• Raltoid
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    1 year ago

    The ceo is a bigoted asshole, Brave is chromium, it was initially funded by Peter Thiel and they’re literally just trying to make their own adsense network.

    The self-proclaimed privacy focused browser is tracking your browsing and want to serve you personalized ads, and I think they want to use that tracking data for AI training as well, meaning other people can potentially access it.

    And lets not forget about their crypto currency that you can earn by turning on special ads. Which they seemingly unironically called it “Basic Attent Tokens”…

    TL;DR: The company is basically a sham company trying to usher in a dystopia. Where you’ll get paid for staring at ads, while having all your data stolen and sold back to you.

  • @rog@lemmy.one
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    1671 year ago

    I dont know why anyone would leave chrome and land on something like brave.

    If youre ditching chrome, which you should, go to an actual different browser and use Firefox.

  • @stooovie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I have absolutely no idea how Brave got the reputation it has. It’s business model is disgusting and extortionate, it’s like paying for warez. Been clear as day since day one.

  • @arc@lemm.ee
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    1391 year ago

    Brave is a marching band of red flags. It claims privacy while injecting ads, affiliate codes and crypto into the browser. It’s kind of sad to see someone like Brendan Eich who should know better turn to the dark side and pretend this is all fine. It isn’t.

    Best advice I could give for anyone who wants privacy is use Firefox or a branch of it. Firefox is out of the box the most privacy conscious mainstream browser and add-ons make it more so. If you want absolute privacy you could even use a derivative like Tor Browser.

  • @CafecitoHippo@lemmy.world
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    1161 year ago

    Yeah, fuck this guy.

    First, I have been online for almost 30 years. I’ve led an open source project for 14 years. I speak regularly at conferences around the world, and socialize with members of the Mozilla, JavaScript, and other web developer communities. I challenge anyone to cite an incident where I displayed hatred, or ever treated someone less than respectfully because of group affinity or individual identity.

    So I hid my hatred from everyone for 30 years successfully. Now that everyone finds out that I donated to a cause to strip them of rights everyone wants to say I’m hateful? Give me one example where I displayed hatred…how about the time you donated to strip people of their rights? That might be a big one for me.

  • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦
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    1 year ago

    At one point they were scummy enough to automatically add their referral codes to any Amazon link you see. Lots of people today still mindlessly recommend Brave, and that’s what’s wrong in general with the “but the UX is so nice” mentality.

  • @Gnubyte@lemdit.com
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    1 year ago

    the hateful browser

    Holy shit man imagine if we judged every huge project by one asshole at the top. There wouldn’t be a single thing to enjoy in this world.

    Edit:

    I am going to add more perspective to this, because holy shit people are so into eating nothing burgers.

    Reddit/Twitter was a database and API that everyone was centralized onto, there was no choice. Brave you can literally fork because its open source. Aside from that this was literally the CEO’s personal donation of $1000…in like 2014. Almost 10 yrs ago.

    Elon, as CEO and on the X/Twitter brand:

    Meanwhile Brendan:

    Gnubyte

  • @Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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    961 year ago

    The fact that its main 2 gimmicks are a shitty ad blocker and integrated cryptocurrency should be enough of a red flag, honestly. Just use Firefox, people!

  • @Shadywack@lemmy.world
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    921 year ago

    This article is useless trash. There is no real technical argument here except “founder bad”.

    I do have reasons for not using Brave, but it’s to do with the annoying defaults and the crypto integration. They default whitelist Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook garbage that I have to go and toggle off.

    Given the level of effort and extensions like Facebook container on Firefox, I just prefer the better experience for me. This bullshit about getting on identity politics agendas I find abhorrent and repulsive. This author’s a stupid fuckhead.

    • @Reygle@lemmy.world
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      231 year ago

      Did you read the whole thing and you’re just okay with them quietly pulling sponsored links for FTX?

      • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        111 year ago

        Not sure about OP,

        I read the whole thing and it doesn’t really bother me because I’d never touch their coin crap. The whole we’ll pay you to browse smells like a pyramid scheme.

        Downsides:

        CEO is an ass: check

        They’ll sell my traffic: check

        They’ve added a half assed insecure tor implementation: check

        They’ve replaced ads on websites with their own to an illegal level: check

        They’re trying to use crypto currency to fund themselves and did that to a level that got them charged by the FTC: check

        Once their crypto plans fails, they’ll probably either sell more of my data or fold up: check

        Upsides:

        Runs all my chrome plugins

        Tight IPFS integration without running Kubo

        Decent P2P bookmark/history syncing to unlimited nodes without making an account

        Very solid anti-fingerprinting when combined with privacy badger.

