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Goodbye Brave

arunmozhi.in

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Re: Goodbye Brave

#201

Post by sh4un »

rmbyrro wrote: post #102
krisrm wrote: post #2

Seems a little ironic to call out a piece of software whose literal job it is to connect to the internet for... Connecting to the internet. Tongue in cheek aside, I don't know much about Brave - is there some specific reason that it needs an always-on server to call home to?

The issue isn't that it requires internet connection, obviously, but that it requires connection to a specific IP (Brave server) before you can use some features.

Make sense if they have a proxy to avoid direct Google contact.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#202

Post by i13e »

jonathansampson wrote: post #173
i13e wrote: post #29

This title seems a little clickbaity to be honest and I'm not sure how accurate the author's portrayal of Brave's server side is. Based on intuition I imagine the inability to install extensions has something to do with Chrome's locked down web store forcing Brave to make it's server-side act as a middle man to the chrome web to download and install extensions. Therefore this would be a google/chromium/intentional de…

The problem is definitely a bit more complicated. While it's possible this issue did not involve an issue with Brave at all, it's also possible that it did. The behavior observed (inferring from the screenshot) suggests the user's access to this extension was denied at the time. A 401 response (Unauthorized) from Brave's proxy-endpoint (go-updater.brave.com in this case, I believe) would result in this message being…

Thanks for the explanation Sampson! I love reading your internals explainers for Brave on HN and I really appreciate how active your team is when it comes to providing information to end users.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#203

Post by JeremyNT »

echelon wrote: post #72
weq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to firefox after NEVER using it before when google started forcefully logging me in. Honestly, i havnt missed it all. Firefox on mobile is awesome - plugins work! Plus, no longer does google know where i am anymore. Its ability to track and suggest ads to me is pathetic.

My one gripe about Firefox mobile is that "pull down to refresh" and other common gestures don't work. Unless I'm missing something, there aren't settings available to enable this. Is this some kind of patented behavior that Mozilla is afraid to implement?

On Android, "pull down to refresh" exists, and (I think?) it was enabled by default.

(I find it a little obnoxious actually, as I frequently accidentally hit it trying to scroll back up)

Re: Goodbye Brave

#204

Post by fileeditview »

tinus_hn wrote: post #125
fileeditview wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As I said.. I would prefer to pay for valuable content. Then the rest splits into two categories. Truly free (maybe with donations, or totally free) and a load of crap content I don't need to see anyways.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#205

Post by jonathansampson »

mclightning wrote: post #199
jonathansampson wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which external KYC options do you use and enjoy? I'd be more than happy to take a look and discuss them with our team for consideration. Regarding lost funds, the only way Brave should ever make an automatic contribution when auto-contribute is disabled is if the contribution were queued up prior to disabling auto-contribute. You can check brave://rewards-internals/ (specifically the Contributions and Event Logs tabs…

KYC; For example KSMStarter, TruePNL, Thorstarter etc. send the user over to an external page to complete the KYC with selfie/id card/utility bill. Then you come back and login with your Metamask. Auto contribution; Ah, I see. Thanks for explanation.

Apologies, but I don't see anything about KYC services when visiting the sites for those projects. Can you point me to which third-party is used?

Re: Goodbye Brave

#206

Post by mclightning »

jonathansampson wrote: post #198
mclightning wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I understand. Some launchpads are using external KYC systems allowing for verification while using Metamask. I wish something like that would be possible. Lost funds weren't much to bother with. It was just, I had disabled "automatically pay to creators" option on all my devices, but I saw a transaction go out. Then I checked on reddit, and some other people had similar issues. I will still keep using Brave, no w…

Which external KYC options do you use and enjoy? I'd be more than happy to take a look and discuss them with our team for consideration. Regarding lost funds, the only way Brave should ever make an automatic contribution when auto-contribute is disabled is if the contribution were queued up prior to disabling auto-contribute. You can check brave://rewards-internals/ (specifically the Contributions and Event Logs tabs…

HN didn't let me reply on the last comment, so here it is;

KYC links on those sites lead to: https://launchpad.truepnl.com/kyc https://ksmstarter.synaps.io/

Theyre a bit buried in their UI and only faced when trying to trade/stake etc.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#207

Post by tinus_hn »

marcodiego wrote: post #145
tinus_hn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think FLOSS people ought to disagree with you. Also, this very site has no ads. Neither does wikipedia. Nor librivox, or Project Gutemberg...

Many of these projects are funded by sponsors that couldn’t exist without internet ads.

Re: Goodbye Brave

#208

Post by jonathansampson »

leodriesch wrote: post #123
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.

Brave proxies Google-endpoints to prevent users from unintentionally making contact with Google servers. If our proxy receives a bad request, or has some other unlikely, transient issue, it will respond with a 403 Status (which results in the "Access Denied" message being displayed). In this instance, the user may have been on an out-of-date build of Brave; it's not clear from the report.

Sampson (Brave Team)

Re: Goodbye Brave

#209

Post by jonathansampson »

richardfey wrote: post #73

I think any other browser would also need a server with the hosted extension packages, so the point here is misguided: you did not get an error related to Brave servers while *not* using Brave services.

Generally speaking, other Chromium-based browsers simply load the CRX (extension file) directly from Google's server. This puts the user's device in direct contact with the advertising and data-harvesting giant.

In Brave's case, we proxy the requests to prevent direct contact. As such, when a user attempts to install an extension in Brave, the browser sends the request through a *.brave.com endpoint, which relays it to Google, and returns the CRX (or other response).

In the author's case, they may have sent an invalid request to Brave's proxy endpoint (e.g. missing or invalid service key). This can happen when you're using an out-of-date build of the browser. It's not clear to us at this time what caused the "Access Denied" error, but we know that a missing/invalid key could yield these results.

Sampson (Brave Team)

Re: Goodbye Brave

#210

Post by petemill »

silisili wrote: post #95

I posted here on HN asking if Brave mobile was broken for anyone else one night, for little response. My wife and I both use Brave, and it just hung at startup. Unsatisfied, I checked the Reddit sub the next day, and saw tons of complaints. Apparently if the Brave backend is down, it won't even launch. This is a huge problem that makes me entirely skeptical of not only the browser, but that anyone in charge has any i…

Brave team member here. This was not a server issue but was a daylight savings time bug.
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