread knows even the basics of BAT, smh.
Yes, it's possible, but that's not how it works in reality.
I think it's a good idea, but with some missteps by Brave. They need to get sites on board before I can truly recommend them.
Well nobody is perfect, this thread is making that abundantly clear. If they were still doing all that shit years later everyone might have a point. Make mistakes and learn from it and move on is the only thing I can really ask of anyone. Brave is doing the right thing IMO. As to your comment about BAT, it’s the classic problem of what came first, the chicken or the egg? Not recommending it because it’s not being used so nobody’s recommending it lol.
I don't recommend it because there are better options. Firefox is privacy respecting, and since it still has an independent rendering and JavaScript engine, it's better for open web standards. On iOS, all browsers have the same rendering engine as per Apple's rules, so I recommend Safari with an ad blocker.
If Brave actually offered something tangibly better for the open web, I would recommend it. But it doesn't, so I recommend something that does.
However, if you need a chromium-based browser, I think Brave and Chromium are about on par, so I recommend both.
By default, pocket makes suggestions to you based on your browsing history and then the aggregate of that is sent to Mozilla. How is that privacy respecting again?
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/
But the data collection sounds like it's counter to its supposed goals. Multiple campaigns have been discussed that just make it believe they don't actually care about privacy considering all the ways they keep trying to do stuff is counter to that. Why stay? Tor Browser is available. Hell, Firefox itself is already able to take you pretty far and extensions can do the rest.
Why make the sacrifice of your personal data? Like, how many attempts at collecting personal data do you need to have occur before you realize it's always been their goal?
Of appointed CEOs who quit after 11 days to boot. But he was CTO prior.
But looks like he was largely ousted very fast with all the negative PR Mozilla was getting.
I would also imagine there are a lot of people that did not support same sex marriage back in 2008 that do now. I do not know the Eich personally, but it doesn't make sense to hold this stuff against people until we find out if they have or haven't changed their views.
15 years ago isn't that long ago - and there is a huge difference between "not supporting same sex marriage" and "donating against same sex marriage".
15 years is a long time. I know someone who did a complete 180 on their beliefs within a few years: from a conservative, homophobic, and religious pov to the exact opposite. I myself changed some political views I had 5 years ago.
I have no idea about Eich, but if I let this affect my choices of anything, frankly I won't do anything else in my life facing the millions of variables before me.
Sure, he donated $1000.
California voters approved prop 8 by a sizable majority. It was thrown out by the courts. That kind of dilutes my “oh no” over one persons donation. We’d need to boycott a good portion of Californians.
Today I think it’s relevant to point out he was an outspoken against masks, shutdowns, and was calling Fauci a liar. Basically everyone’s conservative family member in 2020.
It's not like he's backed down from his position against gay people over the years.
The fact is i don't care about these things. All it matters is that Brave uses Chromium, therefore I'll never touch it.
plus they have Google Advert ID Permission in Android. Tell me who is more creep. Crypto-things can be disabled within a few clicks, While mozilla's trash can be disabled using a bunch of configuration in about:config
Yeah. But if I ever want or need a Chromium browser, it may be the one.
I would go for Vivaldi or ungoogled chromium
Please stop reposting this crap every fucking day. What's up with you and this exact article in particular anyway? Are you getting paid or something?
well, I just came across the article on Mastodon and wanted to share it. I mean jeez, imagine sharing and wanting to discuss interesting topics just for fun?
and I posted the article on ![email protected] and then cross-posted it here, because I thought it was also an interesting community to discuss it. I saw a bunch of people cross-posting it elsewhere, so if you're seeing it a bunch of times then it's probably because those communities probably also have something in common with the article. I personally think every community have different people and different discussions to have, so I don't see it as particularly bad.
I don't get it either. It's in the front in 5 different subs
I mean… I've been using Firefox since Google silo'd all log-ins together.
