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Switched from Firefox to Brave in the last year across devices and not looking back (though I do miss containers!). Blocking ads and trackers by default is pre

Switched from Firefox to Brave in the last year across devices and not looking back (though I do miss containers!). Blocking ads and trackers by default is pretty much essential in 2019. The myth about ad replacement doesn't seem to want to die though! There is no ad replacement, though the roadmap says at some time in the future publishers who opt-in will have the option to have their ad-slots filled by Brave's privacy-respecting approach. For now I think the only ad trials running are pop-up notifications if users opt-in, and that's only in a few markets at this stage. Not something I plan to opt-in to, but looking forward to the Github / Reddit / Twitter tipping and integrated crypto wallet. That's all rolling through in the next few months.

smt88 7y ago
I just use Firefox with uBlock Origin on all my devices. Better blocking than Brave and no concerns about future monetization.
- justsee 7y ago
  That was my setup, and much prefer integrated blocking and the additional polish and features. The yubikey integration coming is particularly interesting: https://brave.com/ios-yubikey-support/ https://brave.com/ios-yubikey-support/. Future monetization: that was actually an incentive for me. Having been in the belly of the beast on ad-tech I'm cheering the new ad model Brave proposes for the industry. If you're not aware how messed up the industry currently is, keep an eye on Ad Fraud Historian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/acfou https://twitter.com/acfou. On the crypto front, proposing ideas like staking / slashing on their extension store for extension authors is also very interesting: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1143630584310202369 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1143630584310202369 The new browser wars are certainly spurring innovation again: good for everyone regardless of personal browser preferences.
- Fat_Thor 7y ago
  After finding out Firefox monetized its new tab page with sponsored Pocket ads[1], I'm not too thrilled about it. Firefox collects plenty of telemetry data too and it's unclear whether or not they use it for their pockets ads. With past scandals from Firefox, I'm would not be surprised if they do. [1] https://getpocket.com/sponsor https://getpocket.com/sponsor
- piyush_soni 7y ago
  I'm currently using Firefox on all devices as my primary browser, but there is a single feature that I've gotten used to in Chrom* browsers on mobile - 'pull down to refresh' - that looks indispensable to me, and I'm planning to move to Brave on mobile just because of that (already replaced Chrome with Brave on Desktop as my secondary browser). Yes, there are add-ons to do that on mobile too, but they are all inconsistent and half-baked. Chrom*'s built-in pull to refresh is very smooth.
  - Zancarius 7y ago
    I primarily use Firefox on my desktop, but I use Brave on mobile. It seems somewhat easier on the battery than Chrome, which would make sense being as it's blocking content that can be CPU intensive. You might like it, though. I've used Brave's mobile sync and it works for bookmarks across devices quite well. It's surprisingly simple to set up, too. I don't fret much about forgetting whether I opened a tab on my phone or desktop if I remember to bookmark it. That said, I still use KDE connect to send links to my primary Firefox instance and vice-versa, but the bookmark sync is in some ways more convenient. I'd imagine they'll eventually synchronize more things, like tabs.
  - shscs911 7y ago
    Try Kiwi Browser for Android. Its a Chromium-based browser with built-in ad-block. If you want, you can even install uBlock Origin or any other extensions as it natively supports extensions.
    - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
      I use this, though disclaimer, its not "really" open source.
  - dingo_bat 7y ago
    Also scrolling is useless on Firefox mobile.
  - adam_ellsworth 7y ago
    Also, for developers, you can't inspect web-socket frames natively in FF yet, you have to use an extension.
- lenkite 7y ago
  Firefox needs to respect the OS certificate store instead of using its own. Without it client-cert authenticated sites cannot be accessed. IT admins usually have policies on Windows and MacOS that prevent export of client cert+priv key.
  - intsunny 7y ago
