Why I recommend against Brave.
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Yes, it uses the same engine, but it blocks their ads.
Which means nothing, when Google can, and is, pushing technology to freely unleash their ad network on all web pages, as a function of the engine itself.
No, it's not a competitor. Excepting in their ad markets, and frankly, it's not a competitor, it's a statistical blip.
as a function of the engine itself.
AFAIK, there's nothing in Blink (the rendering engine), V8 (the JavaScript run engine), or any other low level pieces of the browser that does this. What they're doing is hamstringing extensions and building in a layer of tracking into the browser on top of the engine. A fork can absolutely keep the engine bits and remove the tracking bits.
The problem with Chrome's hegemony over the rendering engine has nothing to do with their ad network, but with their ability to steer people to use their products instead of competitors' (e.g. "Google Docs is faster on Chrome, switch today!" just because they introduced a chrome-only spec extension).
Brave absolutely is a competitor. They block Google's ads, have their own search engine (and are building their own index), and provide a privacy friendly alternative to Chrome without any compatibility issues. That's why it's my backup to Firefox (and forks), sometimes things don't work properly on Gecko and I want a privacy-friendly alternative to chrome. That used to be Chromium w/ uBlock Origin, but with that extension taken from the chrome web store, I reach for Brave, which has it built in.
And yeah, it doesn't have a ton of users. That doesn't mean they're not a competitor though.
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My understanding is that he had a very good working relationship w/ LGBTQ people in the org
Then why betray them? He has nothing to gain from funding such a campaign. There is no logical explanation and sure as hell no justification for it.
[...] so it really shouldn’t be anyone’s business.
How he votes or spends his personal money shouldn’t be relevant at all.Oh, shut up. When this asshole funds a campaign that's actively fighting against the rights of millions of people, it absolutely is our damn fucking business.
Yeah, this is totally wrong, and they reversed course immediately.
It's bad enough that they even got the idea, let alone implement and actually ship it. Negative reactions shouldn't be the first deciding factor for reversing such decisions.
Brave should have worked with major websites to share revenue
Not just share, completely give up that revenue. Blocking ads is one thing, but to then also monetise other people's content should not allow Brave to earn even a single cent.
Your proposed solution sounds fine, though.CEO is generally a right-wing dick.
Fair, but that should be a separate consideration from whether to use a given product.
Again, no. Maybe if there weren't any alternatives, but there are plenty.
You probably wouldn’t like the CEO of any company whose products you like,
That's probably true, however, Eich is a different story. Despite not gaining anything from it, neither for his companies nor for himself, he was willing to go out of his way to support a campaign in favour of discriminating millions of people, proactively. This doesn't just make me not like him, it makes me despise him.
Other CEO's typically at least keep quiet about politics, and make me dislike them mainly because of self-interest and their resulting business decisions, which can at least still be somewhat understandable.And let me be clear that I'm not going to jump on people who use Brave for whatever reason. But under no circumstances will I defend those who downplay or justify Brave's, and especially Eich's, actions.
He has nothing to gain from funding such a campaign.
He obviously believes that same sex marriage shouldn't be performed by the government. If you want to know why, ask him, not me.
That said, I don't see this as "betrayal," it was a private donation. The only reason we're talking about it is because someone dug through his donation history (donations to such orgs are public record) and made a big deal about it. AFAIK, there were no accusations of him treating LGBT people unfairly, only opposition to his donation.
It’s bad enough that they even got the idea,
I'd like to see an explanation beyond, "yeah, we screwed up." Who signed off on it, and what was their justification?
Your proposed solution sounds fine, though.
Thanks. The idea is that the browser has a vested interest in protecting the privacy of it's users, so finding a workable solution for both the user and the website should provide some funding for the browser.
But yes, either the browser should block ads so nobody gets revenue or work something out where everyone wins. Profiting off someone else's content without permission will always be wrong.
Maybe if there weren’t any alternatives, but there are plenty.
Do you have a better suggestion for a chromium-based browser that's FOSS and has effective ad blocking and tracking protection?
I use Firefox (or fork) most of the time, but I need to test on a chromium browser and need a backup for the odd website that fails on Firefox.
Brave sticks out as the obvious solution here.
Other CEO’s typically at least keep quiet about politics
He tried to. He never advertised his political beliefs, donations, etc. Someone just found out and blasted him for it. For an org that supposedly cares about privacy, that's pretty alarming!