On the other hand, search.brave.com is freaking incredible. It's so much better than Google, Bing or DDG at this point, it's shocking. I switched a couple weeks ago and it's surreal to see so many usable, useful results on the first page again.
Tried it for a couple of weeks and went back to DDG. It's way better for programming and other geekie stuff imo.
You mean DDG is better for programming or Brave Search is? I'm finding a lot more useful stuff via Brave for whatever reason currently.
(I guess results may vary though if that's not the case for you!)
I meant that DDG is better for programming.
Try Startpage And you can use addons to filter out bad results, if that helps. Brave search definitely is potent.
Cool! I didn't think of that, but it would do the trick, you're right.
(I was hoping for it to be in the popup list of search engines, I guess.)
I use Mojeek and Brave.
Fine, but, like, don't recommend Vivaldi. Also, if you disable the Brave ads, you're not really supporting them, while still getting the benefits.
— Sent from Librewolf
why not vivaldi? i know it’s not open-source, but is there any other reason?
Vivaldi is chromium
oh right, of course! for some reason i was only thinking of which chromium-based alternatives we could recommend.
You shouldn't use Brave simply because it's heavily infected with crypto shit and tries to monitorize your web browsing time by default. Not everything you do has to be a side hustle.
Sure you can "switch it off" but then why not use something else in the first place that's focus isn't trying to make money out of you. If Brave ever gained any decent market share the web would be an even shitter place than what Google is suggesting at the moment.
Brave is used for anonymity that nothing else offers, so what other option is there? I like and use firefox but it's no Brave.
you seek the crypto miner in the brackground running and want ads injected even you have adblocker on? Use librewolf its a more privacy focused firefox
Does librewolf have tor built in?
Have librewolf screwed users over? with replace ads, claiming referal links, ceo = sshle, secret cryptominer. And why would you NOT use the tor browser as it would reduce the possibility of that *ss ceo spying on u to 0.
Just use TorBrowser, then.
ah nice! I've never heard of that one before.
Fuck chromium and fuck Google
What a shitty fucking article.
Why is it shitty? TBH my biggest problem with Brave is their push for the crypto ad tokens. Any company pushing crypto shit instantly gets put on my shit list.
There's no push. You can completely ignore that part of Brave, which I do.
Ignore but it's still there? Can you turn it off?
You can turn it off. I never see any crypto BS
Yes, you can.
It's reposted every few days this community just loves it
As if people really using a browser with a built-in advertising network.
No, this article is pretty much idealistic rant aimed at hating the ceo. The product is fine.
Edit: the ads and crypto are opt in. I'd like to see if anyone ranting here about them has actually used Brave and went so far as to opt in to things they don't want
The affiliate link hijacking was not opt-in. How could anything remotely like this be accepted in a privacy focused browser?
When Firefox had the mr robot extension incident everybody was (righfuly so) mad, but that was way less damaging than altering users' intent.
Can someone explain how Brave siphoning some money from Amazon specifically impacts privacy? Does the affiliate get a list of accounts that bought something? Names? Addresses? Or does some money just show up in their account?
What information does Amazon get? That the person clicking is using Brave? They already know that from the user agent.
I, as the user, decide what affiliate link I want to use, not my browser!
Sure but that sounds like liberty and autonomy, not privacy.
I asked specifically how it infringes on privacy. Seems like the wrong word to use.
You really think they don't track you?
Who?
Some OSS developers, independent review/news sites get affiliate money to stay afloat. Amazon requires them to state this clearly. Brave didn't declare it and probably stole (replace) innocent referrals. This is level 100 spyware/malware tactic.
I’m not saying it was ethical or good.
I’m asking how it specifically impacts privacy.
Every response I’ve gotten is a non privacy response, which leads me to suspect it’s a stealing from others issue not a privacy issue.
Never used it to begin with.
Dude, this is a Firefox. Why tell us not use something what...95% of people here are not using in the first place?
