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A simple guide to choosing your browser: Does it make money by showing you ads? Chrome: Yes Brave: Yes Firefox: No If yes, then they need to track your behav

A simple guide to choosing your browser: Does it make money by showing you ads? Chrome: Yes Brave: Yes Firefox: No If yes, then they need to track your behavior in detail. I'm sure you don't deserve to be tracked.

_pmf_ 7y ago
As a user of Brave, I'm consciously making this decision, thank you very much. What's your idea as to how content creators should be supported?
- amelius 7y ago
  The problem is that if you start paying content creators, then you're giving data to another party, i.e. your bank.
  - Galaxeblaffer 7y ago
    depends.. Brave has actually got it's own token that could be used to pay creators, not sure how the transactions are logged though but i'd imagine that you can privately pay without being tracked
    - amelius 7y ago
      Yes, but there's always a third party that can in theory collect all your data.
      - Ajedi32 7y ago
        Who? I'm not really familiar with how Brave does it, but there are plenty of cryptocurrencies where that's definitely _not_ the case.
        amelius 7y ago
        It's still not clear whether untrackable cryptocurrencies will be allowed by regulators.
  - urza 7y ago
    Alternatives based on peer-to-peer (micro)payments are already staring to emerge, e.g. this guys is building patreon alternative based on Lightning Network (Bitcoin's second layer able to handle millions of tx per seconds for negligible fee): https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/aacw3h/im_creating_a_selfhosted_lightning_patreon/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/aacw3h/im_creating...
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- deleted 7y ago
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- korm 7y ago
  Why do you need to be tracked to support content creators?
  - Ajedi32 7y ago
    You don't. Which is why Brave's ads don't do that.
misil 7y ago
Firefox makes money by its search deal with Google, in other words: by funneling their users towards Google. This pretty much also boils down to "making money by showing you ads". Google's search ads, to be precise. Now you can say: "But I can turn this off", but then you'd also turn off their source of revenue. Brave's stated goal is to establish an alternative ad-based business model that's long-term viable without the user being tracked. Will this be successful? Who knows, but at least they're trying to find a business model that respects your privacy while being long-term sustainable. Firefox's model doesn't, at least the way it works now.
- fghtr 7y ago
  >Firefox makes money by its search deal with Google Of course, development costs a lot. They will not need to rely on Google in the future if more people donate to them regularly. Consider donating to Firefox.
  - asnack 7y ago
    Considering most of their jobs are in mountain view, a very expensive col and developer salary area, they should consider moving somewhere more economical if they expect to live on handouts. Why should we have to support their over priced office space?
    - sciurus 7y ago
      This isn't true. One, Mozilla has multiple offices across the world; see https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contact/spaces/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contact/spaces/ Two, a large percentage (perhaps even a majority?) work remotely. This combination lets Mozilla hire talented people wherever they are. (Disclosure: I work for Mozilla)
    - rkangel 7y ago
      I suspect that if you ask them, they're not in Mountain View for fun, they're there for the access to top tier tech talent. Browser rendering engines and java script engines are serious engineering, needing good engineers. It's not the only place in the world you can find them, but it's a good one.
olah_1 7y ago
For me, the guide is more like: Does it render text in an ugly manner? Chrome: No Safari: No Firefox: Yes The unfortunate thing is that many Firefox users prefer the Firefox text rendering. There’s no solution to fix this (I’ve researched a lot). It’s just a divide in the users based upon preferences.
- mmmrk 7y ago
  What do you mean by ugly? That GDI text rendering is used on Windows instead of DirectWrite for some font families? This can be disabled in about:config by assigning `gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_families` an empty value. Or do you mean that there's no subpixel positioning on non-Windows/macOS? That one has no fix, except when the text rendering part of WebRender goes into production.
  - bscphil 7y ago
    I'm confused. Doesn't Firefox use Freetype on Linux? Freetype has subpixel rendering.
    - ahartmetz 7y ago
      AFAICT Firefox text rendering has always been fine on Linux. Chrome until a year or two ago had no subpixel antialiasing, different gamma for antialiasing, or whatever - its text rendering used to look ugly, or more neutrally: different from everything else.
    - mmmrk 7y ago
      Subpixel rendering is different from subpixel positioning. See e.g. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=824153 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=824153 for some gory details.
- muizelaar 7y ago
  What platform do you see this on? Other than subpixel positioning on Linux/Android, Firefox should render text the same as Chrome.
boomlinde 7y ago
To argue from an extreme point of view, neither of those choices are very good because the web in general is a terrible platform. The whole standard they implement (and its velocity of change) seems geared towards minimizing the potential for competition, and is implemented without a hint of concern for what identifying information the browser APIs might divulge by design or how much the attack surface for various malicious activities grows with their inclusion. It's an arms race, and adtech have found where all sides keep their guns.
Ajedi32 7y ago
The difference is any tracking Brave does is 100% local on your device, which eliminates any potential privacy issues that may exist with other advertising models.
- zwaps 7y ago
  yeah and apparently sending stuff to google IPs. So... not?
  - Ajedi32 7y ago
    What are they sending to Google IPs specifically? Also what makes you think that has anything to do with advertising, and isn't, for example, a side-effect of the browser being a Chromium fork?
BrendanEich 7y ago
Brave Ads are opt in and give 70% of gross revenue to the users who opt in. Leaving this out while glossing over other browsers’ default search revenue model is doubly misleading.

