Please, do not use Brave.
I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.
Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.
Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.
After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL's. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.
Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I'd say the answer is a very clear no.
One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.
Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don't mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.
Brave is literally a grift. Too many people are falling for it.
Too many people only care about the openweb or shitty companies in the comments. They have no fucking willpower, no patience, and no follow through. Their complaints are utterly meaningless because they utterly refuse to stick to their guns.
There's one and literally only one browser that actually stands for all the things the most vocal people around here claim to care about.
Yet, they use Brave.
Ehh there is only so much a single person can care about. If you have a life and aren't effectively an activist/lobbyis by profession you can't care about politics both local and global, preserving nature and ecolody, world hunger & disease, and a million other things like which software company is less evil all at once and follow through 100%, supporting all of the causes meaningfully.
Not to mention we have to make compromises, too.
Hard disagree. Firefox had its fair share of controversies, it's still technically funded by Google (while not accepting donations), and Mozilla Foundation as a nonprofit is pretty questionable too.
The leadership of Mozilla Corporation is shit too like any other corp; they lay off engineers and give themselves huge bonuses.
It takes them years to even acknowledge simple bugs, let alone actually getting to fix them.
A huge part of why Firefox lost the "browser wars" is also that they failed to make it easy to build into other apps so it could work more like Electron, while also pissing off users with surface changes that break their workflow.
Overall it's better than Chrome especially if you care about privacy, but it's not a huge win.
I turn on youtube and see no ads
Just use uBlock Origin.
What are the better solutions for iOS users?
Someone mentioned Firefox Focus.
Not on iOS. Every browser on iOS is effectively just a skin for safari. There is no true Firefox for iPhone, or chrome for that matter.
If you're using an iPhone, you willingly surrendered your freedom of choice. This is what you paid for.
Firefox focus blocks ads on YouTube.
Safari with Wipr does not.
I know because I have them both. I use them for different things.
Won't be the case for much longer if the EU gets their way, I'm glad to say.
Something unique about the Brave browser is that it allows me to use filter lists to block ads. I can insert my own custom lists too which is cool.
I haven’t found another browser that allows this on iOS (other than safari with extensions).
Doesn't Firefox support extensions on iOS? I'm on Android and I'm currently using uBlock Origin and Dark Reader. I also use Lemmy through it, seems to work quite well.
Firefox focus doesn’t seem to save open windows, it’s a purely incognito browser. & you can only have one page open at a time.
Focus does indeed block YT ads!
Even safari with Wipr does not. Though it is amazing for everything else.
As I stated in a previous post, if you are using an iPhone you've basically given up on having privacy. For ad blockers you could use AdGuard and Safari, it's better than nothing. You could also use something like Mullvad VPN, it has DNS ad blocking.
As I stated in a previous post, I am using AdGuard on safari. And since I’ve basically given up on privacy, I also use Brave at times.
That’s the most ridiculous statement I’ve seen today. iOS has infinitely better privacy than Android lawl
An iPhone is a give-up on privacy because you don't get alternatives. If you don't like your stock OS on an Android phone you can just switch OS (for example GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, ect.). If you don't like the normal YouTube app you can just sideload a different one. You don't get this kind of freedom with an iPhone. A prime example of this is when, during the Hong Kong Riots where Apple pulled an app that assisted protesters.
Orion by Kagi. It is, afaik, are the only browser that isn’t just a re-skin of Safari.
It’s not something the average person can or will do, but if you’re so inclined you can run Pi-Hole or AdGuard Home and have all your iOS devices go through it.
I even set up a VPN for when I’m away from home that I can connect to and get routed through my home internet connection which gives me ad blocking on the go.
Or if you want a simpler answer, look into using the AdGuard app on your iOS device.
Thanks I didn’t know you could do this with pi-hole. I’m currently testing out AdGuard but it seems you have to turn it on every time you open a new yt vid
PiHole cannot block YT ads.
PiHole does not block YouTube ads.
I haven’t used Pi-Hole in a long time to know that, but I don’t seem to have any issue with them using AdGuard Home.
AdGuard may work! PiHole has never blocked YT ads tho :c
Sideloading either Yatee or uYou+
Or use Piped as a PWA
I haven't tried it but there's also Kagi's Orion browser which looks interesting.
This browser is helpful on iOS because it can run Firefox or chrome extensions. Ublock origin works great. I don’t see any ads.
uBlock Origin actually doesn't work at all on Orion, it's just that the browsers built-in ad blocker is very good.
Thanks I didn’t know about that one and I thought I went through all the alternatives. Currently I’m primarily watching YouTube vids through invidious in safari but will use brave when I watch my saved playlists.
Honestly had no idea this existed, cool!
This is why I use Brave on iOS devices. It is the best option I found. Others mention Adguard home and pihole. They just don’t work as well at blocking ads.
Don't use iOS.
I mean, that's it. That's your only option. On iOS, Safari is the only real choice you have.
I chose an iPhone because I didn’t want to use googles play store. Now I know there are options around that but most users (including myself at least for now) are not willing to learn how to do that and set it up.
FYI to you or anyone who doesn't know: If you are browsing the internet on an iOS or iPadOS device you are forced to use the Webkit rendering engine. Chrome, Safari, Brave, Firefox. All of them use Webkit to display web pages because you won't get an app on the App store if you use anything else. The EU is forcing Apple to allow other browsing tech through the app submission process, so we will see alternatives in the future.
I read a couple months back Mozilla got some internal builds with their engine for iOS. This is the #1 reason why I don't have an iPhone. I'd probably get one next time I am looking if this happens. That or maybe Ubuntu touch or something gets more mature.
Firefox focus blocks YouTube ads.
Brave is not spyware. That website you linked is horrible and full of misinformation. They also claim that Firefox, and even Tor Browser, are spyware. They act as if any and all connections a browser makes are automatically bad and used for spying/tracking.
I won't disagree with the other criticisms of Brave that you made, but just wanted to point that out. That website is just highly unreliable and makes verifiably false claims about the browsers it reviews.
Let's not forget one of the biggest investors is a right-wing billionaire who runs a corporate intelligence agency that contracts with the DoD. And the only proof we have that he doesn't collect data on Brave's users is the questionable word of the devs.
