- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- tech@kbin.social
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- tech@kbin.social
- technology@lemmy.world
You must log in or # to comment.
deleted by creator
I don’t usually judge by looks, but you can just tell that Brendan Eich is an insecure fragile person with many mental problems.
I don’t know what’s worse: The whole anti same-sex marriage deal or inventing Javascript.
Probably Javascript…
Oh he’s THAT guy?!
Fuck that guy. He basically is the reason popups was so damn widespread.
JavaScript is also the whole reason that the web is interactive. Without JavaScript the web would be mostly just static pages without any client side dynamic behavior.
Brendan Eich is a tool, but JavaScript is a useful tool, at least.
I think I’d prefer a mostly static web. Guess I should finally check out ublock origins medium mode or whatever its called.
I think I’d prefer a mostly static web.
Me too, gemini looks promising https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
Forms are interactive and dont require me to run your shitty code and execute it on my computer.
Keep that shit running on your server. I dont need another vector for malicious code to run on my machine
JavaScript?
Like, we use JavaScript everywhere.
I’m viewing this comment without JavaScript.
deleted by creator
Oh my bad, clearly no relation to JS or Brendan Eich there.
Lol nice
I’m literally replying to this because of JavaScript
I don’t know what’s worse: The whole anti same-sex marriage deal or inventing Javascript.
Probably Javascript…
Heh. Made me smile.
Here, have an upvote! ;)
oh sorry! forgot about it adding a description. will do next time.
TL;DR: The article claims that the Brave web browser is bad and should not be used.
The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage. Along with making the claim that Brave’s goal is not to act as an ad-blocker, but instead to build and grow their own advertisement network, and he also believes that the network has several flaws:
- Brave Ads paysout in a form of cryptocurrency, called BAT (:bat:).
- As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatilability (I don’t know if I spelled that right :/ ).
- BAT can not be redeemed for fiat (“actual”) money directly from within the Brave Wallet.
- The author also believes that “it [the network] has largely failed” but that it “has generated a lot of revenue for Brave,” via the ICO (Initial Coin Offering; IPO for crypto).
In addition to these key points the author also:
- Claims that Brave prompted FTX, before the scandal.
- Cites the The Brave Marketer Podcast where ex-CMO of Crypto.com Steven Kalifowitz shares an ambitious goal of being a “‘brand like Coke and Netflix.’” The author then mentions that:
- In 2023 there was a report from The Financial Times that Crypto.com traded against their customers.
- In 2022 the company try to hide the severity of its layoffs.
- Mentions Brave’s integration with Gemini, and how the crypto exchange is under investigation for lying about FDIC insurance.
- Mentions a partnership with the the 3XP Web3 Gaming Expo where they sponsored the Esports Arena and rewarded contestants with the BAT token.
- Claims that Brave added affiliate/referral codes to URLs, such as “binance.us.”
Finally, the author lists Firefox and Vivaldi as alternatives to Brave, and ends the article with “Brave Browser is irredeemable, and you should not use it under any circumstances.”
I am human, please let me know if I’ve made a mistake.
The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage.
My impression was Brave got started after he got hoofed out of Mozilla or left on his own accord after the backlash for showing his ass to be a homophobe. Redditor types were of course very angry about this blatant disregard for frozen peaches and jumped onto his new venture in droves
afaik he left mozilla over the same 1k dono
As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatilability (I don’t know if I spelled that right :/ ).
Volatility :-)
But Volatilability sounds cool
Very volatibable word
Agree :-D
Thank you, I fixed it!
If he’s bad, shouldn’t everything he touches be bad? Why web site that uses JavaScript should be just as bad. Any browser based on Mozilla should be bad. Why is it just Brave that’s bad for what he did in 2008?
Because it is cool thing to cancel everything in 2023.
As I understand it, the argument isn’t so much “if you use a thing made by a bad person, you are a bad person by association” but rather that using a commercial product made by a bad person, who spends his money on bad causes, is directly helping him spend more money on said bad causes. Since he has never apologized or shown any indication that he has become a better person, not wanting to monetarily support him is a valid reason to not use his product.
