Why I recommend against Brave.
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God damnit.
Every browser I switched to since Firefox has been a good user experience, and then I find out some horrible bullshit.
Is there any safe browser that isn't run by hateful assholes?
FF is starting to enshittify because they depend on Google for their revenue
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Murderer is a noun. Once you've murdered that's what you are, regardless of past or present or future. People can change, but that doesn't change what you've done in the past and have become, because you can't undo what you did.
6 months to 5 years isn't "A long time ago" btw. I think it takes at least a decade to start considering something a long time ago.
you know murderers get rehabilitated and released all the time
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Also don't use Opera. They're opera-ted by chinese mafia.
Thanks. I read an article yesterday about how it’s one of the best privacy browsers out there.
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Brave has their own built-in ad blocker that still works
It barely block most ads
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Thanks. I read an article yesterday about how it’s one of the best privacy browsers out there.
I prefer either TorBrowser or Waterfox.
TorBrowser is, hands down, the best privacy browser out there but it's a bit slow because it operates like a decentralized VPN.
Waterfox browser is built on Mozilla's Gecko Engine just like firefox, but it isn't managed directly by Mozilla.
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disabling ... Chrome's send-everything-to-Google behaviour.
Is that even possible?
There's Ungoogled Chromium which claims to do just that
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Believing that same-sex marriage shouldn't be a government-supported institution isn't the same as believing LGBT people are "invalid" or "wrong" or whatever.
How is it not?
we should replace it with a series of contracts that grant certain legal privileges
I mean, legally, that's what marriage is.
you may want to join finances w/ someone, but not give them hospital visitation rights
You don't have to do either of those things just because you're married. Marriage just gives you the option.
For example, they could partner w/ someone like Axate
And what would they bring to this partnership?
And if that applies to you, you should be very careful about the tools you use.
You should be. But companies also should not be creating tools that propose to give you those protections when they're not smart enough to. Just leave it to the professionals.
I wouldn't be surprised if GabeN's personal politics were quite conservative
As long as he keeps his mouth shut about them and doesn't financially support them, he's doing worlds better than Mr. Eich.
Is it me or the people defending brave are homophobes too.
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you know murderers get rehabilitated and released all the time
After a significant amount of time. Longer than Brave's blunders. And rehabilitation is not erasure. Likewise, murder enough and society will consider to instead remove the person from society as well instead of rewarding them.
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That's a really concise and thoughtless way to excuse Google, Microsoft and Apple for monetizing spying on every person on earth for profit.
Nice strawman you got there. I think anyone with eyes can see I didn't bring them up because most (all?) Lemmy users know Firefox and its forks exist.
And yes, Linux distros have a business model. I'm happy that distros found a business model through offering official support to corporations, it makes it truly free to the rest of us. It also helps that their competition is very expensive. Will that model work for a browser? What do you think?
That's... Literally how browsers used to work. Netscape was a paid browser. Orion is starting to look into that model as well.
And yes, you just pointed out of possible to raise funds without pulling the shit Brave has, as Linux distros have done... So, congrats on getting the point? A little slow, but you got there.
Nice strawman you got there. I think anyone with eyes can see I didn't bring them up because most (all?) Lemmy users know Firefox and its forks exist.
It's not a strawman, it's the problem. You may not have mentioned it, but I didn't think it needed mentioning, between the three companies I mentioned, they makeup 90% marketable for browsers, that's the vast majority of browsers. Are there others? Absolutely. I primarily use Firefox myself, but they're starting to lean more toward sharing data as well... I don't know what let you think you have to stand in here.
That's... Literally how browsers used to work. Netscape was a paid browser. Orion is starting to look into that model as well.
And Netscape? When was that paid? I can't think of an era when that was paid... Was that like during the Mozilla period, when the browser sucked, or before that? Whatever, that clearly didn't work at any rate, cause they aren't still doing it. But I swear I used to use Netscape in the 90s, I can't remember it being paid...
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Nice strawman you got there. I think anyone with eyes can see I didn't bring them up because most (all?) Lemmy users know Firefox and its forks exist.
It's not a strawman, it's the problem. You may not have mentioned it, but I didn't think it needed mentioning, between the three companies I mentioned, they makeup 90% marketable for browsers, that's the vast majority of browsers. Are there others? Absolutely. I primarily use Firefox myself, but they're starting to lean more toward sharing data as well... I don't know what let you think you have to stand in here.
That's... Literally how browsers used to work. Netscape was a paid browser. Orion is starting to look into that model as well.
And Netscape? When was that paid? I can't think of an era when that was paid... Was that like during the Mozilla period, when the browser sucked, or before that? Whatever, that clearly didn't work at any rate, cause they aren't still doing it. But I swear I used to use Netscape in the 90s, I can't remember it being paid...