For the comments, can anyone give me an actual reason to use Brave over Firefox (and it's forks)? I guess the cryptocurrency aspect is a reason, but I wouldn't say it's a very good one.
That's actually one of the reasons I do not use Brave.
My guess is because Brave is a relatively known Chromium browser that's been degoogled. Along with built in ad and tracker blocking, and it's an easy less evil of the two.
I want to like Firefox, both as normal user and as web developer, but something about it keeps bugging me. The UI feels sluggish, sites seem to be slightly less performant, and I can't seem to get used to it.
That said, I've started using Vivaldi, and while it can be considered bloated, I really like the tab options it has, while also offering a degoogled chromium that's being kept to date.
Because all the web devs optimize for chrome because they dominate the market. If more people use Firefox then devs will start to care about performance in it
(You're a dev so I assume you know this. This comment is mainly for other people)
You're going to have to convince MILLIONS of people to even scratch the surface of "making a difference" or even being noticed.
Not really. I've gotten plenty of bugs fixed on other sites by just sending them a screenshot of something going wrong in Firefox. For the big companies like Facebook though you're entirely correct
At what point will even the smaller companies stop providing that support, and how do we as a community combat the eventual end of it?
We combat the eventual end of it by getting more people to use it. The more people using it the more support it gets.
It's the same as someone not voting because they are only one person. Sure, you're only one person, but when millions of people have that exact same thought it makes a difference.
I guess we complain as loud and as often as we can. And give our money to companies that support Firefox. Thankfully most of my coworkers, at every company I've worked at, use Firefox use Firefox so the website usually works because they needed it to to do their job
Add a user agent checker to your website and add tag: 'Your browser, Google Chrome, is not supported. Please open this website on Firefox.'
Thic could attract masses.
Tomorrow morning, Google could decide to program google.com to no longer work with any gecko browser. Firefox will be dead by the afternoon, no matter how many antitrust/monopoly lawsuits get filed.
I'm not sure what it is. I suppose this is the case for the heavier web-applications, but the average website (which is where my expertise is, not actual applications) also feels slightly worse on FF. And as far as I know, I don't use any chrome-specific tricks or optimizations.
Because it contributes to Google's hegemony over web standards, and that's bad for the Internet.
I don't see how it contributes any more than installing the Chromium-based Brave or Vivaldi, which are the comparisons being made in this specific thread.
I feel the exact same. I use linux with a tiling window manager and when I change format, Firefox just starts twitching like it's trying to give me an epileptic seizure while chromium browsers do it just fine.
Also, sometime ago I tried to compare Chrome (when I still used it) and Firefox side by side with the same extensions opening the same websites and Firefox always took a bit more ram.
You sure that’s not a WM problem?
FWIW, Ubuntu 20.04, i3wm, no problems with Firefox
Idk, I use gnome with pop shell tiling and Firefox is the only program that does it.
Try another WM and see if you still have issues
The problem is that so many site hyper-optimize for chrome. Add that to Google helping create web frameworks that seem to almost intentionally break Firefox and you get a de facto standard on chrome because ANYTHING else seems broken.
Long live FF
Try basic Chromium, it's Chrome without the Google.
You're not wrong about Firefox, many sites are specifically optimized for Chrome and perform worse in FF. This is especially true for anything Google.
My machines are generally fast enough that FF is fine so I prefer it but I fall back to Chromium occasionally or Chrome and Edge for specific uses.
There's nothing in particular wrong with Vivaldi, IIRC I didn't like some features or UI bits when I used it last so it didn't have anything to recommend itself to me over basic Chromium. I'd prefer it over Edge which, IMO, is bloated with a bunch of garbage but Edge has very good streaming site support so 🤷♂️
Vivaldi tab management is pretty great. Vivaldi is designed for power users that always have a ton of tabs open. There are a bunch of other features as well that I use regularly, but I could see that it might be a bit of a learning curve for those that just want to install a browser and immediately know where everything is. There has been more than a few times that I discovered yet another efficiency using Vivaldi and felt like I was getting more from it. Definitely a browser for someone willing to spend time configuring it for their use case. Keyboard shortcuts ftw!
Vivaldi definitely has a learning curve. It's great once you have it set up how you like (which, granted, is way too time consuming for the average user). But the tab stacking and tiling is so immensely useful for me, I can't use other browsers without missing those features now.
Pretty much the only reason I use brave. 99% of the time librewolf. I don't wanna go through the effort of installing chromium and an ad blocker and all that other stuff for the 1% of sites that are broken on firefox for me so brave it is. Really I just wish there was a chrome repackage with all this stuff out of the box. God knows chrome and chromium will never be that.
For me, Vivaldi had had the best performance next to Safari. FF and Chrome are easily smoked by Vivaldi when benchmarking. Idk if it’s related to M-series chipset or what, but my buddy who doesn’t have one has much worse performance on his laptop. Also, web and software dev, the saved workspaces that you can pin is killer.
I have installed Brave on my grandparents' computer, because:
Personally I use firefox.
I don't use brave, but I use Vivaldi.
The main reason for me is native mouse gestures. They are so much better than addon mouse gestures.
And speed dials. Addon ones are okayish, but I prefer the Vivaldi implementation.
If Firefox would ever ass native mouse gestures, I would swap in an instant. Until then, no can do :(
Personally I can't say anything about Vivaldi, but it's proprietary and owned by people who used to work for Opera.
Proprietary, yes, from a Foss pov it's not good I guess
Owned by ex opera ppl: that's a good thing tbh. Old opera was fantastic. New opera is more fishy after they were acquired by a Chinese group.
There is a lot of browser love in Vivaldi tbh. They are very open and transparent. Haven't found a single red flag about Vivaldi (aside from not being FOSS, which for me isn't a red flag per se)
They even run their own Mastodon servers for their community ;)
I love the Vivaldi community. It might not be AS open as the Firefox community but the devs seem quite nice and are very responsive to feedback
Proprietary software is generally frowned upon in this community, however I personally don't mind that much.
