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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

#151

Post by morganvachon »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #110
morganvachon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There are many other questionable privacy policies from Firefox. Here's one (mobile): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1265029 But there are many others, just search "firefox privacy concerns" or similar keywords. Telemetry data -- Pocket suggestions -- etc.

You're right, and Pocket being integrated into the browser itself rather than remaining a plugin was the one that drove me to Waterfox a few years ago. I just listed a couple of general issues above for brevity's sake.

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

#152

Post by basch »

kirubakaran wrote: post #92

They are an adtech company. That should be all we need to know, right? I'm willing to change my mind, so far it doesn't make sense to use Brave.

Its a very different ad tech company.

Not only is it opt in, but all the ad matching happens locally.

1) The browser periodically downloads an ad catalog (signal in, no signal out).

2) The browser now holds (1) the ad catalog (with some targeting keywords and terms set by advertisers); (2) your browsing history.

3) It then matches the ads from the catalog against your browsing history.

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

#153

Post by meddlepal »

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?

That's pretty much the only reason I use Brave. But also fuck Apple for forcing everyone to use WebKit.

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

#154

Post by _23sd »

esperent wrote: post #98
morganvachon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your first link is about Firefox studies. I had never heard of these before, but when I go to about:studies, I see that I have never participated in any studies, and when I click the link from that page to "Firefox data collection and use" setting, I see that I am opted out from everything. Pretty sure I didn't do that manually. Your second link is to a page called "Firefox health report". I have no idea what conclus…

> when I click the link from that page to "Firefox data collection and use" setting, I see that I am opted out from everything. Pretty sure I didn't do that manually.

Are you on Linux? Many distributions include their own tweaks to the Firefox package, including disabling data collection.

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

#155

Post by input_sh »

methodsignature wrote: post #97
bartread wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can definitely see the reasoning. I suppose I'm still debating whether it's good to have all my personal information with only one company or spread around a bit more. If I was going to plump for one company, Microsoft might not be the worst choice simply because their business model doesn't revolve around monetizing my personal information.

my understanding is that most of the web reports back to Google anyways:(

I mean, sure, but there's plenty of add-ons and filter lists that would make the web stop doing that.

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

#156

Post by pmoriarty »

rattray wrote: post #126
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.

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?

I use uMatrix to block scripts on certain domains. I used to use NoScript for this, but switched to uMatrix when I found that it gave me much more fine-grained control over what to allow or block.

For ad-blocking, I supplement uMatrix with uBlock Origin. It has its own block lists that it perodically

On top of that, I use privoxy as an http proxy. Unfortunately, it can't filter https.

Yet another part of my defense is DNS blocklists that I put in to /etc/hosts.[1]

Using this combination, I virtually never see any ads.

[1] - https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

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

#157

Post by gorhill »

pmoriarty wrote: post #156
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?

I use uMatrix to block scripts on certain domains. I used to use NoScript for this, but switched to uMatrix when I found that it gave me much more fine-grained control over what to allow or block. For ad-blocking, I supplement uMatrix with uBlock Origin. It has its own block lists that it perodically On top of that, I use privoxy as an http proxy. Unfortunately, it can't filter https. Yet another part of my defense i…

> I use uMatrix to block scripts on certain domains. [...] For ad-blocking, I supplement uMatrix with uBlock Origin.

As the author of both uBO and uMatrix, I don't understand the need to use uMatrix to block scripts when already using uBO, since uBO can do the same.

Even better, uBO supports replacing certain blocked scripts with a local, neutered version (to lower likelihood of site breakage), something which becomes broken if you block the same script with another extension (i.e. in either NoScript or uMatrix).

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

#158

Post by patrickaljord »

freediver wrote: post #133
patrickaljord wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting your users interest first needs to be balanced with remaining profitable so you can keep existing. It's hard to put your user interest first when you don't exist anymore. This is why Firefox decided for example to support non-free mp4 or EME (DRM), even though it goes against their mission of supporting the open web. They decided that not supporting these features would kill their market share, relevance and…

> Putting your users interest first needs to be balanced with remaining profitable so you can keep existing. Although this can be a sound principle for many, I do not agree with it. Brave is not 'entitled' in any way nor should the world bend to make Brave possible. It's a company like any other, with a product like any other and with, IMO, questionable leadrship principles demonstrated over and over again. The marke…

> Brave is not 'entitled' in any way nor should the world bend to make Brave possible.

I never said it was entitled, I said it had to balance things to survive.

> If I was to build a browser (which btw I am doing) I would put 100% user interest first, at the price of not succeeding in the market. That is the only way I could sleep well at night.

A quick look at the history of humanity will show you that even the most moral entities had at a point of their existence have to compromise with morality to survive, or made bad choices out of self-interest. Just like every single human being who has ever lived. I don't think you can never ever ever compromise on anything while accomplishing anything significant. By the way, do you plan on taking out mp4 and user freedom hostile features such as EME support in your browser?

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

#159

Post by Can_Not »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #111
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. Initially because of the pretentious - and frankly appropriated - name I always joked that if you were really Brave you wouldn't need their browser, it should be more aptly named "Wimp".

I think a better joke would be how you would have to be brave to try a browser that vaguely uses cryptocurrency/blockchain in any way.

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

#160

Post by dblohm7 »

erichocean wrote: post #149
yaiNua9o wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> So Firefox prevents this perfectly reasonable thing? WTF.

Not true. You can get them signed without publicly redistributing them.

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