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Brave 0.55 released

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Re: Brave 0.55 released

#41

Post by bad_user »

user812 wrote: post #32
bad_user wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox makes you the product, because Mozilla monetizes you with selling you to Google That's hyperbole. Firefox was the first browser that made switching search engines or dealing with multiple search engines easy. Firefox was also the first to have usable add-ons for blocking invasive ads and trackers, always promoted as the best add-ons in their addons.mozilla.org. The pro-privacy culture has basically grown on…

What would Google do if Mozilla blocks all ads browser wide by default? (Which they can't do adhoc because it is probably explitically forbidden in their contract with Google) The answer will give you a clue about the question who is the product. Irregardless of semantics, Mozilla is entirely dependent on the privacy invading ad system. Everyone knows that default settings matter, as around 80% of users never change…

Irrelevant.

If Mozilla blocks ads by default, the question isn't what Google would do, the far better question is what will the publishers do.

If big publishers start to block Firefox's User-Agent, it's game over for Firefox. And yes, publishers are increasingly more aggressive in blocking users with ad-blockers installed.

Or did you think that the content producers will simply stand by while their revenue vanishes?

Nope, not going to happen and it will be getting worse, before it gets better. Ad-block users have been ignored only because they were a minority.

Want to bet that they'll try extending the DRM support to the HTML content itself and thus make it illegal to block ads? It's going to be fun.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#42

Post by vladdanilov »

onyva wrote: post #4

I love the irony in “You are not a product“ from a commercial product (open source, I know) designed to monetize surfing (aka pay-to-surf), as if this is what the internet is about. I think we should resist such an effort and stick with projects (not companies) that want to keep the internet as it was meant to be, ie Mozilla Firefox. No problem with monetization but I want a browser that puts me first, not a middlema…

I find the irony in more prosaic details like a 2.1MB image [1] to show the new UI of "Secure, Fast & Private Web Browser" (for comparison optimized PNG8 is 351KB [2] and JPEG is 398KB [3]).

[1] https://brave.com/new-brave-browser-release-available-for-ge...

[2] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/3129436/47203976-b...

[3] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/3129436/47203978-b...

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#43

Post by ahartmetz »

proofbygazing wrote: post #33
user812 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental question is who decides. Ideally the browser is the product, but not the user. For that, the browser needs to solve the question of the flow of money. Using Firefox makes you the product, because Mozilla monetizes you with selling you to Google. That is not a browser that "puts you first" or promotes the "open culture of the internet". Giving people the ability to chose whether they want to participat…

> Using Firefox makes you the product, because Mozilla monetizes you with selling you to Google. That is not a browser that "puts you first" or promotes the "open culture of the internet". Why not? The idea of being targeted with more effective ads based on what I look at is microscopic when compared to the things that got me excited about the internet originally, and it doesn't even seem to contradict them.

Without rejecting ads outright (which is IMO a valid position), it's hard to argue against ads based on site content, anonymous user statistics, or terms of the current search.

The most objectionable thing is tracking specific users, which results in a lot of data that can be abused, and further power imbalance of companies and states vs. citizens. The latter clearly does contradict early internet ideals.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#44

Post by drb91 »

onyva wrote: post #4

I love the irony in “You are not a product“ from a commercial product (open source, I know) designed to monetize surfing (aka pay-to-surf), as if this is what the internet is about. I think we should resist such an effort and stick with projects (not companies) that want to keep the internet as it was meant to be, ie Mozilla Firefox. No problem with monetization but I want a browser that puts me first, not a middlema…

Firefox isn’t doing much to stem the online dependency on ads. We really need an alternative monetization system. The internet is only half functioning if we still require massive corporations to intermediate between us and content providers.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#45

Post by [deleted] »

proofbygazing wrote: post #33
user812 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental question is who decides. Ideally the browser is the product, but not the user. For that, the browser needs to solve the question of the flow of money. Using Firefox makes you the product, because Mozilla monetizes you with selling you to Google. That is not a browser that "puts you first" or promotes the "open culture of the internet". Giving people the ability to chose whether they want to participat…

> Using Firefox makes you the product, because Mozilla monetizes you with selling you to Google. That is not a browser that "puts you first" or promotes the "open culture of the internet". Why not? The idea of being targeted with more effective ads based on what I look at is microscopic when compared to the things that got me excited about the internet originally, and it doesn't even seem to contradict them.