But under no circumstances will I defend those who downplay or justify Brave’s, and especially Eich’s, actions.
Nor will I. But I will separate my criticism of them.
I'm 100% happy to jump on board an Eich's political positions hate train, and I probably share the resentment. But I will not jump on a Brave hate train just because Eich is associated with it. I'm happy to blast Brave over technical mistakes it makes (I avoided it for a long time until BAT was deemphasized), but I won't transfer that frustration into a personal attack on Eich. They can and should be treated separately.
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You got me, I guess? But don't tell my POC SO that I've been happily married to for >10 years.
Seriously though, this is the kind of extreme take I'm pushing back on. I strongly disagree with the Lemmy devs' politics, yet here I am on their platform. I've even contributed bug fixes. I strongly disagree with Eich's politics, yet I use Brave as my backup browser. Why? It meets my technical requirements. Firefox is my main browser though.
I'm not a centrist either, whatever that means, but I guess of you average out my extreme takes it could look that way. Conservatives call me socialist, Progressives call me far right, so I guess the middle of that is centrist?
For what it's worth, I agree 100%. I'm awfully tired of this whole "everyone who disagrees with me is a nazi/KKK" extremism.
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Those are good reasons to ditch a product. Yet, at the same time, inside the Apple ecosystem this is the only browser that allows cross platform watching of yt without any ads, therefore suffocating Google and the fat cat MKBHD influencers from income.
So it’s like an evil to tame another evil to me atm.
Of course the best path forward would be to ditch both Brave and yt and then just get Nebula/patreon or something for serious content browsing.
I’m curious though: if I just use Brace only with a few yt tabs open and never open the new empty tab or visit another site, does Brave get any revenue from me?
inside the Apple ecosystem this is the only browser that allows cross platform watching of yt without any ads
Not true. You can block ads with an extension in Safari.
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If you want to block youtube ads, I think it is really the only option as of now. Adguard can be downloaded on the app store and it does a mediocre job blocking ads, but the placeholder space for them remains and it straight up fails to block some for me. I am stuck with brave for now until something better comes along.
Safari has Wipr which blocks YouTube ads
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Brave has great anti-fingerprinting measures I just wish I could get that without installing crypto malware on my pc
Firefox has by default as well.
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Use Firefox with the Canvas Blocker addon, works on Fennec as well (Android fork with Mozilla telemetry removed).
You only need uBlock basically, beware of other extensions. They're snake oil.
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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?
Those reasons are all pretty goofy in my book. I use Brave on a daily basis on all my PCs. Only browser out there that offers both good privacy and actual usability. Plus, the first issue in the article is literally a nonissue for me and I actually personally really like the leadership at the company.
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Those reasons are all pretty goofy in my book. I use Brave on a daily basis on all my PCs. Only browser out there that offers both good privacy and actual usability. Plus, the first issue in the article is literally a nonissue for me and I actually personally really like the leadership at the company.
I present: The intellectual prowess of bigots.
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I absolutely do boycott based on moral grounds. I've been boycotting Walmart for >10 years because of unfair competition actions (killing off small businesses), poor treatment of workers, and being a massive force for reducing worker treatment in other companies by forcing prices down. Likewise for Nestle and what they've done in Africa, I'm trying to eliminate Amazon for their warehouse policies, and I've been reducing or eliminating purchases from other companies as well along similar lines.
I draw the line at actual actions by companies though, and I don't really care what c-suite types do on their own time and with their own money. If I boycotted companies based on what their execs believe, I wouldn't be able to buy anything.
you would feel dehumanized as well,
Oh absolutely, but I would funnel that anger at the people who supported and passed it, not at the companies those people work for or the products those companies produce.
It’s one thing to differentiate between a company and the staff who work for it. But I think you have to be pretty thick to gleefully patronize a company whose founder and CEO you detest. If you want to compartmentalize to such an extreme, that’s your business, but don’t argue it to me as if it makes any objective sense to ignore who you are enriching by your purchasing power.
Companies are like Soylent green, after all: they’re made of people.
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It’s one thing to differentiate between a company and the staff who work for it. But I think you have to be pretty thick to gleefully patronize a company whose founder and CEO you detest. If you want to compartmentalize to such an extreme, that’s your business, but don’t argue it to me as if it makes any objective sense to ignore who you are enriching by your purchasing power.
Companies are like Soylent green, after all: they’re made of people.
