Why you shouldn't use Brave Browser

Just use Firefox.

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.

The fact that their founder wants to ban gay marriage is enough reason for me to avoid it like the plague.

He fucking what?
- He made a thousand dollar donation in support of proposition 8, a constitutional amendment in California that strips gay people of the right to marry. He then proceeded to argue that such a donation does not make him a bigot or an enemy of LGBTQ+ people, because he's a delusional piece of filth.
  This effectively prevented gay people from marrying in California from 2008 to 2013 until the fascists that supported it were finally done trying to argue how this doesn't violate the US constitution.
  So yeah, may he, his browser, and any pathethic excuse that pretends to be human being who supported this abomination rot in the deepest depths forever.
- The codebase is irrelevant, I’ve already rated it, it’s another blink clone. As a product, on the other hand, you should definitely practice responsible consumerism. Aligning your values with your consumption is a good thing.
- Same reason people who boycott chic a filet over LGBT issues, it has nothing to do with the quality of their product it's about not supporting someone who's views and opinions are that only some people deserve equality.
  Voting with your wallet is more effective than simply vocalizing disagreement while still supporting their product.
- Everyone has a price when it comes to "can I still use/enjoy X when the author did seemingly unrelated thing Y".
  For example, can you still enjoy the music of The he Lost Prophets? I can't.
- Most poeple responding said that it has nothing to do with it, but I would add that someone who has these view is more likely to implement unethical features
- Are you being purposely obtuse, bud?
  Let's go to extremes... If actual Hitler worked on a project should we all just use that project even though Hitler made it?
- I got my OS from north Korea, why on earth would I not trust it explicitly with any and all of my families information?
- It's a boycott, not a code review.
- because the guys here are dumb woketards

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.

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.

someone like Brendan Eich who should know better turn to the dark side
LOL, he inflicted Javascript upon the world. He never knew better and was always on the dark side.
- JavaScript is a victim of its own popularity. It was originally meant to be scripting glue to do little actions in the browser while the real work was done in Java (LiveConnect) apps. But Java got jettisoned, JavaScript became more important and became the thing we love and hate today.
Louis Rossmann also recommended Brave in one of his videos. Quite sad.
- I like a fair amount of his videos but he has a big ole bag of bad takes
- Informative and unfortunate
- Brodie Robertson also uses Brave. Quite sad x2.
Brave is more secure than Firefox out of the box.

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.

it's got crypto.
- It's got electrolytes!
- A big reason to avoid it!
I am using Brave mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
- This may be overkill but try Piped.video
  It removes all tracking and ada frok youtube and allpws you to import your subscriptions.

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.

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.

Is there proof he donated? Was it specifically a donation against gay marriage? Has he donated to other causes as well?
Anytime I see a lynch mob forming, I always get a bit skeptical of the details. Context matters as well.
This guy could be a grade A sack of shit, but I haven't seen many links to proof, just people regurgitating the same stuff over and over.
Edit: I probably should have researched on my own before posting but here is what I've read so far: he donated back in 2008 (haven't found a link of a source that proves it, but I've also not found anything refuting the claim, not even his blog posts). He did post this back in 2014 when the hubbub started: https://web.archive.org/web/20200708202554/https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/
Maybe the bar is lower now after the trump tenure, but that post seems to show some genuine self awareness and growth. I know my views about the world have grown, changed, matured, and become much more nuanced since 2008. Is it possible he has as well?
Has he done or said anything shitty since that single donation?
Edit 2: I just saw some of his tweets on masks and saying Dr fauci lies https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1337496169690230784. Bleh.
I know I'm jumping to conclusions but I'm starting to see some indicators of what kind of politics he's continued to have.
I had this whole spiel queued up on how we need to let people be able to redeem themselves. He's not the poster boy for that cause so I'll hold off.
- Proof aside form him admitting that he did it?
- He admits to making the donation, then complains about how everyone is so mean for trying to thought police him like the sniveling coward he is.
  https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/

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!

I downloaded it just yesterday, and I uninstalled it after reading this article. Back to Firefox for me!
I am using Brave on iOS mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
- If you want to swap teams, Android has Revanced. Otherwise I don't think so.
Firefox doesn't block ads on my iPad. Only reason I still use brave
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but i believe that's because it's not really Firefox, everything on apple devices is forced to use safari, all you do with the "Firefox" installation is change the ui.
- You can install add-ons, at least on the android version. One of them is Ublock!
Firefox is significantly slower though...
- Not really that significant when you're using it, I promise. I'm usually all for speed, but FF has better functionality than the competition.
No fuck Mozilla

So the CEO is a raging alt-righter. Glad I never used his product then.

