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Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

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Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#321

Post by BrendanEich »

phjesusthatguy3 wrote: post #136
skybrian wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of silly. When you copy open source code, it doesn't give any magic access to the people who wrote it. If there is anything wrong with it, it has to appear on the source code somewhere. The question you should be asking is whether you trust Brave to vet the source code and remove anything that seems like a problem.

It isn't silly. How about I don't trust either one of them? Brave is (and you are) saying I should trust Brave because they're going to rip out Google's tracking and insert their own instead. No thank you. I'll stick with Firefox and whatever chicanery Mozilla is up to.

No, we rip out Google's tracking and insert nothing.

Brave Ads are opt-in and client-based. There is no server side tracking of users or data in the clear. I can say more on how all this works, but I will pause here. Search for "catalog" elsewhere to find another comment explaining it a bit more.

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#322

Post by BrendanEich »

craftyguy wrote: post #280
root_axis wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Brave does not have to incorporate every decision from upstream.

They would be screwed if google decided to actively cut off downstream chromium projects by making breaking code changes, licensing changes, etc.

Many browsers would be screwed, and Google would for some of the code be in breach of the open source licenses governing the file or library. It's not likely for that and for many other reasons, but who knows? Anyway by the time Google went this evil, we'd hope to be big enough to do our own engine.

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#323

Post by BrendanEich »

jsgo wrote: post #52
bsclifton wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Brave employee here) Curious: what are some of the shortfalls you see in Chromium? Before I joined Brave, the desktop browser was originally using Gecko (from Firefox). Ultimately, there were some problems and the decision was made to move to Chromium. On iOS, Brave is forked from Firefox though You can check out more detail on Reddit where folks asked why FF was not used (which has links to more detailed info): htt…

Not OP, but I'd imagine that it is Brave seems to be a browser that advocates for the user (and presumably in the future, publishers too with the pay thing). As such, the ideals seem more aligned with Firefox than Chrome (and by extension, Chromium). Basically, you guys are in a weird space where your decisions aren't looked at purely from a technical lens, but also an ideological one.

Welcome to current year.

But don't let browsers pretend to be neutral runtimes for the terrible third party scripts on which surveillance advertising depends. They are not neutral. The big-4 browsers in the west apart from Apple are partly or fully captured by $100B ad businesses.

We are all in a weird space. Best to fight back at the endpoint with the right browser. Could be Safari, Firefox, or Chrome with opt outs and uBO and other defenses (but risks remain in Chrome especially), if you are not game for Brave.

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#324

Post by BrendanEich »

codezero wrote: post #274
Ayesh wrote: post #244

I'm a publisher relying on ad revenue, and I hate Brave. It's not because it blocks my ads (I also contribute to an ad blocker list myself), but because Brave can swap my ads with its own. This is theft! Brave is similar to Opera. It's not a mainstream browser, and they also want to make money. Dipping into publisher revenue and using some broken BAT crypto currency to reward publishers is not the way to do it. The c…

I don't want to be uncivil and call you a liar, but can you explain why what you are saying about the ad replacement is true? Brendan Eich has repeatedly said that they do not replace ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20831627 For what it's worth, I find Brendan's position on homosexuality to be on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of faithfulness (I do not intend to put words in his mouth, but…

What shows bad faith here is you taking my rejection of a loaded word as me being irrational. Mobs of activists including some green handles and longtime HN users would love to drive me out of a job. I am not here to explain an alternative point of view to you. Get to know people with whom you do not share all superficial or even deep beliefs. I am here for hacker news about Brave.

Thanks for calling out parroting bullshit based on personal dislike or animus. But FWIW, I don’t see evidence of Ayesh doing that. Peace.

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#325

Post by BrendanEich »

aflag wrote: post #217
jonathansampson wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your beautiful drive through Colorado requires quite a bit of maintenance and financial support. Somebody has to pay for that. With Brave, Advertisers can pay for it (without getting hold of your data) by way of users. Alternatively, you may choose to "fund the roads" yourself by depositing your own tokens into Brave's wallet—that too is possible. Brave aims to sustain the roads that grant you access to that scenery.…

How's that better than just installing adblock?

