Stop using Brave Browser
www.spacebar.news
Seriously.
  • Raltoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    35526·
    1 year ago

    The ceo is a bigoted asshole, Brave is chromium, it was initially funded by Peter Thiel and they’re literally just trying to make their own adsense network.

    The self-proclaimed privacy focused browser is tracking your browsing and want to serve you personalized ads, and I think they want to use that tracking data for AI training as well, meaning other people can potentially access it.

    And lets not forget about their crypto currency that you can earn by turning on special ads. Which they seemingly unironically called it “Basic Attent Tokens”…

    TL;DR: The company is basically a sham company trying to usher in a dystopia. Where you’ll get paid for staring at ads, while having all your data stolen and sold back to you.

    • sic_1@feddit.deEnglish
      984·
      1 year ago

      I see no reason to use any other browser than Firefox and maybe Librewolf.

      • mrsgreenpotato@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        I am using Brave on iOS mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.

      • xavier666@lemm.eeEnglish
        97·
        1 year ago

        I am forced to use Chromium on my work laptop because MS Teams doesn’t work (all the features) on Firefox.

        Edit: I should elaborate this a bit. There are 2 reasons why I use Chromium on my machine.

        1. If I face a problem, company tech team only knows Chrome and they start crying when I open Firefox.
        2. On Linux, the official way to use Teams is through a web-app and Firefox doesn’t support PWAs.

        All other MS services function fine on Firefox.

          • vettnerk@lemmy.mlEnglish
            8·
            1 year ago

            Same. I use furefox for everything* at work, despite everything being heavily integrated with teams, sharepoint, et.al.

            *: The only thing that doesn’t work with firefox is this inhouse web service that hasn’t been updated since 2017. It’s about to be replaced anyway, so nobody bothered to fix/update it.

          • xavier666@lemm.eeEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            Simple one-to-one calling is disabled saying it’s only available on Chrome. I’m pretty sure it’s recent since I had calls a few months back on Firefox. I’m also sure that it’s not some group policy since I’m on Ubuntu without any sort of ActiveDirectory so it’s a pure browser issue. Also, they force the old UI in Firefox due to some reason. Typical BS from Microsoft.

              • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
                7·
                1 year ago

                In a just world, the fact of changing the user agent fixing the issues would make for a slam-dunk anti-trust case.

              • Knusper@feddit.deEnglish
                3·
                1 year ago

                I’ve tried it today and yeah, 1-to-1 calls magically/unsurprisingly start working. In fact, the whole UI gets a facelift and lots of new features.

                If I had to guess, I’d say Microsoft keeps around a version of their UI, which hasn’t been maintained in over a year, and serves that to anyone initiating communication with a user-agent string they don’t like.

                If that’s true, that’s a massive security vulnerability. Admittedly, also unsurprising for Microsoft. @[email protected]

        • dan@lemm.eeEnglish
          8·
          1 year ago

          I use Firefox as my primary browser and run the teams app.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          51·
          1 year ago

          they start crying when I open Firefox.

          Good. Use it anyway, and bathe in their tears!

  • blue_zephyr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23532·
    1 year ago

    The fact that their founder wants to ban gay marriage is enough reason for me to avoid it like the plague.

      • coltorl@programming.devEnglish
        805·
        1 year ago

        The codebase is irrelevant, I’ve already rated it, it’s another blink clone. As a product, on the other hand, you should definitely practice responsible consumerism. Aligning your values with your consumption is a good thing.

        • seiryth@lemmy.worldEnglish
          492·
          1 year ago

          Totally agree. Why make someone richer who you ethically don’t align to. It just makes their agenda easier.

            • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              615·
              1 year ago

              Right, because it was totally his views in general, not just lack of API access…

              Edit: Sorry guys, you’re right, the surge of Lemmy users that correspond to the hour of API access loss was DEFINITELY just coincidental.

              • coltorl@programming.devEnglish
                141·
                1 year ago

                In particular, it was his view that he can impose himself on the community in such a way that takes us steps closer to a walled garden.