So, not trying to sympathize with Eich here, where do you get "alt-right" from?
- Being against equal rights for gay/bi people is considered pretty right wing these days mate

I just use Firefox and DuckDuckGo

You might want to explore librewolf. It's built on Firefox but with more privacy features.
- Librewolf is definitely the best option for privacy imo even though I don't use it. I tried to use librewolf but it gives me issue using odysee. Seems to be like a common issue and I'd rather just config Firefox than use YT
- Isn't It just Firefox without Mozilla stuff? 99% Firefox with arkenfox or betterfox are the same thing
Same here 100%
DDG with their Microsoft agreements and subpar search results isn't the answer for me.
Qwant and Startpage fit it better

Thanks. Whenever I raised the issue of homophobia or his general support of right-wing causes that threaten people's privacy (see the aftermath of Roe v. Wade for example), I got downvoted, be it on the PrivacyGuides sub where they adore the browser, or right here just weeks ago.

- you saying that from an openly radical leftist instance is intriguing.

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.

I've read the article via Firefox, with NoScript enabled. Am I doing this right?

Don't bother with NoScript. Just use uBlock Origin, it is capable of blocking scripts as well, and with finer control than NoScript is capable of.
- nope not quite as effective in my opinion. also I use them both, ah ah ah. Anyways, Brave founder seems to be Javascript creator, so... NoScript seems more adequate as a joke.
- Seconded. uBlock origin is ridiculously powerful and configurable. It can DRAMATICALLY speed up site loading while only occasionally breaking functionality. Typically if the site is entirely JavaScript rendered like reddit.
I prefer bypass paywalls clean, it does a better job of surgically removing the paywall even if the site is actively trying to stop you from disabling javascript.
No
Fuck Mozilla too

I get people wanting an alternative Chromium based browser. Vivaldi, IMO, is a much better than Brave, and doesn't have all the annoying crypto weirdness.

I don't use either, though, I use Firefox

If you care about privacy, don't use Vivaldi. They're closed source so no matter what they claim there's no way to know if they're actually following their word. If you care about privacy and need to use Chromium, Ungoogled Chromium is good.
I started using Arc and have loved it.
- Hmm, I tried Arc but didn’t really “get” it. Perhaps I should give it a longer try
I do like Vivaldi. Continuing that Opera way of life, though without Presto sadly.
- Why not chromium?

Oh boy, this comment section is gonna be spicy. I can already smell the smoke from the Brave enthusiasts heads exploding.

I left brave 2 years ago. Never looked back lol.
Oh yeah they've been freaking out, and a surprising number of right wingers

I wonder how many of the commenters would be fired from their jobs if false opinions could be read into their thoughts.

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.

Besides this I cannot find another good reason not to use brave. Nobody point to a specific line of code that ruins privacy, not enough reasons.

Good enough for this gay Californian.
- Gay Nuyorican
- I've been using brave for over a year. I can't remember the last time I saw an ad on my screen. Now there might very well have been some But I have no memory of it.
Their carrot-on-a-stick routine with the BAT they fail to pay is enough for me to have switched.
False advertising is false.
They do point out a couple of instances of questionable if not outright scummy things (e.g. the affiliate codes situation) but the article mostly gives off "stop using brave, I've decided it's cancelled" vibes.
They block the website's own ads, but inject their own instead. So the user still gets ads, but the profits go to Brave. I know that if the site's owner is aware of that and goes through the process of registering with Brave they get a share of the profits, but this should really be opt-in. As it is, the whole scheme is shady as fuck.
Because Firefox is better.
I don't care what the CEO of a corporation is doing because most of them are conservative pieces of shit.
They used to change the url which the user typed into the address bar to include a referral code. The article mentions going to binance.us, the browser appended a referral link to the url.
That's scummy as fuck.
I stopped using it because it was kinda shitty. Some page elements in my webapps just didn't display or work correctly. Firefox is the more polished experience now. But it is kinda nice not having to morally justify your choice of browser, too.
So you've read all the way up to that line and closed the article didn't you ?
- There were 3 points:
  CEO is a dick: not enough of a reason
  Swapping ads: I have ads disabled anyways so what do I care. If I did care I wouldn't block ads in the first place
  3.1. Promoting/friendships with crypto: ¯(ツ)_/¯
  3.2. Privacy leak: it happens ¯(ツ)_/¯
  3.3. Partnering with weird people: ¯(ツ)_/¯
  3.4. IS AN ADVERTISING PLATFORM: ¯(ツ)_/¯

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.

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.
- Firefox has telemetry. You can opt out and delete it, but by that logic it shouldn't be trusted either. Also, I doubt people who really care about privacy don't harden firefox. Being able to is not besides the point.
- Idk if I’m doing something different but for me, the crypto stuff seems to be opt in.
  Like you have to create a wallet it seems, they don’t make one for you.
- 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.
- By that logic, Firefox would be in the same boat. After initially installing, you have to turn off data collection in the settings and disable Pocket in the config.
There's a degoogled chromium you can use as backup if you like.
- Here's the links for all who care.
  https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium
  https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-windows
- Building a browser from source every security update sucks.
- Thats what I use and it's great.
I use brave as my backup in windows and linux. And my default for Android to sync bookmarks.
Firefox android experience have always been subpar for me even without Darkreader which is known to slow down the browser in Android.
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.
Why use a product that pays a bad actor tho?
There are other options, free options.
- I'm an Eastern European and I support LGBT people, because I'm one of them. Why are you talking as if you're speaking for all Eastern Europeans?
- They do this with the goal to replace the tracking and ad network with their own. The article points out several instances where they've done this.
- 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.
- I hate Brave quite enough for purely technical and business model reasons. The shitty political views of the CEO are just an added anti-bonus.

