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Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

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Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#141

Post by NelsonMinar »

patrickaljord wrote: post #72
girst wrote: post #4

well, compared to undisclosed affiliate marketing for trading sites[1], soliciting of donations without consent[2] or the recent redirection through affiliate links[3], this seems pretty tame. [1]: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/8793 [2]: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br... [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027

About [1], read the reply from the devs, seems reasonable and it was announced on their blog, it was temporary and could be turned off at anytime. Besides eToro is a well established site in Europe to buy stocks (no affiliations here), the reporter seems to really hate them for some reasons. [2] was fixed a while ago as mentioned in your link. [3] was also fixed quickly. I don't know if you've ever run a company but…

It's the nature of the mistakes that matter here. It's not like some dumb bug; time and time again they do unethical things that harm their users. Why?

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#142

Post by pschastain »

smt88 wrote: post #127
pschastain wrote: post #82

Brave Browser continues to behave in ways that are contrary to their stated principles. I dropped the browser a couple of months ago on the heels of the bitcoin affiliate link scandal and went back to Safari and Firefox. I am keeping an eye on Braver Browser, a fork of Brave with the intention of removing the questionable behavior: https://github.com/braver-browser

What's the advantage of Braver over Firefox? Is it just that you're trying to get ad blocking on iOS?

I don't use IOS (yet) so "no" on that front. I tried Brave and was happy with it until these recent revelations, so upon hearing about Braver I simply decided to keep an eye on it.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#144

Post by blocked_again »

anonymousDan wrote: post #84
AzzieElbab wrote: post #67

This is a bug, have you guys seen a software bug before? What is it with the appetite for outrage? Using brave on Android devices and not planning to switch

Ya I find the outright hatred for Brave on HN a bit bizarre. The more sustainable alternatives we have to Google Chrome hegemony the better IMHO. I say this as both a FF and Brave user.

You do know Brave is built on top of Chromium which is funded by Google right? I won't call a browser that relies so much on Google as a sustainable alternative to Chrome.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#145

Post by lalaland1125 »

girst wrote: post #4

well, compared to undisclosed affiliate marketing for trading sites[1], soliciting of donations without consent[2] or the recent redirection through affiliate links[3], this seems pretty tame. [1]: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/8793 [2]: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br... [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027

And that's just a short list of the shady things Brave has done. For example, Brave has also carried out an illegal security offering with their ICO.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#146

Post by rattray »

rattray wrote: post #135
rattray wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I get these two features on Firefox: 1. Block scripts on certain domains 2. Block ads & tracking (including on Android) Those are my favorite Brave features. How do I get them on Firefox?

Answering my own question, Firefox Android allows Add-Ons. So installing uBlock Origin for ad blocking and NoScript Security Suite for script blocking was trivial. So far so good, curious to see how it plays out...

And it turns out uBlock does allow you to block scripts on specific domains, so I don't even need NoScript. Nice.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#147

Post by rattray »

ciarannolan wrote: post #137
rattray wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I get these two features on Firefox: 1. Block scripts on certain domains 2. Block ads & tracking (including on Android) Those are my favorite Brave features. How do I get them on Firefox?

On mobile: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe... + enable the extention "uBlock Origin" in the settings (not sure the exact steps while writing this, sorry) On desktop: regular Firefox + https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... In uBlock Origin, there is a setting that disables Javascript by default (which I use). You can then enable it temporarily or permanently on a…

Thank you! Was very easy. Liking this so far.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#148

Post by basch »

morganvachon wrote: post #85
bartread wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've disliked Brave from the beginning. Initially because of the pretentious - and frankly appropriated - name, but now for the much more substantive reasons you've cited. Seriously, if you want a browser that gives you control over your data and privacy, use Firefox. It doesn't do any of this shady nonsense.

> I've disliked Brave from the beginning. As have I. The entire money making scheme behind it, while innovative, is a privacy nightmare. > Seriously, if you want a browser that gives you control over your data and privacy, use Firefox. It doesn't do any of this shady nonsense. Agreed, with the caveat that Firefox does have its own, completely different privacy issues[1][2]. Still, it's probably the best choice for a…

>The entire money making scheme behind it, while innovative, is a privacy nightmare.

Is it? An ad bundle is downloaded to your pc. Your pc tracks some usage, and stores every analytic locally. Using the analytics, your local client chooses which ads to target you with. You wipe your local data cache, your analytics disappear. I would guess people wished more advertising respected privacy this way.

This seems like much LESS of a privacy nightmare than Google, Facebook, Verizon, Microsoft, Amazon storing a named profile for each person.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#149

Post by erichocean »

yaiNua9o wrote: post #45
bartread wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've disliked Brave from the beginning. Initially because of the pretentious - and frankly appropriated - name, but now for the much more substantive reasons you've cited. Seriously, if you want a browser that gives you control over your data and privacy, use Firefox. It doesn't do any of this shady nonsense.

Firefox prevents me from installing webextensions from sources and even forces me to send the code of my own extensions for my own usage to their webservices in order to use them. This is certainly not a browser that "gives you control over your data", when you're a hacker.

Wow, that sucks. We use Chrome extensions (from source) to automate aspects of our customer service work, and we can't distribute these extensions on a hosted store.

So Firefox prevents this perfectly reasonable thing? WTF.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#150

Post by BeniBoy »

bartread wrote: post #17
girst wrote: post #4

well, compared to undisclosed affiliate marketing for trading sites[1], soliciting of donations without consent[2] or the recent redirection through affiliate links[3], this seems pretty tame. [1]: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/8793 [2]: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br... [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027

I've disliked Brave from the beginning. Initially because of the pretentious - and frankly appropriated - name, but now for the much more substantive reasons you've cited. Seriously, if you want a browser that gives you control over your data and privacy, use Firefox. It doesn't do any of this shady nonsense.

I've met Johny Ryan and he seems like an honest and privacy-focused guy. He seems to really care about his work.

I must admit that does not quite fit with a lot of the thing I've read about Brave over the years.

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