- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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Just use Firefox.
Firefox + uBlock Origin + arkenfox user.js gives you privacy, security and anti-tracking. The only way to fly IMO.
And a Pi Hole for good measure.
A dns blocker cannot do anything more than ublock. It is nice for other apps though.
It works very well on browser and outside the browser. So if your software/hardware is phoning home, it will pick it up.
A DNS blocker is great for other devices on your network!
OpenWRT router with DNS over HTTPS for the whole network. Come for the easy adblock, stay for the updated router distribution and the best anti-buffer bloat features in any Router software.
Don’t forget DoH or DoT if you can
Or Adguard Home, that I think is superior than Pi-Hole. It runs as a single instance and you can easily upgrade it from the web UI.
White list firewall. Because this is the real reason everyone has a right to ad block. Ads are hidden links to other websites. It’s like walking through a gauntlet of pick pockets bribing the credit card company just to make it to the checkout at your local grocery store, or some asshole you invite into your home that goes to the bathroom, opens a window, and lets a dozen random people in your home if they pay a dollar for the access. The entire system is based on stalking people. It is criminal.
Librewolf
No android version = no buy
Mull for android
What does Arkenfox do? I’ll definitely add it if it’s beneficial.
It changes many default Firefox preferences in
about:configto be as private as possible. The main selling point is resist fingerprinting (RFP). I highly suggest reading the wiki. It can break some websites, but you can configure it to fit your needs.Sounds interesting. I’ll definetely check it out. Thanks!
Why not add Snowflake while we’re at it?
What about Privacy Badger? Is uBlock better?
Is this applicable for Firefox mobile?
According to the GitHub page the user.js is for desktop only but ublock should still work.
I bounced between the two for years, i guess i am going back to Firefox full time.
Same. I had no idea about brave and I started using it full time on all my devices like a month ago. Guess I’m going back to Firefox. Which was fine.
The only reason I haven’t switched to Firefox from Chrome fully is because for some reason Firefox for Android still doesn’t have tabs for large screen devices. Mozilla says it’s not a priority. 🤷
So use edge
Its chrome-based… but at least its not brave, and the adblocker(which is off by default…) is decent enough
If you think the things brave has done are bad, go read through the list of things microsoft has done. You really don’t want them to ever have a browser again, and certainly don’t want to personally use it.
I used Brave for a few years but recently switched to LibreFox. I really enjoyed Brave as a browser but couldn’t handle all the sketchy shit that seems to keep coming up
I really enjoy the chromium grouping of tabs. So much so that’s it’s almost a deciding factor for which browser I choose. I hope Firefox adds that feature soon, so the switch back feels easier
Try the Simple Tab Groups addon for Firefox. I’ve been using it for years and prefer it to any other tab grouping now.
I’ve switched on Desktop a year ago. Also with Android. But Firefox on Android has an odd bug that I cannot get rid of. Pages are really slow to load on initial render. I’ve noticed it gets stuck on the SSL cert verification step, sometimes around 5 to 10 seconds before it starts painting the page.
I’ve tried disabling all add-ons, logging out of Firefox sync, disabling the built in HTTPS everywhere, and literally any custom settings I’ve added. But I can’t get past this issue and seemingly no one else has it.
Chrome doesn’t present this issue.
I’ve never encountered this, which makes me realise I’ve been running Firefox beta for ages (with zero issues). Perhaps try that just in case it helps?
Same issue here! I thought I was alone. It annoys me to no end and weirder still, issue doesn’t present itself with Firefox for Windows running behind the same IP.
Firefox Focus also doesn’t seem to present the issue. Just the primary Firefox browser for Android. And honestly, often enough that it’s nearly unusable.
If you ever figure it out, please let me know.
I don’t have that issue on Mull, so maybe try that?
You’re not alone, I’ve been using Firefox on Android for two years now, and I’ve had this problem from the beginning. The first time I launch Firefox and load a page it stops a quarter of the progression bar for ten seconds, and then loads fine. Once pas that everything works perfectly. It’s very annoying and I don’t know why this happens.