It's not a strawman, it's the problem.
It's a strawman you're still trying to prop up because the issue is not only the Brave browser itself, but the owners of it.
Even if we took your argument in good faith, it would still be flawed since Brave is based on Chromium, of which Google essentially controls at this point, so you'd still be supporting Google hegemony. In other words, even from that stance you've brought up, it would be a bad idea to use Brave vs Firefox, Librewolf, Konqueror, etc.
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If you are keen on personal privacy, you might have come across Brave Browser. Brave is a Chromium-based browser that promises to deliver privacy with built-in ad-blocking and content-blocking protection. It also offers several quality-of-life features and services, like a VPN and Tor access. I mean, it's even listed on the reputable PrivacyTools website. Why am I telling you to steer clear of this browser, then?
Orion all the way
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I prefer either TorBrowser or Waterfox.
TorBrowser is, hands down, the best privacy browser out there but it's a bit slow because it operates like a decentralized VPN.
Waterfox browser is built on Mozilla's Gecko Engine just like firefox, but it isn't managed directly by Mozilla.
Is waterfox compatible with all or most firefox extensions? Also, can you import a firefox profile, and share between devices? I'm fairly invested in firefox, and would hate loosing functionality
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After a significant amount of time. Longer than Brave's blunders. And rehabilitation is not erasure. Likewise, murder enough and society will consider to instead remove the person from society as well instead of rewarding them.
the time can be scarily short and quite rarely ends in life terms in civilized societies
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I prefer either TorBrowser or Waterfox.
TorBrowser is, hands down, the best privacy browser out there but it's a bit slow because it operates like a decentralized VPN.
Waterfox browser is built on Mozilla's Gecko Engine just like firefox, but it isn't managed directly by Mozilla.
I haven't heard of waterfox. I use TorBrowser sometimes. But mostly I use LibreWolf. Its based on Firefox also, but without Monzilla
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Is waterfox compatible with all or most firefox extensions? Also, can you import a firefox profile, and share between devices? I'm fairly invested in firefox, and would hate loosing functionality
I don't use very many extensions, but it works with all of the ones I've tried such as uBlock Origin.
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you know murderers get rehabilitated and released all the time
What rehabilitation have the offending parties on brave gotten beyond amassing wankers who make excuses for them?
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CEO was forcefully ousted from Firefox for anti-LGBTQ views and donations.
I think this is making mountains out of molehills. My understanding is that he had a very good working relationship w/ LGBTQ people in the org, and he had been working for many years at Mozilla before this point. The issue was his private donations to an anti-same sex marriage initiative. He didn't push for any company policy change, didn't advertise the donation, and didn't use company funds (used personal funds), so it really shouldn't be anyone's business.
I personally disagree with his political views, but I think he was a fantastic candidate for CEO of Mozilla. How he votes or spends his personal money shouldn't be relevant at all.
Replaced existing ads on sites with Brave’s own “private” ads.
I like this idea in principle, but not in implementation. Brave should have worked with major websites to share revenue, but what Brave actually did was remove website ads and insert its own, forcing websites to go claim BAT to get any of that revenue back.
My preference here is to not use a cryptocurrency and instead have users pay in their local currency into a bucket to not see ads (and that's shared w/ the website), and that should be in collaboration w/ website owners.
Collected crypto on behalf of others without their knowledge or consent
This is a big nothing-burger.
Basically, Brave had a way to donate to a creator that wasn't affiliated with the creator. The way it works is you could donate (using BAT), and once it got to $100 worth, Brave would reach out to the creator to give them the money. They adjusted the wording to make it clear they weren't affiliated with the creator in any way.
Injected referral links into crypto websites to steal crypto revenue
Yeah, this is totally wrong, and they reversed course immediately.
Put ads in the new page tab
Not a fan, but at least you can opt-out.
Shipped a TOR feature that leaked DNS
Mistakes happen. If you truly need the anonymity, you would have multiple layers of defense (i.e. change your default DNS server) and probably not use something like Brave anyway (Tor Browser is the gold standard here).
Doesn’t disclose the ID of their search engine crawler via useragent
Also a bad move, though I am sympathetic to their reasoning here: they just don't have the resources to get permission from everyone. Search has a huge barrier to entry, and I'm in favor of more competition to Google and Microsoft here.
Removed “strict” fingerprinting protection
This was for better UX, since it broke sites. Not a fan of removing this, they should have instead had a big warning when enabling this (e.g. many sites will break if you enable this).
CEO is generally a right-wing dick.
Fair, but that should be a separate consideration from whether to use a given product. Using Brave doesn't make you a right-wing dick.
