Did nobody read the article? The author is crying that Brave implemented a summary feature so users don’t have to read through entire paragraphs to get to the actual content. Of course, he goes on and on about copyright and OpenAI, nothing really about user data.
I never understood why anyone would use Brave, the payouts are small, the utility of the crypto is zero, and watching/seeing adverts is a nightmare. I honestly believe that blocking all advertising and sending a small monetary amount to someone providing value is a better way of supporting the people you care about.
I use Firefox over Brave simply because I have much more trust that Mozilla won’t suddenly turn into dicks.
(Also because Firefox is awesome now, and because competition in the browser world is a good thing, but it’s mainly the probably-not-being-dicks thing)
I got downvoted to shit on Reddit for saying stuff like this (on the weirdly frequent posts about how great Brave is)
Ig I’ve found my people now
Not that Mozilla has been 100% great either. Remember the Mr. Robot debacle?
If not: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robot-arg-plugin-firefox-looking-glass
lmao still thinking moz corporation is your friend
Mozilla are dicks already lol
How so? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything negative against the company, but I’d love to know if I missed something.
I can’t find the sources right now but it’s being shit I’ve been reading over the years. It goes from employee complaints against the corp, them not using donation money in the browser, etc.
I’ve seen an employee complaining about the impossible deadline they put for Firefox for Android, leading for the browser to come out filled with bugs, while also being very underpaid for a tech worker. In another news, the company direction has been getting huge raises for some years already.
Also, the money you donate isn’t going to the development of the browser. You can notice it as well, since the browser is very subpar when compared to Chromium. Mozilla isn’t making a good job at all and even though I still use Firefox, Mozilla has become a money bank for greedy directors, and I don’t support it at all.
You’re going to need to cite some sources for these fairly wild claims.
You can notice it as well, since the browser is very subpar when compared to Chromium
This is the most egregious lie of the bunch. Firefox is extremely close in terms of features, performance, usability, HTML/JS/CSS support, developer tools, etc. It’s privacy tools are, if anything, significantly better. And once Manifest v2 extensions stop being supported by Chrome (which is coming next year) it’ll have significantly better adblocker support.
Firefox. The slowest browser, the least compatible browser, the most annoying when it comes to bugs and issues (Firefox snap anyone?)
I just cannot disagree more. You seriously have to gaslight yourself into liking it.
What a strange take. I switched from Opera to Firefox like 15+ years ago (whenever Firefox added extensions, so I could use Mouse Gestures (why I was on Opera in the first place))
I never have issues with compatibility or speed. I don’t use Google products so I don’t have Chrome to compare it to, but it’s certainly as fast as/faster an IE/Edge.
Firefox has been my browser for eons, but I admit I think Edge is faster. It doesn’t matter to me in the end though.
Edge is Chrome.
*Chromium, which is not the same. But I get your point.
Yes, there is a difference, but it’s minor and big stuff, like adblocking not working as well, are true of Chrome and Chromium.
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the payouts
wait, what? I was just looking for a search engine that does least tracking and brave was recommended a few times, so I use that, but have never seen any ads or been offered any payout? Am I doing it wrong? (for the record, if they’d offered me payment to watch ads I would have never even installed it in the first place, and will now be removing it as my default on firefox)
I made roughly $1200 using Brave at work.
It is optional to open the ad or not and you do get paid half what you would even if you don’t view the ad. I turned on max number of adds per hour and clicked no most of the time. Took me maybe 10 seconds per hour while I was getting paid to work already. Sure the per ad money got poor over time, but at first it wasn’t so bad at first and I was making a couple bucks per day. Converted that to Bitcoin every month and that has nearly doubled in price. So if I converted to USD right now I’m at $1200 for a grand total of under 9 hours worth of work over 1.5 years. So my hourly pay plus clicking no to the ad I made $166 a hour on average.
My company’s software stopped working with Brave about half a year ago and now I use Firefox.
I don’t think people use Brave for any crypto stuff all that much. I use it to block ads.
I used it for the perceived level of privacy they pretended to offer. Guess I’m switching to Firefox tomorrow.
