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Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

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Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#191

Post by chippy »

akkartik wrote: post #177
BrendanEich wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point, and it is a good one. We have a micro payments channel to publishers, frictionless and anonymous, under construction, for folks who want no ads and who will pay. Other users than you will be able to mix and match, too: better and more private ads on sites they don't support, with a revenue share to these users that they can spend on sites they do. We aren't saying "only ads". We do see ads as a nece…

Just to add the opposing viewpoint: after watching browsers get incredibly sluggish over the past year on up-to-date hardware (desktop and mobile), I absolutely care about speed and bandwidth consumption[1]. So Brave's 'manifesto' absolutely resonates. Very happy to see the principal agent problem on the web stated so clearly. I've been calling it the tragedy of the commons in comments here and elsewhere. Thanks! [1]…

>tragedy of the commons

I suspect it's also due to developers getting and using the latest hardware (i.e. top range Mac Book Pros) and as long as it works on their machine, with all bells and whistles, they don't care about any of their users with slower machines. Same with phones - older phones are out of date because the updated apps get bloated and bloated for them but are not bloated for the developers.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#192

Post by RodericDay »

mille562 wrote: post #152
RodericDay wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't emphasize this enough. Every time someone rattles out a list of "annoyances" regarding ads, I wish that I could plead with them to consider that there's even bigger reasons. Plenty of people try to sell the idea that ads let us have content "for free", and that all we have to tolerate is "a little annoyance". It's insane. If companies are buying ad-space, it's because they expect to get more business in retur…

There are people with needs and people with solutions. I understand where you are coming from, but advertising a solution to people that may have that need is not always evil. There are many times where I am glad I saw advertising: my favorite band is coming to town, a new product that will save me hours a day just got released, the shoes I have been looking for are being sold at 30% off. I don't want to give up all…

There's definitely a grey area. I just think we're so far deep in the black it's almost not worth bringing up.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#193

Post by devopsproject »

runjake wrote: post #101

The first question that pops into my head is "How is Brave going to monetize?". They've received substantial investor money, so apparently they have something lucrative in mind. And it's probably not good for privacy-conscious end users.

They seem to be swapping invasive ads for non-invasive ones or giving you the option to pay sites via a micro transaction?

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#194

Post by webjprgm »

A few thoughts:

(1) If they block tracking, does it block Google Analytics? Because that would annoy me as a website owner.

(2) The reason I don't pay subscriptions to sites like Wall Street Journal and NY Times is that I get my content from aggregators like Hacker News so I only go to one of those paid sites if I follow an occasional link. Micropayments would fix that if I could pay one company a $5/mo subscription to then have payments automatically dolled out to a select list of good sites until my $5 was used up (then maybe ask me each time after that, or something).

(3) They talk about avoiding the ad-blocking war, but they are just contributing to it. I guess what they think is that by making a way for the website owner to get paid they avoid some of the war, but many companies like to be in direct control of their money so they might not like a middleman sitting on the high way charging everyone a tax to pass. And if Brave doesn't charge something for its services then it has no business model, so I'm assuming they are not passing 100% of revenue on to the site owner.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#196

Post by jhawins »

vladikoff wrote: post #54

From a quick glance: 1) Desktop browser is an electron app with ad tracking injected into your app via http://cdn.brave.com/ (via https://sonobi.com/welcome/index.php which promises "EFFECTIVELY PLAN AND SOURCE MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES WITH QUALITY AND VIEWABILITY FROM PREMIUM PUBLISHERS" 2) iOS browser is a fork of Firefox iOS - https://github.com/mozilla/firefox-ios 3) Android browser is a fork of https://play.googl…

Would LOVE to see his response to this. So it's a sham.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#198

Post by matthewmacleod »

_urga wrote: post #7

I would much prefer a new browser that makes true native web apps possible with a one-click install to indicate trust. A browser built with Electron that exposes Node.js and otherwise keeps away from the HTML5 kitchen sink, in order to push innovation away from the spec committees and back out to the community. Vital technology like TCP, UDP, DNS, and the filesystem is being locked up behind a fascade of poorly imple…

That just seems like a really silly idea.

The APIs you describe are not 'locked up' by 'spec committees'. They're typically implemented by browser developers within the community, based on the demands of developers and users, grow towards standardisation cross-browser, and are eventually developed into official specifications.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#199

Post by chris_wot »

BrendanEich wrote: post #141
jordigh wrote: post #70

I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…

I get your point, and it is a good one. We have a micro payments channel to publishers, frictionless and anonymous, under construction, for folks who want no ads and who will pay. Other users than you will be able to mix and match, too: better and more private ads on sites they don't support, with a revenue share to these users that they can spend on sites they do. We aren't saying "only ads". We do see ads as a nece…

I'll probably use your browser so that I can read the Sydney Morning Herald. That's one crappy, crappy website - and only because of the ridiculous level of tracking.

Case in point - I connected to smh.com.au and since I have connected to it yesterday (only two times!) it has accessed 91 third party sites. 91! It's ridiculous.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#200

Post by rhinoceraptor »

gnoway wrote: post #59
Touche wrote: post #13

The scrolling on this website is janky as hell. Looks like they are using some "Smooth scrolling" plugin that makes scrolling not smooth at all. Not sure why native browser scrolling was insufficient for them, I'm scrolling here in HN all the time and it's perfectly smooth.

What browser/device are you using? It works fine for me on Chrome (both keyed and scroll wheel) and iOS (Safari).

It's terrible under OS X/Chromium using a Magic Mouse/trackpad.
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