this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2020
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Brave Hijacks Twitter, Reddit and GitHub with Advertisements (github.com)
submitted 4 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (5 children)

There are so many things wrong with brave. The whole business model is unethical, replacing ads from websites with their own. Brave uses a crappy "cryptomoney" which doesn't mean anything (they could very well use a non-crypto virtual money, they only make it "crypto" to attract attention).

The CEO is homophobic, and now he expresses weird beliefs around COVID.

I've also seen brave being promoted by right-wingers. I don't really know if their userbase is really skewed towards the right.

Personally I'll stick with Firefox. Even if Mozilla is imperfect, they are actually working to make the Web better, by promoting diversity of browser engine, fighting harmful web standards, and leading the charge on many fronts regarding bettering the Web, not just adding a layer of bullshit that doesn't help anyone. And when it comes to ads/tracker blocking, Firefox's advanced tracking protection + uBlock origin is pretty much the best you can get.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (1 children)

yeah the fact that it came from a CEO who was fired from firefox for being homophobic is one of the main reasons I'll never touch it with a 10 foot pole. It's different from firefox in all the wrong ways, and some of the cooler things are just gimmicks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago

AFAIK he wasn't fired explicitly, but was forced to resign from is job as CEO due to public outrage.

some of the cooler things are just gimmicks

I totally agree with you on that point. The blockchain is here just to intrigue and make people think it's cool, while it works just like any virtual money. (blockchain in general does have useful properties, bu when its centralised like it is in BAT).

Same goes with the TOR tabs. In most cases, a VPN is a much better solution than TOR.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago)

Brave also seems to whitelist Facebook and Twitter's tracking scripts

“There’s a balance between breaking the web and being as strict as possible”

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 years ago (1 children)

The CEO is homophobic, and now he expresses weird beliefs around COVID.

This line had nothing to do with how shady the Brave browser is though.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 years ago (7 children)

My comment wasn't entirely about the fact thar Brave was shady. It was just a list of reasons why I stay away from it, and why I recommend others to do too.

I don't even think that "shady" is the right term for Brave. It's not like they're really hiding anything, the browser is Open Source, and their business model is clear. I just think it's unethical, and that Brave doesn't even try to attack the source of what's wrong in the Web.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 years ago

Oh, wow. This is way worse than I thought. Fuck 'em and their slimy CEO.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 years ago (1 children)

I don't understand what the CEO being homophobic has to do with it. The product is great, it doesn't allow targeted advertising, he doesn't invade our privacy and security, etc.

As for the "crappy cryptomoney", I wouldn't call it useless or crappy. I've gotten almost $28 from it for nothing, and using the Uphold app connected to your Brave browser you can exchange it for any crypto, or equity in other companies, or even by gold with it. It isn't just a useless crypto and I think it's kind of messed up I've gotten $28 from literally nothing while advertising companies are taking it all in with normal browsers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 years ago (2 children)

I don’t understand what the CEO being homophobic has to do with it.

The CEO being homophobic means I don't want to do anything that earns him money.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago)

brave is definitely one of those semi libre projects that try to seem libre that stallman always warned us about

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 years ago (4 children)

Why is the mastodon post saying "Is Brave slowly turning into Firefox". What's the problem with Firefox?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 years ago (2 children)

I swear most of the brave users I see are brainwashed and think brave is better then firefox when brave does shit like this and firefox doesnt have crypto currency shit built into the browser or an advertising platform

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 years ago

The only reason why Brave was cool to me was because of the speed it had. But after switching from Brave to Firefox, I don't think speed is a problem anymore.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (2 children)

I wouldn't say I'm brainwashed at all. I'd rather try a different browser than stick to Firefox, which (sadly) seems to be the token browser for the majority of FOSS enthusiasts. My primary reason for trying Brave was to avoid the invasive advertising and tracking in Firefox. From reading their extensive list of anti-fingerprinting measures, it seemed like well-placed hope.

I also find it hard to recommend a browser that enables Google Analytics, Adjust and Leanplum by default, without any sort of user confirmation. I did raise this on r/firefox, but my post got swamped with Firefox apologists.

Browsers definitely should not be creating new advertising subclasses, then enabling them by default. This is an issue with both Brave and Firefox. If the cryptography functions were not enabled by default, and caused no obstruction to my web browsing, I'd honestly be fine with it.

That being said, I've come to realise that my initial reason for using Brave doesn't seem to have stood the test of time. Thank you for your (mostly reasonable) reply.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 years ago

Yes, I am using Brave Browser from time to time and I must agree with the issue, sadly. Every now and again, the rewards and Brave-ads re-enable themselves and after so many times it gets really annoying. Not even mentioning how intrusive the reward system is. It might be a nice feature, but why is it opt-out? After all, this was also one of the reasons I stopped using Brave as my daily browser.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 years ago

Knew Brave was malicious, from it not being available on official repositories on any trusted distro.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 years ago (3 children)

Does anyone know of a better Chromium-based alternative?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Foss Chromium and Bromite are good.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 years ago (1 children)

You mean Ungoogled-chromium? The default version of chromium is already foss.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (2 children)

The name 'ungoogled' is too complicated. How can a Google software be foss?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago)

Well several things from Google are open-source. Now to say it's "libre" it's better to use FLOSS. Otherwise people think it's "free of cost".

Basically, you have Chromium (open-source but with some Google shit in it) which is the base of Google Chrome (closed-source, with even more Google shit in it).

Some people made a fork from Chromium they called Ungoogled Chromium that removes the Google shit that was in it.

PS: Bromite is based on Ungoogled Chromium

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (1 children)

My favorite to use is Vivaldi. Not sure about its foss bona-fides, it's just a pleasure to use.

Edit: It's not FOSS, if that concerns you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 years ago

It is, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (2 children)

https://beakerbrowser.com/ Its open source, blocks ads by default, has a p2p system that is quite powerful and actively developed. Also has interesting features like have mulitple tabs open side by side like a wm and other cool things

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 years ago (2 children)

The goal of brave was supposed to be that you get money for watching the brave ads, which normally gets given to the websites you use the most.

To was supposed to break the parasitic targeted advertising ecosystem and give users control of where their ad money goes.

It would also lets you automatically donate an amount per month to the websites you use most.

Is this not true or does it not work?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 years ago

Your description is actually right, but not as efficient as they told it would be. Put it all aside and it still a very good browser.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (1 children)

I've been using Brave for a while, so if anyone has any questions about it, I'd love to answer them.

This is an accurate description of it, but Brave also allows you to earn money. Brave blocks all normal advertisements by default. It then instead sends you a push notification style advertisement in the bottom right of your screen that you can click away in a second. You get paid for this advertisement whether you click it or not because why the hell shouldn't you get paid for viewing advertisements, and other companies get it instead? I'm the one viewing it.

That aside, I download Brave on all of my devices and created/connected an Uphold wallet in March and got my first payout in February. I'm sitting at $27.61 CAD today for just clicking away the occasional advertisement - again not even looking at it.

I think this is the main thing with Brave. If I am getting this much money in less than a year from nothing at all, imagine what advertising companies are getting when you don't get a cut of the profit yourself and they're milking millions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago

I liked the idea at first. But when i downloaded it, it wouldn't let me donate my own money to websites without giving my real identity.

So I noped out.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 years ago

Thank you for the information.

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