Long time Brave user here. This made me uninstall Brave and move to Firefox. Thank you !

Just because something is open source doesn't mean the people behind it have the best intentions in mind.

I think one of the biggest issues with FOSS-minded people is that they automatically consider open source software private, safe and having good intentions in mind, but they never actually go beyond the surface to check if it actually is.
- Most people who use FOSS are not qualified to check source code for ill-intent (like me) and rely on people smarter than them (and me) to review the code and find any problems. FOSS isn't automatically private, safe, and having good intentions, but if it isn't, at least the code is transparent and the review process is open for all. Commercial software has no review, and zero transparency.
- Free software is not automatically private or secure, but it can be. Proprietary software can't.

Vivaldi? Trusting a closed sourced application for privacy? What?

Not even defending brave here, just weird that the author say that.

"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
- that would require some bravery
Today, a Lemming did not learn what a thesis statement is.
- 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".
Thank you for being a great example of exactly what the author refers to.
Maybe you should keep reading then

Firefox works well enough for me. Never given me any problems or grief. I don't really understand the fascination with chromium forks or the insistence on using them instead of Mozilla's engine.

Unfortunately there are enough websites that are broken and don't work in Firefox... and some of them I just cannot avoid using (company tools, recruitment platforms etc.) because I am position where they can just tell me to use Chrome or GTFO.
- I get the company stuff but I honestly can't think of a single site in any recent history that harassed me about using Firefox. If it does I just look for alternatives or irritably switch to edge or whatever for a couple of minutes. It's not something I've even had to consider to be an issue tbh

Things wrong with Brave: #1- It isn't Firefox/a Firefox derivative

I hadn't read the details of their intended ad network. I just recall it sounded shady. Now that I read about it, it sounds very similar conceptually to Google's Privacy Sandbox. I'm not sure if this is a better or worse approach than the status quo but I surely don't trust Brave Inc, a startup with a questionable business model and investors, with gathering and processing this data.

Well, fork, I hadn't looked at this team behind Brave. I use both Firefox and Brave. Bye bye Brave...

Out of the box Firefox is definitely not very privacy conscious, better than Chrome no doubt, but worse than Brave. It can be configured to be better than both or one can use Librewolf/Mullvad browser

I recently switched and I was quite surprised at how many privacy features were disabled from the start.
It makes sense. Having it configured this way breaks so many web apps that it's not feasible to have that as default. If you hope for any sort of non-technical people to use it that is and therefore to have any sort of relevant market share. Having forks with different defaults for people who can deal with the tradeoffs is a pretty good solution.
There is also Tor Browser.
- Yeah, it's not really for normal browsing though

Firefox is king 👑

Honestly I don't care who or what he personally donated to. But the ad model is the problem for me.

Not saying I like the ad model but how else are people to make money to keep software going. Not enough people donate which is why we have some much Ads currently.

The writer is proposing Vivaldi, a closed-source browser, as an alternative to Brave, which is free and open-source. I think a better alternative would be Ungoogled Chromium.

Maybe it's me but some of the things in this articles make me question their reporting.

What makes sense to me is that they have been involved with some shady crypto companies and they have been opaque about their goals, with some of the developers disagreeing with the CEO every now and again.

What rubs me the wrong way is the focus on his own political viewpoint (this is holy irrelevant to the software), his involvement with FTX (almost no one saw the collapse coming. It was one of only a few crypto companies that people didn't expect to be that shady) and getting a cease and desist from a newspaper corporation (this is much expected and frankly idk if the cease and desist even holds up. This is not as shady as the article makes it out to be and legally this is not cotton dry at all iirc. IANAL tho ofc)

I agree it's not the best idea to mindlessly go on using Brave, but honestly this article is really not that good.

Anyone here ragging on brave that is on a Windows platform has got a real funky view of privacy. By percentage, that is probably most.

Definitely agree, but your comment makes me wonder what the stats are for desktop users. Lemmy is mostly geeks for now from what I can tell.
- Could be. But considering spikes after API elimination from Reddit I bet it's a hugely mobile crowd. I myself am a nearly exclusive mobile user. Desktop lemmy is a pretty dismal experience at present I'm sorry to say.
If you've got a computer or a phone, you're almost certainly being tracked. Picking and choosing which entity is tracking you seems masturbatory.
- You can use computers without being tracked.

Don't use Brave because of the ads and crypto currency stuff

I don't see why how one person even the CEO and founder's political beliefs from 15 years ago should stop anyone from using a product today. Unless we want to expose all 7 million+ people who voted for and passed prop 8 in 2008 and cancel them all into oblivion.

