Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brave, the false sensation of privacy

ebin.city

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 501 posts

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#201

Post by upofadown »

bruce343434 wrote: post #23

> brave-core-ext.s3.brave.com fetches 5 extensions and installs them. It is said that this might be a backdoor. But I don’t want to get conspiracist. I prefer giving you verifiable facts. I’ll limit myself to inform you about suspicious activities. Okay, so which 5 extensions? There has to be more information on this somewhere. Article seems kind of lazy and definitely loses steam after the second half.

You can see them listed at the bottom of this page:

* https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html

... which doesn't really add anything to the original assertion as we don't know what the extensions might do. The statement is all all there is.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#202

Post by matrus »

roenxi wrote: post #177
roca wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand how Chromium works. Google makes all the important decisions. People have advocated for independent governance (e.g. some kind of Chromium Foundation) but Google isn't interested. E.g. Brave opposes Google in some ways but they have no say in the development of Web standards implemented by Chromium.

It is open source. If someone doesn't like a decision they can fork the codebase. Mozilla's Gecko has been beaten down to sub-double-digit market share, they're less relevant right now than when IE6 was >75% of the market. They have no power to influence the direction the web moves in. And yet life is going on better than ever. If you want a counterbalance to stop Google making the important decisions, Firefox has fa…

To make any dent to Google's dominance over the web a potential fork would first have to gain any noticeable traction. This seems highly unlikely if well funded companies like Microsoft or Mozilla weren't able to leverage their properties (Windows in Microsoft's case) or their brand (Mozilla) so far. Plus, any major fork of Chromium would have to compete with Chrome's vast development budget.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#203

Post by celsoazevedo »

bruce343434 wrote: post #23

> brave-core-ext.s3.brave.com fetches 5 extensions and installs them. It is said that this might be a backdoor. But I don’t want to get conspiracist. I prefer giving you verifiable facts. I’ll limit myself to inform you about suspicious activities. Okay, so which 5 extensions? There has to be more information on this somewhere. Article seems kind of lazy and definitely loses steam after the second half.

Could it be some of Brave features that seem to use extensions? For example, if I enable the "IPFS companion" or "WebTorrent", they show as extensions under the browser's "task manager": https://i.imgur.com/PFRkv5l.png

The only other thing I could think of is "chrome://components/" which also exists on Chrome and updates some browser components.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#205

Post by ziml77 »

yoz-y wrote: post #70
pwdisswordfish8 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like VPNs don’t have the exact same problem, though…

They do, but at least in theory, their business model is built on not selling the information.

Given how much ISPs charge I don't think they need to sell info to make money.

As garbage as most US ISP options are, I'd trust them long before I trust random VPN services. And I can be reasonably certain that my physical connection goes to Verizon. My virtual connection could be going anywhere and I just have to believe that it's to people who are who they say they are.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#206

Post by schelling42 »

omginternets wrote: post #133

I like Brave, though I'm open to switching if there's a better alternative. Here's what I like about it: 1. Compatibility with Google Chrome Extensions. This is sine qua non (though I'd settle for compatibility with FF extensions). 2. Ad-blocking and reasonable-effort script blocking by default. 3. No apparent performance issues for my usage (YouTube, clicking links on HN, GitHub). 4. Integration with Tor, IPFS. Not…

Popularizing IPFS and Tor to bigger user bases is likely the single best thing that brave does.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#207

Post by matheusmoreira »

varnaud wrote: post #34
miedpo wrote: post #15

So I feel as if the author is missing the point. Of course brave markets to you with ads. That's the entire point of the web browser. To ad-block, but then to replace it with a suitable privacy protecting alternative to the point that Brave (and everyone else) has no idea which ads you were served and what your browsing history is. The entire point is to mot just be an ad blocker, but to be private, and to provide a…

I feel the author is on point. Brave is all about marketing and surfing the privacy wave to make profit. Take a look at https://brave.com/brave-ads/ Brave goal is to acquire as much users as possible to sell them to advertisers. They are no different from Google. Might as well use Chrome with ublock origin and farm crypto on your own.

> They are no different from Google.

Brave lets you turn off the ads. They also pay you cryptocurrency if you decide to turn them on.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#208

Post by NelsonMinar »

Brave's business model is replacing the ads on websites with their own ads. Then there was that one time they started inserting their own affiliate codes into web pages. No surprise they replace the trackers on websites with their own tracking, too. At least their ethics are consistent.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#209

Post by jsf01 »

fallat wrote: post #168
wmitty wrote: post #16

> Their adblocker is just a fork of uBlock Origin, This does not appear to be true. Here is the github repo for their open source adblock engine written in rust: https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust Here is a (somewhat dated) article describing it by the authors: https://brave.com/improved-ad-blocker-performance/ > Google will take decisions that benefit their advertisement business, like making impossible to use ad…

Why not just use Ungoogled-Chromium?

Third party untrusted binaries last I checked

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#210

Post by wizzwizz4 »

jaywalk wrote: post #121
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already a huge uproar around Comcast. But Comcast isn't losing any customers, because they have monopolies.

Yeah, uproar around prices and speeds and stuff like that. Nothing like screwing with third-party DNS requests.

Actually, I have heard that claim more than once, about various providers (up to, and including, “when I changed my DNS settings and the traffic slowed down, the tech got me to change them back, and the traffic sped up”).

It's less common, I think, because more people know how to check their speed than change their DNS.

Post reply on HN