Every single one of these Brave “scandals” are so irrelevant and meaningless. I was hoping the reddit hive mind wouldn’t be brought over to lemmy, but here we are.
This article, especially after the update from Brave, seems like a huge nothing-burger. Just another excuse for the Firefox Fanatics crowd to rag on Brave and circlejerk each other about how good Firefox is.
The article isn’t even about Brave Browser, and it has nothing to do with user data. The website owner is mad that Brave Search is crawling their site and using data in their “Summarizer” feature. I thought Firefox users were supposed to be against the Google internet monopoly, but apparently when it comes to one of the only companies with their own independent and actually decent search engine, they don’t seem to care anymore because of stupid “Firefox good brave bad” browser wars nonsense.
complains about browser wars
types up multiple paragraphs crying about “Firefox Fanatics”
Microsoft and google like to shit all over Brave all the time. Brave is very privacy friendly, the data they collect from their users is way less invasive than the shit Edge and Chrome collect from you.
Tried it for a week or two, but since I reinstalled Firefox I really don’t understand why I was judging/hating so much in the past years. Yes, Chrome/ium used to be waaaay faster, but Mozilla just has their shit together most of the time. The Debian of browsers so to speak.
Firefox is GOAT, but I do have Brave installed on my phone specifically for playing YouTube. The Brave browser automatically blocks YouTube ads, allows me to play videos in windowed mode, and allows me to play videos with the screen off.
I don’t do anything else in Brave, so I’ll probably hang onto it as basically a YouTube app.
You might want to look into NewPipe then. Lets you do all those things with YT, plus you can also download the videos or their audio only
I’m on an iPhone, which I why I don’t use all the other things Android people suggest.
Brave has been about the only thing I’ve found that works and is easy for iPhone.
If you’re on apple I’d recommend giving Orion browser a try. It blocks all ads by default, including YouTube. It’s become my default browser on all my devices.
I still remember why: Mozilla fired Brendan Eich, the man who would go on to found Brave, for donating to Christian charities in the politically polarised climate of 2016. After Eich went, they also quietly purged any other employees that showed even a hint of conservative sympathies in their internet presence. They then went on to “experiment” with pushing browser ads on users, and while they eventually ended the experiment because of massive user backlash, they still made no apologies and didn’t abandon the idea. Just made a final public response dripping with PR bullshit with a patronising conclusion along the lines of “internet users just aren’t ready for this change yet”.
Brandon Eich was fired because he was constantly giving money to politicians and groups that were advocating for the banning of same sex marriage. Also funding the campaign of congressman Tom McClintock, a certified piece of shit, Who denies climate change, is against LGBTQ rights, and was among the republicans trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Yes. That is political affiliation. You might not share it, but whether same-sex marriage should be legal is absolutely a political question, even if it is now outside the Overton window.
Personally, I’m not sure I support any form of state marriage, but if it exists, it should include same-sex marriage.
If your political affiliation implies creating second-class citizens that may be discriminated against due to innate characteristics or harmless behavior, don’t expect me to respect your political identity, to not to discriminate against it, or to give a damn when you find yourself kicked out of places because of it.
So he was fired for his political affiliation.
From an outside perspective, I find it astonishing that those ideas are considered acceptable political positions in the US. With that said, I believe in individuals having the right to support or promote their chosen cause, but also the right of others to choose whether or not they wish to associate with them.
Opposition to gay marriage was fairly common in the early and mid 2010s. It was only legalised 8 years ago in the US, and so, in 2016, it was still a live issue.
Yeah, it just feels so bizarre to me as someone who isn’t American.
One of the founders, Brendan Eich, donated his money to take away the equal right for same-sex couples to marry in California (Prop 8). He never acknowledge that it was mistake, so I can only assume that he truly wants to see the marriages of same-sex couples erased, which is quite a hateful thing to desire.
Not supporting is one thing but being so actively against, is interesting
i dont agree with it but he can do whatever he wants with his money. not sure it is relevant to internet privacy tho.
I don’t select a browser by political preference, since Eich departure from Mozilla it went downhill hard.