It’s really hard for the creator of Javascript to make money off of javascript, and it’s unlikely he has any financial interest in the Mozilla corporation anymore since they’re a nonprofit and thus don’t have share holders. However, he directly profits off of Brave.
deleted by creator
Brave is still bad. With their “incidents” they had. Brave is chromium = Google controlled in a way. Brave is a coorperation, yes a PROFIT seeking company. Mozilla does nit promote google, it uses duckduckgo as its default search engine. There are forks from Firefox too that hardens the browser and the develop/ceo is not a complete *ss. The referal link “scam” was real, they injected it in Amazon links…
Screw Brave go search for a real alternative to google.
Firefox does default to Google. If you see DDG, it’s likely an edit by your distribution.
Also, Brave Search is a real alternative. It’s one of the few engines aside from Google, Bing and Yandex that has its own crawler.
These people are basically a cult. Do not bother trying to enlighten the Brave browser
communitycult. If you use brave, you are a certifiable idiot.I’m open to suggestions for a workable alternative on iOS that blocks ads.
-An idiot, apparently
Hopefully the Digital Markets Act in EU will put an end to iOS’s browser monopoly. When that happens Firefox might be looking to port their Android browser to iOS which supports addons like uBlock but nothing is for certain right now.
I know it isn’t hope you’re looking for, but it’s the best I can do with my current knowledge.
I appreciate that but my response was more intended to chastise the guy blanket labeling people cultists and idiots for no good reason because they hate a browser someone else uses.
The system-wide AdGuard app handles most things well enough, and Brave does its thing on YouTube ads without issue.
Firefox Focus will also take care of YouTube ads (if anyone else stumbles down this rabbit hole), but it’s too heavy-handed for me because I actually stay logged into my account and use my history.
My Pi-hole install also handles all but YouTube if I’m at home, so there’s that.
Doesn’t iOS only use webkit based browsers? I would imagine the reason you can get ad blocking through brave is some kind of deal they have with google. Which probably means they’re just giving them all the data google would collect normally.
Firefox on iOS doesn’t have ad blocking because apple took support away in webkit. The only way brave could be doing it is by being white listed by the company serving the ad to you somehow.
Both Mac and iOS have issues with VPN usage too but that’s unrelated to webkit.
deleted by creator
Bro spitting facts.
Mozilla Fandogs are attacking
deleted by creator
well thats a bunch of lies
Mozilla deals with Google
With how much revenue comes from those deals, we might say it’s practically financed by Google. FF is more Google than Chromium-based Brave if you follow the money.
Brave Software, the company behind the browser of the same name, was founded by Brendan Eich. He’s best known as the creator of JavaScript from his days at Netscape Communications
Say no more fam.
No. Couldn’t care less what the founder did or didn’t do. We need as many non-Google browsers as possible. The problem with Brave is that it is a chromium browser.
I’d say being chromium makes it a Google browser…
I mean, does that mean Edge is a Google browser, too?
Chromium is open-source. Even if Google adds something malicious to the source code (such as that Web Environment Integrity stuff), it can be removed by someone else creating their own browser based on Chromium. That’s the very definition of open-source.
Related side-note: Lemmy itself is open-source, too. If the creator of Lemmy added something to the software that someone running an instance didn’t agree with, they could simply fork the original software and remove the unwanted addition. Some people do disagree with that person’s views, and yet they’re still here. Many of them joined .world and other instances instead of .ml because they disagreed with the creator’s views.
While Google, the creator of Chromium, isn’t a good company for the consumer, I personally think Chromium itself isn’t a bad idea. It’s just that Google and some other companies modify it for their own means, and those means aren’t always consumer-friendly.
All that to say: while the company that originally created Chromium is bad, the software isn’t. And while some of the companies and people using that software are bad (including Brave, IMO), some of them are looking out for their users’ interests, and those forks of Chromium are generally ok. (You should still actually do research and not pick a fork because the company developing it said it’s okay, though. Take a look at what others are saying and verify it.)
I mean, does that mean Edge is a Google browser, too?
Yes.
All that to say: while the company that originally created Chromium is bad, the software isn’t.
Only to the extent that websites are built for chromium compatibility, due to its monopoly on the internet. It’s great software because it’s the most popular software so all other smaller providers that serve that software have to focus their resources into ensuring compatibility. Chromium(Blink) itself is pretty mid, and definitely equal to WebKit or Gecko, not better or significantly worse.
