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Comment on Why I recommend against Brave.

It seems to me that nothing in life is free, including browsers. Yeah, free software exists, and that works fine for many kinds of software, but not browsers. Browsers are a living thing, they have to change constantly to adapt to the changing environment. Maintaining a browser takes effort, to an extent that far exceeds that of other programs, word processing, games, image editing, etc. A browser is a primary attack surface for all manner of malware and exploits. It’s web facing and it executes code provided by external sources. That last sentence should give you chills.

So all that is to say, that it is very much non trivial to maintain a browser. So it only stands to reason that maintaining it consistently won’t actually happen without some amount of compensation.

So how do you pay for a browser? Well everyone seems to agree, with ads. This method is apparently quite viable as a business. But I probably don’t have to tell you that there are a bunch of problematic aspects to it. User data collection (and resale) is probably top on the list of problems. It’s a pretty serious breach of privacy, I hope I didn’t have to convince anyone of that.

To get to my point, Brave is the only browser I know of attempting to use a different model to support their project. They’re trying to allow people to just pay for the web themselves, rather than let advertisers pay for the web while users give up all their data. It may not be a perfect implementation, but from where I’m standing I don’t see anyone else even trying…

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Lumiluz@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
That’s a long winded way to try to excuse secretly mining crypto, far right misinformation pushing, transgender phobia, and more that Brave does / has done.

I also want to point out an operating system is a huge project to create and maintain, and yet Linux has accomplished this without all the shit Brave has pulled.

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- Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  That’s a really concise and thoughtless way to excuse Google, Microsoft and Apple for monetizing spying on every person on earth for profit.
  
  And yes, Linux distros have a business model. I’m happy that distros found a business model through offering official support to corporations, it makes it truly free to the rest of us. It also helps that their competition is very expensive. Will that model work for a browser? What do you think?
  
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  - Lumiluz@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    
    That’s a really concise and thoughtless way to excuse Google, Microsoft and Apple for monetizing spying on every person on earth for profit.
    
    Nice strawman you got there. I think anyone with eyes can see I didn’t bring them up because most (all?) Lemmy users know Firefox and its forks exist.
    
    And yes, Linux distros have a business model. I’m happy that distros found a business model through offering official support to corporations, it makes it truly free to the rest of us. It also helps that their competition is very expensive. Will that model work for a browser? What do you think?
    
    That’s… Literally how browsers used to work. Netscape was a paid browser. Orion is starting to look into that model as well.
    
    And yes, you just pointed out of possible to raise funds without pulling the shit Brave has, as Linux distros have done… So, congrats on getting the point? A little slow, but you got there.
    
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    Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    
    Nice strawman you got there. I think anyone with eyes can see I didn’t bring them up because most (all?) Lemmy users know Firefox and its forks exist.
    
    It’s not a strawman, it’s the problem. You may not have mentioned it, but I didn’t think it needed mentioning, between the three companies I mentioned, they makeup 90% marketable for browsers, that’s the vast majority of browsers. Are there others? Absolutely. I primarily use Firefox myself, but they’re starting to lean more toward sharing data as well… I don’t know what let you think you have to stand in here.
    
    That’s… Literally how browsers used to work. Netscape was a paid browser. Orion is starting to look into that model as well.
    
    And Netscape? When was that paid? I can’t think of an era when that was paid… Was that like during the Mozilla period, when the browser sucked, or before that? Whatever, that clearly didn’t work at any rate, cause they aren’t still doing it. But I swear I used to use Netscape in the 90s, I can’t remember it being paid…
    
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- Lumbardo@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  
  far right misinformation pushing, transgender phobia
  
  Brave does not do this.
  
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  - Lumiluz@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Goggles is the first part, the owner is the second part
    
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Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
See guys, I know people didn’t believe me when I said there are people who push for and encourage for projects to be corporatized instead of community run but here is one of them. These types of garbage arguments always bring up the idea of cybersecurity but always neglect to mention one of the biggest security and privacy threats to the corporate governed model, the corporation itself. Especially once enshittification really sets in.

And before you vomit some horrible misrepresenting argument reminiscent of Dave Plumber’s speech against backdoors in Windows, you know damn well that when I say the company itself is a privacy and security threat to the project that I’m talking about deliberate attempts by the company to make money off the project through tracking, ads, crypto mining, and any other number of shady shit. You know, things that are officially sanctioned.

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