Just moved from Brave to Firefox when that “AI training” story came out. I think it’s faster than brave now
On mac? Love safari? But also want good adblock? Use Orion! It’s safari, but with support for chrome and Firefox extensions! Fuck yeah!
I always loved safari, and always got weird looks for it as a web developer (but after a month or two they love me for it because I always find non-chrome bugs because those peasants only use chrome), but that browser is so damn good guys… on mac, that is. Not sure if it even exists yet for linux/win.
Orion
Thanks for the tip! Do you know any similar solution like this for iOS? I’m struggling to find a fully featured browser with decent ad-blocking capacity.
I am using Brave on iOS mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
Unrelated, but why is it that so many kbin users seem to keep a dedicated reducing account? Relatively frequently, an account that reduces a post or comment has no recent posts or comments but heavy initial usage a ~month ago as jpgr above. It’s weird.
I downvoted because it was a lazy comment not providing further elaboration. If anything, the fact that such a comment is highly upvoted shows that this community is not mature yet.
That I’m not engaging in online discussion doesn’t automatically mean this is a bot or “dedicated reducing” account. Please restrain yourself from judging strangers on the internet.
I use chrome on my mobile device… Is that bad?
In a way yes. You’re giving Google (via an increased browser market share) the power to decide the direction of the web. Their interests as a corporate organization are not aligned with yours, so they will make decisions to your detriment if they have to.
Might as well take shits with the door unlocked; same level of exposing yourself.
Doesn’t Firefox do telemetry and other shady shit out of the box? Ofc you can turn it off but I don’t get the fanaticism over this browser.
Every now and then, you’ll see some journalist uncovering the great revelation that Mozilla is doing unthinkable things, but I have never these stories actually being relevant, if you do more research on the topic.
Some examples:
- Mozilla use Google Analytics! → Yes, but they have a special contract with Google to protect user data: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14
- Mozilla uses Google Safebrowsing! → Yes, but they have technical measures in place to limit user identification (on top of Google stating that they do not use Google Safebrowsing data for tracking): https://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/how-safe-browsing-works-in-firefox/
- Mozilla has privacy-invading ads on the new-tab-page! → Again, they have technical measures in place to avoid privacy issues: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sponsor-privacy#w_what-data-is-shared
And telemetry by itself is not evil either. It depends entirely on what data is actually being sent. You can look at what Mozilla sends by typing “about:telemetry” into the URL bar. In my opinion, that is perfectly fine.
Ultimately, though, they enjoy so much trust, because they have no profit motive. The Mozilla Foundation is legally a non-profit and the Mozilla Corporation is a 100% subsidiary of the Foundation, so cannot pay out profits to anyone either.
Any ‘evil’ shit they do to make money, they do it to pay wages and to invest further into Firefox & their other projects.
You can criticize that the CEO takes a salary she can’t possibly spend (yet is below industry-standard, to my knowledge). And you can argue whether they should be taking so much money from Google rather than other sources.
But all in all, that still leaves them far above companies who need to exploit users as much as justifiable, to make the maximum amount of profit.
The fact that they have (at least for now) foregone implementing Manifest v3 should be reason enough to use Firefox. Turn their telemetry off and use ublock origin, call it a day well spent.
If you’re inclined to, use Librewolf with ublock, NoScript, decentraleyes, and chameleon.
Copy the bypasspaywalls sites into ublock, add a redirect extension to avoid all the idiot megacorps, and use duckduckgo lite and learn to use shebangs for very fast web searching.
Yeah it’s not perfect out of the box but after turning off telemetry and adding some add-ons like ublock origin and such it’s one of the best short of going full on tor/mullvad. And still less fanaticism than brave lol
With brave I never see any pc or YouTube ads. With Firefox even with ublock origin I can’t get rid of those damn ads. That’s what keeps me on brave
Firefox and mozilla aren’t your friend.
They like to play the “user and privacy friendly” company. Meanwhile they are hemoraging users, and laying off staff needed to actually build a great browser.
Mozilla ceo pay increase + layoffs in 2020:
In 2018 she received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008. On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated “I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That’s too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to.”