EDIT: The crypto stuff is opt-in. You don’t have to use Brave Shields (in browser ad blocker). It can be turned off. Now you can use uBlock Origin or another ad blocker.
About the CEO, I can’t see nothing about his beliefs reflecting in his work. Looks like he kept them separated. I’m not for said beliefs.
EDIT 2: Also Brendan Eich is a co-founder of Mozilla. So if you're not going to use Brave because of him. How can you use Firefox?
Just ignore everything I said here. I misinterpreted stuff. My bad.
It's obvious that op meant that we are on r/Firefox, therefore there's no need to shill against brave.
But its’a me, chromium!
Given what I had said about it, the interpretation made sense. I already apologized. There's no need to correct me after the author already did. It adds nothing but trying to be condescending.
I'm sorry but what?Sorry, I thought you were saying it's based on Firefox. Just realized it was an attempt at the Wendy's meme.
np
did not know about the founder’s past, cheers for this. whenever i’m forced to open a chromium browser for something from now on, i’ll be using vivaldi.
Is Vivaldi good? I've heard it's like the old Opera, which I used to love (I used Opera from 2003 until around when they switched to Chromium, 2012ish)
I used to use it and I liked it quite a bit, I even replaced my gmail accounts with vivaldi.net accounts, though I may migrate to proton sometime. I use Firefox exclusively but if I needed to use a chromium-based browser, that’s the one I’d use. I’m not a power user by any stretch so my opinion probably has less weight than those of others on here, but that’s my two cents anyway.
i like vivaldi a lot :) mostly because of its UI and extremely easy in-depth customization. in my opinion it is the greatest-looking web browser (if you don’t factor in all the css fiddling you can do in a text editor with firefox, of course. but even then i don’t recall seeing any custom firefox user style that looked better than vivaldi to me).
the reason why i switched away from vivaldi and back to firefox after ~2 years of straight usage was that vivaldi had a weird performance bug for me where if i had too many tabs open for too many days in a row (laptop, no shutdown), it would randomly start freezing and i’d have to restart it. but when it was running on a fresh start, it was amazing. also the more ethical choice of using a non-chromium browser was part of the reason
Weird, that's the exact problem I had on my old desktop and have on my laptop with Firefox. Both were 8gigs of memory and I figured out that the freezing coincided with memory being depleted. My new desktop has, funnily enough, no problems with its 32gigs of memory. I need to purchase a new ram block for my laptop...
yeah I switched to Vivaldi from Firefox after a few years. was just sick of the incompatibility issues
I made the switch last month from Brave for years, back to firefox. Brave is easy more effective at blocking tablets and ads, even with ublock/adblock. You can install it and just start using a cleaner web, and it's really easy to customize gow much of an effect the sanitization is. I defended a lot of what Brave did in the early days, because what I was hearing from developers is that they were trying to monetize it in anyway possible that maintained the privacy of the user, and I understand that ethos.
It's the years and years of missteps that finally got to me. I started to feel like I had to keep up on what they were doing to make sure nothing slipped through, and that's not trust.
I still think they have the best ad blocking tech, it beats my pihole, it beats Firefox with extensions. It's fast, and it displays websites reliably.
But, we do need to consider the roads we pave and the tools we use. Brenden Eich has not apologized for his donation, but at the time he did write a blog post about supporting LGBT initiatives at Mozilla and he had support from people that he worked with. He resigned because at the time there was nothing you could do to assuage an internet hate mob but resign. There is information around stating that three board members left because of his appointment, but only one actually said that,
This is the part that every "lol just turn off the crypto crap, no problem!" responses don't understand. There are short-term issues, and there are long-term issues. Disabling undesired stuff fixes the short-term issue. Letting Brave build up their market share, at the expense of user-first options, creates long-term problems.
fwiw, Brave ad blocking for me has been far less effective than using Ublock Origin on literally any other browser
Well reading this had the opposite effect than intended. Now i just hate the author
Yup, half of it is just "I don't like this person, so no one should use anything they have anything to do with".
