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>Curious: what are some of the shortfalls you see in Chromium? That it's a Google-controlled project. Seriously, that's it. I have no reason to believe Googl

>Curious: what are some of the shortfalls you see in Chromium? That it's a Google-controlled project. Seriously, that's it. I have no reason to believe Google has my best interest at heart. Don't turn that around and say "Oh, you think Mozilla is looking out for you?" because I don't. I just trust Google less.

TheArcane 7y ago
The deGoogle movement has been gaining steam ever since the ad-block announcement, and I'm a 100% behind it
- dmix 7y ago
  Which happened after Brave launched.
  - andrenotgiant 7y ago
    I'm curious - how are the two related? What's the significance of the fact that Brave launched, _and then_ Google changing the extension API in a way that affects ad blockers?
    - dmix 7y ago
      The argument against using Chromium has increased significantly with that move. Before you could argue that the open source Chromium was largely immune to Google's various small bad behaviours, but when they make such a large close-minded move, at a certain point you can't keep supporting the platform as a whole when they are so hostile to the open internet. Even if it's indirect support. Also, it can't be ignore that Firefox's recent move towards parity with Chrome has played a big role in giving people the option to even switch.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    Okay, but it's not like Brave couldn't have seen that coming. It doesn't take a genius to see that a browser run by one of the world's largest advertisers is going to prioritize advertisers over users.
    - dmix 7y ago
      I’m just speaking from personal experience as someone who defended Chromium for quite a long time and finally hitting my peak. I’m sure I’m not alone.
skybrian 7y ago
This is kind of silly. When you copy open source code, it doesn't give any magic access to the people who wrote it. If there is anything wrong with it, it has to appear on the source code somewhere. The question you should be asking is whether you trust Brave to vet the source code and remove anything that seems like a problem.
- bsclifton 7y ago
  The team has been capturing deviations from Chromium on a wiki page here: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove) https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-... The page goes over (high level) how the project is built and links to patches where functionality was disabled or modified (ex: proxied, etc)
- criley2 7y ago
  IMO just because it's open source doesn't mean it's safe. I would trust a closed source project that has been thoroughly and extensively vetted by a third-party auditor I trust far more than an open source project that has no audit for me to reference. As I am not a professional security auditor, my ability to understand the minutiae of developer decisions (intentional and unintentional) in some multi-million-LOC project is basically a limit approaching zero. My looking at the source code to give myself a false sense of security would only increase my risk, IMO. It's like a restaurant tells you "yeah we have a clean kitchen, you can go take a quick look yourself!" and it's like, do you know to check that water and disinfectant buckets can't be within x feet of each other? To temp every fridge and warmer to ensure no danger zones? To monitor glove usage and hair net usage? And a thousand other things? Being open source basically means that a nice auditor could do some audit work for free to help the community, but that's about it from my perspective. Unless some of you are actively code reviewing the entirety of Chromium prior to launching any build of it ???
  - tlb 7y ago
    Can you give an example of a closed-source project you trust because it has been audited by a third party?

TheArcane 7y ago

The deGoogle movement has been gaining steam ever since the ad-block announcement, and I'm a 100% behind it

dmix 7y ago
Which happened after Brave launched.
- andrenotgiant 7y ago
  I'm curious - how are the two related? What's the significance of the fact that Brave launched, _and then_ Google changing the extension API in a way that affects ad blockers?
  - dmix 7y ago
    The argument against using Chromium has increased significantly with that move. Before you could argue that the open source Chromium was largely immune to Google's various small bad behaviours, but when they make such a large close-minded move, at a certain point you can't keep supporting the platform as a whole when they are so hostile to the open internet. Even if it's indirect support. Also, it can't be ignore that Firefox's recent move towards parity with Chrome has played a big role in giving people the option to even switch.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  Okay, but it's not like Brave couldn't have seen that coming. It doesn't take a genius to see that a browser run by one of the world's largest advertisers is going to prioritize advertisers over users.
  - dmix 7y ago
    I’m just speaking from personal experience as someone who defended Chromium for quite a long time and finally hitting my peak. I’m sure I’m not alone.

skybrian 7y ago

This is kind of silly. When you copy open source code, it doesn't give any magic access to the people who wrote it. If there is anything wrong with it, it has to appear on the source code somewhere. The question you should be asking is whether you trust Brave to vet the source code and remove anything that seems like a problem.

bsclifton 7y ago
The team has been capturing deviations from Chromium on a wiki page here: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove) https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-... The page goes over (high level) how the project is built and links to patches where functionality was disabled or modified (ex: proxied, etc)
criley2 7y ago
IMO just because it's open source doesn't mean it's safe. I would trust a closed source project that has been thoroughly and extensively vetted by a third-party auditor I trust far more than an open source project that has no audit for me to reference. As I am not a professional security auditor, my ability to understand the minutiae of developer decisions (intentional and unintentional) in some multi-million-LOC project is basically a limit approaching zero. My looking at the source code to give myself a false sense of security would only increase my risk, IMO. It's like a restaurant tells you "yeah we have a clean kitchen, you can go take a quick look yourself!" and it's like, do you know to check that water and disinfectant buckets can't be within x feet of each other? To temp every fridge and warmer to ensure no danger zones? To monitor glove usage and hair net usage? And a thousand other things? Being open source basically means that a nice auditor could do some audit work for free to help the community, but that's about it from my perspective. Unless some of you are actively code reviewing the entirety of Chromium prior to launching any build of it ???
- tlb 7y ago
  Can you give an example of a closed-source project you trust because it has been audited by a third party?