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

241–250 of 501 posts

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#241

Post by Belphemur »

_fnhr wrote: post #234
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…

There are more lies in that article. This one for example is so often repeated but untrue: > Rewards is their shitty program that will replace ads displayed on websites with their own. Brave doesn't replace ads with their own. Brave ads are displayed as desktop pop-ups. They can also be easily disabled (which, surprise, the author doesn't mention because of his bias). And the idea behind Brave ads is to give you toke…

To play devil advocate.

On one side, Brave come with an adblocker that will remove any ads from the website you're visiting. On the other, they provide their own ads through the reward program.

So it can be seen as "replacing website ads by its own".

I approve that line of reasoning, but I think that what the author meant.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#243

Post by dangerface »

> This means that you need to update the entire browser to fix a bug in the adblocker. Stupid, isn’t it?

I mean chrome and firefox both update pretty much every time I open them and they are only like 50-100mb? Why would I be upset that my browser updated? OP Made it bold too they must think its a real gotcha!

Later in the article they are again grinding that axe against auto updates, that some how having an up to date browser hurts privacy?

Op must be the one last IE6 stan.

They complain about BRAVE ARE SCAMMING PEOPLE! and that they COVERED UP PEOPLE THAT EXPOSED THEM! It turns out to be an ad on the home screen for a crypto currency exchange... Scam exposed LOL

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#244

Post by Belphemur »

Belphemur wrote: post #241
_fnhr wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more lies in that article. This one for example is so often repeated but untrue: > Rewards is their shitty program that will replace ads displayed on websites with their own. Brave doesn't replace ads with their own. Brave ads are displayed as desktop pop-ups. They can also be easily disabled (which, surprise, the author doesn't mention because of his bias). And the idea behind Brave ads is to give you toke…

To play devil advocate. On one side, Brave come with an adblocker that will remove any ads from the website you're visiting. On the other, they provide their own ads through the reward program. So it can be seen as "replacing website ads by its own". I approve that line of reasoning, but I think that what the author meant.

Edit: I don't approve that line of reasoning, but I think that what the author meant.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#245

Post by gota »

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…

I use Brave and I have the exact same list of likes, and in same order of priority - if that is what you meant.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#246

Post by gruez »

jsf01 wrote: post #209
fallat wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just use Ungoogled-Chromium?

Third party untrusted binaries last I checked

You can build it yourself, but even with a midrange desktop it'll take you at least an hour to build. A laptop would probably take 2-3 at least.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#247

Post by _fnhr »

Belphemur wrote: post #241
_fnhr wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more lies in that article. This one for example is so often repeated but untrue: > Rewards is their shitty program that will replace ads displayed on websites with their own. Brave doesn't replace ads with their own. Brave ads are displayed as desktop pop-ups. They can also be easily disabled (which, surprise, the author doesn't mention because of his bias). And the idea behind Brave ads is to give you toke…

To play devil advocate. On one side, Brave come with an adblocker that will remove any ads from the website you're visiting. On the other, they provide their own ads through the reward program. So it can be seen as "replacing website ads by its own". I approve that line of reasoning, but I think that what the author meant.

To play the devil's devil's advocate :)

Brave allows you to do whatever you want. You can see publisher ads without Brave ads. You can see Brave ads without publishers ads. You can see both. Or you can disable both.

Since individual users can achieve any configuration of ads they like, to me it seems that some people are only unhappy with this because they want to push their moral stances on everyone else. Like, for example, stating that the ability to block publisher ads while enabling Brave ads is immoral and shouldn't be allowed.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#248

Post by Liquid_Fire »

rib3ye wrote: post #93

The only reason I use Brave is that I can type “you” + tab to directly enter YouTube search from the URL input field, and this works for gMaps and Amazon. For the life of me I cannot figure out how to configure this in Firefox.

An alternative method to the other comments, which will enable the Tab behaviour you're describing (it will add a search engine with a keyword instead of a bookmark):

  1. Add YouTube as a search engine (visit YouTube, click on the + in the search box and click 'Add "YouTube"').
  2. Open Firefox Settings > Search > Search Shortcuts (near  the bottom)
  3. Set a keyword "you" for YouTube in the table
  4. Search by typing "you" + Tab in the address bar

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#249

Post by ABCLAW »

Belphemur wrote: post #241
_fnhr wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more lies in that article. This one for example is so often repeated but untrue: > Rewards is their shitty program that will replace ads displayed on websites with their own. Brave doesn't replace ads with their own. Brave ads are displayed as desktop pop-ups. They can also be easily disabled (which, surprise, the author doesn't mention because of his bias). And the idea behind Brave ads is to give you toke…

To play devil advocate. On one side, Brave come with an adblocker that will remove any ads from the website you're visiting. On the other, they provide their own ads through the reward program. So it can be seen as "replacing website ads by its own". I approve that line of reasoning, but I think that what the author meant.

The idea that the experience is equivalent as a result of substitution is incorrect, though, and the author's original heavy implication that Brave's substitution is malicious and selfishly designed does not hold up.

Brave basically aligns advertising incentives to match with viewer incentives. A Google served ad is not the same thing as a Brave served ad from the perspective of a viewer, because Brave ads are optional and some of their value accrues to the viewer.

Is the alignment perfect? No. But I do view it as a substantially better starting point than the currently centralizing, adversarial model that currently exists.

Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy

#250

Post by Barrin92 »

ahofmann wrote: post #156
timvisee wrote: post #30

Another shady practice: you could donate to any website, but Brave itself received the amount if not claimed by the website creator. Users did not know. ( https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br... , https://redd.it/a8g1i9 ) Don't use Brave. Tell others not to use it.

Just because something is not perfect, it should not be condemned. I don't understand why alternatives are often held to much higher standards than the established service.

aren't the alternatives in this case held to a lower standard? Like the kind of shady behavior you see from these alternatives, often in some way tied into crypto stuff, you don't even see from Google or Microsoft, let alone from someone like Mozilla

Brave runs on the exact same ad model as Chrome, they just inserted themselves as the middle man. There's no actual value provided here and it's basically just "big corporate bad" marketing

Post reply on HN