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ok? that doesn’t mean we can’t criticise/boycott/protest because of them
While that’s fair, actually funding something to take away the rights of another person, like this guy presumably did, is a lot more weighty than just having an opinion.
This slime funded efforts to revoke another human’s civil rights. That is not opinion.
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Loving v. Virginia (1967) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) ruled that interracial and same sex marriage bans violate the equal protections and due process clauses of the 14th amendment.
Yes and my opinion is that being anti-gay marriage is a shitty opinion that should be criticised.
This is one of the most stupidest memes going around. https://matej.ceplovi.cz/blog/tocqueville-on-the-freedom-of-discussion-in-america.html
Brave is just too shady and I hate that it’s considered a “privacy” browser by people who don’t know better.
Well, it doesn’t help that privacyguides.org lists both Brave browser and search as recommendations.
I found the juxtaposition of your comment to the one below yours to be pretty funny.
I love how you added yellow border for clarity
(I’ve screenshotted lemmy comments before and it looks utterly confusing without border lol)
Firefox forever.
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It’s the hype from Cryptobros pushing it because it has crypto functionally and its own shitcoin.
Personally, I never liked how it wants to monetize your browsing time constantly and pushes a lot of crypto shit in its advertising. Vivaldi is much better as an alternative imo.
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Oh, Vivaldi. I really want to love it, I love the interface and general ideas, but the fact that in 2023 they didn’t manage yet to have an app for iOS and decided to focus first on embedding an email client inside the browser throw me off the boat. Also, there were plenty of bugs often with new releases. Maybe now it’s better but a few years ago it was quite annoying.
I guess you can install whatever browser Apple lets you then.
The reason why Vivaldi is not on iOS or iPadOS is because Vivaldi hasn’t developed it, not because Apple doesn’t let them in. All the other browsers are on iOS.
vivaldi’s UI is overbloated though tbh
It’s as bloated as you want it. Everything’s customisable.
It’s a shame that there isn’t a good alternative for Apple devices, though. iOS doesn’t have much by the way of good ad blockers.
It’s a shame that
there isn’t a good alternative for Apple devices, though. iOS doesn’t have much by the way of good ad blockersApple infringes on your property rights by refusing to relinquish control of your device to you, the owner, even after they “sold” it to you.FTFY.
I use it as my main browser and I honestly can’t go back to Firefox, but I really dislike some parts of it and of it’s community. The browser itself is fast, its default ad-blocker is awesome and there are a couple functionnalities that are nice to see, like Tor integration. But they block ads to show you their ads instead, that you cannot block even if you deactivate the “Brave Rewards”. The whole reward system in BAT is kind of shady; they need to authenticate you before you can withdraw anything and it’s worth peanuts anyway. When I complained about those issues on reddit, I got answers that looked like they were produced by sect members, and it wasn’t even on a related sub.
Brave ads are opt-in.
At some point you opted-in.
If you don’t like it, then next time opt-out now or don’t opt-in next time.
I opted out and I still see ads. That’s the problem.
I used Brave for a out 6 months, but I’m really turned off by the devs. I switch to FF and am loving it. It’s much improved from when I last used in decades ago.
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What are your setting os Firefox? What do you recomend?
The Containers extension is the only thing you really need IMO. Firefox is already very privacy focused, and its default settings are pretty good.
lol no, firefox without adblock origin is like sex with a hooker with no condom.
With First Party Isolation is place, containers now add up very little to your privacy to be honest. They are mostly helpful in convenient compartmentalization of your browsing activities without actually having two different browsers.
Firefox is already very privacy focused, and its default settings are pretty good.
Partially incorrect. There is unnecessary telemetry that you would prefer to get rid of, for an example there is a setting for extensions recommendation as you browse. Also, probably because of their deal with Google, Firefox defaults to Google’s location services even though Mozilla has its own. You may want to change that as well for better privacy. I am only citing a handful few examples, there is more for you to dig in. uBO is a must have with right set of filters enabled according to your own privacy threat vectors. There is a reason hardening is a common practice among Firefox users.