The points about the browser itself are clearly just afterthoughts.
I mean, regardless of whether it sounds like afterthoughts, it kind of sounds like the ulterior motive for Brave is entirely counter to its purported intent. Why ignore it just because of something unrelated? Sounds like the exact same issue people complain about the author.
I'm not ignoring those things, there's a reason why I use firefox. I'm just criticizing the article.
You were agreeing with someone that said it led them to the opposite conclusion of the point the author wanted to make. That would require you to ignore those points or at the very least admit privacy isn't important.
When you said "yup" to a claim, it means you agree with the claim. You didn't simply only say you disliked the author's writing style and felt their focus wasn't properly targeted on the correct points.
Touché, I can see how this leads to misunderstanding.
The purpose is to make a for-profit browser that respects privacy. They've tried a number of different approaches, and they'll probably try more.
I especially like the idea of replacing ads with non-tracking ads with better clickthrough rate (i.e. higher profit), and share the profit with the sites. Ad recommendations could be made from local data that never gets sent to a server. That's privacy respecting and profitable, but unfortunately they didn't get enough deals made with content creators to be effective.
And what a CEO chooses to do with their money is none of my business, what is my business is the quality of the product that company makes, as well as the quality of the work environment that product is made in. I don't like the direction Brave has gone, so I don't use it. And now that I know iOS Safari has ad blocking extensions, I'll no longer be recommending Brave to anyone (I recommend Firefox everywhere except iOS, and I recommend Safari with ad block there).
You can't respect privacy by violating it. Just because you're ok with the amount of violation doesn't make it ok.
I'm fine with blocking things on someone else's site. I'm not ok with injecting things on someone else's site.
What are you talking about? If the logic and metadata is completely stored in your machine, there's no privacy violation. The ads themselves don't need any PII unless you opt in to some kind of profit sharing system (e.g. you get paid to see ads), and that can simply be handled by the browser itself (i.e. a cryptographic signature that can only be verified client side).
As for not liking injecting stuff into a browser, what about browser extensions show you if another site has a better deal on something? Or accessibility tools that change the styling of the site? Or password managers that inject auto fill buttons? Or addons like RES that add features like previously viewed posts or times you've upvoted a user?
Injecting ads is the same idea, you're removing features you dislike and adding features you do. The unethical part is profiting from sites, which is why those profits should be shared with those sites. I think there's a good case to be made that sites, browsers, and users can all make more with this method and without violating user privacy (the advertiser doesn't need to know anything about you specifically, it just needs to know that the browser can place ads effectively). All data can stay on your local machine and never sent to the browser vendor, website owners, or advertisers.
If Brave got that to work, I'd consider it. I'd prefer it to be an addon to my browser instead. Here's how I'd prefer it to work:
This way, the user:s privacy isn't violated, sites make a profit, the addon maintainer gets paid (ideally a nonprofit org), and users can get some pocket change as well. Everything would be auditable, so nobody can pull a fast one without getting caught.
You let me know when you find a system that analyzes your data locally and chooses an ad to show without letting anyone know anything. Even just delivering the ad is violating a level of privacy because they know it targets you at the very least. But beyond that, targeted ads require statistics to build to know how to target. You need data to build a model. You can't build that without sharing.
I think Mozilla's Pocket does this. Here's an article about it. It's light on details, so maybe there are better sources out there.
Stop using it with honey mustard sauce! Stop using it with tangy sweet and sour sauce! Stop eating the new fiesta Brave salad! Stop enjoying Brave on the patio, in the car, or on the boat... wherever good times are had!
🎵 Pop a poppler in your mouth
When you come to Fishy Joe's
What they're made of is a mystery
Where they come from no one knows 🎵
These are pretty unconvincing reasons to tell people to stop using brave...
Stop respawning this post again and again. Seriously.