    I disagree. OS certificate stores often come with the political baggage of the OS manufacturer. When a Chinese Gov't CA was found to have engaged in fraudulent behavior [0] Google and Firefox were quick to revoke/remove the CA cert from their products. Apple and Microsoft did not do the same, likely because they do not want to upset the Chinese Gov't. (IIRC Iphone users cannot even manually revoke CA's on their own phones.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Network_Information_Center#Fraudulent_certificates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Network_Informa...
    - lenkite 7y ago
      Then FireFox has made the deliberate choice of excluding millions of users. There are millions of users who use identity management solutions where user-certs and priv-keys are put into the OS store of their devices. Using the OS secure-store should be a preference option. The folks who don't want to use the "political baggage" of the OS manufacturer - as you put it - can continue to use their pristine gardens.
      - worble 7y ago
        I've never used this personally, but it is a preference option? https://serverfault.com/questions/722563/how-to-make-firefox-trust-system-ca-certificates https://serverfault.com/questions/722563/how-to-make-firefox... Or am I totally misunderstanding this and that's something totally different?
        lenkite 7y ago
        I didn't know about this option - thanks. This option basically uses the OS cert store for server certificates, which is one part of the story. Now, if they also did this for client-certificates then all the folks in companies that use corporate certificate-based single-sign-on can use FireFox!
- Kyrio 7y ago
  Doing that gives me a weird, inexplicable feeling. I know Firefox blocks stuff, especially if you set tracker blocking to "Strict". It doesn't block all ads so I still want to use uBO... but do I disable Firefox's blocking to avoid doing the same thing twice? Or are there things Firefox handles better than uBO? It's really too much thinking so for now I'm using Edge Chromium with uBO, and that's not a solution :D
colecut 7y ago
It's not as good as containers, but as a replacement I use SessionBox chrome extension in Brave.. it mostly accomplishes the same purpose.
keyle 7y ago
I'm going to plug 'ungoogled-chromium' here as well as I personally found it better and more stable than Brave.
- nextlevelwizard 7y ago
  Problem with both is that they are still Chrome at the core. Currently Google has way too much power dictating how browsers render the web for users and things don't get any better by using any Chrome(ium) forks. Only real hold out is Firefox even Microsoft buckled under the pressure. If we lose Firefox then in the future don't be surprised when Chromium support suddenly stops and only game left in town is Chrome. Now all the nay sayers will come in defense of open source and my only response is: don't be so fast to forget "embrace, extend, and extinguish"
  - EvanWinget 7y ago
    Apple will keep developing Safari, luckily, so there's still a 3-way race in many ways. Safari is only ~4% of desktop/laptop browsing but over 20% of mobile and with mainstream users slowly moving to tablets over laptops this presents an important and large user base.
    - fesoliveira 7y ago
      If it comes down to Chrome or Safari, I will gladly use Chrome. Safari is far too wonky for me, and whenever I tried using it, I always had bad experiences. Google might be evil-ish, but I find their ecosystem far more pleasant than Apple's. And while Google might try to collect lots of data about my online behavior, I can always use something like a Pihole or other kinds of ad-block to stop them from getting that data.
iamnotacrook 7y ago
"Blocking ads and trackers by default is pretty much essential in 2019." How is it better than a choice of plug-ins to block them?
- davidnoble12 7y ago
  I've never understood this either. I think a deep dive into add blocking as we enter web3.0 makes sense. Granularity is missing in the new "browser wars"
- basch 7y ago
  The article does briefly mention some reasons they perform better than plugins.
KKPMW 7y ago
> The myth about ad replacement doesn't seem to want to die though! Just want to reinforce this from my experience. I've been using Brave since before they were based on Chromium. And a lot of comments were saying that Brave replaces adds with their own. But I never saw that. Now they have a feature you can opt-in, to see adds and get BATs for that. I actually wanted to test this and opted in, but still never seen an add. I guess my location is not yet included. So at least based on my experience from using Brave for a long time - it's hard to get adds even if you want to.