The CEO isn't the company, they're just the ones at the helm. The CEO's personal opinions don't really impact my decision of whether to patronize their store, provided they keep their personal opinions out of the business. If a CEO aligns with me but their products suck, cool, but I'll avoid the store. If a CEO is opposite to me and their products rock, I'll probably buy from them. If a company abuses its employees or actively tries to interfere w/ democracy (more than their competitors), then I'll avoid their products. I think it's important to send the right message to the right person/group.
I disagree with Brendan Eich, but he seems to keep his personal politics out of his business. I can dislike him while being okay with his business, and I don't think that's an insane thing to do at all.
who you are enriching
At the end of the day, a ton of distasteful people get wealthy regardless of what I do. It's also true that they get a very small percentage of the money a company takes in, it just so happens that a small piece of a very large pie is still a ton of money.
At the end of the day, it's absolutely a personal choice which products and organizations to support. I personally see more value in supporting ideas (e.g. privacy) than tearing things down just because an unsavory character is affiliated with it. In other words, I prefer to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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designed by people who see no problems with...
Do you have a source for those beliefs, or are you just assuming that someone vaguely supporting Trump has that perspective?
I honestly don't care what the devs believe, as long as they don't intentionally put in vulnerabilities.
this is not the software I want to entrust literally all data of all my finances and important personal details on.
Same, which is why I use and recommend Firefox and derivatives.
My point is that if your requirement is a chromium-hard based browser, you can do a lot worse than Brave.
You cannot support current administration and at the same time be pro freedom, privacy and even pro common sense. These things are mutually exclusive, unless you're lying or insanely stupid bot.
Very simple.
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I'm mining bat.
To someone non technical you sound like you are introducing yourself like a DC villain.
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I present: The intellectual prowess of bigots.
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This week I'm going to try out ungoogled Chromium and Vivaldi. I know Vivaldi is partially closed source, but I'm not actually in the camp that thinks all closed source is bad.
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I know that I am overly paranoid but they do the weird user ID thing. It it opt in ask they said in their privacy policy.
When you install Vivaldi browser (“Vivaldi”), each installation profile is assigned a unique user ID that is stored on your device. Vivaldi will send a message using HTTPS directly to our servers located in Iceland every 24 hours containing this ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message.We anonymize the IP address of Vivaldi users by removing the last octet of the IP address from your Vivaldi client then we store the resolved approximate location after using a local geoip lookupAt least to my knowledge brave do not do anything like this.
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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?
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You cannot support current administration and at the same time be pro freedom, privacy and even pro common sense. These things are mutually exclusive, unless you're lying or insanely stupid bot.
Very simple.
I guess that depends on what you mean by "support." You can support certain things the administration does while attacking others. I dislike most of what Trump has done, but I happen to like a few things Trump has done as well. It's totally rational to say what you do and don't like about a given administration. I voted for Biden, for example, and I was happy that he largely stayed out of my news feed and actually pulled us out of Afghanistan, but I'm not particularly happy about much of the rest of his presidency (still don't regret my vote though).
I don't know how far Eich's "support" goes, you'd have to ask him that. All I know is that he isn't a fan of same-sex marriage at the government level. Maybe he's a single issue voter, or maybe it's something else. I don't know, I haven't seen much about his political preferences.
My point is that we shouldn't jump down someone's throat and start assuming a whole host of things based on very limited evidence.
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I guess that depends on what you mean by "support." You can support certain things the administration does while attacking others. I dislike most of what Trump has done, but I happen to like a few things Trump has done as well. It's totally rational to say what you do and don't like about a given administration. I voted for Biden, for example, and I was happy that he largely stayed out of my news feed and actually pulled us out of Afghanistan, but I'm not particularly happy about much of the rest of his presidency (still don't regret my vote though).
I don't know how far Eich's "support" goes, you'd have to ask him that. All I know is that he isn't a fan of same-sex marriage at the government level. Maybe he's a single issue voter, or maybe it's something else. I don't know, I haven't seen much about his political preferences.
My point is that we shouldn't jump down someone's throat and start assuming a whole host of things based on very limited evidence.
The shit repubs are pulling, defending and double standarding is insane enough to not trust them as a whole for any rational person used to a functioning government.
Period.
You are doing the classic "hitler did some good things too" argument. Big picture doesn't give a fuck. Any single issue voter, rational person or a non-piece of treasonous shit would distance themselves from repubs and try again with a sane political party.
Anyone still not condemning republicans is untrustworthy and an enemy of democracy and freedom. Easy as
