Why I recommend against Brave.

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Tea@programming.dev⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/

If you are keen on personal privacy, you might have come across Brave Browser. Brave is a Chromium-based browser that promises to deliver privacy with built-in ad-blocking and content-blocking protection. It also offers several quality-of-life features and services, like a VPN and Tor access. I mean, it’s even listed on the reputable PrivacyTools website. Why am I telling you to steer clear of this browser, then?

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Comments

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Katherine1@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’ve heard enough of this stuff over the years to never be tempted to try the browser out. At this point, I feel like it’s claim to privacy is mostly marketing. Personally, I’m going to stick to LibreWolf.

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panic@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Does anyone have a recommendation for a browser to use on my iPhone other than Brave? I tried Firefox first, but evidently I can’t install extensions for ad blocking due to iPhone restrictions, so I’m using Brave on just this one device.

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- MissingInteger@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  But you can install Adblock extensions (but only in Safari)!
  The best by far is Adguard.
  
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- Wildly_Utilize@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Orion. It can use Firefox, and chrome extensions
  
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  - tuna@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Interesting, I’ll have to check it out. I’ve been passively wanting to leave brave on iOS for some time now. Thank you!
    
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- jmf@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  If you want to block youtube ads, I think it is really the only option as of now. Adguard can be downloaded on the app store and it does a mediocre job blocking ads, but the placeholder space for them remains and it straight up fails to block some for me. I am stuck with brave for now until something better comes along.
  
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  - const_void@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Safari has Wipr which blocks YouTube ads
    
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  - MissingInteger@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Do you use the paid version of Adguard?
    For me on iOS it’s almost as good as uBO on Firefox.
    No blank spaces where ads go, support for every filterlist I want, especially nice for blocking cookie notices.
    
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jmf@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The article is unfair about the fingerprinting issue. Brave utilizes a technique they call farbling and it does a really good job at keeping websites from knowing who you are, in theory anyways.

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- KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You’re not just licking the boot you’re giving it the good sloppy
  
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  - jmf@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    By boot do you mean chromium? Id love to use a gecko browser, but my busy life is too short to spend extra seconds every time waiting for pages to load. If that makes me a boot licker so be it I guess :)
    
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libra00@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Wow, what scummy bastards. I used the browser for a little bit, and I kinda figured they were up to some shady shit when I noticed a crypto-wallet was included, but I ignored all that shit and it was fine. But if I’d known what the CEO or the company in general had been up to I’d have dropped that shit like a bad habit long before I did for other reasons.

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nucleative@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Fascinating… I knew some of this and it is indeed troubling.

It seems that Brave’s mission is actually about generating revenue by any method possible (including manipulation of end users) more than anything to do with privacy.

If you’re cool with all that then Brave is for you I guess.

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silverhand@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I don’t use Brave but honestly there aren’t many options left. I can’t wish for Orion to launch any sooner.

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Fake4000@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Brave bought ad space on YouTube, and showed an ad on how to block ads on YouTube.

Mozilla could have done something similar with UBO but they just keep missing so many golden chances.

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- KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Mozilla has millions of reasons to not rock the boat with Google.
  
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yqccv9v3li8o@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I agree that Brave is problematic and most of the criticisms are also legitimate. But the point about the crawlers is not really a problem. If you respect the wish of websites to be indexed exclusively by Google, you support Google’s monopoly and prevent alternative search engines from having similarly good results.

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- FauxPseudo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  ‘s/ly (.) (.)/\2/’
  
  There is nothing good about Google results. They haven’t been usable for years.
  
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- Jerry@feddit.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I see no legitimate reason for not using a User Agent string, like all the other crawlers use, other than the desire to hide the crawler and make it difficult to block.
  
  I don't accept his explanation. I see it as gaslighting.
  
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  - Ulrich@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    They explained the reason in the comment you just replied to.
    
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  - yqccv9v3li8o@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Why should the crawler be blockable? That only brings disadvantages for a search engine.
    
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legion02@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The CEO of brave is a homophobic bigot if that helps push anyone over the edge for changing their browser. It was the last straw for me.

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- LordBaphomet97933@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Probably also has some right wing bias as well. That’s probably one of the reasons they included goggles in Brave search for right wing content.
  
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- KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That’s not even his worst crime. His worst crime was inventing JavaScript.
  
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  - futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Especially when the alternative they were considering was having Scheme in the browser.
    
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- JustZ@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  God damnit.
  
  Every browser I switched to since Firefox has been a good user experience, and then I find out some horrible bullshit.
  
  Is there any safe browser that isn’t run by hateful assholes?
  
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  - Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    FF is starting to enshittify because they depend on Google for their revenue
    
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  - AustralianSimon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I’m waiting on Ladybird to come out next year into alpha
    
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  - josemf@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Vivaldi!
    
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  - exu@feditown.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Firefox? Mozilla are just stupid, not really hateful
    
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- singletona@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That was the headliner reason for me.
  
  The rest was just ‘Alright, it isn’t enough this guy is a piece of shit, he’s pushing a shitty product.’
  
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- Viri4thus@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That pretty much does it, yes. Staying away from brave.
  
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  - ragas@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You do know that firefox is essentially Netscape rebooted, right?
    
    Also I don’t really know what you are trying to say here. Netscape was definitely a better option than Internet Explorer.
    
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- tatann@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I didn’t know that, thanks for the tip : en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich
  
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- baggachipz@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This post shows that it’s much worse than that.
  
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pzmarzly@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Disabling Brave Rewards on a new installation is not any harder than disabling Firefox’s Pocket crap, or Edge’s Copilot integration, or Chrome’s send-everything-to-Google behaviour.

I wish one day we can get a browser that serves the user instead of browser maker, but for now i’ll keep using Brave (it’s at least open source).

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- AbidanYre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  Chrome’s send-everything-to-Google behaviour.
  
  Is that even possible?
  
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  - als@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    There’s Ungoogled Chromium which claims to do just that
    
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- baggachipz@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Orion.
  
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- biofaust@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Crossing my fingers for Ladybird to be that browser.
  
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  - lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    🤞🤞
    
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