        Small enough that selling my data will have less reach than Google or Microsoft selling my data

        Blocks youtube ads, even on mobile (while they still can)

    • @Wakmrow@lemmy.world
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      131 year ago

      Your reasons are discussed in the post. Did you just read the first section and then get mad?

    • @dsmk@lemmy.zip
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      61 year ago

      They default whitelist Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook garbage that I have to go and toggle off.

      They have to do that, otherwise things like the “login with Google” buttons disappear from sites, breaking logins for many users.

      I wouldn’t be affected by the settings being enabled by default as I always create a local account, but I’m also not the average internet user. My parents and most of my friends would though, and those are the users Brave are trying to get to use their browser.

      • @Shadywack@lemmy.world
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        11 year ago

        From KHTML to Webkit, to Blink. Forking forked forks, but still open source. If we were talking about a closed source browser then it would be a travesty. Today what Google’s doing with Web Integrity is disgusting, but their freely available codebase is not. If the Linux kernel supplanted the NT kernel and Apple decided to re-develop the Mac and iOS (however absurd the notion is given the gigantic amount of work required to do, let’s just say hypothetically), and Linux had a “monopoly” on kernels by getting 95% marketshare across mobile and desktop systems, I highly doubt there’d be an uproar for the sake of “muh choices”.

        As to self awareness, conservatives like iPhones, and liberals love them some Chik-Fil-A, and I can write off pointless articles trying to get me to shop elsewhere over “founder bad” for gender or identity politics. My best friend is a gay man, and I am happy for that couple to have the right to do so. If I didn’t use a product or service because of a political misalignment, I wouldn’t use anything. Companies that work against socialized medicine irk me because I think we need that, and companies that support gun control irk me because I live by castle doctrine.

        There is room in this country for people that purple and cross their ideals, this idea of absolutes is absurd. Gender and identity politics are pointless to even address given the challenges ahead of us, how about we give a shit about…housing or healthcare? Let’s maybe do something about climate change by addressing gentrification and long commutes? Let’s fight together to keep our WFH.

        Selective outrage is where all the LGBTQ issues belong for the short term, we have real problems.

    • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      51 year ago

      This really sums up everything I felt while reading it.

      I’m still using it and Firefox in lieu of Chrome

      Brave + Privacy badger has the only working fingerprint reduction (https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/) I can find. So I know brave is tracking me, but all the sites I visit had a hard time doing so if I don’t log in.

      I use IPFS quite a bit and I really like that it’s integrated without me having to install Kubo everywhere. I tried the companion in FF but it still opens ipfs:// in brave.

      The CEO is a piece of crap. That seems pretty average IMO.

      They’ll sell my data. Anyone that can fingerprint me will do the same. I have one smallish company selling my data instead of google or Microsoft.

      They have previously done shitty things and they have put in too many fake features in the name of privacy like a half assed TOR implementation.

      I’m not against trying other things. but every time someone says OMG BRAVE IS THE WORST. It ends up with a very slight Utility > Evil function for me.

    • @Snapz@lemmy.world
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      41 year ago

      They aren’t.

      The author also makes a much more compelling argument than you on their position, and the article supports the argument with verifiable fact and links.

      Only one side of the equation uses the phrase “identity politics”, and it’s the broken flailing, desperate side - Gay people are going to get married, trans people exist and interracial couples are going to walk down your main Street holding hands and smiling. You need to accept these basic facts about your fellow human beings.

      • @Shadywack@lemmy.world
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        11 year ago

        One of my best friends is gay and married, and I fully support their right to do so and be recognized as a couple. I just don’t see how the politics of a founder need to have any bearing on how I use the product. Conservatives like using iPhones and liberals still like their Chik-Fil-A food and Marvel entertainment despite Perlmutter moving huge amounts of money for conservative support. It’s hypocritical for people to froth at the mouth over Brendan Eich while they still order from Amazon, shop at Walmart, and patron many other conservative companies. Identity politics in consumerism is ridiculous, and pandering to the virtue signaling helps no one. “Founder bad” arguments are pathetic, as are the constant reminders that we need to shop X for social causes.

    • Schadrach
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      11 year ago

      Firefox is Google’s controlled opposition. It exists so that Google can claim not to be a monopoly. There’s a reason a significant amount of their funding comes from Google, and it’s not because Google doesn’t have a vested interest in maintaining a single second place browser that’s popular but not too popular.

  • @0oWow@lemmy.world
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    731 year ago

    “If someone recommends Brave to you, you should ignore them, because they are wrong.”


    I stopped reading here. If you would like to present objective technical arguments, please try not to sound like a 5 year old “I’m right, you’re wrong, blah blah”.

    Use Brave or use Firefox. They both work great for privacy, but I find Brave is easier to configure to be private.