Every so much time someone wakes up and decides to bash Brave, which is fair, but they always have leave out all the nuance
I've had my firefox settings/setup with multi-account containers, etc. dialed in for years. Never had any reason to change that. Librewolf is nice for people who don't already have existing & configured installations of firefox to have it basically configured by default.
I use Brave as a second browser (mainly to separate different activities) and did not have any issues with it apart from dragging tabs between monitors (it creates an additional empty tab sometimes when doing this). Turned off all unnecessary stuff right when I first launched it and that's it. No bloat, no issues, just works. Didn't know about this CEO controversy but seeing as it was a long time ago, don't think it's a valid reason to not use Brave. And both logo and name are cool.
It's a solid option which we don't really have a lot of in open source space
Firefox has profiles AND container tabs for exactly this though.
Do you think you were anonymous before and the profile is what broke that?
What are you talking about? Firefox doesn't need an email address for container tabs or separate profiles, and I think you can still host your own sync server if you want that capability.
I haven't checked if Container tabs work on Torn Browser, but that's my go-to for anonymity.
Yup, on Firefox, profiles are just directories of settings, and you can have as many as you choose. AFAIK, few people use them, since you can get most of that behavior with container tabs. For example, at work, I have one container group for work Gmail, one for personal, and if my wife uses it, she can open another group for her stuff.
I'd use profiles for a shared login on a computer, but I'd just use separate user accounts instead. I use container tabs for multiple logins for the same service on one profile. Switching then just means opening a new tab with that container group.
I'm talking about the browser user profiles, where your user data (bookmarks, passwords, extensions) is stored.
Firefox puts them into profiles so that you can change between those sets, as if you're a different user, without changing user accounts at the OS level.
This isn't about online accounts.
Yep, Mozilla doesn't tie your Firefox settings to your Mozilla account. It does require it for syncing between devices though.
Glad to get people to understand Firefox better. Hope my comment didn't come out as too crass or anything 😅
I mean, there's simply just Firefox. Which is apparently not the basis for Brave. It does sound like Brave collects data so it still seems shady.
Edit: could have sworn brave was built on Firefox. It's not. It's chromium. Which in my opinion counts against it as I'd rather avoid a monopoly considering how much control Google has over chromium and the inherent biases Google has.
I use it for streaming because the ad block works on spotify and YouTube. I could never get spotify working on Firefox consistently.
Same here.
I used to but it got bloated to hell and back.
Genuine question: I use brave currently. I really heavily on multiple profiles (work, side-business, personal) that are easy to switch between or have active all at the same time in separate windows.
I tried firefox, but in my experience, the method for changing “profiles” was unintuitive and cumbersome. Was I just doing it wrong, or does Firefox not have that same kind of feature?
I really wanna use Firefox, but that’s a deal-breaker.
Maybe multi account containers for Firefox could work for you? I find it very useful.
Interesting! I’ll give it a whirl.
There are a few ways! I have separate Firefox profiles for everything.
The least effort way is to visit about:profiles, then you get a list of them all and can add/remove them. I have it bookmarked or pinned as a tab in all of my different profiles.
Second, but takes more effort is you can make desktop or start menu shortcuts to the profiles. In short (on windows at least) you copy the Firefox shortcut, edit it, then add -p "Profile Name". There might be more to it? Maybe good to Google this one for a better description. But I literally have a start menu shortcut for all like 7 of mine, then it's just like launching a different application.
Or have a shortcut that has something like this as its target:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" --ProfileManager --allow-downgrade -no-remoteThis just opens the profile manager every time. The only caveat is that you have to click "launch" every time as there's no timeout. But I also do have an autohotkey script that does the timeout for me, pressing "enter" after 30s.
Do you have a way for the window to show which profile it belongs to?
Plus Firefox has the same problem that Chrome does. And that problem is the shit ton of ads that pop up every goddamn place.
That's why you install an adblocker like uBlock Origin in Firefox. The browser isn't responsible for blocking ads, that's what add-ons are for.
