• Link.wav [he/him]
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    1322 years ago

    I don’t trust homophobes or cryptobros, especially not those with a history of selling users out like Brendan Eich

    • @ours@lemmy.film
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      282 years ago

      Especially when there is Firefox and Firefox-based, privacy-focused alternative with great add-blocking and privacy extensions.

  • TWeaK
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    1042 years ago

    Very strongly worded, but yes.

    Brave have had a history of controversy since their inception. Every time something happens, the CEO went on a marketing campaign across social media and drummed up enough new users to drown it out. However the attitude of the business is clear: it would take a very small sack of money for Brave to sell out its users.

    If you’re going to use a Chromium web browser, there are non-commercial open source projects that don’t have a history of shady shit. However Firefox forks are better.

    • @catacomb@beehaw.org
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      32 years ago

      Absoutely. I mostly use Firefox because I’m so familiar with it by now but the privacy is generally much better and it doesn’t have a massive monopoly on the web. I’m just a lot more comfortable with it.

      When I have to, I use ungoogled-chromium on desktop and Bromite on mobile. I recommend those to anyone familiar with Chrome.

      • TWeaK
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        42 years ago

        Unfortunately Bromite has been abandoned, however someone has made a fork called Cromite.

  • falsem
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    792 years ago

    People that use Brave always remind of the people pushing crypto.

    • Can-Utility
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      72 years ago

      Seems like the Venn diagram of those two groups approaches a circle, if the OP is any indication.

    • @flashgnash@lemm.ee
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      42 years ago

      I use firefox as my main but have brave as my chromium/PWA browser because I don’t really fancy using edge or chrome

      What other browsers out there support PWAs that are less spyware-ey than the big names

      • setVeryLoud(true);
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        52 years ago

        Chromium is pretty safe to use. There are also builds of “de-googled Chromium” available.

      • comicallycluttered
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        2 years ago

        Vivaldi, though it’s source available rather than fully open source. It’s mostly the frontend JavaScript (I think?) code which is proprietary.

        Apparently, if you know enough to understand it, you can technically work out what all the proprietary code is and does because it’s all fairly simple stuff and separate from the Chromium base (which they make available on their site), although distributing it would be against their ToS (I guess it’s technically reverse engineering, which is also against their ToS).

        It’s been a very long time and I can’t actually confirm that for the current release, but it was at least true a few years ago when someone who knew far more about programming than me mentioned it on their forums. I think some people took a look at it and found some basic theming stuff, but nothing nefarious.

        They have a fairly solid privacy policy last I checked. They also have no intention of sticking with Google’s v3 plans.

        The only thing I don’t like is they run a daily user count check by pinging their servers. They’ve made it so that there are no IDs, anonymized or otherwise, but it’s still a bit of a black mark on an otherwise decent piece of software.

  • @ericflo@lemmy.ml
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    392 years ago

    I love Brave, use it daily, and this article didn’t convince me at all. Vaguely motioning at the founder’s ancient political donations or the optional crypto features, doesn’t make a strong case.

      • @lloram239@feddit.de
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        62 years ago

        You have the choice between the engine made by Google and the engine paid for by Google.

        Brave at least has its own search engine, something Mozilla doesn’t even dare, as that’s where they get all their Google money from.

    • @doylio@lemmy.ca
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      82 years ago

      Yeah this article is not very convincing

      Brave is great! No ads, Tor built in, and can install Chrome extensions. I don’t use their crypto wallet and it’s never bothered me

          • @Hyperi0n@lemmy.film
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            72 years ago

            You’ve used onion links. Brave implemented unsecured onion protocol in thier Chromium browser.

            Anything using Firefox as a base can run onion links with a simple add on because Tor is just Firefox. Vivaldi comes with onion support right out of the box, doesn’t support hate and is malware free.

  • @ulkesh@beehaw.org
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    302 years ago

    Now it makes sense why some of the Fox News-parroting, right wing people I know use Brave. I had no idea about what the author mentioned about the browser, I just know it is based on Chromium which I will not use. Thus, I am on Firefox. And for many reasons, including those the author laid out, I’m happy I chose wisely.

    • @acastcandream@beehaw.org
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      2 years ago

      I think it’s pretty unfair to put all of the blame on everyone who uses a chromium browser, considering that most people with a computer have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

      Google Chrome is the single most popular web browser. Everyone’s work uses it, everyone’s school uses it, why would they possibly question it? And then they discover a new browser someone recommended - why would they look into “chromium” and what it all means? It’s just not reasonable to expect of nearly the entire population at this stage.

      Take your anger out on the company and educate people. This is a problem of education, not selfishness (on the part of the user).

  • Retronautickz
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    212 years ago

    I never used brave. I wasn’t interested in it since I learned it was chromium and all the crypto stuff.

  • @sculd@beehaw.org
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    202 years ago

    I used to think Brave was good until I found out they are into crypto.

    Nope Nope and Nope! Not using that thing again. Firefox is my friend now.

  • @Boozilla@beehaw.org
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    102 years ago

    I have stopped using Brave. Fuck those guys.

    I just wish Firefox would update less frequently. It’s way too often.