Brendan Eich, the guy who co-founded Firefox and developed Javascript, is the CEO of Brave. His politics aside, I think he’s a pretty trustworthy guy.
Brendan Eich, the guy who… developed Javascript
You say that as if it’s a point in his favor, LOL.
If not for that asshole, we could’ve had a decent language embedded in the browser, like Scheme or Python!
I mean… if there wasn’t someone inventing a usable open source language for the browser it could have been some weird proprietary Microsoft language and our sites would still look like web 1.0
I hate to burst your bubble but when it comes to 6-7digits of cash at stake what does “trustworthy” even mean? You mean between millions and his word to you he will choose his word? His previously stated values and principles?
The guy who made waterfox seemed pretty nice, friendly, committed to the cause, then sold the project to a data-miner, and so did the honest people who made startpage, the trustworthy privacy minded search engine? Now they see waterfox is independent again and not part of the big multi-natinal data miner.
Mozilla once again made a sudden change that breaks your previous profile or other functionality and if you dare roll back the upgrade your profile has been ruined in transition, so you are forced to start from scratch reconfiguring, setting up you std tabs, bookmarks, history … Same stuff with TB, addons/plugins disabled, new “features” added, whether you trust them or not, added dependencies … you roll back you lose.
The google chrome-engine is so intrusive in the way it runs, degoogled or not, it is hell to have on a system. Maybe inside a vm without anything else other than specific browser session may be ?ok? for fluff work, nothing private I hope.
The naivity of people to accept and sometimes welcom large corporations producing FOSS is what got us to this mess, and I don’t mean users, but devs, distro managers, … if it is legally FOSS it is OK, even if it is a huge trojan horse manufactured by corporations to penetrate an other wise safe and secure system. FOSS - no corporate involvement - may be it, but will it boot? LinFound. gets millions and millions to have board seats to influence kernel, and it seems to be dancing with their wishes.
I think FOSS is enough because as long as you can fully read the code, it can be audited and even forked to remove BS. So I’m fine with companies developing FOSS. I don’t even really care about EEE. We can always maintain a fork of the standard at the moment you fucked with it. We can even still get your upstream changes just with the shit cherry picked out! It’s always a win.
Have you audited any of it? Would you like to try gcc or systemd for that matter? By the time you go through 1% of it the code has changed already. How many times in the past years has tremendous security breaches been caused by FOSS and was discovered months after it was in effect, and some of this by coincidence, or corporate teams that review code.
The fact I haven’t doesn’t mean I can’t read auditors who have, who do keep track of these changes. Zero days are usually caused by things no one noticed, not things that were intentionally added by corporate overlords to spy or back door a FOSS app.
Speck was pushed and provided by Google to linux, they added the content to the kernel having your naive belief, it was later found containing a backdoor to ALL systems, and Google raised their hands up and said it was passed to us by NSA. Is this what happened? Or did I dream all this up?
Facebook provided 0 FOSS, not a bit, suddenly they make an algorithm they “bought” including the author, and make it foss, to build it it needs google software, like a bush fire more than half of distributions adopt it and all data provided as comparative to xz are false, based on poor use of xz to make zstd appear better, while still admitting zstd can never attain the level of compression, but it is fast (ONLY when xz is run on a single thread while zstd is multithread by default). They claim xz sums are different when run on 1 cpu or many, still not true.
Just wait for that bomb to explode, the guy who wrote the code for zstd doesn’t seem possible to have enough knowledge to write it, he appears as a front for something.
Things that smell like shit don’t have to be actually tasted to be called shit.
Fair points.
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LOL, about half the points in the article are struck through now. Yet another “journalist” who doesn’t understand how anything works getting angry how they way they imagine it works.
That’s some quality reporting “stackdiary”.
Lol, I’m glad he at least included the full email response from them. You can tell he’s a little salty and still misinterpreting things when you read about how he took their response to the Search Crawler part.
I’m too stupid to get any of this so… Can I continue using Brave or should I look for alternatives?
This article shouldn’t affect Brave users themselves.
