7 ms·

If this becomes a reality, we as a tech community must do our part. We must personally leave chrome, ask all our friends and family to stop using chrome and swi

If this becomes a reality, we as a tech community must do our part. We must personally leave chrome, ask all our friends and family to stop using chrome and switch to Firefox or Brave. Really show Google what we as a community can do.

MentallyRetired 7y ago
Dilly dilly. I'm sharing the Firefox link on Facebook right now. Not a huge deal but I guess I haven't advocated for it yet.
JustSomeNobody 7y ago
The same community that got us into this mess?
DJBunnies 7y ago
Isn't brave just chromium though?
- NoGravitas 7y ago
  Not only is Brave just Chromium, it doesn't even block ads; it just replaces them with ads that pay worst-person-in-the-world Brendan Eich. And is tied to a dubious cryptocurrency scheme.
  - filesystem 7y ago
    The Brave Ads are opt-in, disabled by default. The idea is that they will incentivize users to enabled the proprietary ad notifications by paying those users (minuscule amounts to be fair) every time they view the ad.
- tedivm 7y ago
  Yes, but chromium isn't removing the feature completely- since it's still allowed to be used in enterprise versions the code is all still there. Brave has already committed to making sure it continues to work.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
morganvachon 7y ago
Agreed, except Brave is a closed source wrapper for Chromium and you can't be sure if it's really as safe and private as they say. Also, it's married to a cryptocurrency scheme and that alone is reason to stay away.
- sanxiyn 7y ago
  Which part of Brave is not open source at https://github.com/brave https://github.com/brave ?
  - morganvachon 7y ago
    Thanks, I wasn't aware they had finally produced source code with an open source license for the wrapper code. Still, I don't see anything on their Github about the servers that run the backend of their ad-serving and cryptomining services. Until I see otherwise I'll assume that is closed and proprietary and that all browsing activity is monitored, logged, and monetized per their advertising model. https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/a2y9iv/is_brave_fully_opensource_or_just_some_parts/ebspns0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/a2y9iv/is_br...
- xur17 7y ago
  Isn't it open source? https://github.com/brave/brave-browser https://github.com/brave/brave-browser
- filesystem 7y ago
  Brave is seeking to raise a traditional series A: https://www.coindesk.com/brave-browser-to-raise-over-30-million-in-series-a-equity-round-sources https://www.coindesk.com/brave-browser-to-raise-over-30-mill... (ironically you'll only really find this news on cryptocurrency news sites). I think the mindset that crypto = stay away when looking at Brave is silly. The idea is novel, they have a working product, and IMO they really aren't "locked in" to crypto. I imagine they could pretty easily transition the ad payouts, tipping, and auto-contribution features from BAT to traditional currency. Building the platform around BAT to start just allowed them to cash in on an ICO at the peak of the craze.
elcapitan 7y ago
The same friends and family that we convinced a couple of years ago that they should stop using that shitty Firefox and switch to Chrome, which is so much more performant and don't worry about Google?
- sanxiyn 7y ago
  I never did that, I continued to recommend Firefox to everybody. If you recommended Chrome, now is the chance to repent your sin.
  - CrazyStat 7y ago
    Firefox was in a pretty bad spot when I switched about 10 years ago. I would not have recommended to anyone who didn't have an excessive amount of RAM.
    - cr0sh 7y ago
      I only switched from firefox to chrome, many years ago, for two reasons: 1. Better dev tools 2. Better WebGL performance But today, Firefox has upped their game on both, and really, I don't play much with WebGL anymore so it doesn't matter that much to me. I am kinda sick of this whole back-and-forth thing, though. I'm also getting tired of seeing the way the web is going; monetized and walled off. More and more, I'm starting to look into and toward distributed solutions. Give me back the internet I remember from the early 90s. If I can't have that, then I might just return to BBS-ing over ssh...
      - ishan1121 7y ago
        Actually, the internet has become too commercialized. But the problem is the top 1% driving all the revenue. And they are using this revenue to shape the web which is profitable to them.
      - derefr 7y ago
        The “back and forth thing” is the market force keeping the browsers from stagnating. Even though it’s a hassle, you really don’t want the world where it doesn’t happen.
781 7y ago
People warned for years here that exactly this was going to happen. But the HN tech community was "no, no, you are just a hater, Google IS GOOD, it's a company run by engineers, not by suits, they will NEVER betray us, this is totally different than the IE situation"
burtonator 7y ago
Like we did our part to ask people to leave Facebook? We need a more effective strategy than this...
- burtonator 7y ago
  Instead of complaining I'm going to make a suggestion. What if we had a middle ground where we build a browser to fight ads by putting forth responsible ads with responsible tracking and used the revenue to fight for a responsible web.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    I don't know if this is what you're getting at (probably not), but I've often thought a lot of the "ills" we see with the current web ecosystem (particularly so-called "fake news", disinformation campaigns, propaganda, etc - the whole stinkin' mess) could be solved if it were required that everyone identifies themselves - almost like a driver's license to use the web. Make people truly responsible for their words and actions online, and maybe politeness and civility might return. Let anonymous actors still communicate, but they would be known as such, and the browser or whatnot could identify that and mark them as such, so that others can know whether or not to put their trust in them. But then - that also goes against my real belief that the internet should be free and anonymous; it also goes against reality, as we've seen real-life examples of people who are toxic, divisive, insincere, hateful, etc - being perfectly forthright with their identity online and people flocking toward them by the thousands. Conversely, there are also plenty of completely anonymous personas and characters out there that people also believe and hold their words to be true; in some cases more true than objective reality. I don't know what the real solution to all of this is, at least in the short term. In the long term, better education for everyone would be the ideal solution, but with that also being vilified and worked against by individuals and groups who have an agenda to prevent such betterment, pushing that solution and having it work long term is increasingly becoming seemingly non-viable. Even in a perfect world, though, where such a thing weren't being molested, it might still take a generation or two before any results were potentially seen. I think long before this is solved, the solution may present itself in the utmost form: A worldwide civil war, that'll make both WW1 and 2 look like skirmishes.
s3r3nity 7y ago
Or Safari, which, for my family that uses iPhones, is completely sufficient for their needs - and has good privacy settings (AND sane default privacy settings.)
arkades 7y ago
> If this becomes a reality If? They’re acting in keeping with their business model. There’s no “if,” just “when.” I’ve already started reaching out to all the people that I’m family-and-friends tech support for and begun pitching a transition to FF.

