Brave is essentially just Chrome with an adblocker, a bunch of bloatware, and a bunch of controversies.
Brave took BAT donations in YouTuber’s names without their consent, with them keeping the money if the YouTubers didn’t claim it. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice/
Brave’s search engine crawler hides itself from websites by pretending to be Googlebot, and Meta (Facebook) buys API access from them to train their AI. https://stackdiary.com/brave-selling-copyrighted-data-for-ai-training/
The business model of Brave rewards as a whole is to block all other ad networks to replace them with their own, which is unfair as only YouTubers and websites that have joined can make money from most Brave users.
If Brave actually cared, they would create an acceptable ads style feature which was free for everyone and allowed simple contextual banners while blocking ads which track you, take up most of the page, or have NSFW content.
Their approach is monopolistic as they have full control and can strangle YouTubers and websites by dropping pay at any time.
And Brenden Eich has said on Twitter that he plans to release “Brave Origin”, which is a paid version of Brave without the bloatware. That name is ironic as he is admitting that his browser is commercialised and bloated, which is similar to when gorhill gave uBlock way to Chris Aljoudi who commercialised it, which led him to create uBlock Origin.
If you use Brave, ditch it and look at using Librewolf or Helium instead, which both include no ads nor tracking and don’t have Brave News, Rewards, Wallet, Talk etc bloatware.
I’m too ready to ladybird browser to be ready in a few years.
I never used it specifically because of it being run by Brenden Eich. I have no intention of knowingly throwing my towel in and helping to enrich someone who’s thrown his money around to strip people of the right to marry who they want because he finds it icky.
I’m sure there’s other bad shit from him but after that I just treat him and anything he does as pure toxin.
If that sounds harsh, well, I don’t give a fuck.
Brave is the browser version of Honey. It blocks 3rd party ads and inserts its own, taking the money. Either block the ads or don’t but this is shitty.
I remember Brave was popular among MAGA-type people during Trump’s first term. I suspect it’s likely the same.
The logo has a striking resemblance to one I remember seeing on a big pro-Trump community. It’s described here https://www.vox.com/2019/8/29/20838289/trump-fascist-lion-head-bull-testicles-video-twitter basically the logo is associated with Mussolini.
In addition if you check the Wikipedia article you’ll notice this:
In August 2016, the company had received at least US$7 million in angel investments from venture capital firms, including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital and the Digital Currency Group.[13]
Moreover some right-wing type people expressed their “solidarity” with Brendan Eich for his anti LGBT stance so they used Brave.
I am pretty set with Firefox in Android and desktop to be honest.
I cringe a little when users praise Brave as being the best ad-less YouTube solution (especially android users since we have revanced here!), no bro, there is no way using the web version of YT is better than revanced, or any other apps on mobile.
Their shields AdBlock is very good though, it’s done in ram in a memory safe way, arguably doing it through an extension like ublock is not great. I can’t wait until a project facelifts shields and puts it on top of an unbloated security focused chromium (or Firefox grows some balls and builds it in). Vanadium pls 🥺
Firefox is becoming a shitty ai browser now. Consider waterfox or librewolf
Brave also owns their own ad company. If you’re a browser with an ad company, you are the problem and can fuck right off.
This is pretty nihilist to say, but we probably need to stop using what we’re calling the internet today.
The web is not the innocent platform it once was in the 90s and early 00s. Privacy is practically nonexistent and the workarounds like disabling javascript break so much of it that what’s left is hardly usable.
There’s no worthwhile alternatives imo. There’s no major competing internetworks or ‘web browsing’ alternatives outside of modern html/css/js… and there really should be.
The internet evolved towards money making and nobody really stopped and made offshoots that are just cool fun things without the endless goal of capital.
Technically, there’s Gemini (protocol) and Gopher as alternatives to the usual web stack, but they’re still pretty niche in usage.
The problem with the internet is not the internet itself, but the big tech platforms.
By using sites like Mastodon and Lemmy, using a browser with uBlock Origin installed, and disabling Web & App activity, personalised ads, etc on your phone, you are taking a stand, and routing around the bad stuff exactly as intended.
It just isn’t enough man. We’re still dependent on a handful of sources for everything. Adblockers break for me practically every single day.
I don’t have solutions. I just see privacy slipping away at scale and i’m afraid where we will end up in just a few years.
We can’t opt out of the system either because too much of it is necessary. Can anyone truly say they don’t need google? ever? I stick to stuff like lemmy and I use duck duck go, but I don’t think ddg is permanent.