He didn't just vote for it. He donated and doubled down on it, despite it being an acknowledgement he helped strip the rights of some of his own employees. People are free to disapprove of that behavior
Unless we want to expose all 7 million+ people who voted for and passed prop 8 in 2008 and cancel them all into oblivion.
I'm ok with holding them accountable. I say that as someone who was bigoted (in a light way - no wish for harm, but just thought it unnatural due to how I was raised) against LGBT people when I was younger.
If you want to call me out for what I thought when I was 18yo, I can proudly accept culpability and tell you that my values have changed. I can explain why they changed. I can defend me of today while throwing me of the past under the bus. By the time Prop 8 was up for debate, I'd long-since evolved. This fucker hasn't grown, apparently.

If you put aside the crypto crap, Brave is an okay browser. Sometimes I use it for web development. But I don't like the direction the company is heading towards.

Most of the time I use Firefox with Extensions and Librewolf for everything. Firefox has been my go-to for years and I sure hope it stays that way.

What's Mozilla doing?
- Hell if I know, they denounced it publicly last week.
dear Firefox is getting into the trend.
care to explain?

urghhhhh but firefox just doesn't perform as well. i tried, i really did. i found a 15 year old (!!) bug affecting svg drawing performance that was fucking up a page i was working on, i'm not imagining it.

I'm not sure if it's the same one but i just found a similar bug with a five year old comment saying i guess we're not fixing it anytime soon... https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=483868

I do have it installed and check in occasionally but it feels like a downgrade when i try to use it as a daily driver.

is there any way to get a functional de-googled chromium build with settings sync across devices?

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.

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:

Literally stepped down as CEO https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/brendan-eich-resigns-as-mozilla-corporation-ceo/
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/
made personal blog post about inclusivity shortly after https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/
invented and worked on/for javascript, brave, firefox

Gnubyte

I started using Brave about a year ago... I didn't know any of this.

The Prop 8 stuff is enough of a reason for me. Firefox it is, I guess.

I just deleted it on my phone. All roads lead back to Firefox.

Use Firefox on desktop

Use Firefox (or Mull or Fennec- both are forks) on Android. I have Bromite too for times Firefox is being fucky.

On iOS unfortunately due to Apple’s (soon to be lifted) browser restrictions, the default Safari browser is basically as good as any other since Apple forces other browsers to basically just be reskins of Safari (forces webkit usage). I do recommend Firefox Focus if you want stronger, Brave-like adblocking without using Brave obviously. Focus seems to block close to the same level as ublock origin + Firefox on a desktop. It’s barebones by design though, so not ideal for everyone. I know Google/Mozilla are working on non-webkit Apple App Store approved browsers for next year when that law goes into effect (might not be available officially for NA users, not sure how that is gonna play out yet. Hopefully EU sues Apple for $100B for doing that if they do.) Hopefully that means official actual gecko based Firefox is coming fucking finally. Firefox with ublock is all I ever asked for. I’d even take Safari with actual ublock but unfortunately Apple is Apple, the annoying little fuckers.

They just started showing ads again on YouTube when watching on Brave. Which is a very good way to get me to permanently switch elsewhere! Thanks Brave!

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.

Why has no one forked brave yet?

There's already ungoogled Chromium.
- I just started using it and it's great. Partnered with Ublock Origin it's a decent experience with no bloat.
- With new WEI base I dont think i'll be using chromium anymore.
There's no point in it. Brave is just Chromium with their customizations
I believe someone did and named it the braver browser, but it got smacked down immediately.
- That's obviously a trademark issue, but forking it should be pretty straightforward. You just can't call it (basically) the exact same thing.

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.

The guy who runs the site literally works for Brave. It says so in the about page.
- Agreed, he could very well be biased even when trying not to be, according to FAQ, but the project is open source and he made it easy to clone the git for anyone to verify it that doubt his work.
Mullvad and LibreWolf are better than Brave, jokes on you.
I use links btw.
- Ah yes, links, the gentleman's browser.
  Jokes aside, I actually do use links to browse news specifically.
- I had never heard of Links before, thank you for giving me another rabbit hole to dive into!
the setting used for vivaldi on this test are worse than the default one, pretty bad source as the author tries to make brave look as good as possible

Okay, so the creator of Brave might be a bigot and some of the stuff it does with crypto currency is a little sketchy? And the ads it replaces with the blocked ads are somewhat invasive?

So disable the crypto stuff and use ad-blocking software along with its own adblocking functions.

If a mechanic fixes my car and does a really good job, but he might have some shitty opinions of gay people, as long as he fixes my car I don't care about what he might think of gay people.

Everyone needs to be aware that there's propaganda everywhere. microsoft and google REALLY want you to use their browsers and people are tired of the data MS Edge and chrome collect.

I for one, hate that chrome constantly connects other shit to your google account with just one accidental click sometimes. Edge does the same shit, but brave is the only chromium based browser that doesn't deceptively do shit like that.

I still like firefox better and I only have brave for those rare instances where firefox won't work on a website. And I don't actually believe that the creator of brave is actually a bigot. Pro-liberty, Pro-privacy and anti-surveillance types are always getting smeared as bigots when they aren't.