You probably wouldn't like the CEO of any company whose products you like, so basing a decision of what product to use based on that is... dumb.
I personally use Brave as a backup browser, for two reasons:
- it's a chrome-based browser
- it has ad-blocking
My primary browser is something based on Firefox because I value rendering-engine competition. But if I need a chromium-based browser, Brave is my go-to. I disable the crypto nonsense and keep ad-blocking on, and it's generally pretty usable.
Using software made by people who are politically aligned to sell out your country to russia is stupid stupid stupid and makes you an idiot, idiot, idiot.
Its not just politics when the politics are treason and electing a kgb asset.
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I appreciate your perspective, and I agree that we should probably be more concerned with how the company functions than the personal character of the CEO .
Sam Walton was a hardworking, amiable, humble man by all accounts. And even when he was alive Walmart the company was cutting throats.
At the same time, if a CEO deeply ingrains himself in the political process, I can probably take a pass on his products even if they are marginally better. So these days Musk is doing so much damage to the functioning of the US government that even if Teslas were good I wouldn't buy one.
The Chikfila guy on the other hand was just donating to a few discriminatory "Christian" charities last I checked but stopped trying to change policy, so...as fast food shops go it's actually not too bad even if I don't prefer to eat there.
Starbucks...evil CEO, but preemptively boycotting before the organized shops strike doesn't help the workers.
Brave...has had too many fuckups for my taste. On the rare occasion that I need a privacy focused Chromium-based browser I just use Chromium with uBlock Origin for the one website I need to visit.
Sam Walton
Oh yeah, I absolutely respect the man, I just don't respect his business choices. There needs to be a balance between cutting costs to bring prices down for customers and providing for your employees.
if a CEO deeply ingrains himself in the political process, I can probably take a pass on his products
But why? He doesn't need your money anymore, and if everyone stopped buying his products and Tesla went bankrupt, he'd still be ridiculously rich.
I get that it's sending a message, but what does that accomplish? Maybe the board boots him as CEO, but he'll retain his ownership stake.
I don't see it. That's why I focus on company culture, which often survives a change in management. If the culture is busted, I go out of my way go avoid their products.
Starbucks
Starbucks has actually been fantastic, at least in the past, with even part-time employees getting great benefits and pay being very competitive. I don't know how things are with the CEO changes (Chipotle guy now, right?), so maybe that's no longer the case.
That said, I don't go there because I don't like their products.
Chromium with uBlock Origin
Does that still work?
I mostly just need something to test on, since I'm a full stack web dev, and I don't like having ads everywhere when I need to prettify some JSON or something. Also a fallback on the few pages Firefox doesn't work on, once in a blue moon.
That's really it.
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Using software made by people who are politically aligned to sell out your country to russia is stupid stupid stupid and makes you an idiot, idiot, idiot.
Its not just politics when the politics are treason and electing a kgb asset.
It sounds like you need to step away from social media and touch some grass.
But let's say you're right, pretty much every big company is sucking up to Trump, and you'd be hard pressed to find something in your shopping cart that doesn't benefit someone that supports him. That's an untenable position.
The better approach, IMO, is to avoid products from companies that mistreat their employees. That's why I avoid Walmart, Amazon, and a few others, because that sends a clearer message and funnels my money to a better cause.
Avoiding Brave is just virtue signaling, it doesn't actually accomplish anything. If Brave goes under, Eich will still be conservative and probably still donate to causes you don't like, but we'll have one less competitor to Google's absolute hegemony over the web browser market.
Use Brave if it solves your problems, don't if it doesn't. Don't base that decision on the personal views of the person who happens to be in charge.
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Why I recommend against pushing people from Brave:
Most people are still trapped in an ecosystem owned by either Microsoft, Google or Apple. We're yet to see a perfect web browser for everyone, but in the meantime we choose one, maybe two or three if we feel a bit more picky for each task, and use them to the best of our capacity. Making anyone feel guilty and ashamed for choices like this, when the best options are few, relative, and often come at a cost, is just useless.
I suggest reading the settings guides available at privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/ or checking the browser comparison at eylenburg.github.io/browser_comparison.htm to know the details that anyone who actually wants a better browsing experience cares about. Better to lend a hand than push around.
If whoever reads this still can't get over it and needs to play a blame game with someone about why everyone should boycott Mozilla, Brave, Proton and other privacy focused FOSS companies because of what someone said, did or thought, please at least find a decent fork, toss a coin to it's devs, share their work and help others benefit from it.
At this point there is a pretty solid list of reasons to avoid Brave and use another FOSS privacy focused option.
Personally, everything I've read about Brave makes me trust them even less than Microsoft, and Google.