Everything just seems aligning for us to have digital IDs and fingerprints that are tracked with metadata and sold freely to any buyer with enough money. Combine that with technologies like flock and all the facial recognition tech everywhere, payment being basically completely digital today and sold/shared to anyone willing to pay… and every move we make is completely tracked and known.
We’re at a point now where the tech used in The Dark Knight by batman to solve crime at the expense of everyone’s privacy is here, and it’s even worse. Nobody will destroy it because it’s too powerful to make money and crush dissent. With how dire the political situation is and how they are literally telling us now to not believe what we see, instead believe what we say… i’m worried, like so many others are.
No one person should have as much power as even a billionaire has, and there are so many who have more than that. The only end to tyranny is our lifespans, until that is no longer a limiting factor from technology.
Can anyone truly say they don’t need google? ever?
Using Invidious or other front ends allows me to watch YT without Google tracking.
My Gmail address is only used by as backup to access my own domain and I am ready to move that away from Google.
I don’t need Google.
We can’t opt out of the system either because too much of it is necessary. Can anyone truly say they don’t need google? ever?
Yes. I switched to Qwant some years ago, and about a year back I switched to Kagi. Haven’t seen the Google Search page in years at this point.
The only thing I use from Google still is YouTube. There are also alternatives, I’ve spent some time with PeerTube and found things I enjoy, and I don’t mind supporting Nebula, which is also a nice platform. That said, I could probably just cut it all off. It frees up time to do something else.
Install uBlock Origin and disable any others then the ad blocker problem will be solved.
As for other things, look for backups. If DDG shuts down, search up alternatives. If piefed.social shuts down, find another instance, and do on.
I’d say we don’t need go go so far as to stop using the internet (there are open and free services we can use), but I’d agree that we need to reduce our overall internet usage as way to fight aginst the system. Many times, there aren’t alternatives to things, and the alternative can be doing something else! Doing something with out life time that the corporations have been stealing.
And the tech industry have become the main players int he economy and in many destructive and unethical practices in the world, that by reducing our internet usage, we are working against them.
If you want to experience the old internet: https://kagi.com/smallweb
A curated list of sites with specific criteria, I’ve found a bunch of good stuff from there
I always use and recommend hardened Firefox + Ublock. As a search engine, I use Qwant, which is based in the EU and uses its own search engine whenever possible rather than Google, Bing, etc. And there is another reason not to recommend using Brave. Among its investors is Peter Thiel, the most controversial figure in the investment world. Search for Peter Thiel’s controversial statements in your favourite search engine and you will see for yourself.
I posted this a year or two ago and got hit by a huge wave of furious Brave users lol. Occasionally to this day someone will stumble on it and post some tirade
I’m quite happy with the Mullvad browser.
Doesn’t natively work under Wayland, unfortunately.
As-is, it’s not suitable for a touchscreen device.And with
MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1the window buttons are broken.? I’m running it on Wayland fine
After decades of being a Google fanboy and using nothing but Chrome, my bf proudly told me he’d installed Brave after he got tired of his favorite websites being nothing but ads. I wouldn’t use it personally for the reasons you mention, but I think it’s a positive step for some people.
I use Floorp on PC and Firefox on my phone. Both I have uBlock installed on.
I thought Floorp was one of those joke names when you want to make something up, but apparently it’s real.
Yeah it’s a Firefox fork that has a focus on customization, one of my favorite artists used it so I wanted to check it out and it’s become my favorite to use. Favorite function of it is the custom sidebar it has that lets you open sites on a side window which I use to quick access my emails and some social media sites.
it did not take long for the Brave browser to go from hero to villain-status.
It was born as a villain from the very beginning.
Yeah. I never knew why anyone started using it. Brendan Eich was a well-known shithead when he left Mozilla.
It’s been a villain for years. You just hear more from the “stop using Firefox because it isn’t perfect” paid accounts around here.
I mean…Firefox has gone from open source to source available. Other alternatives exist for Firefox that still hold the user as the customer and not as the product.
I personally use Waterfox.
It has?
Yes, they are using a similar model to Microsoft and open sourcing Firefox code under the MPL while distributing the executable under a new Terms of Service.
Firefox (the executable) is no longer considered FOSS since they can revoke your license at anytime. I posted a comment that details my personal view of this change.
TL;DR: they would have only done this if they planned on farming user data. And last month announced that they intend to do just that.
What about Android? What’s alternative?
Brave for android alternative?
Firefox for android lets you download extensions, so you can easily get uBlock Origin and be set.
Fennec is a good hardened firefox fork you can try.
