BuT bRaVE isN’t ThaT bAd 🤡
I’ve actually been attacked on several occasions by brave fan boys when I casually mentioned that I switched to Firefox and loved it. Idk what their deal is but I find it hilarious that all this stuff is coming out about brave recently 🤣
They’re literally on the payroll. It’s a pyramid scheme.
Just use Firefox. Or LibreWolf if you want a pre-hardened Firefox. Remember to install uBlock Origin.
Thanks for pointing me to LibreWolf. I like to use separate browsers as information silos and have been using Brave as my secondary. Been looking forward to switching it out for a long time, LibreWolf sounds like just the ticket.
Information silos.
You can also use Firefox containers. One of the best features of Firefox.
Paired with the Foxytab plugin to automatically open websites in specific containers or restrict containers to a list of websites. Firefox also has profiles, and a simple extension (with a tiny thing to install in your PC) makes them as easy to use as they’re on Chrome
I don’t like brave because Brandon Eich (CEO, formerly with Mozilla) doesn’t support gay marriage and was pushing anti-vax stuff on twitter. I don’t look for this shit to titillate my tits like some folks, but when it hits me in the face I can’t ignore it.
When fact checking myself I found even more controversies, but I’m not wasting time reading articles that feed a confirmation bias.
It’s crazy to me that people ever thought brave was “privacy focused” when it was clear that they were trying to jump on the crypto bandwagon with their own in-network crypto and ad network. It was always just a reskinned chrome with ublock built in and then their crypto and ad network tacked on top
I don’t like Brave because they’ve done dodgy things like this time and time again over the years, and each time Brandon Eich went on a marketing campaign across social media to drum up new users and drown the story out.
He’s also the creator of JavaScript if that irks you any more.
it does
Ok. Chrome sucks. Brave sucks. What’s good. Firefox?
Firefox is great.
Firefox with good plugins is even better!
Absolutely! Another really good fork of FF to check out is Floorp I’m thinking of making it my main and going steady :) https://floorp.app/en/
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he uses this post as the sole way to access the internet. He is forever trapped here with no way out. He weeps for there are no memes to him but his condition, as he slowly falls into the pit of insanity. He is forever condemned to read about Brave browser quietly slippin VPN services, and the occasional comment. But eventually the activity will die, and he will be condemned to a lifetime of loneliness until bit-rot will consume the thread or death will free him of his pain.
It’s like his personal version of when the sun dies for an immortal.
😆 How did I manage to do that? LMFAO
Wow man, you should write a short novel
😄
OMG fixed. Thank you :)
Overall you‘re right but in which world is tor generic and unmodified 😂
The Tor browser is a modified version of Firefox, but you are not meant to modify the Tor Browser, in order for everyone using the Tor Browser to look the same and blend in. This is done for maximum privacy and anonymity.
It’s not possible to identify you if you use the tor browser without changing the window size or any other settings, because the fingerprint is literally the same amongst everyone that uses it this way. So you kind of blend in with the masses, it’s neither generic nor unmodified, I give you that :D
Simply the OS already makes that difficult, true. Nonetheless, it’s one of your best bets.
For those who truly want to stay private, installing plugins on the Tor browser is obviously a no go. Changing any setting or even the window size should not be done. Seriously.
And I’d venture that Tor on phones might be the most homogenous, though that still isn’t saying a lot, sadly. Plus, smartphones are a privacy nightmare regardless (tip of the iceberg).
In the end, fingerprinting makes true privacy very challenging. Great introduction to the topic.
Edit: spelling
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And LibreWolf is better. It’s Firefox with all of the privacy settings preconfigured and uBlock Origin preinstalled. Also, crap like Sponsored sites and Pocket are removed.
Been very happy with Librewolf. Thought it would be another one of those softwares recommended by linux-losers but which never actually works, but it’s quite the opposite.
Is LibreWolf still a version or two behind on Gecko?