Im gay, I use librewolf

Soooo... bad PR = bad browser... advertising bad, crypto bad, source of funds bad, anti gay marriage guy bad.... meh I get the reasoning here but.. it's a bit of a reach

The article is rage bait. Eich is a conservative and made at least one donation of a size that I could make, and he partnered with conservatives. He floated shitty ideas in brave then removed them when they flopped.
I probably wouldn't get along with him, but what I see is a history of trying shit and fixing it and also moderate conservatism.
Brave works fine. Firefox works a little less fine if you want a cross platform experience. I'm not switching to Firefox bc this writer is angry, and I'm not switching to Vivaldi because I'm not retarded.
- I'm not switching to Vivaldi because I'm not retarded.
  Legit question: what's bad about Vivaldi? I've been trying it out for a few days and I don't see anything extraordinarily bad like Chrome/Edge. Although it might not be as privacy friendly as Brave and FF.

If you are on Android, you can try Cromite (a beta app by dev of Bromite). The app has less bloat compared to Brave.

Though the app needs some ironing as it has some missing/broken stuff.

GitHub: https://github.com/uazo/cromite

Because it is chromium based, it also does nothing to discourage sites from only supporting chromium based browsers.

Use Firefox or Safari, the more people use Chromium-based browsers the faster we get to the situation where Google completely owns the Internet (and they almost do now).

I don't use Brave because they screwed me (banned my Brave Creators without them providing a reason) and I think I would disagree with their CEO on many points - including same sex marriage - but if I did this with every piece of software I use, then I wouldn't be able to use a computer at all. Even if you go all open source, you'll quickly find wild and weird people involved with these projects...

what's everyone's thoughts on Vivaldi?

Proprietary
I use it on android as it's privacy focused and allows encrypted sync across devices.
Works for me as I'm a phone and tablet only user with no desktop to organise sync.
I've tried others like Firefox but don't like the interface on android tablet , no tabs so is just a bloated phone app. I tried opera but it doesn't support my password manager so I've ended up sticking with Vivaldi and to be honest it's a good overall experience.
I liked it and it was my main browser for awhile but it's pretty poorly managed and I lost lots of important work enough times to change

And the weird thing is they are tied to their own crypto currency called BAT for viewing supported ad network. Still a fork of chromium

I use Firefox on desktop but on Android i use Brave for one single reason: it lets me open links in the full browser rather than a webview. Or whatever that tech is called. I hate that stuff. It drives me absolutely bonkers. Like, you might think that's irrational and/or that i have some kind of anger management problem but i promise you it is way beyond that. I'm fucking actually feral about this. This one thing determines which browser i use. If i couldn't find one with it i would have to start uninstalling apps that don't let me force full external browsers.

Firefox used to allow you to force this setting but at some point stopped. I don't know why. Give it back, please. (Along with full desktop extensions...)

Anyway if anyone knows how to change this i would be happy.

I use brave to keep a secret set of tabs so my wife won't see my jerk off material on chrome.

Pretty useful for that actually

Why not use Firefox?
- Someone might assume Firefox is my main browser ;) And then they'd think I'm a massive pervert who does nothing else with his computer.
Lol, still, you can have separate profiles no?

Yandex is working so nicely for me lately--even better than Firefox. I think any possible spying by Russian capitalists or government will have little to no effect on my life.

I agree that you shouldn't use Brave browser cause of things they've done in the past but, oh Jesus, that article is so stupid it reminds me the Hogwarts Legacy boycott.

I think we have far bigger problems than Brendan Eich in the tech industry. Far more people have suffered or died in recent years from tax cuts and austerity lobbied by by some of the biggest billionaires (i.e. Zuckerberg, Gates, Ballmer, Musk, Bezos) than from the causes Eich has funded.

Can we truly call ourselves humanitarians when we continue to lap up everything that big tech gives to us?

At best, we're hypocrites for cancelling Eich whilst simultaneously sweeping issues like worker exploitation, political/medical disinformation, erosion of privacy, etc from the rest of big tech under the rug.

Damn didnt know it was that bad.

They also lack any documentation about how to use their policies on Linux (where you can disable all the bloat). But it should be doable, I will give it another try.

Is the browser even FOSS? Can you compile a working version yourself?

I do that with Firefox and it is really cool.

I think that the number 1 reason to not use brave is that is based on the chromium engine. The number 2 is that they use limited anti fingerprinting tools and support his self built tracking and ads. The others about ideology of the CEO i think are not so important.

I use both Firefox and Brave. Just disable all the crypto stuff. Also, Brave is the only open-source browser on iOS that has ad blocking.

- It does not support ad blockers on iOS because all iOS browsers are forced to be Safari reskins due to App Store policies

I ditched Brave ages ago when the ad and crypto bullshit really ramped up, and finding out Peter Thiel was involved and Brendan Eich was a bigot, were more than enough to keep me away from Brave.

I currently use Arc on desktop because it makes my life as a busy dev much easier to organize, and Safari on iOS because every browser on there is just Safari anyway. iOS Safari + custom DNS to block ads. Works for me.

I’d use Firefox but Arc’s organization features have become insanely useful.

Wtf is spacebar.news. where do you find sites like this?

