Brave is essentially just Chrome with an adblocker, a bunch of bloatware, and a bunch of controversies.
Brave took BAT donations in YouTuber’s names without their consent, with them keeping the money if the YouTubers didn’t claim it. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice/
Brave’s search engine crawler hides itself from websites by pretending to be Googlebot, and Meta (Facebook) buys API access from them to train their AI. https://stackdiary.com/brave-selling-copyrighted-data-for-ai-training/
The business model of Brave rewards as a whole is to block all other ad networks to replace them with their own, which is unfair as only YouTubers and websites that have joined can make money from most Brave users.
If Brave actually cared, they would create an acceptable ads style feature which was free for everyone and allowed simple contextual banners while blocking ads which track you, take up most of the page, or have NSFW content.
Their approach is monopolistic as they have full control and can strangle YouTubers and websites by dropping pay at any time.
And Brenden Eich has said on Twitter that he plans to release “Brave Origin”, which is a paid version of Brave without the bloatware. That name is ironic as he is admitting that his browser is commercialised and bloated, which is similar to when gorhill gave uBlock way to Chris Aljoudi who commercialised it, which led him to create uBlock Origin.
If you use Brave, ditch it and look at using Librewolf or Helium instead, which both include no ads nor tracking and don’t have Brave News, Rewards, Wallet, Talk etc bloatware.
I always use and recommend hardened Firefox + Ublock. As a search engine, I use Qwant, which is based in the EU and uses its own search engine whenever possible rather than Google, Bing, etc. And there is another reason not to recommend using Brave. Among its investors is Peter Thiel, the most controversial figure in the investment world. Search for Peter Thiel’s controversial statements in your favourite search engine and you will see for yourself.
Consider a SearXNG instance. It can use Quant as a source, but balance across other engines to get the best results based on overlap (you choose the engines).
searxng is awesome.
Only thing is that instances go down from time and it gets frustrating. I am not geeky enough to host an instance myself. So I just keep hoping one instance to another which is also not very convenient. How do I make most of searx?
Yea, running your own is definately the way to go. If you have Docker installed, you can run it on your local machine?
docker pull docker.io/searxng/searxng:latest docker run -ti --rm --name searxng -p 8888:8080 -v "./searxng/config/:/etc/searxng/" -v "./searxng/data/:/var/cache/searxng/" docker.io/searxng/searxng:latestThat would run at http://localhost:8080/ and store all data and config persistent, and download the latest version (if needed) every time.
And if you’re concerned about the way Mozilla is headed, there are multiple open source versions like waterfox that should work with all extensions.
Honestly what do people have against Firefox that can’t be fixed with plugins? It’s the only decent browser that isn’t chrome based, and I think that deserves support. And with plugins and sync it’s a great experience.
My main browsers are FF or Zen (a fork of FF), but I think a lot of sites aren’t able to work with just a plug-in due to how deeply they are coded for Chromium. Some of them being Amazon sites like Luna, Amazon Music, and Audible (pretty sure their other media sites/services also refuse to work if any hint of non-Chromium browsers are detected. I have run into non-Amazon sites with media or similar tell me to “update your browser” or “use a supported browser” (which is at least more honest than telling me that my FF is “out of date”).
While there are likely elements in some sites that actually can work with FF (I have had really random moments where I got part of a song to play on Amazon Music but then gives the “browser is out of date” message). The Chromium focused coding is IE all over again. Just a self-fulfilling cycle of making it look like FF is not as capable. And I hate that in the instances where changing the User Agent to be Chrome works, that it just keeps stats looking like Chrome and forks are what people are using (and might lead to seeming like FF is used less than it actually is).
I haven’t encountered anything like that, but maybe that’s because I wouldn’t touch anything Amazon with a 2 metre stick
Not a bad stance. But they are a major provider of media that regular users might use. They also tend to be the people that would rather not bother with FF if they see it as “not as capable” and never leave Chrome. Which further feeds the goals of Google to be the default just like MS did with IE (but much more cleaver by providing the base for endless forks).
MS fucked up by caring that IE was the “only” option and didn’t push creating such a good base to have forks to keep their versions of “standards.” Google did an amazing job at pouring money into getting Chrome past the early years of lack of mature features (and while they still had good will of helping to get people away from IE).
For me it’s a combination of Mozilla making strange business decisions (removing of the “we never sell your data” policy) and the fact that a lot of websites take forever to load on Firefox.
I’ve tried forks, LibreWolf pisses me off. Too many settings to change just to still have a broken browsing experience in the sake of privacy. If I need that level of privacy, I’ll use I2P/Tor.
I hate the fact that chromium has won, but it’s getting difficult to avoid the fact that web developers don’t give a rats ass if the website doesn’t work well on Firefox.
Brave was my primary for a while, but I switched to Vivaldi after reading about some of the BAT bait and switch.
With sideberry and second sidebar, it’s literally the best browsing experience that exists currently and it’s not even close
Provided I can still use about:config to clear out all the Mozilla crap then I’m happy with Firefox. The only add-on I use is ublock-origin on my phone and also NoScript on desktop.
An extra reason: Eich is a homophobic asshole and an anti-masker
…and? Are you going to stop using the transistor?
Man’s dead.
Don’t matter what he thought when he’s rotting in the ground.