The
thisisunsafebypass - although I'm pretty sure it's a Chromium feature and not specific to Brave. One of our servers has a completely fucked-up SSL cert, which I can't fix for reasons outside my control. Firefox won't allow me to connect, butthisisunsafeon Brave works.It works in Chromium too.
I have no problem using firefox with my self signed cert. Just add the cert.
It's not self-signed. I think we used to have a proper internal CA, but it's gone along with its certs. And we can't replace it because that particular server is held together by our desperate friday night prayers.
Being chromium based it
Don't get me wrong, I am using Firefox, but your entire post is pretty disingenuous. Criticizing Brave over privacy concerns and then suggesting Firefox instead requires disingenuity or a special kind of ignorance and/or stupidity. Firefox has had 10 times as many privacy "mishaps" as Brave with all the "experiments" of corporate affiliates they shipped to users unannounced. There's a reason there are so many forks of Firefox.
Pretty much everything you criticize about Brave is entirely optional.
Then you title a link as Brave "getting ousted as spyware", and the linked to page does not oust Brave as spyware at all. You would do good to adopt some of the more neutral/factual tone of that page.
And in parts that page is pretty ridiculous, too: complaining about what is set as the default search engine (the same as Firefox, btw). Who the fuck cares what search engine is set by default? Just change it. Opt out of everything you do not like. If there's stuff you cannot opt out of which is bad, we can talk about that. But arguing about optional features is ridiculous.
Edit: little add-on: Brave factually has better out of the box (no plugins) privacy protection than Firefox: https://privacytests.org/
None of those three are true.
Some web sites are optimized for chrome.
Not remotely accurate, https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list
Not to any relevant degree. 515 VS 528 is at best a slight difference that in all likely hood is from Googlie using their position to strong arm things that benefit only them into the standards and very likely undetectable by the end user. https://html5test.com/
Considering how many tests Brave does not pass, I'd say that page looks pretty balanced and fair. Also it is consistent with independent studies where Brave came out on top of the list.
My impression is that most opposition against Brave is largely political. And then people try to find technical reasons after the fact, which simply isn't justified in comparison with other browsers.
I stated "and it’s forks" in the comment, and I did not mention Firefox (or any other browser) in the actual main post itself. Firefox can be easily de-spyware'd with something like arkenfox's user.js (as I mentioned in another comment). There are also plenty of privacy-centric Chromium based browsers such as Ungoogled Chromium and Vivaldi.
Regarding optional features, I more used them as a segue into the last three links showcasing Brave's malicious and downright illegal activities. Personally, the fact those features are integrated into the browser at all is a deal breaker for me.
Edit: For the record, I'm aware Vivaldi is proprietary but I don't necessarily think that makes it bad. I haven't done enough research on it to personally recommend it, but I've been told that it's good.
Funny how you do not address most of what I said ... so, disingenuous it is.
ftfy
Nothing good will come of this conversation, so I'll stop it right here. Have a nice day.
I don't address most of what you said because it's referring to one of the six links I have in that post, and I don't really have anything to say regarding it.
I don't see how it is misleading to tell people that Brave created a cryptocurrency, they then added a rewards program to the browser with that cryptocurrency, and then they inserted affiliate links into URL's when people were browsing. All of this happened, it's not misleading, it's just a fact.
Defaults. Install Brave and you're done. Site doesn't work? Report non-working site. Wanna support creators? Top up your Brave Wallet or turn on Brave ads.
I've a limited budget and limited time to tip websites. I ain't gonna tip manually every other rando on the internet. Brave takes care of that. Small amounts, yes, but better than just ad-blocking [yes, website owners have to opt-in to it].
Completely uninformed take follows: Also, Mozilla seems to be trying to ramp up their ads department -- search for Mozilla Ads. And no-one gonna convert because they already have Google Adsense.
TL;DR: Firefox is faster but using recommended tools like uBlock Origin leaves websites without income.
You can always use something like AdNauseam to give website owners ad revenue and still block ads.
The only reason I use it over firefox is about tab grouping and how tab mutting work by default. I don't feel like trying out a bunch of extensions to find one that does what I already get from another browser. Also don't have to worry about installing ad blocker. Originally switched because it worked better than uorigin for a specific use-case that was relevant for me. I also have vivaldi, firefox, and librewolf install and will use them occasionally. Privacy isn't a big concern for me though; when I tried to switch to librewolf, the privacy features ended up annoying me so I disabled a lot of them because they interfered with using the browser how I wanted.
Not recommending Brave. I agree at least in theory with using Firefox and I want more people to use Firefox. But its what I'm use to and there was reason for me to try it out at the time I switched to it (that's probably irrelevant now).
On iOS, unlike Android, Firefox doesn't come with extensions. No ads are blocked. Even if I use Safari and Adguard extension, it doesn't block YouTube ads. Brave works like a charm in this regard. I've opted out of all telemetry stuff that I could find, and btw even Firefox opts into everything by default. Any other open source browser you can suggest that blocks ads including YouTube on iOS?
On iOS use Orion Browser by Kagi. As for blocking ads in YouTube, you can use AltStore to sideload a YouTube app with sponsorblock and ad block built in.
(Orion might block YouTube ads, I haven't tested it)
I can confirm Orion blocks Youtube ads (might need to tweak options). As for youtube app, no need to sideload anything, Yattee is on the app store and on testflight for betas (https://github.com/yattee/yattee/wiki/Installation-Instructions)
Brave is better out of the box than Firefox
Not by much...
Due to some specific hardware issue on my end affecting all firefox based browsers, I have to use a hardened and stripped down version of Flatpak Brave, which I did manually, as a backup browser. I used to use Ungoogled Chromium but it is not reliable. Other than that there is absolutely no reason to use Brave and I would immediately switch back to Firefox only if I get newer hardware.
As a plus point, firefox (gecko based browsers in general) are the only ones I have seen which provide the best theming flexibilities.
Have you tried any forks of Firefox? They might serve you better. You could also try out Mullvad's browser, which released a few months ago.
I have tried a wide number of Firefox Forks, some niche ones as well. I generally do not prefer non-ESR releases or Forks because of the added Fingerprinting Risks. But all of them had the same issue so I concluded that there was some incompatibility with my Hardware (which is quite old now) and the Gecko Engine.
