Once it became obvious through Firefox blog posts that they support censorship and oppose free speech, I made the switch to Brave.
Brave, the false sensation of privacy
351–360 of 501 posts
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 corp…
"Brave runs on the exact same ad model as Chrome…"
You couldn't be more mistaken here. I covered the history of digital advertising and the introduction of Brave's model here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsrrT502luI.
In short, Brave's model is largely the inversion of Google's model. With Brave, users must opt-in. Google doesn't ask you to opt-in. With Brave, user data remains on device. Google requires the remote collection of your data, as well as the broadcasting of it to third-parties. With Brave, users decide when and how many ads they will be shown. Google shows you as many as they can get away with. With Brave, user's collect 70% of the revenue for their participation. Google gives you nothing, but takes quite a bit. With Brave, Brave Software learns nothing about you, your interests, or your browsing history. Google learns quite a bit about you, harvesting as much data as they can get away with, and using it across contexts and domains.
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#353Another 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.
Did any lawsuits come out of this? That seems like actual fraud, and Eich or others in the company should be in prison.
The claim that Brave was collecting money on behalf of others is quite misleading. See my response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27553383.
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#354In addition to some of the other oddities with the article (i.e. the absolutely wrong claim about Brave's ad blocker), I think the security between Chromium and Firefox is a bit too simplistic? This piece [1] might go too far in the other direction, but at the very least it outlines why there are deficiencies in Firefox, comparatively. [1]: https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.ht...
This article is really complete and straight to the point.
I really like that madaidan keeps it updated.
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same here. I've also had Brendan Eich respond to one of my posts on HN - not something I'd expect from any other browser on the market. He understands techies because he is one. I wish Mozilla was headed by a techie and not a lawyer :(
The thought of Firefox shilling crypto bux turns my stomach, so I'll have to disagree with you.
As others have said multiple times, you can turn off all that crypto stuff in brave and ignore it. They've found a unique way to fund the product, not at the mercy of Google which can only be a good thing right?
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#356Firefox user here. I've looked into Brave, but decided I didn't really want it. This article is incredibly slanted. It takes every single possible fact it can and spins it into "Brave Bad." Something like this: > Brave is just another Chromium skin. So at the end, when using Brave or any other Chromium based browser, you’re giving marketshare to Google and supporting their evil web empire. Is simply not true. Every b…
Brave the company has made some egregious missteps, but the problem with Brave is that there is so much FUD around it it's incredible. People keep repeating the same bullcrap which has been debunked hundreds of times, and Brave gets reviled much more than it deserves. Every time a Brave article is posted on HN the first 5 top comments are the same trite, wrong arguments, whose first reply is usually someone clarifying and correcting OP.
There's a long road ahead to cleaning up the Brave name, if it's at all possible in the first place.
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#357I find Brave Rewards very egregious. You get lots of BAT and the marketing copy hypes it up immensely without mentioning, anywhere, that you need to provide your SSN and Driver's License to a third-party (Uphold) if you actually, you know, want to cash out. This seems particularly irritating because, let's say you set your browser to show you the max amount of ads for a while. You saved up for a few months, decided y…
This is the law; it's not Brave's design. Our design enables you to opt-in, earn, and give to content creators without having to provide any information. The law, however, requires and compels Brave to add KYC into the mix when you wish to self-fund or cash out. Anti-money laundering is not something we can or would circumvent.
Seems like a pretty important piece of information to share with potential users up front though, for something marketing itself with a privacy focus.
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
On my home network I just run a transparent proxy and direct all outbound traffic bound to port 53 to my local dns server, it’s not hard.
I just block all outbound port 53 traffic, any device or app that doesn't honor my DHCP-provided DNS resolver can suck it. Looking at you, Chromecast that tries 8.8.8.8 40 times an hour even though you know perfectly damn well that 10.10.10.1 is working
The DNS provided by many ISPs is not to be trusted, as per this thread, so how else can your Chromecast act to find a trustworthy DNS?
And with newer decides that use DoH, you can no longer prevent devices from contacting their own DNS provider without totally firewalling them (or perhaps using some IP blacklist or whitelist, if available?)
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#359I would never use brave personally, however given the fact this post is essentially just a copy pasta of typical /g/ arguments.
Everyone should take the post with a mountain full of salt (just look at their post about systemd).
Re: Brave, the false sensation of privacy
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
> deciding which interests to send to the ad server I was looking at their media kit[0]. They link to a presentation[1] which mentions that the ads are sent to the browser and then the browser itself picks the ones that should be shown to the user. If this is really the case, then the browser isn't sending that information to the ad server. [0] https://brave.com/brave-ads/assets/Brave_Media_Kit.pdf [1] https://www.yo…
This wouldn’t work for an ad network as big as Google’s, and would further centralize who can serve ads to users (something Google can’t get away with like Brave can).
> This wouldn’t work for an ad network as big as Google’s
Yeah, maybe. I was just pointing out that it doesn't send the user's preferences to a server.