AFAIK the most recent Firefox version is 118.0.2 and LibreWolf is based on that
Word. Last I had looked, they lagged a version or two behind on the base FF version. Likely just a lack of contributors or something then. Ty.
They used to lag behind, but now they caught up, so I can recommend LibreWolf to anyone without worries from a security perspective.
How is Librewolf different from Mullvad browser, which is supposed to be Tor browser (hardened FF) without the Tor?
The Mullvad Browser is based on the Tor browser, but it doesn’t use the Tor network, whereas LibreWolf is based on Firefox + arkenfox user.js. LibreWolf is better for normal day-to-day browsing, where as Mullvad is meant to be used for high privacy/security tasks. Mullvad is kinda hard to daily drive, because it can’t be configured to save cookies, you can’t really use extensions and it lacks some other things. These features were removed in the Tor browser, because as I said, it’s meant for high thread model usage. Edit: I like the Mullvad browser and I use it myself, but not as my daily driver.
High threat*
Not trying to correct you at all, only for ppl’s understanding :)
Btw ty for mentioning Mulvad Browser. I liked it honestly but it’s still new, you feel me.
Thanks, just realized that this is not !privacy@lemmy.ml and people here are probably not aware of threat modeling. But in this context just the word ‘thread’ might actually fit better as the threat model pretty much stays the same.
Good call
Waterfox is similar, though it doesn’t install additional extensions but comes with a bit of look and feel customization options instead. It restores those non-floating tabs from quantum by default and is pretty speedy.
Waterfox is more for look and feel, whereas LibreWolf makes significant privacy improvements. You can choose for yourself. Btw: You can also customize the UI on LibreWolf, just enable userChrome.css customization under Settings -> LibreWolf -> ‘Allow userChrome.css customization’. Now, you can customize everything you want.
Well yes, Wolf is a lot more focused on privacy, but it’s also a secondary goal for Waterfox. In 6.0 they enabled DNS over Oblivious HTTP (no idea what that means but you probably do) by default and incorporated yokkoffing’s Betterfox preconfig of user.js. It’s for those who are concerned about privacy but not nearly as much as the privacy community. For me, I’d rather have cookies.
they enabled DNS over Oblivious HTTP (no idea what that means but you probably do)
It’s basically the standard DNS-over-HTTPS functionality that is already present in almost every browser but routed over a special proxy server. Unfortunately though, Firefox uses Cloudflare services for this.
For me, I’d rather have cookies.
I also have LibreWolf configured to store cookies. It blocks 3rd-party cookies though.
And the only thing greater than Firefox is Librewolf.
I love Firefox, used it for years. However I eventually had to switch because of weird bugs and issues with functioning sites. In my sparing personal usage I didn’t run into many issues, but using it at work I ran into really weird issues all the time.
Firefox and Mull (a Firefox fork) have your privacy in mind. They work as good as Chrome and don’t fuck you without asking.
There is Fennec available on F Droid that is basically Firefox with some blobs removed. Not as hardened as Mull but still a worthy option. There is one more browser based on Firefox called Iceraven for Android but it is not available on F Droid even. Though it supports a much wider variety of extensions than mobile Firefox does as of now. The downside is that it gets security updates usually later than Firefox, being an independent project.
Floorp is my favorite Firefox fork!
Firefox is the least sucky.
It’s got its problem but it’s my preference
Vivaldi is a good Chrome replacement.
It’s really great! Been using it for nearly a year now and love the influx of privacy friendly features.
Firefox?
Hell no. I lost all respect for them when they tricked users into uploading browser screenshots into their cloud and than took forever to fix it. And that’s just one of the many many missteps they had over the last years.
PS: Depressing how many of you seem to consider such a drastic violation of privacy acceptable.
PS: Depressing how many of you seem to consider such a drastic violation of privacy acceptable.
It’s more that I had hoped we left everyone who acts like any little thing Firefox does is the worst and most egregious privacy violation in the world back in r/Firefox where they let all the Brave astroturfing take over.