Today I learned that people take it VERY PERSONALLY when you criticize their chosen browser. 😂

What do you use if you need a Chromium browser for something specific?

I use a derivative of this browser for what I call "junk surfing" and I find it personally satisfying to feed it garbage searches, just for the fun of collecting an obscure crypto I know will never accrue any true value.

But if they are willing to give it to me, I'll take it.

The important searches go through FF or the DuckDuckGo browser.

There's an extension for this. https://adnauseam.io/
- That's devious.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2069436850145993

50 States, 50 Protests, 1day

Feb 5 @ your downtown.

Brave sucks!

These browser wars are funny. It's not like you have a real choice anyways. You get either some sort of Chrome, with it's various problems. Or you get some sort of Firefox... which has it's own host of issues. The rest of the competition is so far behind that it'd take a miracle for them to enter the mainstream.

Shilling for any particular browser is pathetic.

But how can i replace the built in function of youtube playing music on mobile in the background? Please give me an alternative

I'm confused, why not just use Chromium?

Ugh. I was trying Firefox, but there are too many extensions I use that use Chromium that I need. I'm too torn on what to do.

If software works I'll use it.

I prefer firefox but I'm not going to tell someone not to use a piece of software because the creator is a retard.

Learn to be angry at the right things and grow up. Jesus fucking christ people are so god damn stupid now days.

"Waahh I don't like this guys political position so I'm going to try to defame all his work and the work of hundreds of others because of one guys personal opinion"

If this had said something like 'v3 manifest will be rolled out and they're going to be anti-anonymity' then I'd be salty because that would mean the software is becoming less useful.

Anyone who thinks like this should stop using the internet because, spoiler, the entire backbone of the internet has been contributed to by everyone of every faith, creed and philosophy which means thousands of people you 'hate' have contributed to your literal bitching about those very people online.

Get over yourselves. Actual fucking children.

This author is a moron.

Use firefox (or librefox).

One word, eight letters:

Chromium

Unfortunately, there are the ame stuff about Firefox too. Mozilla Foundation is such a corrupt organization with extreme shady finances.

Foundation's main income is royalties by google: 567M per year.

Donations: 7M (which almost goes to the CEO's bonuses)

the CEO gets 700K salary and 4.6M bonuses. Lmao.

I'd suggest, using Firefox but not donating to them.

I thought it was nice that maybe a private browser would be mainstream but then on second thought.... Something icky must be going on if it's mainstream, i mean the whole crypto part was an instant warning for me. Proud Librewolf user over here!!!

Hows opera?

If I want to keep a chrome-based browser, what is a decent (in terms of privacy intrusion and adblocking) one to use? Is Vivaldi a reasonable choice as a replacement of Brave?

run links2

I used brave in the past sometimes still do. I don't care for the leadership. The browser is opensource and solid. I use librewolf as my main browser now though.

So why exactly should people stop using brave browser? This article is just smearing campaign, I can easily write much more compelling reasons as to "why you should stop using Firefox browser", coming from a Firefox user myself

I just read it all and I don't entirely agree with all the reasons that the writer stated to not use brave (the CEO donating to ban same-sex marriage and the idea of BAT in itself I find interesting and I like but I ended up disabling it because I got nothing from it and I read somewhere how they were taking the donations that people made to the creators that do not have BAT or know about it without telling the users) but let's say he got me to question whether I would recommend Brave anymore, either way with what Google is doing right now I'm recommending Firefox to everyone I know whenever I can for the cause

Right we shouldn't use brave because CEO donated $1000 to some law author doesn't like. Maybe we should leave lemmy too because creators believe in things most other people don't like. These kind of morality plays are stupid, who knows what every devs and ceo of company actually think and do with their money and honestly if it's legal who cares.

probably because it's a locked down browser with an awful design and tracking enabled by default
Products of Chinese companies aren't really a good alternative for different reasons

Brave is great and i will continue to use it.

This is bulshit, didnt have to say aything in tehnical aspect of the browser so he continyed to tras some people that work on that project, probably false..

This is old news.

But what browser should I use? Do I have to check the politics of every employee or volunteer?

Not every employee; but when it is pointed out that leadership of a company/group is so hateful you ought to avoid any form of support.
- Cancel culture is fine as long as the majority is right. But gay people were once a victim of cancel culture.
You know you don't have to go out and look for those things, if by chance you learn that a significant figure has done bad shit that you don't support then stop using whatever they created. Also Firefox is an option
Your choice.

This is bulshit, i dont decide will i use a browser depending on who works on it, but depending on the browser itself.

So insted of looking at browser itself this dude sugests we should look at people that work on it and asume the browser is bad if someone working on it is bad which is blindfolded deciding and its nonsense.

So if you have malicios intent and dont have to say anything bad about the browser itself concretly and tehnical because if you lie there, many people that know how it is will say no it doesnt work that way here how it is than you just trash people that are working on it whic is wery hard to veryfi is it trye or not. And probably it isnt..

So when we discus open source software there is no need to talk about writers of the code much because we can discus the code itself and tell concretly if something is bad. Exactly which line and why its bad.