This isn't a reason to use Brave, this is just a reason to not use stock Firefox.
Most people recommend forks of Firefox, or Firefox with modifications to make it more privacy-centric. I don't think anyone recommends stock Firefox (it's spyware).
I've seen countless instances in this post alone of people recommending Firefox and its forks. Are we talking about the same place?
on my very old s4 mini android phone Brave works better than any other browser by far.
i do not use Brave anywhere else :)
LineageOS dude, still running on it, still being updated
I use it on my phone and tablet to block YouTube ads. All the other browsers are dedicated for various other purposes, but I use Firefox as my main browser. When a site doesn’t work on FF, I have to use Safari. Brave is just another tool in my toolbox.
I mean that's a reason not to use Brave. It's a Chromium based browser.
Yeah I reread your question after I posted and realized you were asking something different. Tried to delete it before anyone read it but oops… 😬
Built in Tor browsing... Just use Tor?
... or just use the built-in feature of my browser and don't require running another software?
Doesn't that kinda defeat half of Tors purpose though? Tor works best when you have a large crowd that all looks the same. Using Brave or any other browsers makes you stick out like a sore thumb because most likely not many people do this. This is the reason why the Tor people recommend only ever using the Tor browser and also not install any other extensions onto it and so on.
If you don't care about that, that's fine but then you don't really need Tor either way.
Interesting take. I guess I need to check for more details if Brave hides these infos or not. Thanks for that hint!
I don't think Brave can "hide" these infos. At most you could try to spoof them somehow to something else. If you would hide them, that inherently would make you stick out as well since the website would see that you're hiding stuff :D
You would have to make your Brave browser look exactly like the Tor browser from a websites point of view to blend in. No clue if that is actually possible. A website can read surprisingly a lot of system information from your browser.
Chromium exensions
This falls under "not a good reason" because 90% of Chromium extensions have Firefox alternatives.
I wouldn't touch Brave with a ten-foot pole, but I heard that it's configured for privacy by default, whereas Firefox requires extensions like uBlock Origin etc. So maybe Brave is better for idiots, I guess?
Brave is slightly better than default Firefox. But there are plenty of forks of Firefox that are way better than it out of the box.
Being lazy, I wish some of those forks were available in my distro's
aptrepo.I don't want to support Mozilla, for a lot of reason I don't have the time or the will to discuss here. Is that enough for you? It is for me.
You either support Google or support Mozilla. Supporting Mozilla leads to a safer internet for all.
It's cute how people sincerely believe Mozilla PR.
I don't believe Mozilla PR, I believe that solely using Chromium is bad for everyone.
Ok. Nice. I'll keep using Brave anyway. Have a good day.
My man joins the conversation and then acts like they're a hostage to it.
Stupid conversations, stemming from stupid premises, are not going anywhere.
If nothing else, I would recommend Firefox over Brave for the sole reason of the latter being yet another Chromium browser. It would be nice if we could eat away some of the browser marketshare from Google.
getfirefox.com
If someone can help me fix a major issue I have with Firefox I'd love to switch.
I heavily use the per-application sound volume in pipewire on my Linux PC.
Firefox will reset whatever volume I have set as soon as I pause a video and resume it a couple seconds later.
I have a deej board and use that to control the application volumes.
Firefox makes it simply unusable for me...its a known bug and Mozilla just doesn't give a fuck...
If fire fox has profiles like brave, I'd switch instantly. I need profiles to separate all my different accounts
Edit: I just wanted to say thanks to those who replied to my comment, it looks like I've gotten a couple of really good ideas for implementing profiles within Firefox. I'll be exploring these thanks much!
Personally I agree with the OP; and I refuse to use Brave. This isn't based in dislike of cryptocurrency in general; but I DESPISE both ADVERTISING AND SHITCOINS (Basically any token or sub-token of a main standalone blockchain that has no real, significant, usable real world value).
Therefore Brave DOES NOT reflect my values. I don't care if advertising networks make any money, I actively hate them enough I want to deprive them due to their behaviors anyway for being so violently anti-user.
I don't use Chrome or Brave because they DO NOT reflect my beliefs regarding web standards either, and I refuse to allow Google and the Chromium and Chrome project to dictate standards either. Particularly of note is their utter failure with both FLOC and WEB-INTEGRITY; both of which are stupidly retarded anti-user and anti-privacy features which are horrible.
Web Integrity might be the worst Google thing yet
Brave behaving like Win XP era browser with gazillion toolbars installed, with a pinch of crypto and crypto promoting ads should be a giant red flag.
FOSS =/= trusted by default. Why are there so many FOSS evangelists, but such a damn tiny part of them are programmers, let alone programmers able to examine a source code behind such a giant codebase as web browser?
I use Vivaldi, at least their business model is clear, and developer is kind of trusted, and not crypto scammer and homophobe.
Newsflash: everything that isn't free and entirely open source is generally spyware these days.
It's amazing how we pilloried RealPlayer and burned its parent company to the fucking ground over two decades ago for far less egregious transgressions than what we now let Meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc get away with.
Brave always marketed itself as hardened privacy browser and the second I saw their shitcoin immediately bells went off.
Either way, I use Librewolf on PC and Mac and lately been giving Arc a try on Mac and I like it.
Might I add brave's BAT wallet is garbage. You had to sign up to some random exchange and upload your ID (I didn't), but even that you couldn't even backup your wallet into a new install, so hope that you would never have to format or reinstall or change devices - it'll be a pain to restore, if it was even possible.
Firefox over brave any day.
The issue is wider than Brave. Nowadays, companies build uncritical communities around their products.
If you try to be critical, you loose the community in which you're involved on one side. And, if you are critical from the outside, "you don't understand" like in the "you're not the choose one".
I agree with this post completely but for some reason you finishing with this makes me chuckle.
Oh no! Thousands! They might be able to pay rent for a month or two!
I'm just being cheeky, and while its true what they did was scummy, it also feels like a really.... smallish amount of money?
If we're literally just talking thousands, and not tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands.
But yeah, fuck Brave.
Firefox gang and Hardened Firefox gang here to stay.
Mozilla's got its own problems but that's a story for another day.