The content of the article deals with issues that only website owners/publishers have to be salty about. Much of what’s left comes down to the legal grey area of how to treat LLMs like ChatGPT and whether they’re allowed to scrape websites for training data or not.
I like Brave. Should I stop? 😋 Guess I should look a Vivaldi again
I’d avoid Brave based on the founder/CEO’s bigotry alone. This is probably a good reason, too.
I don’t see what the CEO’s political views have to do with the quality of the product but you do you
They taint everything he touches. I won’t be a party to his success in any arena.
That’s why i quit
I hope people finally quit that shit of a browser.
As a web developer the problem I have is there are issues with all the browsers that are available today:
- Chrome and Edge are owned by big companies and report god-knows-what back to their motherships whilst constantly pushing their own services
- Firefox uses its own rendering engine so it can have some Firefox specific bugs / differences that might be missed, plus doesn’t have support for some of the extensions that you want
- Safari doesn’t have windows or extensions support
- Opera is full of random features and promotional bumpf that I don’t care about and have to turn off
- Vivaldi is a complicated beast that takes a bunch of work to set up, it also includes a mail client, calendar and feed reader in the browser which I don’t need.
- DuckDuckGo doesn’t have any extension support at all
- Arc is really fiddly and doesn’t always behave how I want it to (bookmarks behave like tabs for some reason)
- Brave pulls things like this and is also full of crypto/wallet type stuff, plus you can’t even change your home page.
I just want a simple Chromium browser that doesn’t require me to turn a bunch of shit off, is private by default and supports extensions, I don’t think it’s too much to ask!
I guess you do get 3-4 questions when you install Vivaldi, like do you want tabs on top, should it import anything, and do you want to use mail and calendar too or just browser.
But “a complicated beast” to set up? No, it works like any other browser right out of the box. It offers advanced customization if you want to dive into them though.
Check out ungoogled-chromium. It needs some extra work to get extensions (and probably drm stuff) to work, but has good defaults otherwise.
Their crypto autofill scandal is all one needs to know about this company. If you’re marketing your browser as privacy focused and then pull stunts like that you lose all credibility in my eyes. Forever.
Firefox or go bust
Not to mention the interesting bits of info you can find just by looking into the CEO of Brave, Brendan Eich. Plenty of reasons with him alone for someone to avoid the browser and search engine.
The big one that he likes to keep buried is that he donated money to an anti-gay marriage proposition in California back in 2011, which is what caused some of the pressure for him to step down as Mozilla CEO back in 2014 after being it for a few weeks.
Also, he invented JavaScript. He got on my shitlist permanently for that alone.
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What does his political donations have to do with brave’s misconduct here?
I don’t understand this crypto auto fill thing. Can you explain it in simple terms? What is it. Why is it bad?
They replaced links to crypto exhange Binance with their own affiliate links that they profit from without the users concent. It’s bad because they did it behind their user’s backs hoping no one would notice. Makes me question what else they’re not telling me about.
Brave had a thing where if you went to website.com, they would add /ref=brave to the URL so they get a kickback as if you clicked on their referral link.
Sneaky? Sure. A huge scandal? I don’t think so. No user data was being collected, no privacy was being violated. If I was the company doing the referral system I’d be mad, but as a user, it does not affect me at all.
Firefox fanatics just need something to point to and say “brave bad firefox good” and that is the worst thing they can find on Brave. It’s all browser wars to them, like iPhone vs Android or Xbox vs Playstation.
The article in this post also does not affect users in anyway, and has been updated after Brave responded, with most of the worst claims of the article now retracted.
Stealing referral URLs is lowest kind of spyware/malware tactics. Topmoxie which was another for of advanced java app coming with Limewire did it.
Can anyone recommend a good alternative that works well under Linux and block ads and trackers well? In particular YouTube ads?
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seem like a good place to shill my blog about switching browser and search engine. I recommend Librewolf on desktop and Mull on android tho. view this privacy comparison. For search engine, use StartPage, Whoogle (privacy frontend for Google) or SearXNG (search engine aggregator)
I can’t find Mull on the play store.
It’s open-source and only on F-droid
Thanks installing it now.