Sure, you’ve got one significant issue (that was already mitigated and addressed), but you’re ignoring how unique it was while also saying there is “many, many more” without any hint of what they would be. Is “The Megabar exists” one of them?
that was already mitigated and addressed
Yeah, after a year. Sorry, but I don’t take lightly to companies that are stealing screenshot of my browser and than act like it’s no big deal.
without any hint of what they would be.
Have you not been paying attention over the last few years? Mozilla’s numerous missteps ain’t exactly a secret. Here is a little list:
That site isn’t a list of egregious privacy violations, it’s some random guys inane and hyperfocused ranting.
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Which browser do you recommend?
Brave. It ain’t perfect, but I actually like that it comes with Adblock, IPFS and Tor support out of the box. Gives you a fully functioning browser out of the box without having to mess with tons of plugins.
If you want something more minimalist, Librewolf might be worth a look.
A lot of people lost trust in them after they sneakily installed an extension on users’ browsers to promote Mr Robot.
Just a reminder, any time you see a “tech” youtuber with brave installed, they’re not going to be an excellent source of information
What browser signifies an excellent source of information? Ice weasel? w3m?
Lynx
raw dogging straight html
Haha, my browser is called curl
I have Orion (macOS only for the time being) and it’s sooo good.
The amazing part is that it even works as a daily driver if you’re a not-so-techie person/normal user… but then on top there are all these little extra features and optimizations that make it like Safari if Safari was actually good.
I would at this point a) not be able to go back to either Safari or Firefox (edit: nor Ungoogled Chromium) as well as b) immediately trust an Orion user on most of what they have to say about a “tech” related opinion :D
Based on your comment, I’ve just downloaded Orion to give it a shake. Very much enjoyed the OS X-esque intro video. Took me right back to installing Snow Leopard for the first time.
Sounds interesting. I’d thought I’d heard of all the browsers that exist lol. Gonna give it a spin .
Wow, Orion is pretty slick! And Orion+ doesn’t offer any actual features aside from early access and input on the roadmap. So far so good. Custom buttons is really cool, built in tree style tabs is slick. Also!! orion has workspaces that are as good if not better than vivaldi’s! This is really slick, thanks for sharing
Brodie Robertson is an excellent source of information ☹️
Except in terms of browser choice apparently. Either they’re ignorant or being paid. Either way it’s not a good sign.
You have to be very brave to download that browser
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Ok but have you tried my nft browser?
I’m not downloading Brave, fuck off
Well, they do have some sort of crypto integration in that browser, so it makes sense why they come off that way.
Meanwhile there’s Floorp xD
I don’t understand when and why Brave became such a household name. It seems so many people use it and swear by it, but its reputation is “suspicious” at best.
Just use Firefox. It’s been around way, way longer and it doesn’t use the Chromium engine. Google doesn’t need more of a monopoly on the internet.
But what’s wrong with non Chrome Chromium based browsers?
(Just give me downvotes, I don’t care if my question is stupid)
Well Chrome(ium) has almost all of the browser market share and google is trying to push something called web environment integrity which would implement a sort of certification system where web servers evaluate the authenticity of the client. If you extrapolate that idea a bit further it boils down to “we won’t serve you content if we don’t like your browser, device, OS, etc”. Which I would consider as hostile to the open but rapidly closing internet as we know it.
Edit: I forgot to make my point lol. Firefox is a completely different browser engine from the chromium based browsers which is why you see a lot of people recommending firefox because they don’t comply with web integrity. I don’t think it’s working though because this is something only the techbros and the cybersisters care about while everyone else just goes about their day.
Makes sense.
Chromium is still controlled by Google, so having an overwhelming market share of Chromium-based browsers reduces competition and increases Google’s control of the market’s position and future. Using Firefox (and Safari, if it were not locked to a single ecosystem) reduces that threat.
When we say “controlled”, that’s still only accounting for the primary fork, right?