Define “adblock” please. I hope you mean something good like uBlock Origin and not bigger share extensions that take fees from Google and others to whitelist ads.

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#326

Post by BrendanEich »

CrendKing wrote: post #216
jonathansampson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite, I think that FAQ item needs to be updated. The model works like this: The user opts-in to Brave Rewards/Ads. This kicks off a machine-learning model that begins to study the user's habits and interests. On a daily basis, the user downloads a regional ad catalog (as to other Brave users in their region). This catalog contains numerous ad options, which your device studies for relevance. If/when your device…

> At this time, 70% of the ad revenue is deposited into your in-situ wallet. Brave needs to know when and which ad has been shown to the user, to deposit that ad's revenue right? That means whenever an ad is shown "locally", it still needs to contact Brave server with user's identity behind of some encryption. Brave then shows the proof of ads being presented to users to ad provider to get revenue. Sure, the user's i…

We use a variant of privacy pass (Chaum blind signatures):

https://github.com/brave-intl/challenge-bypass-ristretto

The key is no user identifiable events and no ability to link events for a given user together. Advertisers want authentic aggregate results — they don’t want (at first or in bulk, also not legal in many places) user ids. We built an authentic but anonymous ad system.

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#327

Post by codezero »

BrendanEich wrote: post #324
codezero wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be uncivil and call you a liar, but can you explain why what you are saying about the ad replacement is true? Brendan Eich has repeatedly said that they do not replace ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20831627 For what it's worth, I find Brendan's position on homosexuality to be on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of faithfulness (I do not intend to put words in his mouth, but…

What shows bad faith here is you taking my rejection of a loaded word as me being irrational. Mobs of activists including some green handles and longtime HN users would love to drive me out of a job. I am not here to explain an alternative point of view to you. Get to know people with whom you do not share all superficial or even deep beliefs. I am here for hacker news about Brave. Thanks for calling out parroting bu…

Yep, you are right and I do regret this back-handed defense to some extent, thanks for engaging despite my bad faith.

You've been doing a great job of defending Brave, I wish you didn't have to, especially to the HN crowd.

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#328

Post by aflag »

BrendanEich wrote: post #325
aflag wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's that better than just installing adblock?

Define “adblock” please. I hope you mean something good like uBlock Origin and not bigger share extensions that take fees from Google and others to whitelist ads.

Yes, a proper adblocker. Why would someone who's savvy enough to know about and use Brave not just install an adblocker?

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#329

Post by BrendanEich »

aflag wrote: post #328
BrendanEich wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define “adblock” please. I hope you mean something good like uBlock Origin and not bigger share extensions that take fees from Google and others to whitelist ads.

Yes, a proper adblocker. Why would someone who's savvy enough to know about and use Brave not just install an adblocker?

We have nearly 7M users, we get people who are fooled by the "adblock" word in extension stores.

Re: Wikipedia Is Now a Brave Verified Publisher

#330

Post by BrendanEich »

kerkeslager wrote: post #186
vesche wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never opt-in to ads even if there was some upside. That's like asking if I'd like to see billboards on a beautiful drive through Colorado and in return you'll throw some change in my center console. I'll just take the beautiful drive and you can keep the cash. > The machine-learning bits study your browsing habits in a private, non-leaky manner. I think everyone's been around the internet long enough to know…

> I would never opt-in to ads even if there was some upside. That's like asking if I'd like to see billboards on a beautiful drive through Colorado and in return you'll throw some change in my center console. I'll just take the beautiful drive and you can keep the cash. This, and the fact that Brave has decided to get in bed with advertisers at all seriously undermines their credibility.

Only if you assume we enable tracking for Brave Ads. But we do not. Please look deeper, otherwise you're just writing false stuff based on assumptions.
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