smt88 7y ago

I just use Firefox with uBlock Origin on all my devices. Better blocking than Brave and no concerns about future monetization.

justsee 7y ago
That was my setup, and much prefer integrated blocking and the additional polish and features. The yubikey integration coming is particularly interesting: https://brave.com/ios-yubikey-support/ https://brave.com/ios-yubikey-support/. Future monetization: that was actually an incentive for me. Having been in the belly of the beast on ad-tech I'm cheering the new ad model Brave proposes for the industry. If you're not aware how messed up the industry currently is, keep an eye on Ad Fraud Historian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/acfou https://twitter.com/acfou. On the crypto front, proposing ideas like staking / slashing on their extension store for extension authors is also very interesting: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1143630584310202369 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1143630584310202369 The new browser wars are certainly spurring innovation again: good for everyone regardless of personal browser preferences.
Fat_Thor 7y ago
After finding out Firefox monetized its new tab page with sponsored Pocket ads[1], I'm not too thrilled about it. Firefox collects plenty of telemetry data too and it's unclear whether or not they use it for their pockets ads. With past scandals from Firefox, I'm would not be surprised if they do. [1] https://getpocket.com/sponsor https://getpocket.com/sponsor
piyush_soni 7y ago
I'm currently using Firefox on all devices as my primary browser, but there is a single feature that I've gotten used to in Chrom* browsers on mobile - 'pull down to refresh' - that looks indispensable to me, and I'm planning to move to Brave on mobile just because of that (already replaced Chrome with Brave on Desktop as my secondary browser). Yes, there are add-ons to do that on mobile too, but they are all inconsistent and half-baked. Chrom*'s built-in pull to refresh is very smooth.
- Zancarius 7y ago
  I primarily use Firefox on my desktop, but I use Brave on mobile. It seems somewhat easier on the battery than Chrome, which would make sense being as it's blocking content that can be CPU intensive. You might like it, though. I've used Brave's mobile sync and it works for bookmarks across devices quite well. It's surprisingly simple to set up, too. I don't fret much about forgetting whether I opened a tab on my phone or desktop if I remember to bookmark it. That said, I still use KDE connect to send links to my primary Firefox instance and vice-versa, but the bookmark sync is in some ways more convenient. I'd imagine they'll eventually synchronize more things, like tabs.
- shscs911 7y ago
  Try Kiwi Browser for Android. Its a Chromium-based browser with built-in ad-block. If you want, you can even install uBlock Origin or any other extensions as it natively supports extensions.
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    I use this, though disclaimer, its not "really" open source.
- dingo_bat 7y ago
  Also scrolling is useless on Firefox mobile.
- adam_ellsworth 7y ago
  Also, for developers, you can't inspect web-socket frames natively in FF yet, you have to use an extension.
lenkite 7y ago
Firefox needs to respect the OS certificate store instead of using its own. Without it client-cert authenticated sites cannot be accessed. IT admins usually have policies on Windows and MacOS that prevent export of client cert+priv key.
- intsunny 7y ago
  I disagree. OS certificate stores often come with the political baggage of the OS manufacturer. When a Chinese Gov't CA was found to have engaged in fraudulent behavior [0] Google and Firefox were quick to revoke/remove the CA cert from their products. Apple and Microsoft did not do the same, likely because they do not want to upset the Chinese Gov't. (IIRC Iphone users cannot even manually revoke CA's on their own phones.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Network_Information_Center#Fraudulent_certificates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Network_Informa...
  - lenkite 7y ago
    Then FireFox has made the deliberate choice of excluding millions of users. There are millions of users who use identity management solutions where user-certs and priv-keys are put into the OS store of their devices. Using the OS secure-store should be a preference option. The folks who don't want to use the "political baggage" of the OS manufacturer - as you put it - can continue to use their pristine gardens.
    - worble 7y ago
      I've never used this personally, but it is a preference option? https://serverfault.com/questions/722563/how-to-make-firefox-trust-system-ca-certificates https://serverfault.com/questions/722563/how-to-make-firefox... Or am I totally misunderstanding this and that's something totally different?
      - lenkite 7y ago
        I didn't know about this option - thanks. This option basically uses the OS cert store for server certificates, which is one part of the story. Now, if they also did this for client-certificates then all the folks in companies that use corporate certificate-based single-sign-on can use FireFox!
Kyrio 7y ago
Doing that gives me a weird, inexplicable feeling. I know Firefox blocks stuff, especially if you set tracker blocking to "Strict". It doesn't block all ads so I still want to use uBO... but do I disable Firefox's blocking to avoid doing the same thing twice? Or are there things Firefox handles better than uBO? It's really too much thinking so for now I'm using Edge Chromium with uBO, and that's not a solution :D

colecut 7y ago

It's not as good as containers, but as a replacement I use SessionBox chrome extension in Brave.. it mostly accomplishes the same purpose.

keyle 7y ago

I'm going to plug 'ungoogled-chromium' here as well as I personally found it better and more stable than Brave.

nextlevelwizard 7y ago
Problem with both is that they are still Chrome at the core. Currently Google has way too much power dictating how browsers render the web for users and things don't get any better by using any Chrome(ium) forks. Only real hold out is Firefox even Microsoft buckled under the pressure. If we lose Firefox then in the future don't be surprised when Chromium support suddenly stops and only game left in town is Chrome. Now all the nay sayers will come in defense of open source and my only response is: don't be so fast to forget "embrace, extend, and extinguish"
- EvanWinget 7y ago
  Apple will keep developing Safari, luckily, so there's still a 3-way race in many ways. Safari is only ~4% of desktop/laptop browsing but over 20% of mobile and with mainstream users slowly moving to tablets over laptops this presents an important and large user base.
  - fesoliveira 7y ago
    If it comes down to Chrome or Safari, I will gladly use Chrome. Safari is far too wonky for me, and whenever I tried using it, I always had bad experiences. Google might be evil-ish, but I find their ecosystem far more pleasant than Apple's. And while Google might try to collect lots of data about my online behavior, I can always use something like a Pihole or other kinds of ad-block to stop them from getting that data.

iamnotacrook 7y ago

"Blocking ads and trackers by default is pretty much essential in 2019." How is it better than a choice of plug-ins to block them?

davidnoble12 7y ago
I've never understood this either. I think a deep dive into add blocking as we enter web3.0 makes sense. Granularity is missing in the new "browser wars"
basch 7y ago
The article does briefly mention some reasons they perform better than plugins.

KKPMW 7y ago

> The myth about ad replacement doesn't seem to want to die though! Just want to reinforce this from my experience. I've been using Brave since before they were based on Chromium. And a lot of comments were saying that Brave replaces adds with their own. But I never saw that. Now they have a feature you can opt-in, to see adds and get BATs for that. I actually wanted to test this and opted in, but still never seen an add. I guess my location is not yet included. So at least based on my experience from using Brave for a long time - it's hard to get adds even if you want to.