In 2020, after returning to the position of CEO, her salary had risen to over $3 million. In the same year the Mozilla Corporation laid off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic.
They don’t need to be my friend to be better than the chromium browsers though, so I don’t know what this has to do with anything
The ceo is a bigoted asshole, Brave is chromium, it was initially funded by Peter Thiel and they’re literally just trying to make their own adsense network.
The self-proclaimed privacy focused browser is tracking your browsing and want to serve you personalized ads, and I think they want to use that tracking data for AI training as well, meaning other people can potentially access it.
And lets not forget about their crypto currency that you can earn by turning on special ads. Which they seemingly unironically called it “Basic Attent Tokens”…
TL;DR: The company is basically a sham company trying to usher in a dystopia. Where you’ll get paid for staring at ads, while having all your data stolen and sold back to you.
I see no reason to use any other browser than Firefox and maybe Librewolf.
Firefox on desktop is awesome. Firefox on mobile is painful.
Android firefox is ok now. Moreover now it supports add ons too and there are some good add ons there.
What’s wrong with Firefox on iOS? I realise it’s WebKit with a Firefox skin, but it seems to work well enough.
User interface is poor. Cannot customise the gui at all so I feel like it’s a downgrade over Samsung browser that also supports ad blocks.
It works pretty well for me, but I use Firefox nightly.
So Mull browser, right?
Yeah top 4 browser are Firefox, librewolf, tor, and mullvad for sure.
mull and mullvad are at least two different things
Autocorrect so strong it turns your browser into a VPN
Removed by mod
They claim to be decent, but it’s closed source so who knows…
I am using Brave on iOS mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
The fact that their founder wants to ban gay marriage is enough reason for me to avoid it like the plague.
He fucking what?
He made a thousand dollar donation in support of proposition 8, a constitutional amendment in California that strips gay people of the right to marry. He then proceeded to argue that such a donation does not make him a bigot or an enemy of LGBTQ+ people, because he’s a delusional piece of filth.
This effectively prevented gay people from marrying in California from 2008 to 2013 until the fascists that supported it were finally done trying to argue how this doesn’t violate the US constitution.
So yeah, may he, his browser, and any pathethic excuse that pretends to be human being who supported this abomination rot in the deepest depths forever.
From his Blog post where he defends stripping same-sex couples of their equal right to marry.
“I refrain from putting my personal beliefs in others’ way. I hope for the same in return.”
I have absolutely no idea how Brave got the reputation it has. It’s business model is disgusting and extortionate, it’s like paying for warez. Been clear as day since day one.
it’s got crypto.
It’s got electrolytes!
It’s what plants crave!
It has what plants crave!
I am using Brave mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
Yeah, fuck this guy.
First, I have been online for almost 30 years. I’ve led an open source project for 14 years. I speak regularly at conferences around the world, and socialize with members of the Mozilla, JavaScript, and other web developer communities. I challenge anyone to cite an incident where I displayed hatred, or ever treated someone less than respectfully because of group affinity or individual identity.
So I hid my hatred from everyone for 30 years successfully. Now that everyone finds out that I donated to a cause to strip them of rights everyone wants to say I’m hateful? Give me one example where I displayed hatred…how about the time you donated to strip people of their rights? That might be a big one for me.
Is there proof he donated? Was it specifically a donation against gay marriage? Has he donated to other causes as well?
Anytime I see a lynch mob forming, I always get a bit skeptical of the details. Context matters as well.
This guy could be a grade A sack of shit, but I haven’t seen many links to proof, just people regurgitating the same stuff over and over.
Edit: I probably should have researched on my own before posting but here is what I’ve read so far: he donated back in 2008 (haven’t found a link of a source that proves it, but I’ve also not found anything refuting the claim, not even his blog posts). He did post this back in 2014 when the hubbub started: https://web.archive.org/web/20200708202554/https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/
Maybe the bar is lower now after the trump tenure, but that post seems to show some genuine self awareness and growth. I know my views about the world have grown, changed, matured, and become much more nuanced since 2008. Is it possible he has as well?
