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The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

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Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#191

Post by Marsymars »

colordrops wrote: post #177
Marsymars wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Vivaldi as a secondary/tertiary browser. It's a Chromium fork without the weird ad/crypto-stuff that Brave has or the shady Chinese ownership that Opera now has. (And the Android version seems to be the only browser app that's putting effort into good ChromeOS functionality.) I've never really been clear on why Brave is more popular than Vivaldi.

Unlike brave, it wasn't open source last time I checked. Had that changed?

No: https://help.vivaldi.com/article/is-vivaldi-open-source/

For me, it's still the most acceptable "major" Chromium-based browser.

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#192

Post by wdjdkjwjeje »

huffmsa wrote: post #21
wdjdkjwjeje wrote: post #9

Brave is brilliant at mobile design is what they're brilliant at. I find Chrome and Firefox on Android unusable because of how much better browsing with Brave feels. Firefox Lite and Microsoft Edge get closer to the pleasure of using Brave on mobile but neither comes close to matching it since Firefox lacks the reliability of Chromium browsers (I know, boo choosing browsers based on usefulness) and Edge has a fetish…

> Edge has a fetish for bloated sub-menus A Microsoft product with drop-downs inside of drop-downs? Say it ain't so. Brave does feel good, but it would be better if the spyglass at the bottom was "find in page" and not Search, since we have an omnibar.

Honestly the top-side omni-bar is what I dislike about a lot of mobile browsers. It's nice for seeing the web page but, imo, all frequently used controls should be at the bottom of the screen. Firefox Lite actually has a really strong gui with a few caveats! None of the mobile browsers, including Brave, are perfect in terms of layout. But if Brave could steal the bottom gui from Firefox Lite or if Firefox Lite had Brave's 'just works' factor, I'd be pretty happy.

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#193

Post by ac29 »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #174
ac29 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All ad networks keep revenue for themselves, so in this regard they aren't any different than Google or Facebook providing the ads. But, they also give a cut to users, so unless Brave's cut + the user cut is less than the existing ad networks' take, that's less money for publishers.

What a facile turn you took there. Google and Facebook have agreements with the websites they place the ads on. They asked for those ads to be there. Brave did not.

I think I misunderstood your comment - you are right, Brave's status quo is that they keep all of the revenue from by replacing publishers ads (minus they amount they give to users). My point was that in theory, if:

1) advertisers were willing to pay Brave the same amount as they do existing advertisers, and

2) Brave took a similar cut as existing advertisers (including user payouts), and

3) Publishers were actually taking BAT from Brave

Then there wouldn't be much of a financial difference in who was placing ads. #3 is obviously not the case currently, which seems to be the point you were making.

To be 100% clear: I don't support what Brave is doing, have never used their products, and think their entire business model and its associated crypto-nonsense is at best a waste of time.

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#194

Post by ac29 »

latchkey wrote: post #187
ac29 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To save folks a search: that's worth about $24 at current market price (less whatever fees it would take to convert in to your currency of choice). $4/month.

Amazing that a web browser actually pays you to use it.

Whats old is new again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#195

Post by bsanr2 »

ljm wrote: post #179
bsanr2 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. This is one of the few places where a tech outsider can be exposed to some of the topics that are on the minds of insiders. The caveat is that criticism of any of the conceptual bodies orbiting the starry notion of "tech startup" (social ramifications, diversity and discrimination, wealth and income, etc.) are heavily frowned upon. Now, are mods going through and sweeping away every comment that proclaims, "Tec…

I think HN attracts a certain political/socio-economic bias (for better or worse) but as far as public internet forums go, it is definitely one of the better ones for high quality discussion, whether you agree with what's being said or not. I'm not sure HN would benefit from requiring a paid subscription. I think that aversion to the aforementioned criticism would be avoided even more, or otherwise replaced with shee…

Yes, I'm not quite sure what the solution would be. It's unfortunate that the purview of this forum would include discussion for which users tend to produce comments of both high technical quality and occasionally mixed quality otherwise. I'm not the first person to say this, also, but I think the technical expertise many can claim creates a false sense of security in attempting to analyze and comment on things outside their experience. raises hand I just wonder what structural changes would facilitate a better experience beyond just, "Hey guys let's do 'better'."

