Live data from Hacker News

The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

davidgerard.co.uk

251–260 of 394 posts

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#251
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Brave because it's a "degoogled" Chrome. Having good blocking built in is a plus. Being able to use Chrome extensions is also a plus. I've tried Firefox many times over the years, and only recently has it gotten to a point where it's fast and nice enough on macOS. There are still corners of the app I dislike (it doesn't always feel like a native app, for example), but this may be a reason to finally switch.

I've been using Brave for this reason too on desktop. I installed opera for the first time in years last week, very nicely surprised. Fast, chrome based browser. The extension bar on the left is a useful add-on. I'll be removing Brave after this news and be using Firefox mainly, with opera as my 2nd browser.

Consider Vivaldi too. It is closer in spirit to the original Opera IMO.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Brave because it's a "degoogled" Chrome. Having good blocking built in is a plus. Being able to use Chrome extensions is also a plus. I've tried Firefox many times over the years, and only recently has it gotten to a point where it's fast and nice enough on macOS. There are still corners of the app I dislike (it doesn't always feel like a native app, for example), but this may be a reason to finally switch.

Just use Ungoogled Chromium. Why suffer rent seeking crypto shenanigans?

Last I checked, Ungoogled Chromium did not have self-updates, and installing Chrome Extensions was a bit of a chore without a special extension.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Brave because it's a "degoogled" Chrome. Having good blocking built in is a plus. Being able to use Chrome extensions is also a plus. I've tried Firefox many times over the years, and only recently has it gotten to a point where it's fast and nice enough on macOS. There are still corners of the app I dislike (it doesn't always feel like a native app, for example), but this may be a reason to finally switch.

Just use Ungoogled Chromium. Why suffer rent seeking crypto shenanigans?

Automated updates on Windows. That said there is no shortage of Chromium forks with auto update these days.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#255

Typing this on Brave for iOS. What is the best browser for iOS from a privacy standpoint? Firefox doesn’t have uBlock Origin. I don’t trust Microsoft Edge or Chrome. What do you suggest?

Um Firefox not only has uBlock origin, it's way better than Chrome's version. FF is definitely way better.

iOS, FFS

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#256
post #96
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Not sure what else needs to happen to encourage Chromium users to finally give Firefox a try.

Latency. Just tested with a "hello world" page (18ms ping). Chrome takes 102-200ms to render the page, Firefox takes 150-400ms. 1.5 to 2x slower -- and that's after all the performance upgrades they've done with Rust and Quantum. Network inspector says Firefox is spending 150-270ms "blocked" before it even initiates the connection. On Chrome the block is 3-18ms (15-50x (!!) faster). There's also UI lag. When I press…

I'm using Firefox and getting navigation times on par with Chromium when loading simple documents (tested with example.com).

From pressing enter to the browser initiating a fetch was around 16ms.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#257
post #39
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have Android try the new Firefox Preview, best browser I've used on mobile so far. Complete rewrite.

Which is missing nearly all of the addons that I use and which don't seem to be a priority for Mozilla. Their whole strategy regarding addons is incredibly frustrating.

Sure, but Brave on Android has no extension support, so still better.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#258
post #15

Being a happy Firefox user and watching all the browser drama from the backyard. I still don't understand why people uses Chrome or Chrome variants claiming privacy things.

As a long-time Firefox user, I find the constant drama over Brave rather amusing. It seems to be an intersection of internet publishers upset about Brave's ad blocking/replacing, people who hate Eich for his politics/beliefs, and cryptocurrency critics.

It's a perfect storm of drama, centered around a browser that has a very small market share from what I can tell (otherwise I'd probably find it all less amusing.)

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#259
post #190
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite repeated requests, Chrome and Chromium still misclassify certain requests in order to hide them from content filters. Here is one example: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=611453

I don't get it. The ticket wants beacons/pings to be classified as the same request type as xhr, and it's marked as WONTFIX. Isn't this a good thing?

whether they get lumped in with xhr or with 'other' is immaterial; the problem is the chromium developers refuse to have a 'ping' type like other browser engines do.

Re: The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Brave because it's a "degoogled" Chrome. Having good blocking built in is a plus. Being able to use Chrome extensions is also a plus. I've tried Firefox many times over the years, and only recently has it gotten to a point where it's fast and nice enough on macOS. There are still corners of the app I dislike (it doesn't always feel like a native app, for example), but this may be a reason to finally switch.

I have Brave installed for the exact same reason. I usually use Firefox or Safari for most web browsing, but unfortunately some web services requires me to use Chromium-based browsers (e.g., Paperpile). I used to have Chrome installed for theses situations, but so many factors made me want to use Chrome less and less to the point that I simply didn't want to use it at all, even for rare occasions. For the curious, he…

In many cases when a website 'requires' chrome it's just because the devs were too lazy to test it in other browsers and copied the snippet that asks for chrome. I usually just switch my user-agent in Safari dev menu to chrome and the site magically starts working.
Post reply on HN