Well thousands could mean hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands. I kept it small because I can't really give a real number.
That's fair, but in that case you might just say "they likely profited handsomely off this venture" or something similar, because if you reach for dollar amounts like that, it can kind of undermine your point.
Well the issue I linked to said "making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money." and I didn't want to just copy it word-for-word. I don't think it hurt my point that much, but it definitely could have been worded better.
Oh for sure, it didn't undermine your point excessively, just a little, I was mostly just being cheeky, just how it read to me. As I said, I agree with all the things you're saying. Cheers!
Now try saying that at https://lemmy.one/c/privacyguides
I used to use Brave, then used Bromite but that got abandoned. I think there's another fork of it, but ultimately I just use Firefox which has worked better for me overall.
Browsers are a big attack vector for exploits and security is very important. Firefox releases patches regularly and I don't have to worry about it being abandoned like some others. I disabled whatever telemetry / sponsored stuff they have enabled by default and feel it's a good balance of security & privacy + doesn't have the DRM crap chromium is trying to add.
Their extension support is nice too.
I used them for a few weeks before they rolled out their crypto scheme. It honestly felt like they monetized “privacy”, nothing more. So I bailed having zero faith any of their shit worked like they wanted us to think it works.
I see this exact thread every week now and it's between the same people:
"Oh ok i stopped using it" to "Naw i'll keep using brave"
At this point can we stop this? Brave is trash but people are either too stubborn or just don't care anymore (which is ironic). Either mods just pin this thread and treat this as a "brave is trash" megathread or I don't know.
Why are there daily posts against Brave but not against other browsers? Is Google more trustworthy than Brave?
Because Brave likes to portray itself as privacy friendly. We already know Chrome, Edge and others aren't.
Because people in this community already know not to use Google Chrome and Microsoft.
Also, where are these daily posts? Personally I haven't seen any saying "don't use Brave" which is why I made this post in the first place.
I have been browsing /new since about a week and this is the third anti-brave submission that I see there.
You're probably seeing similar posts from different communities, especially if you're browsing through all rather than subscribed or local.
I see all too many recommendations to use Brave in comments so a post like this is of value.
I mean it's a free forum, you can make one if you want to.
I don't object the creation. I just want to know why there is that discrepancy.
"The devil you know" and all that.
People shitting on chrome & edge all the time?
What are you talking about?
I tried them a few years ago before I knew more about things like this, their CEO, etc. I had a problem with them continuously taking over my home page on desktop with their own homepage (much the way Firefox on android does now) after every update. I contacted them on social media where they went on a two day stent of making fun of me for having a problem and gaslighting me that there was a problem because zero other people had ever complained. Super professional there.
Look, just… just use fire fox! Sure some sights aren’t optimized for it, but it’s a minor difference in performance from a chromium based browser.
And the more people use fire fox the more sights will have a reason to optimize for it.
Anything that is using chromium is still using something built by Google, and thus if Google tries to alter chromium to make ad blockers stop working, or some other asinine idea, there isn’t much a browser can do about it.
Use librewolf instead of Firefox to get rid of the whole spyware part of it. Librewolf only has a single request when starting, to "check for updates". But using Firefox is the second best thing you can do both for your privacy and to fight Google's " Web Environment Integrity" crap.
I personally use Librewolf, can agree with this.
What would you use for Android phones?
Mull is pretty good from what I've heard. I think GrapheneOS comes with it's own browser built in.
mull or fennec
Firefox is also really good on Android these days. I use that with all the usual ad blocking and privacy extensions I have on desktop.
and 80% of firefox's revenue is JUST Google. we are fighting an uphill battle here
Guess what, Firefox also gets the same score on ghis site :)
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/firefox
Also they both seem to be the better option to Chrome https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/chrome
Not sure if this score applies to vanilla Chromium.
Never used it, I saw some twitter comments from it's CEO and this guy isn't trustable.
I go with Firefox and sometimes epiphany. Last one tries to accomplish the level of the well known ones but is mostly years behind. That's sad, because I really like it.
@eya I made sure I’d never use brave when I found out that the ceo is a massive homophobe
I dont use Brave and will never use it. But this sounds not logical.
Their ad system and affiliate URLs are not anti-privacy per-se. Its not as easy.
I will not use it as its
Even worse for privacy, it uses the Chrome engine.
Firefox + Startpage is really cool. I like how their searched don't include the search parameters in the url + the built in proxy
What should I use on android?
I used to use Firefox but have been using Brave cause I was getting tired of having to open Edge every time there would be an addon or tool that was Chrome exclusive. So unless there's other options for privacy focused chromium browsers I'm just gonna stick with brave.
Used to use Brave, but it became more and more bloated as time went on. Also, I realized that I wasn't opposing Google as I wanted, but choosing an alternative of Google, as brave is still based on chromium. I enjoy Firefox very much now (don't know about the performance issues people talk about at all cause it seems better than all chrome, brave, opera, and opera GX I used in the past) although I'm looking into even further simplifying and privatizing that. Any suggestions for modified Firefox browsers that keep the functionality would be appreciated.
I use Librewolf, I've enjoyed it and it's very privacy-centric.
LW is awesome because its Firefox but security hardened out of the box. Instead of spending an hour or more doing it manually with default fox, you can just use LW. Huge fan. The step up from there would be mullvad browser , then tor imo
Tor is basically in it's own league, but not something made for daily driving. I'm sure there's people that do, but it's not exactly the best experience.
Hi! I’m interested. Does librewolf push updates fast relative to Firefox?
Normally same day or next day.
Ohhhh great. I’ll give it a try today! Personally I’d love mullvad browser but I really need dark theme and the browser should not be changed
Thanks for the rec! I'll check it out
Firefox used to have performance issues, as of 6 months ago Firefox runs faster than Chrome.
Honestly, even the crypto part of Brave was a cool idea. Back when it was in beta, I was sending various websites and GitHub users 'tips', and they were able to cash out. It was genuinely supposed to be a new way to monetize the web (they later made the tips automatic based on how long you spent on each webpage), but, yeah.. Too many people didn't see the vision, and they got too much hate, so I'm pretty sure that whole program is axed now.
