Why was appointing Eich as CEO so controversial? It’s because he donated $1,000 in support of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, which was a proposed amendment to California’s state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
That has nothing to do with the software. And that’s a tiny donation. I’m not going to stop using an excellent tool because one of the guys in charge is a bigot. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be able to eat, drink, breathe, make a phone call, or do anything really. There’s a lot of people out there. Some of them are bigots. We should work to reduce their influence but we can’t boycott literally everything. Every alternative to Brave has at least one bigot involved in it, I guarantee it.
Brave’s replacement for ads doesn’t reward users in a meaningful amount
Not enough > 0, which is what you get without adblock. And I’m fine with occasional non-targeted and unobtrusive ads to help fund a service I use.
Brave’s BAT was built around the cryptocurrency ecosystem
Who gives a shit except crypto bros? And who gives a shit about crypto bros anyway?
Brave was also caught up in a privacy scandal in 2020, when it was revealed that the browser was adding affiliate codes to some URLs typed into the address bar.
Are these affiliate codes tracking you? No? Who gives a shit? It’s more money for Brave, same webpage for you.
That should have been enough to swear off Brave as a privacy-centric browser forever, considering the entire point of affiliate links is to collect data about the user and traffic source. For example, when you click an Amazon affiliate link in a web article, the publisher can see the exact products you purchase in the timeframe the tracking cookie remains active
Brave blocks cookies by default. Unless they specifically made an exception in their own browser for these codes, then this carefully-worded paragraph is just bullshit.
Much like the rest of this article. Bunch of poo-flinging. “Brave is involved in crypto, here’s all the bad things crypto has done, that’s why you shouldn’t use Brave”. Stupid guilt by association and a lot of hot air. Bringing a smoke machine to make people think there’s fire.
There’s a lot of effort going into making Brave seem like a bad browser and I don’t know why.
“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.
Or if you don’t like the article, check up on it from other sources instead of burying your head in the sand?
Edit: a word
When is the last time you saw a thesis that began with "you should ignore them, because they are wrong.”
He had a great opportunity and lots of eyes here from people who use brave to show them how it’s problematic. He started his opinion article with nu’uhhhhhh
Compelling summary: “You’ve been hearing a lot about Brave, maybe you use it yourself, you should look into the company you’re supporting and how they’re turning their back on you before you continue”
Start with privacy issues with tor
Show a historical track record of illegal action add swapping and referrer swapping
Show their shady crypto currency issues. trading out FTX for their own stuff, the FTC/SEC looking into them selling their coin as a security.
Show the CEO is a horrible person.
Make the case that their going to sell your data more unscrupulously than Google or Microsoft.
But no, he’s a horrible journalist that can’t manage to put the critical points first.
Ah yes let’s ignore everyone that challenges our own opinions because that’s the best way to never be wrong and always feel safe.
I actually sincerely went into the article hoping for logical technical explanations. But I can’t justify listening to someone who starts off with “I’m right you’re wrong”. It’s childish.
The fact is that all browser companies have their problems. I’m interested only in the technical aspects. For example, why is there a whole spec sheet of config settings to make Firefox private against Mozilla? Why does Mozilla continue to install spyware alongside Windows installations (default browser task) ? Why do I have to remove feature plugins, with each major update that assist Mozilla with telemetry and adware, despite Mozilla claiming to have removed those long ago? Why do I have to turn off Normandy? Why should Normandy exist in a so called private browser?
This is what I’m looking for… Not “I’m right you’re wrong”.
I use Brave as a backup browser. My main one is Firefox.
You can turn off the crypto stuff. You don’t have to use Brave Shields (in browser ad blocker). It can be turned off. Now you can use uBlock Origin or another ad blocker.
About the CEO, I can’t see nothing about his beliefs reflecting in his work. Looks like he kept them separated. I’m not for said beliefs.
It’s not really right wing. It’s just anti type of human. You can be a conservative without the deep desire to suppress a type of person or lifestyle.
You can be a conservative without the deep desire to suppress a type of person or lifestyle.
You sound like you might be one of those folks who’s fallen for the propaganda that conservatism is about “tradition” or “caution” or “moderation” or whatever. Please allow me to disabuse you of that misconception. Conservatism has always been about maintaining social hierarchy by working to marginalize groups of “others.”
By using his product you’re contributing to his political views. You know that though, don’t you…
By that logic. You can’t use nothing who going against your beliefs. That’s impossible, because you can’t know every company beliefs.
But you can make changes once damning information is discovered or attempt to research products and services to try and minimize your own impact on others suffering.
That you can is besides the point. You shouldn’t need to. If the first thing I need to think about after installing it is “well, let’s see what garbage is in here that I need to turn off”, then any trust I would have for it has already gone out the window. Especially important odor a browser where that is kind of the main differentiating aspect.
Beside**
It still has to be feature rich and work or of the box. I haven’t been back to Firefox in a few years, but it was pretty dumpy by comparison to brave. I’ll look again but the key feature of a browser to me isn’t “it’s not Google, it’s Foss, and I don’t have to disable stuff”.
I’m gonna hope you’re a fellow Linux user if that’s the perspective you take.
i’ll look again but the key feature of a browser to me isn’t “it’s not Google, it’s Foss, and I don’t have to disable stuff”.
You use linux but your primary criteria for the most used program on a PC is not having to configure it?
That’s a pretty odd middle ground to take.
I wasn’t arguing for Firefox or FOSS. It just seems to me that if your selling point is trust and privacy (at least it is what I see people citing as Brave’s Big Thing), you should be as transparent and irreproachable in that regard as possible. Having said this, of course, good features can be enough for the trade-off to be worth it (this is true of pretty much every piece of software out there, Chrome included), depending t each user finds more important.
Here’s the links for all who care.
https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium
https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-windows
I use Arch and Debian and I don’t think I ever had to build ungoogled chromium from source before (unless I wanted to, which I didn’t).
Just gonna leave this here… https://privacytests.org/
Edit: After reading the article I’m sceptical about a bias as the writer clearly misrepresented the lawsuit against Gawker by Hulk Hogan, which in turn puts the whole article into question.
Not saying that the allegations against Brave aren’t true, I’m just saying I wouldn’t trust a journalist who misrepresents the truth to tell me the truth.
Mullvad and LibreWolf are better than Brave, jokes on you.
I use links btw.
The guy who runs the site literally works for Brave. It says so in the about page.
This article did not present a compelling case for abandoning brave. Who cares what the founder thinks about various political issues. If the software is good, then that’s all that matters.
Don’t get me wrong, I support same sex marriage, but people have a right to oppose the concept as marriage is a government idea that is tied up in politics.
