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Goodbye Brave

arunmozhi.in

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Re: Goodbye Brave

#121

Post by fileeditview »

whakim wrote: post #35
cmeacham98 wrote: post #6

Hi author, if you're here on HN please consider ditching sketchy extensions like Ghostery (sells your user data) and Adblock+ (participates in paid bypass of "acceptable ads" program) for the open-source and user-focused uBlock Origin ( https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock ). Also, if you haven't tried Firefox since the quantum days come back and give it another try.

I think it's at least worth having the discussion about "acceptable ads". While reasonable people can disagree, I personally think that unobtrusive advertising that doesn't harvest your data should be a valid business model.

As a consumer you should ask yourself: do the ads provide any benefit to me? And if there is none, you should just block the them.

Sure it's nothing new that companies try to show you ads. But in the same spirit I always turned down volume or switched channel on TV when ads were on. This was in the past. These days I don't even bother watching channels with ads.

I personally would not be sad if the whole ad industry became less significant and we had more paid services. They also tend to be longer-lasting than many ad-sponsored services. Also I am the customer and can demand certain things, whereas with a free service I can demand nothing and I am not the customer.

As a student I made a few small Android games with ads. They brought in a few hundred bucks. Then I was blocked by Admob for whatever reason. At this point I learned what a crooked business this is and I swore that I will never make an ad-sponsored app again. If I have an idea for a product/service that will only work in that setting it will not even go on my list.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#122

Post by kafkaIncarnate »

roenxi wrote: post #47
whakim wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's at least worth having the discussion about "acceptable ads". While reasonable people can disagree, I personally think that unobtrusive advertising that doesn't harvest your data should be a valid business model.

It was a surprise to me, but there is a group of people - possibly native to tech circles, possibly a broader group - who appear to be genuinely angry about the existence of advertising as a thing. Let alone if they personally have to view ads. It is a bit confusing to be honest. There seems to be something very upsetting happening but exactly what is causing that response I can't pick out.

And our names were Tyler Durden.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#123

Post by leodriesch »

fastball wrote: post #93

Everyone wants to talk the respective merits of Brave vs Firefox vs ____, but I just want to talk about how the post itself is dumb. You're installing an extension from a web store. Of course it doesn't work if there is a problem with the backend servers. Where do you expect to get the extension from?

As far as I understood the backend issue was on Braves end, while the Chrome Web Store was fine.

So installing the extension worked in Chrome, but not in Brave, because they had some backend problems, while the installing of an extension should not need the Brave servers at all.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#124

Post by bee_rider »

whakim wrote: post #35
cmeacham98 wrote: post #6

Hi author, if you're here on HN please consider ditching sketchy extensions like Ghostery (sells your user data) and Adblock+ (participates in paid bypass of "acceptable ads" program) for the open-source and user-focused uBlock Origin ( https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock ). Also, if you haven't tried Firefox since the quantum days come back and give it another try.

I think it's at least worth having the discussion about "acceptable ads". While reasonable people can disagree, I personally think that unobtrusive advertising that doesn't harvest your data should be a valid business model.

Do ad blockers now block first party images, or something? I'm fine with a site just hosting static images by itself. Typically I think the bad behavior comes from the third party ad networks. So, the way to get acceptable ads is for everyone to run an ad blocker. If we block the abusive entrants from the market, it might give the good ones room to grow.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#125

Post by tinus_hn »

fileeditview wrote: post #121
whakim wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's at least worth having the discussion about "acceptable ads". While reasonable people can disagree, I personally think that unobtrusive advertising that doesn't harvest your data should be a valid business model.

