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Brave Search beta

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Re: Brave Search beta

#411

Post by allyourhorses »

allyourhorses wrote: post #106

Based on the principles in the blog post alone ( https://brave.com/brave-search-beta/ ), this will obviously be my new default search until it's proven sufficiently unusable. DDG's usability has always been a bit of a problem for me, it feels more like a perl wrapper over some search bookmarks than an engine in its own right. Will give this one a go for a while, there is literally every reason to try and few reasons…

> Fully private. No profiles.

> Brave Search doesn't track you or your queries. Ever. It's impossible for us to share, sell, or lose your data, because we don't collect it in the first place

So eh, Brave's search is actually running through Amazon CloudFront load balancers. This wasn't quite my first idea of privacy. At the very least, it means searches are likely being logged at least once, and stored using some policies set by Amazon, not Brave

Some pretty curious internal API here: https://search.brave.com/api/state/independence , found in the copious amounts of duplicate JS on the page

Re: Brave Search beta

#412

Post by jonathansampson »

Clewza313 wrote: post #402
jonathansampson wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not accurate. Brave offered affiliate link options to users who were searching for particular terms (screenshot: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image3.png ). These were presented to users as a way of optionally supporting Brave development. Our mistake was matching fully-qualified URLs too (screenshot: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image2-1.png ). When we were made aware of this, w…

Disclosure: the author of this comment appears to be a Senior Developer Relations Specialist at Brave.

Correct. Note the use of "we" in my comments, pointing out that I am part of the Brave team. Thank you for stating it more explicitly.

Re: Brave Search beta

#413

Post by jonathansampson »

kowlo wrote: post #400
jonathansampson wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not accurate. Brave offered affiliate link options to users who were searching for particular terms (screenshot: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image3.png ). These were presented to users as a way of optionally supporting Brave development. Our mistake was matching fully-qualified URLs too (screenshot: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image2-1.png ). When we were made aware of this, w…

What about Safari?

Safari was covered in the aforementioned browser-privacy study as well: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf. It finished with Chrome and Firefox in 2nd place (behind Brave).

Re: Brave Search beta

#414

Post by smoldesu »

jonathansampson wrote: post #409
someperson wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave blocks webpage's existing ads then replace the ads with their own ad network that earns the website owner Brave-money that the website owner then has to redeem. That tactic is definitely a red flag.

That's not how it works. Brave blocks third-party ads and trackers (which are known to be dangerous) on behalf of its users (the same users who were installing uBlock Origin in Chrome and Firefox before coming to Brave). This is a security and privacy necessity on the Web today. Users are then able to opt-in, if they like, to a novel advertising platform within the Brave ecosystem. These users can earn rewards for th…

We don't care what it does with the previous ad data, what's disturbing is that there is even a setting to opt-in to more ads in the first place. Many people (myself included) will be completely turned away because of that option. That's just the cost of doing business.

Re: Brave Search beta

#415

Post by jonathansampson »

smoldesu wrote: post #405
jonathansampson wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What missteps? The only notable UX issue we've had was years ago, and was a matter of naïve design. When we were made aware of the issue, it was corrected within 48 hours. Hard to portray that as a "culture of hostile UX".

Maybe you could start by listening instead of accosting every comment that you find. Your incessant reply-bombing is childish and unprofessional, nobody wants to engage with someone who defends a browser like it's their sole lifeline. Furthermore, you don't get to choose what your "UX issues" are. "UX" quite literally stands for "users experience", which is on the other side of the spectrum from "developer experience…

I'm responding to users. You happen to have numerous comments here which aren't entirely accurate or fair, so I have responded to you a few times. Don't take it personal; if you publish something I feel is inaccurate, I'll post a response.

Regarding user experience, I'm not just a developer of Brave, but I'm a user also ;-) Not only that, but I spend a lot of time speaking with users all across the Web, so as to understand how they're using Brave, what works, and what doesn't. I do feel uniquely qualified to talk about matter of UX when it comes to Brave.

