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

davidgerard.co.uk

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

#351

Post by meerita »

hendersoon wrote: post #198
meerita wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but unless you are a heavy Google user I don't see a cap in my performance to work with, GMail for example from time to time or using Drive, etc.

The Google Voice desktop site performs remarkably poorly on Firefox, often locking up entirely.

If you need to use it heavily, then yes. But I don't. I think Firefox performs optimaly 99% times for everyone. There will be a point where you may switch to Chrome, or Safari, but just for specific things unless that specific is the most important one.

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

#352

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

Sevaris wrote: post #301
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not okay with how Mozilla behaves regarding add-ons. As in, they have all this addon support, but it's not in any way a priority for them so they've basically taken it all away. So I won't support them or use their browser until they do.

You don't like that one browser has poor extension support, so you use a browser with no extension support? How does that make sense?

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

#353

Post by stjohnswarts »

dragonwriter wrote: post #308
paulryanrogers wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Automated updates on Windows. So, if you want a Google-free Chromium with that...Edge?

I always figured that Edge was meant to be an ironic name.

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

#354

Post by stjohnswarts »

djsumdog wrote: post #209
atombender wrote: post #193

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.

Vivaldi is another Chromium based browser, although it's closed source. Firefox was getting much better for a while right after the Quantum release, but recently it has fallen way behind.

It's the one I used. While people complain it's not open source, it's about 99.9% viewable from the point of view as source code.

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

#355

Post by stjohnswarts »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #199
atombender wrote: post #193

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.

Same here but edge is offering the same on desktop so im switching. For mobile, brave is my daily driver.

Check out vivaldi. Edge will have various phone home random messages to Microsoft to let them know what you're doing.

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

#356

Post by stjohnswarts »

josephcsible wrote: post #95
this_user wrote: post #13

I'm surprised people are surprised by this. Brave have said from the beginning that this is how their business model works. What I'm even more surprised about is that Brave has gotten any traction at all, as there is really no reason to use it instead of a normal browser with regular ad blockers.

Does anyone use Brave on the desktop? I thought Brave was only relevant on mobile, since mobile Chrome doesn't support extensions, and for some reason unknown to me people don't want to just use Firefox there.

Firefox Beta works great and is as snappy as chrome and has built in ad blocking (but you have to turn it fully on on your own). I use it and it works great. Give it a try if this situation is weening you off brave.

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

#357

Post by stjohnswarts »

leppr wrote: post #151
josephcsible wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone use Brave on the desktop? I thought Brave was only relevant on mobile, since mobile Chrome doesn't support extensions, and for some reason unknown to me people don't want to just use Firefox there.

> for some reason unknown to me people don't want to just use Firefox there. Initial loading of webpages on Android Firefox is very slow compared to Chromium browsers.

Not in the new versions. Firefox Beta has a new rendering engine that is as fast as Chrome. Soon they should release it into the stable, but beta has never given me any issues.

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

#358

Post by [deleted] »

atombender wrote: post #193
this_user wrote: post #13

I'm surprised people are surprised by this. Brave have said from the beginning that this is how their business model works. What I'm even more surprised about is that Brave has gotten any traction at all, as there is really no reason to use it instead of a normal browser with regular ad blockers.

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.

[deleted]

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

#359

Post by fastball »

SahAssar wrote: post #123
FillardMillmore wrote: post #26

I am an enthusiastic Brave user - but seeing stories like these make me wonder if I'd be better off configuring Firefox to be more secure/private and using that. As a privacy and transparency advocate, it disappoints me to see Brave fail to pass the test, especially considering that privacy and transparency are supposed to be the browser's MO.

What makes you think brave is better for privacy and transparency in the first place? Everything I've seen about brave sounds like something that can be done better with extensions within firefox, just with some added crypto/privacy hype BS added on top.

The fact that it is built-in makes me think the browser vendor (Brave) cares more about this issue. Does that not seem like a reasonable assumption?

Presumably it's not built-in to Firefox because if it was, Google might pull the lucrative default search engine deal that they have.

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

#360

Post by fastball »

Havoc wrote: post #94

Wow. They appear to have a death wish. If your entire raison d'etre is privacy and clear stated model then one covert shady move like this can wreck trust irrevocably. If they had just declared that their model includes inserting affiliate codes then that would all be fine. The codes aren't the issue here its a violation of trust. If I'm OK with mystery monetization stuff happening behind the scenes I'd be using Chro…

Except mystery monetization is a pre-req for heavily maintained software that you don't pay for.

I'd rather the mystery be "affiliate deals" than "selling my data".

Mozilla's mystery monetization is getting paid lotsa dollars to make Google the default search engine in Firefox. And Google can only afford that because of ads. If Firefox integrated ad-blocking by default like Brave did, Google might be inclined to pull that deal, as it is paid for with ads.

I trust the company with that conflict of interest less than I trust Brave.

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