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Two questions : How different is this reskined chrome different than brave if I were to consider using it? Can we still rely on opera and trust them (after the

Two questions : How different is this reskined chrome different than brave if I were to consider using it? Can we still rely on opera and trust them (after their Chinese acquisition)?

gigatexal 8y ago
Regarding point #2: Nope. Hell no. Our hardware might run on hardware from Chinese ODMs but there's no evidence that they have MITM hardware devices in them. But a software company owned by the People's (sic) Republic of China -- the same government that runs the Great Firewall -- can get bent.
TomMarius 8y ago
Are you saying that any Chinese company is untrustworthy? Because most of our world runs on Chinese technologies, eg. the ZTE hardware a technician has just installed at my home. Edit: that is NOT an argument for its trustworthiness...
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  The fact that they sell a lot of it does not mean it's trustworthy. That means it's cheap and cost-effective, all else being equal. Trust, and the use of information, however, are exquisitely difficult to assess until it's too late. And humans, as a species, are well known for trading less pain now for more pain later.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    > The fact that they sell a lot of it does not mean it's trustworthy I did not claim that. I merely said that it powers most of the world - meaning that most of the world is compromised, if so.
    - draugadrotten 8y ago
      > most of the world is compromised, if so. This is the only assumption which is safe to make. The question is not if your internet communications are being monitored, the questions are who and why.
krageon 8y ago
I think in terms of track records there isn't a huge difference between a Chinese-owned and a US-owned company. If you're already searching outside that sphere of influence, that makes you a huge outlier. Assuming that you are not, I think putting just the focus on the nationality here is maybe not a strong argument in any direction.
- Yoric 8y ago
  I'm not sure why this was downvoted. US companies have been caught regularly adding backdoors to products sold abroad (from the top of my head, I seem to remember IBM admitting the charges, Microsoft being caught red-handed, etc.) Last November, Emmanuel Macron gave a big speech about the fact that the EU cannot rely anymore on the US as an ally for cyberdefense, because the US spent so much effort spying on the EU (and regularly getting caught) that it was not even nearly possible. So yeah, I trust US companies about as much as Chinese companies, which is not much.
  - shadofx 8y ago
    Not like there's a lack of open source web browsers. Why go specifically for the closed source Chinese-owned browser that asks for your crypto keys and provides a "free" "VPN"?
- defanor 8y ago
  FWIW, this particular company's track record isn't great, and includes a reported backdoor in their older "Secure Browser" (which used an IE logo painted green): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qihoo_360#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qihoo_360#Controversies
lucideer 8y ago
In general, I would not be inclined to implicitly trust any Chinese company less than any US company However, I do believe that reliance and trust in Opera of yore would have been based on those running it before circa 2011-2013 when there was a major change of staff, resignation of founder, switch to Chromium/Blink, etc. That all predates the Chinese acquisition (2016)

Two questions : How different is this reskined chrome different than brave if I were to consider using it? Can we still rely on opera and trust them (after their Chinese acquisition)?

gigatexal 8y ago

Regarding point #2: Nope. Hell no. Our hardware might run on hardware from Chinese ODMs but there's no evidence that they have MITM hardware devices in them. But a software company owned by the People's (sic) Republic of China -- the same government that runs the Great Firewall -- can get bent.

TomMarius 8y ago

Are you saying that any Chinese company is untrustworthy? Because most of our world runs on Chinese technologies, eg. the ZTE hardware a technician has just installed at my home. Edit: that is NOT an argument for its trustworthiness...

killjoywashere 8y ago
The fact that they sell a lot of it does not mean it's trustworthy. That means it's cheap and cost-effective, all else being equal. Trust, and the use of information, however, are exquisitely difficult to assess until it's too late. And humans, as a species, are well known for trading less pain now for more pain later.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  > The fact that they sell a lot of it does not mean it's trustworthy I did not claim that. I merely said that it powers most of the world - meaning that most of the world is compromised, if so.
  - draugadrotten 8y ago
    > most of the world is compromised, if so. This is the only assumption which is safe to make. The question is not if your internet communications are being monitored, the questions are who and why.

krageon 8y ago

I think in terms of track records there isn't a huge difference between a Chinese-owned and a US-owned company. If you're already searching outside that sphere of influence, that makes you a huge outlier. Assuming that you are not, I think putting just the focus on the nationality here is maybe not a strong argument in any direction.

Yoric 8y ago
I'm not sure why this was downvoted. US companies have been caught regularly adding backdoors to products sold abroad (from the top of my head, I seem to remember IBM admitting the charges, Microsoft being caught red-handed, etc.) Last November, Emmanuel Macron gave a big speech about the fact that the EU cannot rely anymore on the US as an ally for cyberdefense, because the US spent so much effort spying on the EU (and regularly getting caught) that it was not even nearly possible. So yeah, I trust US companies about as much as Chinese companies, which is not much.
- shadofx 8y ago
  Not like there's a lack of open source web browsers. Why go specifically for the closed source Chinese-owned browser that asks for your crypto keys and provides a "free" "VPN"?
defanor 8y ago
FWIW, this particular company's track record isn't great, and includes a reported backdoor in their older "Secure Browser" (which used an IE logo painted green): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qihoo_360#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qihoo_360#Controversies

lucideer 8y ago

In general, I would not be inclined to implicitly trust any Chinese company less than any US company However, I do believe that reliance and trust in Opera of yore would have been based on those running it before circa 2011-2013 when there was a major change of staff, resignation of founder, switch to Chromium/Blink, etc. That all predates the Chinese acquisition (2016)