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Brave Improves Its Ad-Blocker Performance with New Engine in Rust

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Re: Brave Improves Its Ad-Blocker Performance with New Engine in Rust

#51
post #31
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They replace other ad network ads with their own ~ads~ crypto currency . They monetize the content of others and don't tell them. If you have a youtube channel, they will swap out ads and collect the ad revenue without telling the channel that they're doing so. I'm not particularly impressed with their business. In fact I'm pretty disgusted with it.

The majority of ad revenue goes to the site, not to Brave[1]. The user gets a cut for having to see the ad, and Brave gets a cut as well. But even if you're right, why is it unethical for me to install software on my own computer to render websites differently than the creator intended? For example, by removing ads? Or replacing ads with different ads? Or rendering all ads upside down? [1] https://brave.com/how-brave…

> But even if you're right, why is it unethical for me to install software on my own computer to render websites differently than the creator intended?

It's not unethical for you to run that program, but what is being argued is that Brave (the company) is acting unethically, for example by taking donations on behalf of other people without their consent[0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999

Re: Brave Improves Its Ad-Blocker Performance with New Engine in Rust

#53

I'm impressed with Brave. I've started using it as my primary browser (after a couple false starts a year or so ago) and it has all the best of Chrome without the worst. There is controversy about how Brave does stuff, and I agree there is some sketchy stuff they are doing (replacing ads with their own). I'm glad they are giving us a choice, though, and exploring different options for sites being able to makes some m…

I can't tell that I'm seeing "their" ads. The way I see ads is a notification type prompt where I have to click view and navigate to a sponsored page. Do you have a side by side where Brave replaces a site's ad with their own?

Re: Brave Improves Its Ad-Blocker Performance with New Engine in Rust

#55
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of ad revenue goes to the site, not to Brave[1]. The user gets a cut for having to see the ad, and Brave gets a cut as well. But even if you're right, why is it unethical for me to install software on my own computer to render websites differently than the creator intended? For example, by removing ads? Or replacing ads with different ads? Or rendering all ads upside down? [1] https://brave.com/how-brave…

Because it's monetizing other peoples content. In my view, it's the same as cutting and pasting somebody else's content onto my own site with my own ads. Even if I promise to give most of the money I make back to the original content creator, I really have no right to the small part I skim. Update: Sorry didn't mean to suggest it was unethical for you to view a page any way you want, but I think the creators of the B…

[deleted]

Re: Brave Improves Its Ad-Blocker Performance with New Engine in Rust

#56
post #25

So I’m confused about the results. Is the engine faster because of rust or because of improvements to the algorithm?

Algorithm. The title is a bit misleading, and conveys that "it's faster because we re-wrote it in rust". If any thing, the move to rust might cause it to be a little slower (compared to the same thing written in c++ and considering how heavily optimized they said it was; not dinging rust, but you can't just port cpp optimizations to rust with syntax changes due to safety requirements etc).

Conversely, the language semantics make some more aggressive optimizations possible by the compiler, without the programmer having to drop hints.

Re: Brave Improves Its Ad-Blocker Performance with New Engine in Rust

#57
post #51
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of ad revenue goes to the site, not to Brave[1]. The user gets a cut for having to see the ad, and Brave gets a cut as well. But even if you're right, why is it unethical for me to install software on my own computer to render websites differently than the creator intended? For example, by removing ads? Or replacing ads with different ads? Or rendering all ads upside down? [1] https://brave.com/how-brave…

> But even if you're right, why is it unethical for me to install software on my own computer to render websites differently than the creator intended? It's not unethical for you to run that program, but what is being argued is that Brave (the company) is acting unethically, for example by taking donations on behalf of other people without their consent[0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999

Except they don't. See above.

Re: Brave Improves Its Ad-Blocker Performance with New Engine in Rust

#59
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They replace other ad network ads with their own ~ads~ crypto currency . They monetize the content of others and don't tell them. If you have a youtube channel, they will swap out ads and collect the ad revenue without telling the channel that they're doing so. I'm not particularly impressed with their business. In fact I'm pretty disgusted with it.

How is that any different from Google? They're both monetizing the content others placed on the internet.

Google pays for the YouTube servers that content creators upload their content to. What does Brave pay for?
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