Has he done or said anything shitty since that single donation?
Edit 2: I just saw some of his tweets on masks and saying Dr fauci lies https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1337496169690230784. Bleh.
I know I’m jumping to conclusions but I’m starting to see some indicators of what kind of politics he’s continued to have.
I had this whole spiel queued up on how we need to let people be able to redeem themselves. He’s not the poster boy for that cause so I’ll hold off.
He admits to making the donation, then complains about how everyone is so mean for trying to thought police him like the sniveling coward he is.
At one point they were scummy enough to automatically add their referral codes to any Amazon link you see. Lots of people today still mindlessly recommend Brave, and that’s what’s wrong in general with the “but the UX is so nice” mentality.
Lots of people today still mindlessly recommend Brave
It starts to feel astroturfed at a certain point. The last week or so has been crazy.
At one point they were scummy enough to automatically add their referral codes to any Amazon link you see.
To be clear, that means Brave is ① invading their users’ privacy, and ② stealing money from web publishers.
The point of referral codes is to reward web publishers for referring users to a product; leading to the user buying a product that they otherwise wouldn’t.
Your browser isn’t introducing you to a product. For it to insert referral codes for the browser vendor’s benefit is stealing money.
Its almost like UX is one of the most important things for a user of any given program. 🥴
What’s so bad about that?
Why the fuck should your browser get a share from your amazon shopping? It’s doubly galling since they pretend to care about user privacy.
It’s without your consent.
If you really dig into the whole ordeal it was a software error, not some malicious idea to steal links from creators.
How exactly does one accidentally insert affiliate data on links? At some point someone wrote that code, which is malicious in itself, even if the activation was accidental.
It’s also strange that it happened twice, first with amazon links, then they started injecting affiliate data for crypto platforms instead.
The fact that its main 2 gimmicks are a shitty ad blocker and integrated cryptocurrency should be enough of a red flag, honestly. Just use Firefox, people!
I downloaded it just yesterday, and I uninstalled it after reading this article. Back to Firefox for me!
Firefox doesn’t block ads on my iPad. Only reason I still use brave
You can install add-ons, at least on the android version. One of them is Ublock!
Firefox is significantly slower though…
Not really that significant when you’re using it, I promise. I’m usually all for speed, but FF has better functionality than the competition.
Speed is significant though. “Functionality” (whatever you mean by that) is less important.
Built-in features are much better, respects privacy (compared to Google), add-ons have more possibilities, etc.
Removed by mod
Firefox is king 👑
deleted by creator
That or DuckDuckGo’s new browser.
Today I learned that people take it VERY PERSONALLY when you criticize their chosen browser. 😂
So the CEO is a raging alt-righter. Glad I never used his product then.
So, not trying to sympathize with Eich here, where do you get “alt-right” from?
Being against equal rights for gay/bi people is considered pretty right wing these days mate
And this is what’s wrong with politics now
I’m all for gay rights and advocate for same sex marriage. But if he doesn’t then he’s now boxed in with the skinhead kill-all-the-immigrants crowd? Where’s the nuance?
That said, I don’t really trust Brave the product. It’s pushing its privacy agenda a little too hard for me to trust it.
Just use Firefox if you want privacy
Thanks. Whenever I raised the issue of homophobia or his general support of right-wing causes that threaten people’s privacy (see the aftermath of Roe v. Wade for example), I got downvoted, be it on the PrivacyGuides sub where they adore the browser, or right here just weeks ago.
Long time Brave user here. This made me uninstall Brave and move to Firefox. Thank you !
I just use Firefox and DuckDuckGo
You might want to explore librewolf. It’s built on Firefox but with more privacy features.
Same here 100%
DDG with their Microsoft agreements and subpar search results isn’t the answer for me.
Qwant and Startpage fit it better
I’ve been using DuckDuckGo on Android and have enjoyed it for both search and browser. Can you TLDR the Microsoft agreements, I’m out of the loop.
Things wrong with Brave: #1- It isn’t Firefox/a Firefox derivative
I can’t think of a reason why anyone would use a browser other than Firefox and it’s forks.