In fact. Mozilla rely more in Google. If i wasn’t mistaken 90% of their money came from Google and they rely Google safebrowsing wherein it exposes your IP to Google
no one wants to secure their web render so they’ll always use whatever is native to the platform.
on windows that’s chromium. on macos that’s webkit.
What does this even mean. Chromium or Webkit are not “native” to an OS. OSs don’t magically include browser engines, its not a critical component of an OS either.
Most OSs do come with browsers preinstalled, but they are programs just like any other. You can remove Safari from macOS (albeit its pretty hard because root is read only and signed), you can remove Edge from Windows. In my desktop with Windows 10 the only browser I have is Firefox (not even Edge), does that make Gecko the “native” browser engine?
If anything, the native browser engine for Windows would be MSHTML from Internet Explorer.
you’re overthinking the word native.
You’re still nor clarifying what you mean.
What?
what’s your confusion
Chromium isn’t native to Windows. iOS is the only OS (I’m aware of) where browsers are forced to use a specific engine, but even that will be changing
you’re overthinking the word native.
No, I’m not. Chromium doesn’t exist in Windows unless you install a program that includes it. Chromium web engine is “native” to the chromium web browser, not to any OS (except maybe ChromeOS). As espi mentioned, Internet explorer’s mshtml is the only engine “native” to Windows. Just look at the Opera browser, they changed web engines from Presto to chromium; that’s not using “what’s native to the platform” (Opera works across all OS’s with chromium, except for iOS for the restriction I mentioned before), it’s using what the developers/company want to use to render their pages. Nothing in Windows itself provides any of the chromium engine “pieces”
Edge is using EMET for memory protections.
Chrome has EMET disabled because it’s own memory protections conflict and it just won’t execute.
When you’re make a web view for Windows you’re either bringing a long your own rendering or using Edge because it’s included.
No one wants to secure their own rendering which is why they all use whatever is already there which is EMET which is a pita to test so they just go with Edge.
native is just jargon for “what is already there.”
The fact is i don’t care about these things. All it matters is that Brave uses Chromium, therefore I’ll never touch it.
Had me in the first half not gonna lie. But yeah I agree with you.
plus they have Google Advert ID Permission in Android. Tell me who is more creep. Crypto-things can be disabled within a few clicks, While mozilla’s trash can be disabled using a bunch of configuration in about:config
Yeah. But if I ever want or need a Chromium browser, it may be the one.
I would go for Vivaldi or ungoogled chromium
@whou Don’t forget the time they made it possible to ‘donate’ to creators, but when creators weren’t signed up with their program #Brave would just keep the donation. So users would think they have donated for example to Tom Scott, but in reality he never received anything. Overall just a scummy company.
after 90 days, they just send the BAT back to you. They don’t keep it.
He could receive it, if he signed up though, right?
I don’t use it because the UI and logo are ugly
Honestly…
Based
I don’t use it because it has crypto bullshit.
Firefox is way worse. Fucking bookmarks don’t even have icons half the time in shit-ass Firefox and it’s dated as hell. Fuck firefox.
[Eich] 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.
Even though I do not agree at all with the donation and support - out of the things that influence me into choosing a browser, 15 year-old private donations of appointed CEOs is pretty low on that list.
And the whole BAT thing is opt-in and they’re very transparent about it. I don’t get why people get so triggered when the C word - crypto - is involved.
I think the only relevant criticism I see is adding affiliate codes to urls (until they were caught).
The author also forgot the polemic of adding twitter and facebook trackers to the whitelist, and impersonating people in their ads. There are some interesting criticisms against brave, I don’t understand why their detractors are obsessed with the CEO and crypto.
Exactly. They do a lot of things I don’t like, which is why I don’t use them. However, I do recommend them over Chrome if someone isn’t willing to use Firefox (or Safari on iOS with an ad blocking extension).
That said, the ad replacement thing was an interesting idea, and if it got better click-through rate while preventing sites from stealing PII, they probably could’ve cut a profit sharing deal and users would’ve been better off vs the status quo. They could also have a “premium” option where they pay a certain amount for no ads, and that amount gets split with websites who would normally serve ads.
There are some good ideas there, but unfortunately the good ideas don’t seem to have really worked out as intended. I still think they’re better than Chrome, but things can change.