This isn't a browser issue, it's an Internet issue. And it's easily fixed on Firefox.
What ads? I use Firefox and its forks and I haven't seen an ad.
I only use brave for iOS because it is the best there is
FYI every browser on iOS has to use webkit under the hood as per crapple's diktat, it's just a fork of safari like PC brave is a fork of chromium, eve Firefox on iOS uses webkit AFAIK
It’s the only one that blocks ads everywhere though
qutebrowser ftw
it was a similar article that made me switch from Brave to Ungoogled Chromium a few weeks ago, as a backup browser for the handful of sites that don't work in Firefox.
Tbh the homophobia was just the last straw on the hill of crypto nonsense they piled on the browser over the years. I've been increasingly uncomfortable with Brave the more "fluff" they added, so going back to bare Ungoogled Chromium has been pretty good.
Make me
i'll give you a cookie. not the shitty browser kind either: a full fledged double fudge. the clock is ticking
I use Firefox + Brave Search.
I did too for a while. I've since switched to librex.
It's kinda like ten years ago google. It may use google as it's source for all I know. It does a pretty great job of stripping out SEO fluff.
Link to firefox plugin.
You should start using LibreY. It's a fork of LibreX, but it's actually maintained.
I do noticed that instances get ratelimited a lot, leading to empty search results, which sucks
Honestly, I only use it for when a site will not work in FFX-based browsers
All I read is cryptocurrency hating.
Do they do anything that's bad for my privacy?
The affiliate links are enough to stop using brave tho
Affiliate links can be done ethically. Devs gotta eat
And they did it in the worst way possible LOL
"Tell me you only read headlines without telling me"
Brave is a better choice than Google Chrome / Opera / Edge by miles.
Still, the only ethical choice is Firefox.
It's chromium with a different hat. If you trust chromium, you can probably trust this as easily.
Common folks you are supposed to use a Computer only to assist at your job.
If your going to use a chromium browser brave isn't the worst choice
I mean, alright. But you could say "I don't care" about any infraction of freedom and/or trust. I trust software to not modify my intent, any software that does so without asking can not be trusted in any way.
It's not actually that private, use librewolf if you want an actually private browser
The "anti-LGBT stuff" is enough imo. It may be "small fries", but I'd rather not support someone (or their company) when they clearly don't support me.
It does affect you because it would have meant that you couldn't claim cashback offers from sites like TopCashback and Rakuten, as the cashback site's affiliate code would have been replaced with Brave's.
CEO donating to what's cause is ideology that should be separated from you assessment of the product.
I don't care about this, sounds like another Hogwarts fiasco.
https://ulaa.com/ - I do trust Zoho.
You should always have three browsers, imho. I use Firefox, Tor, and Brave as my three. Firefox's addon ecosystem is great, and I can use it easily on all the computers I touch. Brave helps me when I need "Chrome" for something to work, but the browser is fairly slick imho, plus exists as a financially independent competitor to Chrome, unlike Firefox. Lastly, Tor is for when using Tor through Brave or using it through transparent proxy isn't enough, and I am worrying about fingerprinting as well.
I have added Mullvad browser to the mix. It's pretty good.
Mullvad has a browser? I'll check that out, thanks
What a shitty article. Firefox should use mirror.
The author of the article has some personal issues it seems, article is more of a rant. I like brave as an alternative browser.
Who cares, it's a browser...use whatever you like.
Who cares, it's a bike lock... Use whatever you like.
Bottom line is it is a good browser and faster than most if not all the others I have tried. Certainly faster than Firefox and Mullvad. If you don't like the add's turn them off. If you dont like the wallet and other stuff, dont use them. It is easy to ignore that stuff. Nothing in that article makes me want to stop using it.
I dunno, automatically modifying user-entered URLs to add an affiliate link sounds pretty awful...
You're about to make a lot of enemies 😂
Last time someone posted this stupid fucking article up on a different tech lemmy I got into it with some single brain cells morons.