It's almost like lying to your users about fundraisers and inserting affiliate links into URL's leads people to hate you...
I would be very curious what other browsers people recommend. I use Brave solely because of the profile feature it offers, which for my use case is an order of magnitude better than Firefox’s containers. Is there something more private/better than Brave that still has profiles?
thanks for the links and info. I use brave as well as firefox and other browsers depending on what device I'm using. The spyware link is worth a quick read to understand any risks. It's great to see some analysis done there. I actually feel a little better about brave now, I'm ok with those risks for most cases and brave blocks ads better for me than what I've seen in other browsers. I'm always willing to switch though, I have no loyalty to any browser.
its open source tho, show me the spyware and i will belive you
people after seeing what google collects would take anything over Chrome
Lol isn't eTrash considered a scam anyways? They are the reason i got ad blocker - dumbest ads on youtube 24/7.
Anyways sounds like you gotta be quite brave to use Brave lol
Current Brave user here.
Is Firefox the way to go at this point? I considered switching back to just plain Chrome or even Chromium more broadly
Most people agree that Firefox (with something like arkenfox's user.js) or a fork of it is the way to go. Don't use stock Firefox, it manages to be worse than Brave out of the box when it comes to privacy.
What is the best browser for iOS?
I actually use Brave and have been for few years. Used Firefox back when it was version 2 and switched to Brave as it's performance was better compared to Firefox.
Reading the above now, you have shed a lot of light on things I didn't know about Brave. I know I can disable a lot of stuff on it (news, rewards, VPN, chat). But the list of bloat has been increasing.
Your post is an eye opener. I will be looking for a way to switch to Firefox. Unfortunately I work for an organisation that doesn't give us the option of installing our browser. Forced to use MS Edge for now lol.
Then what browser yall recommend ??
firefox
With uBlock Origin.
And privacy badger
Is it? Maybe I'm out of the loop.
FWIW, EFF just published this:
New Privacy Badger Prevents Google From Mangling More of Your Links and Invading Your Privacy
You might be right now that you mention it. 🤔
Always! Recently, I've been dabbling with Floorp. Based on FF. It's quite nice! https://floorp.app/en/
Firefox is a good start, or Librewolf if you're really concerned about privacy
Firefox with arkenfox's user.js or forks of Firefox such as Librewolf. You could also use Mullvad's browser.
Firefox and Arkenfox is my browser of choice
If you're on MacOS, Orion is really good. Zero telemetry, built-in ad blocker, supports both Firefox AND Chrome extensions.
@eya Oh wow, I'm using it as a daily basis. I think using mullvad browser is an option now.
Brave is better than chrome ans I'm glad we have alternatives.
if you want the best privacy but you still want to use chrome just use ungoogled chromium, you get both privacy and you're still able to use chrome, just minus the sync capability
if you want something like it for mobile on android there's bromiteif you want something like it for ios... you're fucked
So whats a good browser for my android? Already changed to duckduckgo browser on my PC.
So far as privacy and lack of censorship like Google is concerned, which browser would you recommend ?
Spyware is a bit of a stretch. However, let's talk about Firefox. Mozilla Corporation is a Billion Dollar Corporation that is tied at the hip to Google and uses 115+ servers to track every single thing you do.
Chromium explicitly uses shared memory and is technically able to write and execute not only shared data from private/incognito to regular windows or tabs but adjacent processes. You can search for
mmapin the Chromium repo or try to use Chromium with FreeBSD or GhostBSD sysctl.conf set withkern.elf64.allow_wx = 0- it won't run.The Precise Geolcation Timeout for Firefox is 68 years.
Past behaviors are what companies are judged on. If you want a good Chromium option use Ungoogled Chromium or just don't use Chromium based browsers.
For the mobile thing, if you are on an iPhone you can use AdGuard with Safari, and if you're on Android you have pretty much unlimited options. (If you're on an iPhone you've pretty much given up on privacy anyway.)
I’m not trying to start a pissing contest- but how is iPhone a give-up on privacy? If memory serves, the App Store was the first to call out all the permissions app requests and allow you to block, first to do massive tracking blocks that fucked Facebook, first to offer Secure Enclave on the device for encryption, built in private relay, email address obfuscation, usb port locking, emergency lockdown mode, remote wipe, etc etc etc. I don’t really understand how android is anything other than a Google data collection box. If you’re just talking about the software based browser/plugin ecosystem being limited on iOS, I totally agree, but it sounds like that’s gonna change finally- otherwise could you elaborate?
An iPhone is a give-up on privacy because you don't get alternatives. If you don't like your stock OS on an Android phone you can just switch OS (for example GrapheneOS, a very privacy-centric OS.). If you don't like the normal YouTube app you can just sideload a different one. You don't get this kind of freedom with an iPhone. A prime example of this is when, during the Hong Kong Riots where Apple pulled an app that assisted protesters..
Alright- those are fair points. I will point out that the YouTube thing was more about Google than Apple- I never used stock YouTube app until Google shut down the APIs a few years ago. There used to be many alternatives but since they were ad free, Google didn’t like that.
Well. I get the rating criteria of this website. But it's useful of adding telemetry to learn crashes and feature usage. If we all obey these criteria, we would need to read every line of codes and build it by ourselves. That would be the safest way of living a digital life.
I hate Brendan Eich, I hate the constant annoyances of Brave adding cards and sponsored backgrounds, I hate the dominance of Chromium, and I hate cryptocurrency.
But this is a fight I've lost.
I'm one of those insufferable Linux nerds who has spent $50+hours/month setting up a Nextcloud VPS, calling my friends Nazi-adjacent for using Twitter, etc. I'm horribly opinionated about software. I WANT everyone to use Firefox.
But I just don't have the spare time for Firefox anymore.
I've had irreconcilable, breaking issues with vanilla Firefox installs on almost every major desktop and mobile OS (excluding KaiOS and Apple WatchOS) every time I tried to switch to it during the past few years. This is not exaggeration.