  • @acastcandream@beehaw.org
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    92 years ago

    Here’s my current problem: I use Firefox mainly, but I need a chromium browser for work occasionally. I feel like brave is better than chrome proper right? But the CEO is also terrible. Is there something I can use that’s chromium based (occasional usage) that is at least “the least bad” option?

    • wrath-sedan
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      172 years ago

      If you need chromium, your best option is probably ungoogled-chromium which is basically just bare bones chrome with as much telemetry and tracking taken out as possible.

        • wrath-sedan
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          32 years ago

          Yeah it takes a few extra steps to get extensions/chrome store stuff like that. Probably not the best option if you’re just trying to slap it on a work computer in 5 mins.

            • wrath-sedan
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              32 years ago

              True that’s what I use the vast majority of the time, but the OP specifically needed something chromium based.

        • OverfedRaccoon 🦝
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          What, you don’t like to install the Web Store through a separate extension crx download, mess around in the settings, and enable dev mode? Wait til you hear what you have to do to get DRM working (Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, etc). Hint: It’s a separate zipped download of Widevine that you have to extract deep in the AppData folder, assuming you’re on Windows.

    • Jaysyn
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      2 years ago

      Use one of the “clean” versions of Chromium (not Chrome) from Woolyss.com

      If you want updates to be handled automatically, you can use ChrLauncher

      EDIT: I guess you can’t use the latter on OSX.

      • @LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
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        42 years ago

        The browser works well. I am very much into crytpocurrency. I think Bitcoin and Ethereum are the future of money.

        You don’t need to turn on ads in Brave. It blocks ads really well.

      • @LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
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        12 years ago

        Money is a social construct that only has value because people agree it has value. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the best forms of money humans have ever invented. Once we have privacy at the base layer, fiat money is dead.

        • @probably@beehaw.org
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          142 years ago

          Ha. Hu ha ha. Ha. Hahaha.

          Money has value because it is an efficient medium to facilitate trade. Specific forms of money have value because of what backs it and it acts as a medium for trade. And yeah I’m sure what society really values will at some point be a money that limits the ability to deal with economic crises. Or that slowly disappears, because privacy Bob didn’t believe in banks but his SSD failed, or because Crypto Karen forgot her password. Or a hacker loots an exchange.

          I mean, it’s not like those are fundamental problems that could bring an economy to it’s knees right? But hey, at least the money has privacy (it won’t) and we don’t have to worry about inflation (deflation on the other hand…).

          • @LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
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            12 years ago

            Cryptocurrency is the most efficient money we have. It doesn’t require any middle man bankers. Sure, hackers can hack and loot exchanges, but right now we have the government looting us with inflation.

            The problems you mentioned are being worked on. There are ways to backup and restore your wallet that will become easy.

            The global economy doesn’t need to only rely on Bitcoin, so the argument that we have to worry about deflation is just wrong.

          • @LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
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            12 years ago

            This is the wild west of innovation. Scammers like money, so of course they will be attracted to cyrptocurrency. They are also very attracted to fiat currency.

            All of the references on that page have to do with random NFT projects and shitcoins.

            You should try to separate the concept of “Crypto” from the concept of base layer blockchain protocols that actually have value.

    • TWeaK
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      62 years ago

      There is plenty wrong with Brave, the business.

      Brave, the browser, is very useful in a practical sense. It has some nice features out of the box, and if you disable the naughty out of the box features it’s pretty decent. However, you have to trust that each update from the developer is good, and past experience raises very serious questions with this particular business.

      Maybe you might be seeing some returns from the cryptocurrency. My undestanding is that users have lost far more than they’ve gained - and that’s before you actually look into the true value of what users are sacrificing in exchange for their tokens. Meanwhile, Brave are pulling a steady revenue making money from their users, milking them just so.

      • @LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
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        22 years ago

        I love firefox. It’s my main browser for everything. When I need a chrome based browser for testing things, Brave is my go to browser.

        • Yepp, I started just using vanilla chromium though instead, as that offers a barebones option to guarantee I don’t need to mess around to test something works.

  • tetra
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    82 years ago

    I use Brave as a secondary browser for PWAs on the desktop. I wish Firefox would support it again.

      • tetra
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        2 years ago

        There is a bugzilla entry that states the removal was due to too little user benefit for the development effort required. And since I don’t necessarily need this feature, I can understand they directed the resources to where they are needed more. Nevertheless, it would be nice to have.

        The way I use it is primarily for applications that produce audio output, so I get appropriately named per-app volume sliders in pulseaudio/pipewire and not just a bunch of audio streams titled “Firefox”.

        • coyotino [he/him]
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          12 years ago

          Thank you for the excellent answers to both of my questions! I understand your earlier comment perfectly now 👌

  • @settinmoon@lemmy.ml
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    72 years ago

    I use Brave as a secondary browser mostly for government websites because sometimes my firefox privacy settings breaks them and since many of them are poorly designed a technical issue over your account may result in hours on the phone to resolve.

      • @settinmoon@lemmy.ml
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        32 years ago

        Because it works, has okay configurations out of the box, and I just don’t really care enough about the points mentioned in this article to make the switch. I only use it for cases where I don’t expect privacy like government websites. As soon as you open an account there they got all your info anyway.

    • TWeaK
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      32 years ago

      Mull supports add-ons. Also has a companion to replace the system browser Android System Webview, called Mulch.