As a consumer you should ask yourself: do the ads provide any benefit to me? And if there is none, you should just block the them. Sure it's nothing new that companies try to show you ads. But in the same spirit I always turned down volume or switched channel on TV when ads were on. This was in the past. These days I don't even bother watching channels with ads. I personally would not be sad if the whole ad industry…

There’s no free lunch, the ads provide you with the ability to see things on the internet for free.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#126

Post by hosteur »

keyle wrote: post #18

It's so bad lately that I'm working on my own web browser in my free time (off WebKit, won't be big, or public and will be a pile of hacks) but at least I won't rely on this mess.

Please consider making it public FLOSS. Even if a bunch of hacks. We need more diversity in this area.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#127

Post by maeln »

weare138 wrote: post #40
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does firefox let you install extensions without contacting Mozilla servers? I'm not sure how the extension signing works, but it may fail the same reason they're leaving Brave.

Well they're being hosted on Mozilla's servers so no but FF doesn't in any way require a connection to Mozilla's servers to function.

You can host extension on your own server. Fireox will display a security warning when you try to install them, but that is it.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#128

Post by marcodiego »

whakim wrote: post #35
cmeacham98 wrote: post #6

Hi author, if you're here on HN please consider ditching sketchy extensions like Ghostery (sells your user data) and Adblock+ (participates in paid bypass of "acceptable ads" program) for the open-source and user-focused uBlock Origin ( https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock ). Also, if you haven't tried Firefox since the quantum days come back and give it another try.

I think it's at least worth having the discussion about "acceptable ads". While reasonable people can disagree, I personally think that unobtrusive advertising that doesn't harvest your data should be a valid business model.

At the current state, I don't think there is such thing as "acceptable ads".

Re: Goodbye Brave

#129

Post by zwayhowder »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #6

Hi author, if you're here on HN please consider ditching sketchy extensions like Ghostery (sells your user data) and Adblock+ (participates in paid bypass of "acceptable ads" program) for the open-source and user-focused uBlock Origin ( https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock ). Also, if you haven't tried Firefox since the quantum days come back and give it another try.

I want to use Firefox as my daily driver, but the inability to remap the keyboard shortcuts for tabs prevent me using it. On Linux Firefox maps Alt+# to tabs.

I have two problems with that. Firstly on Windows Firefox uses the Control key, so now I have to remember a different shortcut for my work PC vs my gaming PC. Secondly I run i3wm and alt is my mod key.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#130

Post by rglullis »

roenxi wrote: post #47
whakim wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's at least worth having the discussion about "acceptable ads". While reasonable people can disagree, I personally think that unobtrusive advertising that doesn't harvest your data should be a valid business model.

It was a surprise to me, but there is a group of people - possibly native to tech circles, possibly a broader group - who appear to be genuinely angry about the existence of advertising as a thing. Let alone if they personally have to view ads. It is a bit confusing to be honest. There seems to be something very upsetting happening but exactly what is causing that response I can't pick out.

The problem is not "ads". The problem is in the "ad-funded" business models. The ad-funded economy is one of the main contributors to the destruction of the fabric of our communities.

Ad-funded business models make it impossible for the people to "vote with their wallets", so all of the good things about any kind of market dynamics are removed, and we are left only with its disadvantages.

- It treats everyone as "eyeballs", removing any need for a content producer to care about quality. As long as it generates clicks it goes. It has turned even the most reputable of media channels into tabloids.

- By having no regard for quality, it's a tragedy of the commons.

- By removing any chance of nuance, it makes all of the audience to be bucketed into "pass/filter" algorithms, and the only concern is to make sure that the content is so bland and innocuous that no one within their bubble reach can complain about it.

- It has taken mass-consumerism and general public conformity to 11.

- Big Tech turn all of that crap into profit no matter what.

- It is feeding and coddling the coming and current generation of techies into lame drones with no imagination and will to affect actual change. It's creating an army of people who think that the status quo is good.

I don't think it is too much of a stretch to think of how the "ad supported" content economy is correlated with the increased polarization of people, the growing tribal divide and the isolation of individuals. I honestly think that we should be treating the majority of "ad supported" websites as heavy polluters of our minds and our societies.

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