BAT can be distributed to publishers of content you go to based on percentage of visiting those sites. You can purchase BAT or subscribe to the ad program. Nobody in this thread knows even the basics of BAT, smh.
Yes, it’s possible, but that’s not how it works in reality.
I think it’s a good idea, but with some missteps by Brave. They need to get sites on board before I can truly recommend them.
Well nobody is perfect, this thread is making that abundantly clear. If they were still doing all that shit years later everyone might have a point. Make mistakes and learn from it and move on is the only thing I can really ask of anyone. Brave is doing the right thing IMO. As to your comment about BAT, it’s the classic problem of what came first, the chicken or the egg? Not recommending it because it’s not being used so nobody’s recommending it lol.
I don’t recommend it because there are better options. Firefox is privacy respecting, and since it still has an independent rendering and JavaScript engine, it’s better for open web standards. On iOS, all browsers have the same rendering engine as per Apple’s rules, so I recommend Safari with an ad blocker.
If Brave actually offered something tangibly better for the open web, I would recommend it. But it doesn’t, so I recommend something that does.
However, if you need a chromium-based browser, I think Brave and Chromium are about on par, so I recommend both.
By default, pocket makes suggestions to you based on your browsing history and then the aggregate of that is sent to Mozilla. How is that privacy respecting again?
Searches: Firefox sends Mozilla what you type into the search bar and Mozilla may share that data with its partners.
But the data collection sounds like it’s counter to its supposed goals. Multiple campaigns have been discussed that just make it believe they don’t actually care about privacy considering all the ways they keep trying to do stuff is counter to that. Why stay? Tor Browser is available. Hell, Firefox itself is already able to take you pretty far and extensions can do the rest.
Why make the sacrifice of your personal data? Like, how many attempts at collecting personal data do you need to have occur before you realize it’s always been their goal?
Of appointed CEOs who quit after 11 days to boot. But he was CTO prior.
But looks like he was largely ousted very fast with all the negative PR Mozilla was getting.
I would also imagine there are a lot of people that did not support same sex marriage back in 2008 that do now. I do not know the Eich personally, but it doesn’t make sense to hold this stuff against people until we find out if they have or haven’t changed their views.
15 years ago isn’t that long ago - and there is a huge difference between “not supporting same sex marriage” and “donating against same sex marriage”.
Sure, he donated $1000.
California voters approved prop 8 by a sizable majority. It was thrown out by the courts. That kind of dilutes my “oh no” over one persons donation. We’d need to boycott a good portion of Californians.
On the other hand, why should he ever be forgiven?
deleted by creator
It’s not like he’s backed down from his position against gay people over the years.
I mean… I’ve been using Firefox since Google silo’d all log-ins together.
On the other hand, search.brave.com is freaking incredible. It’s so much better than Google, Bing or DDG at this point, it’s shocking.
Tried it for a couple of weeks and went back to DDG. It’s way better for programming and other geekie stuff imo.
You mean DDG is better for programming or Brave Search is? I’m finding a lot more useful stuff via Brave for whatever reason currently.
(I guess results may vary though if that’s not the case for you!)
I meant that DDG is better for programming.
Try Startpage And you can use addons to filter out bad results, if that helps. Brave search definitely is potent.
I use Mojeek and Brave.
Please stop reposting this crap every fucking day. What’s up with you and this exact article in particular anyway? Are you getting paid or something?
well, I just came across the article on Mastodon and wanted to share it. I mean jeez, imagine sharing and wanting to discuss interesting topics just for fun?
and I posted the article on !technology@beehaw.org and then cross-posted it here, because I thought it was also an interesting community to discuss it. I saw a bunch of people cross-posting it elsewhere, so if you’re seeing it a bunch of times then it’s probably because those communities probably also have something in common with the article. I personally think every community have different people and different discussions to have, so I don’t see it as particularly bad.
I don’t get it either. It’s in the front in 5 different subs
As if people really using a browser with a built-in advertising network.
Apparently yeah. For 1 US dollar a month in highly volatile crypto.
Like Firefox?
No, this article is pretty much idealistic rant aimed at hating the ceo. The product is fine.
Edit: the ads and crypto are opt in. I’d like to see if anyone ranting here about them has actually used Brave and went so far as to opt in to things they don’t want
The affiliate link hijacking was not opt-in. How could anything remotely like this be accepted in a privacy focused browser?