As long as it’s open source, it feels like the idea is that the day Google pushes “feat(): Users now automatically have $1 sent to Google a day” commit, someone creates a “chromium-nongooglefucked” fork repository from the prior commit, and everyone uses that.
K
It just means if they want to do something bad then they can
If Google wanted to they could ban VPNs on all Chromium browsers and all the forks downstream would have to comply
More likely they can make it so only verified websites will load and down the line charge to be verified. It kills the open internet and the ability for anyone to make a website/host it where they want
Damn.
It’s not a stupid question, some people just don’t know.
Mainly it’s because:
- Chromium holds too much market share which is bad for the health of the Web.
- Chromium is controlled by Google which is concerning because they have been known to plant trackers even in software that shouldn’t have them.
- Chromium is inherently less secure, it contains features that might seem nice but are extremely risk to give access to websites i.e. letting websites access Bluetooth.
There are probably plenty more reasons but these are the big ones, and of coarse this is a simplification, in reality things are always a bit more complicated.
Web dev here. Regardless of my opinion, I need to make sure my web projects work on chrome because of market share.
I think if Firefox can find a way to have full parity with chrome extensions, that might be a big shift. I’ve talked to more than one person that has a specific extension they rely on that they can’t duplicate with Firefox options. They have many of the big names, but also some holes
It’s the other way around in my experience
Genuinely curious. What extensions are stopping people from moving to Firefox?
I just spent awhile trying to switch from Vivaldi to Floorp before going back. It just doesn’t work as smoothly, things like tabs wouldn’t save properly between sessions, pinning tabs doesn’t prevent you from closing them, UI elements would disappear, etc.
Not surprised. Brave is dodgy af.
Use Vivaldi or Firefox if you care about privacy
I tried ff yesterday… it slowed my laptop like crazy. It was a clean install, not sure what was rhe issue, it was eunnin from an ssd
I’m running FF on a 10 year old Linux laptop with no issues.
Maybe I need to change to Linux, this one is Windows 10 and I am tired of getting errors because of things that Windows change. Last week I had the search bar activated with thr last update. Thanks for the tip
Did it a little over a year ago. Has been fun thus far, my computer really feels like my device now which it didn’t really do before. Its like when a meal tastes better because you make it yourself. Still have issues once and again ofc but I had that on windows too tbf. Not an OS advisor, not OS advice
I will try it, i am really angry at ms, it is not normal that it was running ff slow, with 16gb if ram and onky running WhatsApp in the backgroud. Thanks for the recommendation
I think angry is good, that helps you pull through. Godspeed!
That would have been around the same time that I did too. High five Linux twin!
Eyyyyy high five. Any good or bad stories or something to recommend? I will start. I am now the go too person on work for people who have issues with their usb drives. Not matter what, on linux I can always read the filesystem or make their flash drives work again. And people are always super thankful :)
Haha that’s really cool! I had something similar at work - when the adobe suite stopped working properly with the computers there I was able to get GIMP and and Libreoffice working for everyone instead. I most recommend the application “cherrytree” and avoiding flatpak. Also, if you’re thinking about self-hosting check out YUNOhost. How about you?
I would strongly recommend looking into it. There’s not much you can’t do with Linux these days and it’s easier than ever to adopt. Check out Linux Mint for a good distro for those new to Linux.
I will do that, I mean there is something wrong with windows, it was slowing ff for some reason. And not only that, other apps. I mean I have 16gb of ram, and only running that and whatsapp
I did just over a year ago and haven’t looked back.
I will do that. Just need to backup my bookmarks and some files and format both drives clean.
Very odd. It’s not supposed to effect the os at all
I know, that is why it is so strange. Maybe I need to see if there are addons in the background.
I have issues with FireFox running YouTube on windows 10 - it gets super laggy - the issue is nonexistent if I used the Piped frontend. I think it depends a lot on what website you are using - some don’t play well with FireFox.
