I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.

Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.

Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.

After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL’s. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.

Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I’d say the answer is a very clear no.

One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.

Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don’t mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.

  • Panda@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I haven’t tried it but there’s also Kagi’s Orion browser which looks interesting.

    • dragonrules@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      This browser is helpful on iOS because it can run Firefox or chrome extensions. Ublock origin works great. I don’t see any ads.

      • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        uBlock Origin actually doesn’t work at all on Orion, it’s just that the browsers built-in ad blocker is very good.

    • fatbeer@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Thanks I didn’t know about that one and I thought I went through all the alternatives. Currently I’m primarily watching YouTube vids through invidious in safari but will use brave when I watch my saved playlists.