From crashing because it can't handle keyboard-arrow down on iPadOS, lacking good built-in adblock controls (like Brave Shields) on Android and iOS, to being unable to load hCaptcha on desktop even after hours of user.js flitching. This is on top of the inconvenience of not having a good alternative to Chromium's Profile UI, the inconvenience of needing to test on Chrome when doing webdev, etc.
Brave is a putrid steaming pile of shit, but it's the best choice I've found. This post exaggerates a lot of the very real issues Brave has. This isn't praise for Brave, but rather an indictment on the state of browsing and personal-computing.
I write here very sparingly. With this comment, I hope someone will tell me I'm an idiot who's missing a wonderful browser out there.
Well, 1st, your sources are are weak here. However, it is a fact Brave is also run by con artists and swindlers.
The issue many users have is compatibility. Firefox zealots ignore the fact IT folks must work with Chromium. I cannot get the tools I need to work reliably on Firefox (or LibreWolf, Mullvad, etc.).
So, within the Chromium limitation, , I work on 7 systems regularly, I must have bookmark replication, MacOS/Linux/Windows/Android support:
Ungoogled Chromium = rough, no bookmark replication Vivaldi = worse than Brave, because no full source code Opera = Chinese Iridium = Indian Brave = source code available, privacy focused Edge = lol Chrome = lol
Winner? Brave. I use it with Pi-hole DNS on my home network, forced to use it with work DNS on their networks. I do also use LibreWolf (aka Firefox) with the Mullvad extension. I use it along with Brave, and hopefully at some point I can switch. I've tried 3 times in recent years, but too many web interfaces have Firefox issues, since it's blatantly not being used to QA websites anymore.
Why should I trust Mozilla over Brave? Just because Mozilla is a nonprofit subsidiary doesn't mean that they don't have an incentive to make money for their profit handling corporate division, the Mozilla Corporation. I tried playing around with Firefox and not having the option to directly add a less-used search engine than the ones given without extensions was pretty sketchy to me. All of the complaints people have about Brave like ads and the weird crypto thing are very configurable in the settings, and I have a lot less compatibility issues compared to Firefox. Also, the source linked claiming all of this is a sketchy Neocities site that anyone could have made that doesn't even prove why Brave isn't private. I get that people are loyal to their favorite browsers but this is silly. If you really want to be private, use the Tor network, but all browsers and extensions need to track you in some degree to function.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
Level: Paranoia +++++
I really like Brave on my Android phone, with the build-in ad-blocking it's a really nice experience. Firefox on Android sucks imo, but I do use Firefox on my laptop as my primary browser.
If you have an android phone you could use something like Mull.
Why doesnt Mull completely clear out/remove Google Safe Browsing? There's 20 settings still in about:config that still have google domains and URLs. I don't want any part of Google touching my browser.
On a personal gripe, my complaints about Mull (or any FF Android app) are UX/UI related. No custom homepage (important to me), and the alternative "Shortcuts" on the home screen keep adding every site I visit. And while I'm at it, Mull's icon is ugly. It certainly doesnt need to splash screen the ugly logo every time you open it.
I can't really answer that question, but you can always get rid of them manually. As I've said in a previous post, the mobile market is just lacking privacy options in general.
I'm not the guy to just go deleting settings without knowing exactly what will change. Deleting or changing the wrong thing could break anything. As far as UI, I really couldn't begin to know where to start.
That's a big part of this whole argument at it's base, really. End users don't always know how to make changes in config files, nor should they need to. The ideal browser comes set up and ready to go, without "don't forget to change x, y, and z. Don't forget to download this add-on." Etc.
Yes, ideally browsers would be privacy-centric by default, but they aren't. I assume that in this community people are okay with having to mess with settings to have more privacy.
I agree. Sadly, adoption doesn't come from people already doing the tech thing. It comes from making privacy and security E.A.S.Y.
Isn't mullvad browser just yet another Firefox flavor?
Mull, not Mullvad Browser. But yes. (They are two separate things)
How about the Opera Browser?
If people want to use Brave, or Windows, or install screen doors on their submarines who am I to complain?
The fact is for a lot of people, Brave offers a superior out of box experience compared to firefox or almost any other browser. In terms of ad blocking, speed and ease of use, it's pretty much second to none. The fact that you install it and go is really appealing and how easy they make the slider to adjust the aggressiveness of the script blocking is great ui that my dad mother could use.
Yes, the company isn't very good, it's headed by a guy with a questionable history and has a poor track record when it comes to monetization strategy. I stopped using Brave this year, but for ages it was my goto because I could just install it and have an improved web experience.
Does this all matter though? Afaik the browser if fully open source, even the crypto stuff so all the shady stuff would be detected (and has as in your examples). Like all of the issues you linked at this point are years in the past. I don't use Brave personally but it being completely FOSS is a huge plus even if the company itself might be weird. On the other hand you have something like Vivaldi that looks like "the good guys" but you'll always have to trust them as well because they're not fully open source.
I use FF but you just cannot deny that using a Chromium based browser has many security advantages over Gecko, especially on mobile. I takes Mozilla seemingly years and years to implement security features like Chromium. They don't put the necessary priority behind this.
How about we just let users use what they want? I don't use Brave, but it has some legitimate anti-fingerprinting tech.
I hate Mozilla more than whatever Brave has been accused of in the past. Brave makes it easy to configure a private browser, this is not an opinion. There's no browser that will ever have a monopoly on privacy.
Let's be real here for just a minute. The only actual reason people here hate Brave is because the founder personally believes in traditional marriage.
If you need a Chromium derivative, then Brave is probably the best choice. It's open-source, and includes ad blocking. Just don't use its crypto token.
I prefer Firefox over Brave, but sometimes I might need a Chromium derivative for a particular site.
I will
All you need to know is the Brave guy is a pedophile who is 100% using your ad revenue to buy csam.
Brave support PWA. but, Firefox don't. So, here is the answer
I hate when companies try to make money off the product they are providing for free, so they can continue to be a company.
If you want Privacy, use TOR. Otherwise, pick whichever flavor of browser works best for you. The Internet in general is going to design their infrastructure/apps/websites to work with the companies that own the internet, and there's nothing that a few hundred people on social networks are going to do to change that.
Unless some of you get together and design a private device with a custom OS, private browser, etc, that somehow runs on a new browser engine...no forks, no additional scripts to make it work....