MentallyRetired 7y ago

Dilly dilly. I'm sharing the Firefox link on Facebook right now. Not a huge deal but I guess I haven't advocated for it yet.

JustSomeNobody 7y ago

The same community that got us into this mess?

DJBunnies 7y ago

Isn't brave just chromium though?

NoGravitas 7y ago
Not only is Brave just Chromium, it doesn't even block ads; it just replaces them with ads that pay worst-person-in-the-world Brendan Eich. And is tied to a dubious cryptocurrency scheme.
- filesystem 7y ago
  The Brave Ads are opt-in, disabled by default. The idea is that they will incentivize users to enabled the proprietary ad notifications by paying those users (minuscule amounts to be fair) every time they view the ad.
tedivm 7y ago
Yes, but chromium isn't removing the feature completely- since it's still allowed to be used in enterprise versions the code is all still there. Brave has already committed to making sure it continues to work.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

morganvachon 7y ago

Agreed, except Brave is a closed source wrapper for Chromium and you can't be sure if it's really as safe and private as they say. Also, it's married to a cryptocurrency scheme and that alone is reason to stay away.

sanxiyn 7y ago
Which part of Brave is not open source at https://github.com/brave https://github.com/brave ?
- morganvachon 7y ago
  Thanks, I wasn't aware they had finally produced source code with an open source license for the wrapper code. Still, I don't see anything on their Github about the servers that run the backend of their ad-serving and cryptomining services. Until I see otherwise I'll assume that is closed and proprietary and that all browsing activity is monitored, logged, and monetized per their advertising model. https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/a2y9iv/is_brave_fully_opensource_or_just_some_parts/ebspns0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/a2y9iv/is_br...
xur17 7y ago
Isn't it open source? https://github.com/brave/brave-browser https://github.com/brave/brave-browser
filesystem 7y ago
Brave is seeking to raise a traditional series A: https://www.coindesk.com/brave-browser-to-raise-over-30-million-in-series-a-equity-round-sources https://www.coindesk.com/brave-browser-to-raise-over-30-mill... (ironically you'll only really find this news on cryptocurrency news sites). I think the mindset that crypto = stay away when looking at Brave is silly. The idea is novel, they have a working product, and IMO they really aren't "locked in" to crypto. I imagine they could pretty easily transition the ad payouts, tipping, and auto-contribution features from BAT to traditional currency. Building the platform around BAT to start just allowed them to cash in on an ICO at the peak of the craze.