When Firefox had the mr robot extension incident everybody was (righfuly so) mad, but that was way less damaging than altering users’ intent.
Can someone explain how Brave siphoning some money from Amazon specifically impacts privacy? Does the affiliate get a list of accounts that bought something? Names? Addresses? Or does some money just show up in their account?
What information does Amazon get? That the person clicking is using Brave? They already know that from the user agent.
I, as the user, decide what affiliate link I want to use, not my browser!
Sure but that sounds like liberty and autonomy, not privacy.
I asked specifically how it infringes on privacy. Seems like the wrong word to use.
I asked specifically how it infringes on privacy.
You really think they don’t track you?
Who?
Some OSS developers, independent review/news sites get affiliate money to stay afloat. Amazon requires them to state this clearly. Brave didn’t declare it and probably stole (replace) innocent referrals. This is level 100 spyware/malware tactic.
I’m not saying it was ethical or good.
I’m asking how it specifically impacts privacy.
Every response I’ve gotten is a non privacy response, which leads me to suspect it’s a stealing from others issue not a privacy issue.
To be honest the best chromium based browser I’ve used (when I’m forced to use a chromium based browser) is the Samsung internet one. It has a dark mode that actually works and protects my vampire eyes lol.
Never used brave because I heard all of the scammy ad network and crypto stuff years ago, immediately put me off it. Now learning that the creator probably hates me, it’s just another reason not to touch it.
Unfortunately that Samsung flavour of chrome is hopekessly outdated. Always a few releases behind and shouldn’t be used for security reasons.
I got a nice open source recommendation I think you’ll like: https://github.com/uazo/cromite
It has the same dark mode plus much more. I’ll leave you to reading through it yourself though.
I’ve tried it, looks cool, and using the flag “enable with selective inversion of non image elements” really helps eliminate all the issues with dark mode
In my experience Samsung internet it’s by far the best browser for android tablets
Fine, but, like, don’t recommend Vivaldi. Also, if you disable the Brave ads, you’re not really supporting them, while still getting the benefits.
— Sent from Librewolf
why not vivaldi? i know it’s not open-source, but is there any other reason?
Vivaldi is chromium
oh right, of course! for some reason i was only thinking of which chromium-based alternatives we could recommend.
For something as important as your web browser, that’s a pretty good reason to me.
reasonable!
Brave is terrible. But while not entirely relevant, so is DuckDuckGo. These mfs have enough money to appear in superbowl commercials lol. How can anyone trust their privacy claims when their shit is in the US and I don’t believe they’ve been audited. I suppose it’s good to find alternative results, but for privacy? Come on
did not know about the founder’s past, cheers for this. whenever i’m forced to open a chromium browser for something from now on, i’ll be using vivaldi.
Is Vivaldi good? I’ve heard it’s like the old Opera, which I used to love (I used Opera from 2003 until around when they switched to Chromium, 2012ish)
I used to use it and I liked it quite a bit, I even replaced my gmail accounts with vivaldi.net accounts, though I may migrate to proton sometime. I use Firefox exclusively but if I needed to use a chromium-based browser, that’s the one I’d use. I’m not a power user by any stretch so my opinion probably has less weight than those of others on here, but that’s my two cents anyway.
i like vivaldi a lot :) mostly because of its UI and extremely easy in-depth customization. in my opinion it is the greatest-looking web browser (if you don’t factor in all the css fiddling you can do in a text editor with firefox, of course. but even then i don’t recall seeing any custom firefox user style that looked better than vivaldi to me).
the reason why i switched away from vivaldi and back to firefox after ~2 years of straight usage was that vivaldi had a weird performance bug for me where if i had too many tabs open for too many days in a row (laptop, no shutdown), it would randomly start freezing and i’d have to restart it. but when it was running on a fresh start, it was amazing. also the more ethical choice of using a non-chromium browser was part of the reason
it would randomly start freezing and i’d have to restart it. but when it was running on a fresh start, it was amazing
Weird, that’s the exact problem I had on my old desktop and have on my laptop with Firefox. Both were 8gigs of memory and I figured out that the freezing coincided with memory being depleted. My new desktop has, funnily enough, no problems with its 32gigs of memory. I need to purchase a new ram block for my laptop…