That being said, I did not have issues with FireFox on Mac when I used that, or on Linux, though I don’t use my Linux laptop a lot for web heavy stuff
It’s believed to be that Google will serve different websites to non-Chrome (maybe non-Chromium) browsers, or they specifically use features that only they implement to ensure that it performs worse on other browsers. And I don’t mean they add a new feature and it’s only them, but that
. Honestly, fuck Google.
Check out the Freetube application for watching youtube videos. You can import all your subscriptions from youtube, make playlists, download video/audio etc.
I do have lag issues with YouTube on FF as well, but only the video not the audio. I just assumed it was a codec issue, or just RAM management, since it only occurs when I’ve been running FF plus a game like wow all day
Bro said Firefox 😂 Firefox’ been Google bitch for a good while now, it’s either Librewolf or Mullvad now
Google is paying Mozilla to keep their search engine the default in Firefox. Period. There is no Google spyware (or any spyware in general) in Firefox. Just because Google is the default search engine in Firefox doesn’t mean Firefox is Google-controlled spyware.
Also Librewolf’s privacy is in some ways selfish on their part. It strips out Firefox’s troubleshooting data collection so Mozilla loses a good chunk of clues on how well the browser works. Lack of any data would lead to lower browser quality, ends up as a worse Firefox release, and Librewolf gets to be affected directly as a downstream of Firefox. By removing troubleshooting or usage data (which practically doesn’t affect privacy in any way), Librewolf is just hurting itself in the long run. If they’re really aggressive against directly contributing data back to Mozilla, then they should just run their own collection server and contribute the final data back to Mozilla.
telemetry and troubleshooting information can be used for fingerprinting. This isn’t an issue for most people but I can understand why some wouldn’t like it. Tor browser strips a lot of that as well for similar reasons.
My understanding is that google primarily funds Firefox because if chrome becomes a monopoly then google would have to face antitrust laws. Getting broken up would be more expensive to them than keeping Firefox viable with a minority of people using it as their browser.
Care to share some examples?
Brave to me is like an online advertising racket. They push ad-blocking software by default in their browser, then extort companies into using their own ad network to advertise to their users. Brave Ads are of course opt-in and the main incentive of enabling them is to earn BAT (Basic Attention Token) which is their cryptocurrency. In terms of their intrusiveness, they’re like push notifications you get up to six times an hour, and from my experience using the browser, it was all mainly crypto marketplaces and VPN’s advertising.
Compared to 2020, when you could earn hundreds of dollars in a year from frequently being served Brave Ads, BAT isn’t really worth shit anymore thanks to the crypto crash, so the main financial incentive to use Brave is gone.
If you want privacy, Firefox is that way. Or if you absolutely need to use something based on Chromium, everyone and their fucking mother has forked that browser.
Anyone who claims “We’re the best most privacy conscious, secure, and safe product” is already extremely suspicious.
Brave has already been caught Red handed doing anti-privacy and crypto shilling before, yet people decided to forgive them. You don’t forgive these things EVER.
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I love that most people don’t realize how close Reston, VA (You know, where AWS 1 and 2 is located) is to DC.
The White House probably isn’t doing much illegal SIGINT dragnetting of US citizens, but I bet the Pentagon, NSA HQ, and the Hill all do.
The Brave team are basically a bunch of dodgy wankers at this point.
I don’t trust Brave, there’s too much money tied up in it for it to be good for users.
Please Brave: cutout the bullshit defaults game. Everybody’s getting smarter and companies are getting stupider
Edit: said this b4, don’t fuck with your own competitive advantage where you haven’t had a joint and duly qualified computer science lawyer who explains how easy it is to lose trust and commercial viabillity for a sketchy, underhanded product (see LastPass). Also FUCK LastPass, may this Pass be their Last
- Download a browser with a built-in VPN
- Get browser and VPN services on your computer
Why is this news?
This community has some of the worst biased tech readers.