elcapitan 7y ago

The same friends and family that we convinced a couple of years ago that they should stop using that shitty Firefox and switch to Chrome, which is so much more performant and don't worry about Google?

sanxiyn 7y ago
I never did that, I continued to recommend Firefox to everybody. If you recommended Chrome, now is the chance to repent your sin.
- CrazyStat 7y ago
  Firefox was in a pretty bad spot when I switched about 10 years ago. I would not have recommended to anyone who didn't have an excessive amount of RAM.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    I only switched from firefox to chrome, many years ago, for two reasons: 1. Better dev tools 2. Better WebGL performance But today, Firefox has upped their game on both, and really, I don't play much with WebGL anymore so it doesn't matter that much to me. I am kinda sick of this whole back-and-forth thing, though. I'm also getting tired of seeing the way the web is going; monetized and walled off. More and more, I'm starting to look into and toward distributed solutions. Give me back the internet I remember from the early 90s. If I can't have that, then I might just return to BBS-ing over ssh...
    - ishan1121 7y ago
      Actually, the internet has become too commercialized. But the problem is the top 1% driving all the revenue. And they are using this revenue to shape the web which is profitable to them.
    - derefr 7y ago
      The “back and forth thing” is the market force keeping the browsers from stagnating. Even though it’s a hassle, you really don’t want the world where it doesn’t happen.

781 7y ago

People warned for years here that exactly this was going to happen. But the HN tech community was "no, no, you are just a hater, Google IS GOOD, it's a company run by engineers, not by suits, they will NEVER betray us, this is totally different than the IE situation"

burtonator 7y ago

Like we did our part to ask people to leave Facebook? We need a more effective strategy than this...

burtonator 7y ago
Instead of complaining I'm going to make a suggestion. What if we had a middle ground where we build a browser to fight ads by putting forth responsible ads with responsible tracking and used the revenue to fight for a responsible web.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  I don't know if this is what you're getting at (probably not), but I've often thought a lot of the "ills" we see with the current web ecosystem (particularly so-called "fake news", disinformation campaigns, propaganda, etc - the whole stinkin' mess) could be solved if it were required that everyone identifies themselves - almost like a driver's license to use the web. Make people truly responsible for their words and actions online, and maybe politeness and civility might return. Let anonymous actors still communicate, but they would be known as such, and the browser or whatnot could identify that and mark them as such, so that others can know whether or not to put their trust in them. But then - that also goes against my real belief that the internet should be free and anonymous; it also goes against reality, as we've seen real-life examples of people who are toxic, divisive, insincere, hateful, etc - being perfectly forthright with their identity online and people flocking toward them by the thousands. Conversely, there are also plenty of completely anonymous personas and characters out there that people also believe and hold their words to be true; in some cases more true than objective reality. I don't know what the real solution to all of this is, at least in the short term. In the long term, better education for everyone would be the ideal solution, but with that also being vilified and worked against by individuals and groups who have an agenda to prevent such betterment, pushing that solution and having it work long term is increasingly becoming seemingly non-viable. Even in a perfect world, though, where such a thing weren't being molested, it might still take a generation or two before any results were potentially seen. I think long before this is solved, the solution may present itself in the utmost form: A worldwide civil war, that'll make both WW1 and 2 look like skirmishes.

s3r3nity 7y ago

Or Safari, which, for my family that uses iPhones, is completely sufficient for their needs - and has good privacy settings (AND sane default privacy settings.)

arkades 7y ago

> If this becomes a reality If? They’re acting in keeping with their business model. There’s no “if,” just “when.” I’ve already started reaching out to all the people that I’m family-and-friends tech support for and begun pitching a transition to FF.