Does when you’re still alive
I hope you never use JavaScript then. Eich created that too.
Oh I see, outrage of convenience.
No.
It’s very simple: if someone is alive and holds detestable views, then giving them money gives them a chance to then use that money to lobby for their views. And in many many many many many cases, they do exactly that.
If someone is dead and holds detestable views, they’re unable to do anything about it (cause they’re dead)
I’m too ready to ladybird browser to be ready in a few years.
A few years? I thought alpha would be out this year
An alpha is hardly a replacement for a full browser though.
Lol, they said that last year
I posted this a year or two ago and got hit by a huge wave of furious Brave users lol. Occasionally to this day someone will stumble on it and post some tirade
it’s a shame because there’s legitimately good technology for blocking advertising in Brave, there’s just so much else that is questionable/indefensible
I won’t use a chromium based browser at all, especially Brave.
I don’t like Brave or the amount of bloat. Sadly what is missing from basically all Chromium forks is even basic browser anti-fingerprinting. The only other real example I can think of is Cromite, which is what i recommend people use instead of Brave.
I’m quite happy with the Mullvad browser.
Desktop = Librewolf, Mullvad and hardened firefox browsers. Strictly separating uses. Mobile (Android) = Cromite, Brave, Firefox and Tor. Again, separating uses.
I dislike any browser which blocks content (such as ads) by default. It may sound silly, but Imo, that’s not what a browser should be doing. It’s job is to act as an HTTP client, render HTML and do caching, storage and all the management which goes with it and offer any tools to tinker with it.
The meaning of the content displayed should be of no concern to the browser as it is subjective.
I will install an addon to deal with unwanted content as I see fit. Firefox is getting kinda bloated with all the things which come with it (pocket, accounts, default bookmarks…), but I can live with that.deleted by creator
What if we start from the premise of a browser being judged by its most popular use case?
I’m happy to change some default settings to customize for my use case, knowing that most users that don’t know/care about such things are getting ads blocked by default (let’s be honest, I like crawling through settings each time I install new software regardless :P )
To those asking “which browser other than Firefox”
It’s fantastic. It’s Chrome, stripped of junk, with full (not lite) Ublock Origin natively supported and shipped. What more could you want?
And it can coexist alongside Firefox.
Cromite is also great, but its antifingerprinting is so hardcore it breaks some sites. That’s perfect for shopping/private browsing, but a bit much for daily driving unless tracking resistance is your #1 priority.
On iOS and OSX, Orion (from Kagi) is sublime. It’s Safari based (which you want for Apple stuff), but heavily modified with a native blocker, and supports extensions if you really need them. There aren’t many Safari “forks” like it.
I say this because I’ve been through a gauntlet of trying a bunch. Bromite, ungoogled chromium, waterfox, pale moon, Thorium, Vivaldi, all sorts of iOS apps and Firefox/Chromium forks. And these feel like endgame to me. Helium is just about perfect (as long as its development isn’t dropped), and Orion is close aside from some UI quirks.
Thank you for the recommendation, I will try out helium
No mobile apps
Orion is mobile. So is Cromite.
DDG is pretty good too. I like its approach, with a UI that encourages whitelisting sites.
But they don’t sync with helium afaik
Orion syncs cross platform, DuckDuckGo does as well. And I believe you can sync with extensions.
Sadly no linux client for duck duck go otherwise I’d use that. Will look into orion tho
No Linux client for that either, though it seems to be planned.
If you used Ungoogled Chromium why did you switch and recommend Helium? Can’t you achieve Helium settings and tweaks on Ungoogled Chromium? Why add an additional party to potentially delay security updates?
Ungoogled Chromium does not support full uBlock Origin. Last I checked, it wont auto-update itself on Windows without a 3rd party tool, and I remember it having some other “quirks” from the stuff it strips out. The delay for security updates seems pretty minimal, too.
And personally, I like the bangs feature, now that I’m using Orion on iOS anyway.
But its based on ungoogled-chromium, so if you prefer to use upstream, that makes a lot of sense. Helium’s main pitch seems to be an “easier to install” ungoogled chromium anyway.
Where are we on zen browser?
Eh. Firefox is fine.
The only FF fork I’ve ever used for some time is Cachy Browser, as it shipped with my distro and was ostensibly amore optimized. But even they depreciated it in lieu of vanilla Firefox.
And Firefox gets faster security patches anyway.
I’m more interested in Chrome forks because it’s Google spyware. And, as much as I don’t like it, I find Chromium-based browser to be faster. That doesn’t matter so much on desktop, but the difference is pretty dramatic on Android.
I’m waiting for Servo to able to play YouTube videos then I’ll stop using Firefox (Floorp)
Use Invidious?
I can use invidious but what I mean is that if Servo can play videos on Youtube then it can render like 90% of the entire internet without any weird format issues
Has it been working lately?
I use Firefox/LibreWolf as my primary browser, but for things that don’t work with Gecko or for PWAs, I use Brave.
Is WebKit still a thing outside MacOS/iOS? I know it’s roots are tied to KDE but I haven’t seen much in ages
Am I the only person who uses mobile tab grouping and sees it as a must-have? Its ridiculous that Firefox is over 5 years behind on this incredible QoL feature. To me it’s almost as bad as if a browser didn’t support bookmarks. It’s just ridiculous at this point.
