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Brave 0.55 released

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Re: Brave 0.55 released

#71
post #66
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would Google do if Mozilla blocks all ads browser wide by default? (Which they can't do adhoc because it is probably explitically forbidden in their contract with Google) The answer will give you a clue about the question who is the product. Irregardless of semantics, Mozilla is entirely dependent on the privacy invading ad system. Everyone knows that default settings matter, as around 80% of users never change…

> What would Google do if Mozilla blocks all ads browser wide by default? (Which they can't do adhoc because it is probably explitically forbidden in their contract with Google) Just a few things: 1. Mozilla did explore this a number of years ago, concluded that a. if you block all ads, you break the revenue of pretty much the entire web, so that's probably not something you want; b. if you block all ads, you break l…

Thanks for the explanation.

I don't blame or rate Mozilla, I was just trying to explain why they are unable to move, due to their ties to Google.

I don't think it's a good or bad thing, but it's the reality.

Mozilla is probably trying it's best under this conditions.

Besides that, solving technical problems is possible if there is the will to do it.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#72
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's just me but why do we have to make the web about other people making money? In the 90s there were plenty of websites ran by hobbyists and amateurs and even professionals who did it for the joy of their craft and even today there are loads. Maybe I am being overly harsh but are we saying that a browser like Brave is required these days? I don't think the web would be worse-off if all commercial sites disapp…

Who is this "we" you are talking about? It's not like the web/society consists of one collectivist "blob" that speaks in unison.

"We" is merely a term to denote "users" in general: I'm not saying we all think alike but I do believe that "we" as web users have a choice to make.

Do we want a web where everything is gated and requires micropayments or would we rather use the web without tracking and micropayments?

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#73
post #56
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The level of irony is even deeper. Brave is supposed to protect the privacy but in reality, their business model is about ads. It's like pedophiles giving advices on how to protect your kids from danger. Of course they know about it, and I wouldn't give my kids to them. Brave is essentially trying to become a mix between a pay-to-surf and an rogue ad replacement software. They have dozens of millions of dollars raise…

Sorry, are you saying that Brave is the main impetus behind DuckDuckGo growth? I find that hard to believe, given the minimal market share of Brave...

What I say is that these Yahoo ads are certainly the biggest revenue they have now before they start randomly replacing all competitors

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#74
post #4

I love the irony in “You are not a product“ from a commercial product (open source, I know) designed to monetize surfing (aka pay-to-surf), as if this is what the internet is about. I think we should resist such an effort and stick with projects (not companies) that want to keep the internet as it was meant to be, ie Mozilla Firefox. No problem with monetization but I want a browser that puts me first, not a middlema…

Maybe it's just me but why do we have to make the web about other people making money? In the 90s there were plenty of websites ran by hobbyists and amateurs and even professionals who did it for the joy of their craft and even today there are loads. Maybe I am being overly harsh but are we saying that a browser like Brave is required these days? I don't think the web would be worse-off if all commercial sites disapp…

There's a pretty hard limit to the volume and style of content that can be produced by amateurs and hobbyists.

For a start, it's limited to people who are already rich enough to have the time to spare.

But certain types of content - deep investigative journalism for example - should always cost significant amounts of money. You want the best people in the world at that craft to be able to spend as long as takes, and travel to wherever they need to go, to uncover the truth in a story. This kind of work plays a crucial role in society, by keeping a watch on the political, legal and corporate worlds and helping to expose corruption and abuses of power.

It's likely already the case that too little good investigative journalism is being done these days. We should be looking for ways to have more of it, not less.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#75
post #52
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay content providers with cash via Brave rather than ad views.

Why do we need a whole new browser for this?

We don't, but getting there on the web at scale is a long battle.

The W3C has been working on WebPayments [1] for several years. Once it lands on most browsers, it should enable websites to offer a choice between ads and micropayments.

But there are lots of problems to solve first, ranging from finding the right APIs and UXs to make sure that users won't end up paying by accident, or that children won't pay with their parent's browser without their agreement, to the fact that people don't use the same mechanisms for paying al over the world, to security issues, etc.

[1] https://www.w3.org/Payments/WG/

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#76
post #36

I wanted to compile it myself a few months ago... gave up after about 15min of looking. I _know_ I missed some obvious repo/instructions somewhere.

Last year, on my pretty kick-ass laptop, Chromium used to take ~12 hours to build, so don't hold your breath :)

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#77
post #55

Anyone using Brave? Would love to hear your impressions.

Here. I was a huge Firefox fan, but having 50+ tabs open made the browser unusable - even the latest versions. I then switched reluctantly to Chrome, but always hated the UI. Having downloaded Brave, it was love on first sight, looks good, works good, blocks ads. I very much miss all the Firefox extensions, I hope a lot will get ported eventually. Oh, and Mozilla? You need to reboot your company/non-profit. I don't k…

> I was a huge Firefox fan, but having 50+ tabs open made the browser unusable - even the latest versions. I then switched reluctantly to Chrome, but always hated the UI.

Really? I haven't had any such problem with Firefox in years, and I tend to browser with a few hundred tabs open. What platform are you using?

> Oh, and Mozilla? You need to reboot your company/non-profit. I don't know what goes wrong there, but all the projects I found interesting got stopped (Persona), and the browser is no longer really great.

The process is actually very simple: if nobody uses it, it gets stopped :)

> It just /feels/ clunky.

Are you talking about versions more recent than 57? Because the performance boost during the last year has been huge.

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#78
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my default Android browser because you can set it to block scripts and adverts by default and yet the option to trivially allow scripts in a site is a single click away. It's so good at this I've uninstalled multiple apps (especially news and weather ones) and have started saving links to web pages instead and the whole experience is better (because blocking adverts and tracking in apps is a real pain).

can you use it also as webview browser?

I do not believe that you can do that, but I've largely stopped using apps that contain adverts so to me this is not an angle I worry about so much (plus I use NetGuard so in app tracking I was already limiting).

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#79
post #57
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox isn’t doing much to stem the online dependency on ads. We really need an alternative monetization system. The internet is only half functioning if we still require massive corporations to intermediate between us and content providers.

It is doing a lot to stem the online dependency on tracking, however, which I think is far more important. DuckDuckGo monetises through as, and I have absolutely no problem with that.

Tracking doesn’t really impact my life, I’ve gotta say. Ads do.

Does ddg offer a paid option?

Re: Brave 0.55 released

#80
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was the fork necessary? Is the electron project hostile to changes?

Nah. Electron does not prioritize chromium version updates over everything else. They generally do so at their own pace, instead focusing more on other features and bug fixing. It works fine for their intended userbase. For a browser that might be an issue due to exploits and vulnerabilities.

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