Re: Brave Search beta

#416

Post by Judgmentality »

jonathansampson wrote: post #415
smoldesu wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could start by listening instead of accosting every comment that you find. Your incessant reply-bombing is childish and unprofessional, nobody wants to engage with someone who defends a browser like it's their sole lifeline. Furthermore, you don't get to choose what your "UX issues" are. "UX" quite literally stands for "users experience", which is on the other side of the spectrum from "developer experience…

I'm responding to users. You happen to have numerous comments here which aren't entirely accurate or fair, so I have responded to you a few times. Don't take it personal; if you publish something I feel is inaccurate, I'll post a response. Regarding user experience, I'm not just a developer of Brave, but I'm a user also ;-) Not only that, but I spend a lot of time speaking with users all across the Web, so as to unde…

> I'm responding to users.

I'm gonna have to agree with GP that you're responding too much. I don't even use Brave nor do I care but I still browse HN. Obviously different people will see things differently, but you seem very defensive and it makes you come across as difficult.

Like I said, I have no skin in this game. You are welcome to ignore what I say if you don't find it helpful.

Re: Brave Search beta

#417

Post by mapgrep »

smoldesu wrote: post #414
jonathansampson wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works. Brave blocks third-party ads and trackers (which are known to be dangerous) on behalf of its users (the same users who were installing uBlock Origin in Chrome and Firefox before coming to Brave). This is a security and privacy necessity on the Web today. Users are then able to opt-in, if they like, to a novel advertising platform within the Brave ecosystem. These users can earn rewards for th…

We don't care what it does with the previous ad data, what's disturbing is that there is even a setting to opt-in to more ads in the first place . Many people (myself included) will be completely turned away because of that option. That's just the cost of doing business.

Person 1: Brave replaces existing ads, that’s bad

Someone from Brave: actually we don’t replace existing ads at all, here’s why

Person 2: no one cares what you do or don’t do with existing ads!

I don’t have any connection to Brave but I find it odd they’ve become some kind of hate figure here on HN. Their iOS client IMO is quite good. Their privacy is miles ahead of the other options. But merely by trying to be privacy first they get crap for not always being perfect. See also: Signal, OpenPGP, Firefox.

Re: Brave Search beta

#418

Post by beprogrammed »

jonathansampson wrote: post #395
smoldesu wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX Yep. The missteps that they've made over the past few years do not give me any confidence in the future of the project.

What missteps? The only notable UX issue we've had was years ago, and was a matter of naïve design. When we were made aware of the issue, it was corrected within 48 hours. Hard to portray that as a "culture of hostile UX".

I haven't noticed any UX issues, great job on the browser, looking forward to the search engine. Thanks.

Re: Brave Search beta

#419

Post by howolduis »

jonathansampson wrote: post #379
howolduis wrote: post #367

> On 6 June 2020, a Twitter user pointed out that Brave inserts affiliate referral codes when users type a URL of Binance into the address bar, which earns Brave money. Further research revealed that Brave redirects the URLs of other cryptocurrency exchange websites, too. In response to the backlash from the users, Brave's CEO apologized and called it a "mistake" and said "we're correcting". Brave is just a "pop-priv…

That's not accurate. Brave offered affiliate link options to users who were searching for particular terms (screenshot: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image3.png ). These were presented to users as a way of optionally supporting Brave development. Our mistake was matching fully-qualified URLs too (screenshot: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image2-1.png ). When we were made aware of this, w…

you work for Brave. I can't take what you say on face value

Re: Brave Search beta

#420

Post by smoldesu »

jonathansampson wrote: post #415
smoldesu wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could start by listening instead of accosting every comment that you find. Your incessant reply-bombing is childish and unprofessional, nobody wants to engage with someone who defends a browser like it's their sole lifeline. Furthermore, you don't get to choose what your "UX issues" are. "UX" quite literally stands for "users experience", which is on the other side of the spectrum from "developer experience…

I'm responding to users. You happen to have numerous comments here which aren't entirely accurate or fair, so I have responded to you a few times. Don't take it personal; if you publish something I feel is inaccurate, I'll post a response. Regarding user experience, I'm not just a developer of Brave, but I'm a user also ;-) Not only that, but I spend a lot of time speaking with users all across the Web, so as to unde…

Since you seem to know it all I'll just leave you be. My only actionable advice is that you should hire someone nicer to handle public relations, lest you bleed users from your own mouth.
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