Anything else is just made up and malicios.

I can't think of a reason why anyone would use a browser other than Firefox and its forks.

Following his reasoning, the author should also avoid JavaScript at all cost then. Good luck with that!

I just left the following comment on the article:

So, just to recap, don't use Brave Browser because:

Its CEO & a shareholder hold right-wing political views
\ It pays users (who opt-in) crypto (whereas other browsers pay users nothing)
\ It has an ad model (that you neglect to mention also pays users crypto for viewing ads)
\ It once allowed users with (pre-existing) FTX accounts to link them via a widget
\ It partners with Gemini (to allow users to offload/exchange the BAT they've earned, not mentioned)
\ Gemini has an SEC case (part of the SECs crypto witch hunt which includes a failed case vs XRP)
\ Crypto(dot)com faced layoffs during a bear market
\ And the first ever Web3 gaming expo had low attendance?
\
\ Your arguments are truly weak. I don't even use Brave as my main Browser, but I'll likely be using it more often now literally because this article annoyed me that much. Also FWIW I'm a liberal and member of the LGBTQ+ community, I detest that Eich would donate to prop 8 but I also respect that we live in a country where people will have vast political differences and still be able to see past those things and interact without demonizing and trying to cancel each other.

As for that ad replacement model they abandoned, I can kinda see what the thinking was there: The browser is going to block site's ads regardless, and the browser is going to show its own ads to users who opt into earning BAT for viewing ads regardless. So why not combine those things and replace site's ads with Brave's ads? I can see how they would have been high fiving in the office thinking that was a win/win until the problems were loudly and angrily pointed out to them by others.

In any event Brave serves a niche market segment that no one else is focusing on at the moment, problematic politics of some executives aside, that's a thing that'll have legs so long as no competition (with perhaps better exec political leanings) rises to challenge them.

Just my 2 pesos, don't kill me.

His political donations suggest a broader lack of moral values, which is borne out by the business model of his browser, which sought to steal ad space from websites and enable the broader economy of speculative tokens. Just suggests a lack of ethics all the way down
Changing links to add their affiliate codes was enough of a shady thing for me to swear off this browser. No telling what kind of a fast one the company will try to pull in the future.
Amen dude. This is the best take iv seen so far.

Who cares? As liberal I'm sick of the mellow-dramatic outrage culture. People aren't perfect. Who knew? If you don't use brave what's the alternative? Google, who is much worse? Maybe "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" and stop using the lefts social capital to alien people over small personal gripes.

I notice people who write these types of articles never open themselves to the same sort of scrutiny.

tldr?

Just to play devils advocate, while I do agree that there are some shady stuff happening, if the browser remains open source that wouldn't be a problem right? These "features" while present can be disabled by the end user, either within the settings menu or by adjusting in the configs page.

duckduckgo

The points in this article have nothing to do with the actual browser. For the record I use Firefox, librewolf, and brave

Some sites are broken with a Firefox base.

the founder is controversial. so what? Does the product render pages with pretty good fingerprint blocking? Yes
crypto exchanges are under scrutiny and brave uses crypto. so what? does the product render pages with decent cross tracking isolation? Yes
their crypto has little value and was a failed experiment so what? Does the browser remove ads? Yes

If you're going to write about how something sucks, talk about it with substance, point out code that does XYZ to confirm negative statements.

"The Brave web browser has carved out a niche over the past few years as an alternative to Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and other mainstream web browsers." Excellent article my only criticism is that firefox is not a mainstream browser lol. Im saying this as a proud firefox user.

It definitely is. It's a top 3 browser
- Its fifth.
It's not? I was thinking it would be second to Chrome only. No way Edge is leading it, right?
- According to this page, no, it isn't. Chrome is in first place with over 60% global market share on all platforms, followed by Safari, then Edge, then Samsung, and then Firefox.
- It is, he's on glue
If I'm using it it's mainstream, lol. I am as middle of the road tech wise as you can get.
Sure it is.

I hope you didn't hurt yourself with all that stretching.

You should not use it because i don't like it. Got it.

Yeah, while I agree with most of the reasons for not using brave in the article, I think the best reason is because it's chromium based and Google/chrome id doing the dumb WEI thing and hoped it would be more centered on that.
- They tried before and it didn't stop people from using brave, so they are switching to whatever this is

What's the deal with the founder ? If my browser is good I couldn't care less if it's made by Hitler himself.

This doesn't give a balanced overview of the positives of Brave, for example they have Tor integration which is interesting: https://brave.com/tor-bridges/

Don't use Tor in any browser except the Tor browser. Since the whole point of Tor is being totally anonymous with no way to identify you, if you're able to be fingerprinted you've broken the whole thing and you shouldn't even bother. And yes, you can be fingerprinted in Brave, with a high reliability. The best browser for resisting fingerprinting is the Tor browser, followed by LibreWolf.
- followed by LibreWolf.
  I'd expect it to be Mullvad's browser, considering it's literally an un-Tor'd Tor browser :p

Ignoring all other concerns, Brave is simply the buggiest browser I've ever used, both on desktop and mobile. It's the only one where I have to regularly switch to a different browser due to sites not loading properly.