[deleted]

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#46

Post by drb91 »

proofbygazing wrote: post #35
adwhit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Facebook only earns a few dollars per user per year, who in their right mind would turn off their adblocker for a few dollars? This is a good point and it is interesting to think about the economic logic of advertising. It seems to me the burden it places on it's viewers is far greater than the (often questionable) value it brings to the advertiser. A huge unaccounted-for externality. In fact, when you consider…

> A huge unaccounted-for externality. Not even close to the definition of an externality. Everybody involved in the transaction is there voluntarily.

Voluntarily implies some kind of consumer choice beyond “accept my terms or get the fuck off my site”.

Not to mention... ads affect us all. You’re delusional if you think it can be neatly packaged into a transaction.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#47

Post by consto »

bad_user wrote: post #41
user812 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would Google do if Mozilla blocks all ads browser wide by default? (Which they can't do adhoc because it is probably explitically forbidden in their contract with Google) The answer will give you a clue about the question who is the product. Irregardless of semantics, Mozilla is entirely dependent on the privacy invading ad system. Everyone knows that default settings matter, as around 80% of users never change…

Irrelevant. If Mozilla blocks ads by default, the question isn't what Google would do, the far better question is what will the publishers do. If big publishers start to block Firefox's User-Agent, it's game over for Firefox. And yes, publishers are increasingly more aggressive in blocking users with ad-blockers installed. Or did you think that the content producers will simply stand by while their revenue vanishes?…

Deciding who can see what content based upon User Agent is nothing new, it's why User Agents are such a mess in the first place.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#48

Post by trwx1 »

onyva wrote: post #4

I love the irony in “You are not a product“ from a commercial product (open source, I know) designed to monetize surfing (aka pay-to-surf), as if this is what the internet is about. I think we should resist such an effort and stick with projects (not companies) that want to keep the internet as it was meant to be, ie Mozilla Firefox. No problem with monetization but I want a browser that puts me first, not a middlema…

The level of irony is even deeper.

Brave is supposed to protect the privacy but in reality, their business model is about ads. It's like pedophiles giving advices on how to protect your kids from danger.

Of course they know about it, and I wouldn't give my kids to them.

Brave is essentially trying to become a mix between a pay-to-surf and an rogue ad replacement software.

They have dozens of millions of dollars raised (= in debt), this is very big money to pay back at least 5 times.

By definition, since they are an ad company, they are ok to block the trackers, just not the ones that affects them.

For example, Brave doesn't block Yahoo & Bing ads and trackers, why ? Advertiser pays Microsoft Bing, who pays Yahoo, who pays DuckDuckGo, who pays Brave.

To verify it, you can make a search on DuckDuckGo using Brave and check where the ads link point to by copy-pasting it ;)

Of course technically they could block these trackers but they are never going to do it.

The is the main revenue source of Brave, and this is one of the big reasons why DuckDuckGo is growing fast.

Monetize your search history like the old school toolbars. Looks like they forgot to disclose this little conflict of interest.

If you check the commit history, there are really funny discoveries (woops adobe.com is whitelisted)

https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/10020

Almost all their commits in some other repos: https://github.com/brave/browser-android-tabs/commits/master are around analytics and tracking installs.

Good marketing speech, shady business.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#50

Post by drb91 »

quantummkv wrote: post #9
tschwimmer wrote: post #2

Can someone outline the justification for the switch to Chromium and the difference between Chromium and Muon, which seems to be based on Chromium anyway?

Muon was a fork of electron, which included many patches for features required for a variety of desktop apps. The amount of packages ensures that it takes time to upgrade to new chromium releases (regression testing with the patches). Since brave is just a browser, it does not need all of those extra patches and features. So it is simpler and easier to just roll with chromium directly.

Why was the fork necessary? Is the electron project hostile to changes?
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