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#196

Post by philwelch »

wasdfff wrote: post #164
surround wrote: post #113

The reason why “the internet is broken” is because of ads. Ads incentivize tracking and clickbait. In the end, ad companies, such as Google and Faceboook, act in the interests of advertisers, not users. Brave is an ad company. On the other hand, companies which are supported by user donations act in the best interests of users. This includes websites such as Wikipedia and the Internet Archive. Brave does offer the op…

I wish there was some mechanism to pay for websites out of your monthly bill. You pay x for internet, and y% is proportionally used to pay for your visits to websites a,b,c. You wouldn’t have to pay to host your site or worry about it bogging down if its been posted on reddit or hn, if it is payed for by visiting users out of their monthly bill to their ISP.

This is called microtransactions and it’s been a dream for a long time. The fact that it wasn’t baked into the web from the outset probably means it’s less likely to ever happen, and even if it did, you’d still have the same clickbait business models so aside from the advertising itself, it wouldn’t improve matters. In fact there wouldn’t be any reason for websites not to double down and have ads anyway!

Brave, ironically, is one of the few attempts to solve the microtransaction problem.

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#197

Post by wffurr »

wutbrodo wrote: post #141
wffurr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until content publishers go out of business or lock their content behind paywalls, and the "ad free experience" only has hobbyist blogs and amateurs. A lot of low rent internet chum would also disappear. So maybe that's a fair trade off, but it will also hurt your local newspaper pretty badly. Nobody has really come up with a good sustainable alternative to ad-funded content for a lot of publishers. Brave is one of m…

> A lot of low rent internet chum would also disappear. So maybe that's a fair trade off, but it will also hurt your local newspaper pretty badly. Wow, we have _completely_ different understandings of the value of the Internet. To me, the (realized) promise of the Internet is not just an additional channel for established media, it's the decentralization of publishing in the first place. "Low rent internet chum" is a…

Ad networks have been a key enabler of decentralized publishing. Anyone can sign up to an ad network and start getting paid for clicks. No traditional gatekeepers there. So I'm not sure where you get this idea that what I'm saying is in any way contradictory to what you said.

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#198

Post by ljm »

bsanr2 wrote: post #195
ljm wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think HN attracts a certain political/socio-economic bias (for better or worse) but as far as public internet forums go, it is definitely one of the better ones for high quality discussion, whether you agree with what's being said or not. I'm not sure HN would benefit from requiring a paid subscription. I think that aversion to the aforementioned criticism would be avoided even more, or otherwise replaced with shee…

Yes, I'm not quite sure what the solution would be. It's unfortunate that the purview of this forum would include discussion for which users tend to produce comments of both high technical quality and occasionally mixed quality otherwise. I'm not the first person to say this, also, but I think the technical expertise many can claim creates a false sense of security in attempting to analyze and comment on things outsi…

I think I'd just put that down to the human condition. We all like to have thoughts and opinions on things, derived from our own knowledge and experience. We can't all be experts in everything and neither should we be.

While some of these thoughts are definitely unwelcome, as they should be (we do need boundaries), I'm quite happy to engage with the mixed and low quality non-tech content either to educate myself to other points of view, or to attempt to counter them in the case of misunderstanding. And that's what a good debate is all about.

For me, that's a great experience because I enjoy being given the opportunity to be sensibly proven wrong.

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#199

Post by fastball »

onyva wrote: post #190
fastball wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Integrating those things into the browser is for: 1. user privacy – the data for ads is processed in your browser and then only meta is sent to the ad network. Rather than the current system, where Google's/Facebook's ad network fingerprints your browser and then tries to track everything you do on the web. 2. convenience – you can have the browser automatically donate money to the people/websites you visit most with…

1.) I’m not gonna trust a company like Brave with anything personal. Why would I? 2.) We’ve got Mozilla doing a great job. Monetizing the internet is not a priority I care about and ads are not what I need my browser to optimize. Also there will always be the problem of Bernden Eich who gave money to take away people’s most basic right in California. I can’t support that.

1) Because it's open source so you don't need to trust them.

2) How is Mozilla facilitating that at all, much less doing a great job of it?

3) Brendan Eich co-founded Mozilla, so that's pretty funny given your point (2).

Re: The Brave browser is brilliant, but probably not for the reasons you think

#200

Post by fastball »

surround wrote: post #167
fastball wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can send you BAT right now, which you can then immediately sell for fiat currency, without the involvement of anything related to Brave. Brave does not control BAT – it is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. Do they still own much of the BAT in circulation? Yes. But other than tanking the value of the BAT you own by selling all of theirs at once (a silly thing for them to do), there isn't much power they ca…

I suppose that’s the problem, then. Would another browser use BAT? No, because Brave already owns the majority of the Daddy-O dollars.

Brave does not own the majority of BAT. At least do a modicum of research before arguing about things on the internet.
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