              • Fuzzlightyear@lemmy.oneEnglish
                141·
                1 year ago

                Tbh it was a bit of both for me. The API access was one thing, but the response to the backlash was revealing towards his views. The protest against the API access was focused on business, the backlash to Spez’s actions in response was focused on him.

              • Aceticon@lemmy.worldEnglish
                5·
                1 year ago

                Personally I’m here because of the way he went about trying to bully people who demonstrated against the API change.

                I don’t really care about the API change myself because I didn’t even indirectly use it.

                So yeah, it’s exactly not wanting to put money on the hands of such a person.

                Don’t really know Brave, don’t really know its CEO, am a little iffy on the whole screwing of people’s livelihoods due to their personal political leanings but can see how people would not want to put money in the hands of a guy who wants to make a subset of people miserable (by forbidding them to marry those they love) for no good reason (no mature and mentally healthy person goes around judging other people’s love on the gender of whom they love).

                Whilst I think that even haters should be able to survive (even they have basic human rights) it’s fair enough if their chances at prosperity beyond mere survival are negativelly affected by them being haters: after all, making life shit for others is fine with them, so as I see it, live by the sword die by the sword.

                • dditty@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  Thank you for taking the time to write such a down-to-earth and insightful comment! I totally agree with each of your points. Same reason I would never shop at Walmart/Sam’s Club, get takeout from Chic fil a, drive a Tesla, sleep on a MyPillow, etc.

              • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                1 year ago

                The API was only the tip of the iceberg. When he came out and said he basically worships Elon and what he did to twitter I knew things weren’t going to improve.

              • dtc@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                1 year ago

                I didn’t care about the api, I browsed via browser. The spez ama made me want to puke so I found this place.

                Yea his views and actions matter.

        • Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          I don’t disagree with you, but at the same time I use Lemmy. I disagree with its developers political views, but I believe they are doing something good for society. So maybe sometimes it’s good to make an exception.

      • Rakonat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        383·
        1 year ago

        Same reason people who boycott chic a filet over LGBT issues, it has nothing to do with the quality of their product it’s about not supporting someone who’s views and opinions are that only some people deserve equality.

        Voting with your wallet is more effective than simply vocalizing disagreement while still supporting their product.

      • vext01@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        Everyone has a price when it comes to “can I still use/enjoy X when the author did seemingly unrelated thing Y”.

        For example, can you still enjoy the music of The he Lost Prophets? I can’t.

      • xeetzer@feddit.chEnglish
        104·
        1 year ago

        Most poeple responding said that it has nothing to do with it, but I would add that someone who has these view is more likely to implement unethical features

      • dtc@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I got my OS from north Korea, why on earth would I not trust it explicitly with any and all of my families information?

  • rog@lemmy.oneEnglish
    16718·
    1 year ago

    I dont know why anyone would leave chrome and land on something like brave.

    If youre ditching chrome, which you should, go to an actual different browser and use Firefox.

  • stooovie@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1387·
    1 year ago

    I have absolutely no idea how Brave got the reputation it has. It’s business model is disgusting and extortionate, it’s like paying for warez. Been clear as day since day one.

  • arc@lemm.eeEnglish
    14015·
    1 year ago

    Brave is a marching band of red flags. It claims privacy while injecting ads, affiliate codes and crypto into the browser. It’s kind of sad to see someone like Brendan Eich who should know better turn to the dark side and pretend this is all fine. It isn’t.

    Best advice I could give for anyone who wants privacy is use Firefox or a branch of it. Firefox is out of the box the most privacy conscious mainstream browser and add-ons make it more so. If you want absolute privacy you could even use a derivative like Tor Browser.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      196·
      1 year ago

      someone like Brendan Eich who should know better turn to the dark side

      LOL, he inflicted Javascript upon the world. He never knew better and was always on the dark side.

      • arc@lemm.eeEnglish
        142·
        1 year ago

        JavaScript is a victim of its own popularity. It was originally meant to be scripting glue to do little actions in the browser while the real work was done in Java (LiveConnect) apps. But Java got jettisoned, JavaScript became more important and became the thing we love and hate today.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          41·
          1 year ago

          JavaScript is a victim of its own popularity.

          No, that’s not the issue. If Javascript were well-designed we wouldn’t hate it, but it wasn’t.

          • Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            1 year ago

            Most of the examples listed there are issues that don’t affect real applications. It’s just garbage code, so the output ends up being garbage too. Programmers don’t write code like that, unless they are doing it as a joke. A few of those examples can be real issues sometimes, but they are not that big of a deal to an experienced JavaScript programmer.

            It’s an imperfect language like any other.

            • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
              31·
              1 year ago

              but they are not that big of a deal to an experienced JavaScript programmer.

              A well-designed language wouldn’t require “experience” for stupid gotchas like these to not be that big of a deal in the first place.

              After all, I’m sure a sufficiently “experienced programmer” could adapt to anything up to and including fucking Malbolge if necessary, but that doesn’t mean it’s equal to a language that’s actually good.

              Differences in quality between languages are real, and Javascript is closer to the bad end of that spectrum.

              • Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
                22·
                1 year ago

                Every language is gonna be weird if you don’t know it well enough. In Lua arrays start with index 1. Is it weird? Yes. But do Lua programmers care? Probably not.

                The stuff that many people say is bad in JavaScript is usually irrelevant. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad parts like the Date api or the lack of types is a flaw to many people. Those are actually important issues. In this case they are solved by libraries and TypeScript. The performance is also a problem in some applications. Which is why there is WebAssembly, which can help in some cases.

                So there are plenty of real flaws that can be pointed out, but you have to know the language to be able to tell what actually matters. To me it doesn’t seem any worse than any other modern language.

    • ours@lemmy.filmEnglish
      154·
      1 year ago

      Louis Rossmann also recommended Brave in one of his videos. Quite sad.

    • prosp3kt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      11·
      10 months ago

      These people talking as if not all the crypto bloat would be opt in lol. It just take 30 seconds or even less to turn off everything of that.

  • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1146·
    1 year ago

    At one point they were scummy enough to automatically add their referral codes to any Amazon link you see. Lots of people today still mindlessly recommend Brave, and that’s what’s wrong in general with the “but the UX is so nice” mentality.

  • CafecitoHippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11820·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, fuck this guy.

    First, I have been online for almost 30 years. I’ve led an open source project for 14 years. I speak regularly at conferences around the world, and socialize with members of the Mozilla, JavaScript, and other web developer communities. I challenge anyone to cite an incident where I displayed hatred, or ever treated someone less than respectfully because of group affinity or individual identity.

    So I hid my hatred from everyone for 30 years successfully. Now that everyone finds out that I donated to a cause to strip them of rights everyone wants to say I’m hateful? Give me one example where I displayed hatred…how about the time you donated to strip people of their rights? That might be a big one for me.

  • Ibaudia@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9310·
    1 year ago

    The fact that its main 2 gimmicks are a shitty ad blocker and integrated cryptocurrency should be enough of a red flag, honestly. Just use Firefox, people!

  • febra@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8316·
    1 year ago

    So the CEO is a raging alt-righter. Glad I never used his product then.

  • Gnubyte@lemdit.comEnglish
    10336·
    1 year ago

    the hateful browser

    Holy shit man imagine if we judged every huge project by one asshole at the top. There wouldn’t be a single thing to enjoy in this world.

    Edit:

    I am going to add more perspective to this, because holy shit people are so into eating nothing burgers.

    Reddit/Twitter was a database and API that everyone was centralized onto, there was no choice. Brave you can literally fork because its open source. Aside from that this was literally the CEO’s personal donation of $1000…in like 2014. Almost 10 yrs ago.

    Elon, as CEO and on the X/Twitter brand:

    Meanwhile Brendan:

    Gnubyte

  • ddnomad@infosec.pub
    621·
    1 year ago

    Use Firefox or Safari, the more people use Chromium-based browsers the faster we get to the situation where Google completely owns the Internet (and they almost do now).

  • tengkuizdihar@discuss.onlineEnglish
    645·
    1 year ago

    Vivaldi? Trusting a closed sourced application for privacy? What?

    Not even defending brave here, just weird that the author say that.

  • dantheclamman@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    637·
    1 year ago

    Today I learned that people take it VERY PERSONALLY when you criticize their chosen browser. 😂