Yea i don’t get the hate boner for brave. I get it’s sketchy and don’t use it myself, but they aren’t sneakily installing some VPN to redirect all your web traffic without you knowing. They tell you about it right up front because it’s a service they want to sell.
If you don’t like the browser, don’t use it. There isn’t a need to go on some crusade to smear them with bullshit.
Because it’s Brave and people like to jump on bandwagons. This is like the 6th time I’ve seen this article posted in lemmybin also.
And since we have the reddit-minded folk here, no, I do not support Brave and never will and I would much rather they disappear from the internet, but using ragebait to complain about the browser installing the necessary files to have one of their advertised services working, like pretty much every other software does, is not the way to move forward.
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It’s good users are now aware that Brave includes redundant features that you have to pay extra for to activate. Users browser will update everytime the browser or the VPN software needs an update.
For example Firefox VPN from Mozilla is separate software. They don’t force millions of users to download it even if they don’t want it.
This is yet another example why people should not be using Brave and should be skeptical of its intentions.
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brave is basically installing a future minefield with system-wide access waiting to be triggered by them, or an exploitable bug by others, on all brave users’ pcs and not just those who sub to their vpn service.
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They don’t force millions of users to download it even if they don’t want it.
Mozilla has been forcing Pocket on Firefox users for years, as well as Mr Robot ads and numerous other things. They don’t exact have the moral high ground here.
Just imagine: using Windows and being concerned about privacy. Big lol.
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Why would someone who uses Debian care about Windows?
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I don’t, because I have better use of my time than to learn to use someone else’s computer
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But you don’t. Because you don’t
Exactly, that’s the point he was trying to make.
You can’t harden windows to the point of an acceptable level of security. That is the inherent nature of proprietary software.
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Prove to me that your windows system is actually “hardened” and that you have no backdoors or telemetry broadcasting at all. At the very least, Microsoft still knows what you are doing, you cannot trust your 3rd party firewall because windows can still sidestep it.
I don’t even know who the fuck those people are, all I can tell you is that there is a reason that any professional application that requires legitimate security, runs on foss systems, or at the very least source available. If you are too stupid to realize that, then you really don’t have any say in this matter whatsoever. It doesn’t even just include baremetal Linux either.
I don’t know who you’ve been arguing with on this, but I actually make a living working on Linux machines, I’m not even coming at you from a freetard perspective, solely work experience.
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But you don’t. Because you don’t.
Nobody does. Windows is closed source and its inner working is a trade secret. This means you cannot know how to lock down windows. Of course there are best practices based on info from microsoft or people who know a thing or two about info sec but it’s all guess work and/or trusting the developer by its blue eyes.
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They have a point though.
Windows automatically means you don’t have privacy and you cannot have privacy.
On Linux you at least may or may not, depending on configuration.
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Imagine claiming to be technically competent and using Windows, being obliged to “lock it down” to made it a “non spyware”. Take your meds, dude.
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Why is installing a VPN considered bad? Is it because it is done without user consent? I don’t understand if there is any malicious intent.
Brave browser has been automatically installing VPN services on Windows computers without user consent, but it remains inactive unless the user subscribes.
They’re installing extra software that’s useless unless you give them money. Plus you really want to be aware of your VPN since all your traffic will be going through it.
It doesn’t auto enable and chromium also gives you a lot of unnecessary features. While I think Brave is bloat I don’t see how this is any more than the usual.
It’s “all your mail is now redirected to a third party that makes money by mining it for data without you knowing” level of nastiness. Absolutely deplorable and a reason to never touch anything made by the people behind Brave even with a ten foot pole. Brave is a scam and why people pretend its not is beyond me.
that’s what the new outlook ‘app’ (replacing win 10/11’s mail ‘app’) does with gmail accounts. routes all your mail from gmail through microsoft servers before delivering to the app on your pc.
a service has far more privs on the system than a browser should have or need (which can be installed on a per-user basis, no admin/root required).