This article has attracted the obvious responses it wants to attract.

I bet many who've responded in agreement with the sentiment of this article use windows which is tied to a company that has done far worse than brave software.

Edit: I am not sitting here for hour or more trying to figure out who is employed at a company of a piece of software I chose to use just to ensure their personal opinions, views and opinions align with current trends on what is sociably acceptable.

If we all were to apply this to all the software we use you will fast find out that you'll be looking for quite a few alternatives to what you assumed was neutral or aligned to your view point.

Just want to chip in on the mobile browsers. A big issue is that webview is chromium based. So even if you use Firefox on android , you are using chromium/chrome plus Firefox.

Options on mobile would be vanadium (only on graphene I believe) or bromite (on F-droid). Bromite has its own webview separate as well , crashed my phone many years ago , no idea about it now.

On PC (Linux) I use Firefox with chromium as backup. Also fuck brave ,why support shady bigots if you can avoid it?

I was pretty sure Firefox provides a Gecko-powered webview. Maybe that has changed since I last checked.
On Android, FF uses GeckoView.
That is incorrect.
Firefox on Android uses GeckoView, which is a reusable Android library that wraps Mozilla’s Gecko browser engine. GeckoView is similar to WebView in some ways, but it has its own APIs and is not a drop-in replacement. GeckoView is full-featured, self-contained, and standards compliant.
- Cool, totally missed that. But the issue of running both still applies right? Double the code. Viewing a site in a app it will use the chrome one ? " Google does not allow a third party to implement the System WebView and the GeckoView API is not compatible with the WebView API in a very meaningful way unfortunately, so this is not possible. "
  https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview/issues/167
  I should probably specified android webview in my original comment..
On PC (Linux) I use Firefox with chromium as backup. Also fuck brave ,why support shady bigots if you can avoid it?
how do you manage to?
in the last few days Firefox has started constantly crashing for me. (Flatpak and Native NixPkg)
didn't have the same Problem?
- Using ESR version , I have not seen any issues lately. On peppermint Debian based

So we shouldn't use a piece of software because the guy behind it isn't woke enough? That's crazy

Left is good right is bad. What do you expect?

As a Brave user who doesn't dabble with its crypto BS and only uses Private Browsing on it, I find this virtue signaling an overreach. Fuck your downvotes.

How I love seeing people talk the big talk about 'democracy' and 'freedom' but also do their best to remind everyone that "your'e free as long as you agree with them", else they attack with pitchforks and torches. Lovely. (Yes I'm talking to you).

https://xkcd.com/1357/
- I normally agree with xkcd, but this is a huge straw man.
  It's not the government oppressing you, but you are being oppressed. It's not the government restricting your speech, but your speech is being restricted.
  People complaining about their speech getting restricted aren't saying "...by the government" and it's a cop out to pretend that's what they're talking about in the first place. That's not the conversation when it comes to canceling and deplatforming. That's not what people are complaining about. When people say "the right to free speech" in this context, they aren't talking about a specific legal, constitutional doctrine. They're talking about the social contract. They're saying, "hey, we generally believe in freedom as a concept, why are other people shushing me for voicing my opinion?"
  Note I'm not a "free speech absolutist", I don't think we should give everyone a megaphone and tell em to have fun. Sometimes canceling is the appropriate response. There's a lot of social media assholes out there stirring up shit and they should get muzzled.
  But this particular argument is bullshit.
  The argument we should be making is this: what you are saying is itself so heinous and dangerous that it is a violation of the social contract. The government is not silencing you, but we will.
  And we should also keep in mind that just because the government isn't silencing someone, that doesn't mean it's perfectly fine that we do. Mob mentality is a thing and sometimes we (the mob) can go too far. We should be measured about canceling and deplatforming.
What if I told you that brave browser was woke?
Would you instinctually repeat your favorite phrase; go woke go broke?

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.

I want to try a thought experiment. Imagine that you observe this comment in reaction to the above:

I just don’t get why the author is so pissed about their political contributions. Guess what, people who are involved in big business are usually right-wing and support right-wing organizations. Shocking. Who could have known. I don’t even want to imagine how the author comes to the conclusion that this is some big conspiracy but I think we all know what political spectrum that guy belongs to.

What I just wrote is a mirror-image version of the top rated comment on that article from a few days ago about the Mozilla foundation funding left-wing organizations. Do you agree with one of those statements and not the other? If so, why?

It is one-sided to say that someone involved in Brave should only be "allowed" to do so if he doesn't support anything conservative. Just as would be one-sided and wrong to say that Mozilla shouldn't be "allowed" to support left-wing organizations. Flipping it around, and looking at the reaction when it's the other way around, is an easy way to analyze your own internal reactions on it.

(Generally, I'm in agreement with the idea that you shouldn't use Brave because of all these other shady things; just this one part jumped out at me as one thing that's not like the others.)

I'll keep using it, thank you for your concerns. At least I'm not giving market share to FF/Gecko/Mozilla.