Brave launches 1.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#71

Post by have_faith » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #44

have_faith wrote: post #30

If people like Brave's ad model, all the power to them. I would personally never touch it. I'm not philosophically on board with the idea that paying people to look at ads is a pragmatic way forward. It doesn't matter if it's opt-in, free-to-play games with loot crates are opt-in, but the decision to go down that road will effect their decision making process when designing new features and I don't want to be part of…

If people aren't willing to look at ads, what will news articles become? ads. What will HN comments become? Ads (many blog posts already are). Advertising covers a need

I know advertising covers a need, there's nothing inherently wrong with advertising in an academic sense.

News organisations do not offer anything of consistent high quality that people are willing to pay for though. I have no faith that quality will improve if only we all switched off our adblockers and clicked some ads. People's propensity to read clickbait will not decline as a result of higher revenue from advertising. Most people aren't willing to pay for news because most news is worthless.

> what will news articles become? ads

This has already been the case for a while. I hope ad-blockers push them so far from legitimacy that they actually die off somewhat. When they had ad revenue bottom of the barrel "news" could survive regardless of the market not wanting to give them any money directly.

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#72

Post by grzte » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #45

Hamcha wrote: post #22

I've used Brave since March, and I'm really not impressed. For a browser that tries to be different, it's incredible how little consideration has been given to things that annoy users and that could probably be trivial to remove. To be more specific, my issues with Brave are: - Still uses the Chrome Web Store as main store - Does not have an easy way to load packaged extensions from 3rd party sources - Even after add…

It's perfect for my use case: Chrome but with all the google bits removed and built-in ad-blocking. Can't say any of those things you listed have bothered me. I don't use BAT. Edit: Why do so many new accounts (green text) post to any thread about Brave?

I was thinking the same. I considered Vivaldi for some time but it was just buggy. That's a shame because now that Chrome is going to release manifest v3, many users will look for alternatives. Vivaldi has had years to polish their UI but they have missed the train. Eventually I'll settle with Brave, I think.

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#73

Post by the_duke » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

Hamcha wrote: post #22

I've used Brave since March, and I'm really not impressed. For a browser that tries to be different, it's incredible how little consideration has been given to things that annoy users and that could probably be trivial to remove. To be more specific, my issues with Brave are: - Still uses the Chrome Web Store as main store - Does not have an easy way to load packaged extensions from 3rd party sources - Even after add…

These mostly seem like very specific power user concerns that wouldn't be relevant to most users.

(not advocating for Brave, I'm a happy Firefox user. Just saying...)

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#74

Post by nostrademons » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

RandomBacon wrote: post #49

Dolores12 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You disable competitors ads to show your own. Something is wrong with it.

10 (5?) years ago, that used to be called malware.

You don't have a right to show ads to users. (The CFAA actually works in consumers' favor here: circumventing a user's adblocker is just as much of a crime as hacking into a server.) You do have a right to refuse service to users with adblockers, but to my knowledge Brave doesn't interfere with sites that do this - I still can't get past the paywalls on WSJ/NYTimes/Bloomberg.

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#75

Post by Angeo34 » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

Whoever uses Brave for "privacy" reasons should understand that Chrome offers more privacy due to fingerprintability.

I see the downvotes coming yet it is true check it for yourself. Brave is so easy to fingerprint compared to Chrome it defeats any purpose ever to use Brave in the first place if privacy is your main goal. Removing all the Google bits from the Chromium base doesn't help since you are so fingerprintable.

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#76

Post by brettnak » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

Dolores12 wrote: post #40

judah wrote: post #13

I've been using Brave rewards, both as a user and a content maker. It's really great, and I feel this may be a reasonable alternative to the invasive trackers+ads we have today. For the uninitiated, Brave lets users opt-in to Brave rewards: - You set your browser to reward content creators with Basic Attention Token (BAT). You set a budget (e.g. 10 BAT/month), and Brave distributes it the sites you use most, e.g. if…

You disable competitors ads to show your own. Something is wrong with it.

I think this largely ignores "how" ads are distributed. The website you are looking at did not select _any_ of the ads you see. They chose a network who is delegating that placement to someone else. Depending on which ad network, this could delegated by several different ad networks until an advertiser is finally selected by the final intermediary.

In principle this may not be a very important distinction. However, I often think that I would stop blocking ads _IF_ the website I was looking at had actually vetted the ad I was seeing. I do not want to see so much garbage just for visiting a website. For example: I block all ads from theverge.com, not because their content is bad, but because I find the outbrain ads at the bottom of the page so asinine and tasteless that I'd rather not see any ads.

To continue on with theverge example, If they actually had selected the individual ads they were placing, I'd be totally fine with that. But I am not fine with them delegating that responsibility to another company that clearly is not up to handling the task.

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#77

Post by itake » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #45

Hamcha wrote: post #22

I've used Brave since March, and I'm really not impressed. For a browser that tries to be different, it's incredible how little consideration has been given to things that annoy users and that could probably be trivial to remove. To be more specific, my issues with Brave are: - Still uses the Chrome Web Store as main store - Does not have an easy way to load packaged extensions from 3rd party sources - Even after add…

It's perfect for my use case: Chrome but with all the google bits removed and built-in ad-blocking. Can't say any of those things you listed have bothered me. I don't use BAT. Edit: Why do so many new accounts (green text) post to any thread about Brave?

It also has "built-in ad-adding".

https://brave.com/brave-ads-waitlist/

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#78

Post by grzte » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

techntoke wrote: post #27

zht wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave was founded by Brandon Eich who donated $1000 to Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California.

Yeah, seems weird that Hacker News is censoring this. I guess they don't want people to know that. Maybe Brave gave them some money to push this announcement.

Or maybe nobody gives a fuck about this and we just want to discuss Brave.

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#79

Post by JohnJamesRambo » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

Hamcha wrote: post #22

I've used Brave since March, and I'm really not impressed. For a browser that tries to be different, it's incredible how little consideration has been given to things that annoy users and that could probably be trivial to remove. To be more specific, my issues with Brave are: - Still uses the Chrome Web Store as main store - Does not have an easy way to load packaged extensions from 3rd party sources - Even after add…

You’ve used a browser you aren’t impressed with for seven months?

Re: Brave launches 1.0

#80

Post by Spivak » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

RandomBacon wrote: post #49

Dolores12 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You disable competitors ads to show your own. Something is wrong with it.

10 (5?) years ago, that used to be called malware.

It's not malware if it's done at the users request. And the user is free to display the web pages it downloads in any way they want.