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Yeah I'm fed up with unwarranted mentions of Brave. Indeed they are always "aggressive, misleading, promotional", and nothing close to informational. The articl

by jraph 7y ago

Yeah I'm fed up with unwarranted mentions of Brave. Indeed they are always "aggressive, misleading, promotional", and nothing close to informational. The article was supposed to be about Apple and Webkit, and Brave is just off-topic. Brave is not a privacy-focused browser. It is an ad-focused browser and the business model of Brave is just this: ads, through Basic Attention Tokens. Privacy and BATs are in conflict and Brave will never be incentivized to respect the privacy of all its users. If you want privacy for you and for everyone, competition except Chrome is already better. Brave is not a solution for a browser user's problem.

onyva 7y ago
Just the newspeak idea alone of "Basic Attention Tokens" ... makes me think of the dystopic "Maniac" and AdBuddy.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Hate to say it but at least AdBuddy doesnt follow you around. They just share random ads.
bad_user 7y ago
Competition that's preferably not based on Chromium, because Chromium's marketshare gives Google incredible leverage on the market. Witness how they are pushing AMP. At this point there are only two browsers left: Firefox and Safari.
- SquareWheel 7y ago
  AMP works in all browsers. It doesn't rely on anything Chromium-specific.
  - vorticalbox 7y ago
    It still lets one company set the standard for the web even if what they push does work on all browsers.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - akerl_ 7y ago
      I’m not seeing the connection between Chromium and AMP. AMP, for what it’s worth, is based on existing web standards. It’s a restrictive way of using those standards, but it sits on top of existing standard tech. And Google is using their position as a search engine to push that, not their position as a browser vendor (as evidenced by the fact that AMP has the same effect in Firefox/Safari as it does in Chrome).
      - tim58 7y ago
        The connection is this: Google has a large amount of influence in the Chromium code base. Using Chromium, a codebase Google Controls, gives them addition leverage in controlling how the web is viewed and built.
        akerl_ 7y ago
        I don’t think anybody is disputing that Google’s influence over Chromium gives them leverage over the browser space. This is evident in things like their changes to how TLS certificate metadata is displayed, support for TLS 1.3, and changes to how content is rendered. But this comment thread includes the claim that their influence over Chromium is being used to push AMP, and I don’t see how they are using their position with Chromium to push AMP, a technology that uses a specific subset of existing web technology and operates cross-browser already.
    - lern_too_spel 7y ago
      The technical steering committee for AMP has members from multiple companies, with only a minority employed by Google.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        Technically correct, but not useful. Three of the seven members of the committee are employed by Google, and the other four members are each from different companies: https://github.com/ampproject/meta-tsc#members https://github.com/ampproject/meta-tsc#members. Plus, it's not clear wether each member has the same amount of "power".
justsee 7y ago
There is always something curious about an opinion so strongly held and communicated that is at the same time so wilfully ignorant. Brave is clearly a privacy-focused browser: it takes very little time for a technically-minded, veteran HNer to kick the tyres on that project's focus and codebase to understand that privacy is their USP. It's obvious the whole team believes in the idea of a user agent being an Agent of the User. A little more time reviewing key figures, from Yan Zhu through to Johnny Ryan, reveals the calibre and integrity of people working on this project. They are attempting to build a model that upsets the current surveillance capitalism status quo, so it's no surprise that there are attempts to spike perceptions around the project.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- onyva 7y ago
  ROFL. Especially the “a user agent being an agent of the user”. Who said surveillance capitalism has no sense of humor ...?
  - justsee 7y ago
    Browsers can and should be agents of the user: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent Google's Chrome has distorted that historical idea so they are agents of the ad network and advertiser, working against the user.
    - onyva 7y ago
      No sure. I get it. But the seriousness with which you attribute a for profit like brave a benevolent mission, as if. How many times do we need to go down the same road of talking about features vs what really counts: track record and who's actually standing behind the technology? Clue: people. Why would you trust Brave to begin with? Because Brenden Eich is such a role model (a racist homophobe last time I checked)?

by jraph 7y ago

onyva 7y ago

Just the newspeak idea alone of "Basic Attention Tokens" ... makes me think of the dystopic "Maniac" and AdBuddy.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
Hate to say it but at least AdBuddy doesnt follow you around. They just share random ads.

bad_user 7y ago

Competition that's preferably not based on Chromium, because Chromium's marketshare gives Google incredible leverage on the market. Witness how they are pushing AMP. At this point there are only two browsers left: Firefox and Safari.

SquareWheel 7y ago
AMP works in all browsers. It doesn't rely on anything Chromium-specific.
- vorticalbox 7y ago
  It still lets one company set the standard for the web even if what they push does work on all browsers.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - akerl_ 7y ago
    I’m not seeing the connection between Chromium and AMP. AMP, for what it’s worth, is based on existing web standards. It’s a restrictive way of using those standards, but it sits on top of existing standard tech. And Google is using their position as a search engine to push that, not their position as a browser vendor (as evidenced by the fact that AMP has the same effect in Firefox/Safari as it does in Chrome).
    - tim58 7y ago
      The connection is this: Google has a large amount of influence in the Chromium code base. Using Chromium, a codebase Google Controls, gives them addition leverage in controlling how the web is viewed and built.
      - akerl_ 7y ago
        I don’t think anybody is disputing that Google’s influence over Chromium gives them leverage over the browser space. This is evident in things like their changes to how TLS certificate metadata is displayed, support for TLS 1.3, and changes to how content is rendered. But this comment thread includes the claim that their influence over Chromium is being used to push AMP, and I don’t see how they are using their position with Chromium to push AMP, a technology that uses a specific subset of existing web technology and operates cross-browser already.
  - lern_too_spel 7y ago
    The technical steering committee for AMP has members from multiple companies, with only a minority employed by Google.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Technically correct, but not useful. Three of the seven members of the committee are employed by Google, and the other four members are each from different companies: https://github.com/ampproject/meta-tsc#members https://github.com/ampproject/meta-tsc#members. Plus, it's not clear wether each member has the same amount of "power".

justsee 7y ago

There is always something curious about an opinion so strongly held and communicated that is at the same time so wilfully ignorant. Brave is clearly a privacy-focused browser: it takes very little time for a technically-minded, veteran HNer to kick the tyres on that project's focus and codebase to understand that privacy is their USP. It's obvious the whole team believes in the idea of a user agent being an Agent of the User. A little more time reviewing key figures, from Yan Zhu through to Johnny Ryan, reveals the calibre and integrity of people working on this project. They are attempting to build a model that upsets the current surveillance capitalism status quo, so it's no surprise that there are attempts to spike perceptions around the project.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
onyva 7y ago
ROFL. Especially the “a user agent being an agent of the user”. Who said surveillance capitalism has no sense of humor ...?
- justsee 7y ago
  Browsers can and should be agents of the user: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent Google's Chrome has distorted that historical idea so they are agents of the ad network and advertiser, working against the user.
  - onyva 7y ago
    No sure. I get it. But the seriousness with which you attribute a for profit like brave a benevolent mission, as if. How many times do we need to go down the same road of talking about features vs what really counts: track record and who's actually standing behind the technology? Clue: people. Why would you trust Brave to begin with? Because Brenden Eich is such a role model (a racist homophobe last time I checked)?