_pmf_ 7y ago

As a user of Brave, I'm consciously making this decision, thank you very much. What's your idea as to how content creators should be supported?

amelius 7y ago
The problem is that if you start paying content creators, then you're giving data to another party, i.e. your bank.
- Galaxeblaffer 7y ago
  depends.. Brave has actually got it's own token that could be used to pay creators, not sure how the transactions are logged though but i'd imagine that you can privately pay without being tracked
  - amelius 7y ago
    Yes, but there's always a third party that can in theory collect all your data.
    - Ajedi32 7y ago
      Who? I'm not really familiar with how Brave does it, but there are plenty of cryptocurrencies where that's definitely _not_ the case.
      - amelius 7y ago
        It's still not clear whether untrackable cryptocurrencies will be allowed by regulators.
- urza 7y ago
  Alternatives based on peer-to-peer (micro)payments are already staring to emerge, e.g. this guys is building patreon alternative based on Lightning Network (Bitcoin's second layer able to handle millions of tx per seconds for negligible fee): https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/aacw3h/im_creating_a_selfhosted_lightning_patreon/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/aacw3h/im_creating...
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deleted 7y ago
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korm 7y ago
Why do you need to be tracked to support content creators?
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  You don't. Which is why Brave's ads don't do that.

misil 7y ago

Firefox makes money by its search deal with Google, in other words: by funneling their users towards Google. This pretty much also boils down to "making money by showing you ads". Google's search ads, to be precise. Now you can say: "But I can turn this off", but then you'd also turn off their source of revenue. Brave's stated goal is to establish an alternative ad-based business model that's long-term viable without the user being tracked. Will this be successful? Who knows, but at least they're trying to find a business model that respects your privacy while being long-term sustainable. Firefox's model doesn't, at least the way it works now.

fghtr 7y ago
>Firefox makes money by its search deal with Google Of course, development costs a lot. They will not need to rely on Google in the future if more people donate to them regularly. Consider donating to Firefox.
- asnack 7y ago
  Considering most of their jobs are in mountain view, a very expensive col and developer salary area, they should consider moving somewhere more economical if they expect to live on handouts. Why should we have to support their over priced office space?
  - sciurus 7y ago
    This isn't true. One, Mozilla has multiple offices across the world; see https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contact/spaces/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contact/spaces/ Two, a large percentage (perhaps even a majority?) work remotely. This combination lets Mozilla hire talented people wherever they are. (Disclosure: I work for Mozilla)
  - rkangel 7y ago
    I suspect that if you ask them, they're not in Mountain View for fun, they're there for the access to top tier tech talent. Browser rendering engines and java script engines are serious engineering, needing good engineers. It's not the only place in the world you can find them, but it's a good one.

olah_1 7y ago

For me, the guide is more like: Does it render text in an ugly manner? Chrome: No Safari: No Firefox: Yes The unfortunate thing is that many Firefox users prefer the Firefox text rendering. There’s no solution to fix this (I’ve researched a lot). It’s just a divide in the users based upon preferences.

mmmrk 7y ago
What do you mean by ugly? That GDI text rendering is used on Windows instead of DirectWrite for some font families? This can be disabled in about:config by assigning `gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_families` an empty value. Or do you mean that there's no subpixel positioning on non-Windows/macOS? That one has no fix, except when the text rendering part of WebRender goes into production.
- bscphil 7y ago
  I'm confused. Doesn't Firefox use Freetype on Linux? Freetype has subpixel rendering.
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    AFAICT Firefox text rendering has always been fine on Linux. Chrome until a year or two ago had no subpixel antialiasing, different gamma for antialiasing, or whatever - its text rendering used to look ugly, or more neutrally: different from everything else.
  - mmmrk 7y ago
    Subpixel rendering is different from subpixel positioning. See e.g. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=824153 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=824153 for some gory details.
muizelaar 7y ago
What platform do you see this on? Other than subpixel positioning on Linux/Android, Firefox should render text the same as Chrome.

boomlinde 7y ago

To argue from an extreme point of view, neither of those choices are very good because the web in general is a terrible platform. The whole standard they implement (and its velocity of change) seems geared towards minimizing the potential for competition, and is implemented without a hint of concern for what identifying information the browser APIs might divulge by design or how much the attack surface for various malicious activities grows with their inclusion. It's an arms race, and adtech have found where all sides keep their guns.

Ajedi32 7y ago

The difference is any tracking Brave does is 100% local on your device, which eliminates any potential privacy issues that may exist with other advertising models.

zwaps 7y ago
yeah and apparently sending stuff to google IPs. So... not?
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  What are they sending to Google IPs specifically? Also what makes you think that has anything to do with advertising, and isn't, for example, a side-effect of the browser being a Chromium fork?

BrendanEich 7y ago

Brave Ads are opt in and give 70% of gross revenue to the users who opt in. Leaving this out while glossing over other browsers’ default search revenue model is doubly misleading.