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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

#231

Post by anoncake »

fastball wrote: post #152
ssl232 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not say they should not necessarily exist, I said they should not exist in their current form. I also want to go back to the days where websites were a labour of love from individuals, not always for-profit enterprises. Ads right now are attention stealing, privacy invading monsters as a result of an arms race for users' notice. They actively harm users for profit. There are ways to advertise without harming us…

How do Brave's ads actively harm users?

That's kinda the point of ads.

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

#232

Post by anoncake »

eloop wrote: post #180
jl2718 wrote: post #102

It’s been almost 30 years and I still don’t understand why browsers exist. Isolated client-server apps were always better. Except that app design now emulates the browser. Soon we’ll have wasm apps that look and feel like windows 1.0 and call it revolutionary.

The browser exists to interact with the world wide web, that is revolutionary.

Considering that a web browser is a client for the World Wide Web, it's not revolutionary but trivial.

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

#233

Post by surround »

jl2718 wrote: post #212
surround wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually prefer web apps because browsers make it easy to view control what’s being sent over my network. Requests are decrypted in the browser and can be viewed in plaintext with the browser console. They can be blocked using tools such as uBlock Origin. Standalone client-server apps have full, unsandboxed control of your computer. It’s impossible to see the content of encrypted network requests, short of hacking…

This is a good point, and I agree with you, but it seems there are better methods of isolation. Cell phones do this pretty well, and they are the dominant platform anyway, so I guess we're moving in that direction. I just wish I could use the UI features of a PC for all they offer beyond screen-based gestures.

I suppose it’s less about isolation than about control. Phone apps are even more difficult to sniff.

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

#234

Post by BrendanEich »

onyva wrote: post #221
BrendanEich wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring Onyva's misstatements, please note that Mozilla does depend for most of its revenue on Google's ad system (people don't use "ad networks" much any longer, but as a loose term for a platform such as Google's Authorized Buyers and AdSense programs, it'll do). Brave does not have such a data-breaching ad "network" or "real-time bid" platform. Instead the Brave browser downloads a fixed-per-day-for-large-N-popul…

Mozilla doesn’t embed an ad network in your browser!?!? Why would anybody want a browser that does this? You can do whatever you want to do with Firefox. Enjoy the free blocking mechanisms, including fingerprinting, and install whichever 3rd party ad blocker. Users understand the relationship there, so please don’t try to spin it. It’s not about user’s data. You’re embedding an ad client into the browser. You want to…

Brave doesn’t “embed an ad network in your browser” either. If we should bother taking more, let’s agree on common definitions first.

We give no browsing data out to any server including ours, and we pay users 70% of the gross. This user-first design flips the Google model that Mozilla facilitates by default for its ad revenue share. If our users don’t like it, we go out of business. If Firefox users remain unaware of their uncompensated value to Google, Mozilla thrives. Got it?

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

#236

Post by surround »

fastball wrote: post #200
surround wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ok, they own a lot of BAT, and have a strong influence on how it’s spent. They created BAT. This is the premise of the parent article.

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

#237

Post by BrendanEich »

BrendanEich wrote: post #234
onyva wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla doesn’t embed an ad network in your browser!?!? Why would anybody want a browser that does this? You can do whatever you want to do with Firefox. Enjoy the free blocking mechanisms, including fingerprinting, and install whichever 3rd party ad blocker. Users understand the relationship there, so please don’t try to spin it. It’s not about user’s data. You’re embedding an ad client into the browser. You want to…

Brave doesn’t “embed an ad network in your browser” either. If we should bother taking more, let’s agree on common definitions first. We give no browsing data out to any server including ours, and we pay users 70% of the gross. This user-first design flips the Google model that Mozilla facilitates by default for its ad revenue share. If our users don’t like it, we go out of business. If Firefox users remain unaware o…

*talking more

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

#238

Post by philwelch »

Beldin wrote: post #202
philwelch wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, ironi…

Actually, ads are the only model of microtransactions that has worked in practice. So the good news is that there is a practical method of microtransactions! The minor downside is that is not C2B, but B2B.

Eh, there are online gaming microtransactions that work, too.

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

#239

Post by leoc »

surround wrote: post #236
fastball wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ok, they own a lot of BAT, and have a strong influence on how it’s spent. They created BAT. This is the premise of the parent article.

For this to be a major problem, there has to be a large group of website owners, large enough to be enticing to other browsers, who both accept tips in BAT and are reluctant to accept tips in some other, additional cryptocurrency, and Brave's owners have to be able and willing to shut other browsers of BAT tipping, no? It doesn't look likely that all those conditions will be fulfilled, even assuming that that critical mass of BAT-tip-accepting sites is coming or is already here.

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

#240

Post by jfengel »

onyva wrote: post #224
6510 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think FREE is the problem. Anything that is free will either find ways to make you pay for it or has other people pay for it. As a bonus you don't have any complaints either since you officially didn't pay. Is Wikimedia acting in users best interest? It really doesn't need to beg for your money but it cant get enough of your money? haha I don't know what it costs to host 250 billion page views per year but they cla…

Free is NOT the problem. Free is the “business model” of the internet. Just because some people want to monetize it doesn’t mean we need to give up and just let them do what they want. Selling ads is not the purpose of the internet. Content created to sell ads is most of the time garbage. No chicken, no egg no puzzle to resolve.

Most content is garbage, but there exists content you want. If it didn't exist, you wouldn't be looking for it, and you wouldn't see any ads.

Ads are just the most friction-free way (from the reader's point of view) to pay for it. You don't have to install anything or connect your bank account. There's a lot wrong with that, including the proliferation of crappy content, but it does fund a lot of the genuine content as well. Both readers and writers want a better way, but results are mixed at best.

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