I don’t have a strong opinion on brave, but here’s some reasons I can think of:
cryptocoin shit
based on chromium (so using this instead of firefox, for example, increases google’s hegemony – and this is true: even though chromium is open source, google completely controls its direction)
CEO is a homophobe
scammy business practices like inserting affiliate codes in urls
And this is just the stuff that I know from the top of my head. I don’t particularly care about this topic, so I’m sure there’s more. Although, having written all this out, I can sense that my opinion of Brave has worsened significantly.
Yeah I guess. Doesn’t really change any of the arguments against it though. I mean, it’s good that it’s open source of course, but the ceo is still a homophobe, for example. And it still chromium based, and so on.
The only thing you’re getting out of them that’s above any other de-googled option is their anti-fingerprinting which is a little better than the others.
The other reason you’d run them is because they have a paid development staff blocking Youtube ads and they’re not doing it at the plugin level, so it’ll likely outlast the plugin models in Youtube’s race to piss people off.
In the end, if you’re in it for the paid blocking, doesn’t hurt to pay them something if you’re turning off all the stuff they’re using to make money on you.
If you’re in it for any other reason, there are literally dozens of forks you could use that give you the same experience that aren’t trying to sell you as their product.
It’s sold as a privacy-focused browser but it doesn’t actually have a good track record or features for it. The company has made several questionable choices.
Firefox or fork of choice plus a couple of extensions
Zen is just preselected no telemetry Firefox, also bleeding edge with Firefox updates
Brave is fine ish but they have issues, and a lot of them, which they usually fix within 24 hours but they’ve had a track record of like 8-10 issues per year, so just under once a month.
It’s so hard to find good things as it is. Adding in politics of devs adds yet another layer to it!
I recently started using FUTO keyboard and then learned someone they associate with is a bad dude.
It’s like, come on guys. I’m trying to degoogle, avoid enshittification, and be privacy and security aware… and then there’s this curveball that I have to factor in too.
I read the article.
But also I’m out of the loop on why ppl hate Brave. Can someone clue me in?
Is there a better cross-platform browser? I like to use the same one across devices.
I don’t have a strong opinion on brave, but here’s some reasons I can think of:
And this is just the stuff that I know from the top of my head. I don’t particularly care about this topic, so I’m sure there’s more. Although, having written all this out, I can sense that my opinion of Brave has worsened significantly.
Isn’t it open source ? Can someone build a fork with all of this shit removed ?
Yeah I guess. Doesn’t really change any of the arguments against it though. I mean, it’s good that it’s open source of course, but the ceo is still a homophobe, for example. And it still chromium based, and so on.
The CEO is a POS and has ties to other rich unsavory people
In the past they have done money grabs. It’s been quite a while now.
They still run their own ad network and search engine, They’re definitely down to sell you out if you let them.
If you never sign up for the crypto, or use the VPN, and remove the buttons, it won’t hurt you.
If you run a plugin you can remove their newtab / default page
If you change the settings you can move off their search.
it is open source https://github.com/brave/brave-core
The only thing you’re getting out of them that’s above any other de-googled option is their anti-fingerprinting which is a little better than the others.
The other reason you’d run them is because they have a paid development staff blocking Youtube ads and they’re not doing it at the plugin level, so it’ll likely outlast the plugin models in Youtube’s race to piss people off.
In the end, if you’re in it for the paid blocking, doesn’t hurt to pay them something if you’re turning off all the stuff they’re using to make money on you.
If you’re in it for any other reason, there are literally dozens of forks you could use that give you the same experience that aren’t trying to sell you as their product.
It’s based on Chromium, which is open source. It IS the fork.
It’s sold as a privacy-focused browser but it doesn’t actually have a good track record or features for it. The company has made several questionable choices.
Firefox or fork of choice plus a couple of extensions
Zen is just preselected no telemetry Firefox, also bleeding edge with Firefox updates
Brave is fine ish but they have issues, and a lot of them, which they usually fix within 24 hours but they’ve had a track record of like 8-10 issues per year, so just under once a month.
Don’t downvote me to hell cause it’s a reddit link, sorry, this is the most concise list I know of: https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/s/AErPH6iMl0
Brave is the only browser I’m aware of whose “issues” rise to the level of “we’re going to hijack your URL bar and insert our own affiliate links”
I haven’t heard of Zen and just checked out the wiki on it.
There are so many browsers! It’s hard to decide. I’ve tried quite a few over the years. Been running Brave as primary for 3-4 years.
I appreciate the Reddit link. Yikes. I’ve noticed the enshittification of Brave but didn’t know all the bad stuff they’ve done.
I do like that Brave works well on all my devices and sync is reliable. I don’t like running different browsers on diff platforms.
Time to do some testing and research…
Firefox, or its fork Librewolf if you really value privacy.
I’m using waterfox as my dedicated porn browser and have found few faults. Maybe I’ll go that direction for my main browser.
I tried LibreWolf and had issues that I can’t remember now.
They hate the politics of one of the developers.
It’s so hard to find good things as it is. Adding in politics of devs adds yet another layer to it!
I recently started using FUTO keyboard and then learned someone they associate with is a bad dude.
It’s like, come on guys. I’m trying to degoogle, avoid enshittification, and be privacy and security aware… and then there’s this curveball that I have to factor in too.