Using Tor as a daily driver kind of goes against the point of Tor. And they aren't just "making money off the product" they are committing actual crimes.
I see the down votes won't accept the real truth.
There are many, many good reasons to not use Brave. Being spyware is not one of those.
Boycott Brave for real reasons like their CEO and owner being a raging anti-gay reactionary or because of their cryptocurrency bs.
Please just stop flooding this community with Brave-related shit. We already know what a shitty browser it is, we aren't living under the rocks you think we are.
Idc about their money ventures, I dont give them any money because I am not a complete moron, their product works, I use it. If the morons fall for it, their problem
Or just use Edge cause Microsoft is already syphoning your data so you might as well go the whole hog and use Edge
I will
I'll keep using and promoting it. I consider it better than Mozilla/FF anyway. Deal with it and stop telling people what they should and shouldn't do.
Mike Kuketz called Brave ambivalent and saif that their outward presentation does not match the Browsers behaviour
BTW, another argument is: Don't use Chromium-based browsers, browser engine diversity is important for an open web.
From the linked source (2023), which I assume you can understand as a German speaker:
Can you link to where he says he uses Brave? Maybe I'm wrong here, but this seems sceptical.
More quotes:
(I really don't want to be toxic, but at least the Mike Kuketz talk is you spreading misinformation)
Weeeeeird, I asked him on Mastodon, let's see what he says.
None of this is misinformation. All the links in this post can be cross-referenced with other links stating the exact same thing.
This is the first post I've made, not the only post I've commented on. Also, Lemmy didn't exist until 2023 (or 2022?) so how exactly could my account be created in 2016?
Edit:
Apparently Lemmy has actually existed for a really long time, but still not since 2016.
Oh no, a shady, unknown neocities site is telling me to not trust my browser! Yes, I can use Firefox, uBlock and uMatrix, except on iOS, where I can’t do that, and that is where Brave does a good job. I am really tired of those „Brave baaad“ posts. Look guys, unless you are using Linux you might want to direct your attention at the huge, morally flexible company that does collect your data, no matter what browser you choose.
Spyware Watchdog has been a resource for checking browser's for a very long time. It's not longer maintained, which is why I said "in the past".
The fact you even bring up this dead extension...
You can use AdGuard and Safari, but if you're on iOS you've already given up any semblance of privacy in the first place.
Oh, yes, because Android is so trustworthy, right? Google would never turn evil, after all. But I suppose you are sharing your wisdom from the coziness of a Windows desktop.
You’re right that default Android found on nearly all smartphones today is not that much better than iOS. There is the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) however, which means the base of Android is free and open source and therefore allows for lore privacy focused versions of Android to exist such as LineageOS, Graphene OS, Calyx OS or /e/ OS. This isn’t possible at all with Apple’s iOS and one can therefore even claim it to be worse than Android in that sense.
There are plenty of open-sourced android OS'.
GrapheneOS, LineageOS, CalyxOS, ect. You have options, unlike with an iPhone.
You have options if you have a Google-branded phone. If you have something like a 2021 Sony Xperia, your options /might/ include LineageOS, else you’re stuck with buggy unofficial builds. Ask me how I know.
You only get options in Android land if the phone is/was popular.
I am aware of this, the mobile market is severely lacking in the privacy department in general.
So you would agree that bitching about the browser while using a stock OS is kinda pathetic?
So if you can't use a private OS is better to just send your data to many third-parties as possible? I don't follow your reasoning.
Actually, giving many parties a bit of your data is indeed still better than giving all of it to one. That, however, is not the point: As far as privacy is concerned, i cannot see any facts that would lead me to believe that Brave is any worse than Chrome, Safari or Edge.
I admit to using Windows, however I don't use stock Windows. The version of Windows I use has made the telemetry and such as minimized as possible. The only reason I haven't switched to Linux is because I still rely on some programs that don't have great Linux alternatives. Just because you are running an OS that isn't the most privacy-centric doesn't mean you shouldn't care about privacy at all.
That is true but Windows is a privacy nightmare. You may be able to mitigate the problem but it’s still windows. When your house is on fire and you tell people to please not use candles, you are technically correct because of course we don’t want more fire but does it really matter?
It's more like when your house is on fire and you tell people not to throw gasoline on it. Adding even more privacy risks doesn't make sense.
Edit: typo
So you would agree you've not a leg to stand on and are flailing?
I didn't mention that the CEO is an asshole because 1. that's subjective and 2. it doesn't relate to privacy in any way. The browser actively monetizing social media creators without their consent (and by extension misleading their users) is much more privacy related (in my opinion).
I don't hate cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency is one of, if not the, best way to pay for something completely anonymously (for example XMR). I don't believe I actively hated on cryptocurrency anywhere in this post, I simply showed how Brave is using it for malicious purposes.
cryptocurrency is not remotely anonymous
I'm not the biggest fan of crypto, but there are plenty of crypto coins that do not rely on mining at all. In fact, I'd argue that the only really relevant coins in the future will not be based on Proof of Work. Staking is problematic for other reasons, but it's far more climate friendly than proof of work
Brandon Eich is anti same-sex marriage and peddles anti-vax stuff. That is a fact.
But man, tech nerds are so diverse. For every gay furry IT person wearing rainbow knee-high socks I meet, I also meet a hard-line red gun-toting "libertarian" who believes in extreme privacy because of govt laser beams owned by lizard people.
He also inflicted Javascript upon the world, when we could have had Python or Scheme in the browser instead (yes, those were the alternatives being considered). I don't mean to downplay how bad being a bigoted anti-vaxxer is, but that may be even worse!
What's ironic is that there wasn't crypto hate. Though for me that's why Brave can go diaf, along with crypto. Crypto is dogshit puffed full of birdshit, and I can't fucking stand pro-crypto anything. I actively work against crypto, and am quite pleased that I'm given multiple opportunities to undermine and fuck over the crypto communities. Also it will not stop, until crypto is dead, so you making it seem like a bad thing to be anti-crypto is falling on deaf ears for me.
I'm for whatever is against crypto. The more damage I can personally do to the crypto scene, the better.