It's open source tech. You could fork the entire thing if you didn't like the CEO. Who cares.
Rehashed article, reposted on Lemmy. How about people stop telling others what browser to use and not to use?
Can't you elaborate?
Can't you read the article?
The article don't need a post here to be read
I disagree with the article. It appears to make two points, both don't convice me.
The first one is about a political donation made by the founder 15 years ago to the tune of 1000 USD. It was against gay marriage. While I somewhat support gay marriage, I find it totally acceptable to be opposed to it. It depends on what marriage means, and people don't agree on that. For some people it just means a strong bond, stronger than a normal relationship. With this definition, gay marriage isn't an issue.
But to other people marriage is an envelope that's supposed to foster reproduction and family building. With this definition gay marriage isn't exactly straightforward. Neither should it be for people with fertility problems and women over 50 in general. Are convervatives also against that? I guess they should. Whatever. I started off thinking I could defend the stance, now i don't think i did. Either way, ditch a browser over this nonsense?
And if Tim Berners Lee spews some BS, will you stop using the Internet? Or if your country elects a stupid president, will you boycott the country and leave temporatily?
The other issue is what Brave does with ads. While I agree it is imperfect, I think in general the approach is among the better ones around.
Wow, this is some real homophobic bullshit.
I'm pro gay marriage, and merely attempted to reconstruct the opposing logic, and apparently failed halfway through.
Now, whats homophobic about this? The fact that in general to people of the same sex won't reproduce? That seems about as outrageous as the thought that obesity is a medical condition.
Seems like it's not really about browsers but politics.
At the time, same sex couples already had the right to marry in California. He donated money to take that right away from them. Would your stance be the same if he donated money to remove civil rights protections for racial minorities?
That actually makes a difference to me.
I think civil rights for minorities are super important.
I find marriage much less important. It's essentially just a symbol. (Or is it about the tax benefits and legal protections in case of death? That's substantial)
Yeah, just a symbol until your deceased partner's family tries to take your house. Just a symbol until you realize you can't sponsor your foreign partner for immigration because the government doesn't recognize your relationship.
Those legal protections around property are the whole point of the law recognizing marriage.
For a moment I though I was on Twitter
Mozilla wants to censor and cancel people, harder. And Google is the king of censorship.
I'm going to stick with Brave.
Haters gonna hate. Make FF great again and people will start coming back. Seethe more, and more people will switch to Brave if they haven't yet.
hahahahahhaHAHHAHahahahaha.
more like a good reason to START using Brave. it melts snowflakes.
Why?
from the article...
I don't use brave and I am not interested in using it, so YMMV.
Is Vivaldi good for privacy? It is closed-source and I don't understand its business model.
exactly, there's a lot of trust involved in using Vivaldi. I don't know why someone recommends it over Brave in the name of privacy.
Not according to PrivacyTests.org. It lacks a lot of state partitioning, amongst other things. Just FYI, the front end UI is closed source, but the backend/engine is open source, because they're just another chromium spin off.
The author didn’t talk about hour Brave is the most private and fastest browser. Those are glaring omissions.
Source?
True. Also, folks with cancer tend to lose weight, so cancer needs to be discussed as a practical weight loss solution.
/s, for anyone who can't tell I'm being an asshole.
you clearly didn't read the article
I've read the article and I don't understand the issue.
I don't care. He represents Brave just as little as he represents Mozilla or Javascript.
I don't care. Why should that be a reason not to use the browser? It doesn't have a feature that no other browser has either, oh no.
I don't care. If you care about maximizing websites' profit, you should use Chrome (with no adblock).
I don't care. Browsers are extremely bloated anyways.
I don't care. They didn't try to scam anyone, they just offered services/features for those interested in Web3.
I care a little, but not much. Claiming it's anti privacy is ridiculous. The website can see you're using Brave no matter whether you're using an affiliate link or not. But it's still something a browser definitely shouldn't do without user consent (and an option to opt out).