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Hence why I like Brave. Their model is very solid and seems a lot more sustainable than depending on Google as their overlord. Ads are voluntary, displayed as a

by jorvi 7y ago

Hence why I like Brave. Their model is very solid and seems a lot more sustainable than depending on Google as their overlord. Ads are voluntary, displayed as a system notification and vetted by Brave. Watch ads, you get tokens which pay publishers. If you don't want ads, you can buy tokens. If you don't want to buy tokens, you still won't see ads. And except for the first offer there is no nag screen either. I think Firefox is awesome and it is really bad if we continue the Chrome/blink hegemony, but I can't stand for their decision to not block all ads instead of just trackers, especially on phones. The modern web without a 'real' adblocker is borderline unusable and Firefox prioritizing publishers over users doesn't sit well with me.

roca 7y ago
Blocking ads by default would require a judgement that ads and ad-supported Web sites are bad by default. That is a much more extreme and less supportable position than Mozilla's position that tracking is bad by default. People who want to block all ads can opt into that with a Firefox ad-blocking extension (including on Android, unlike Chrome). Brave's fine, but if you're worried about Google/Chrome hegemony you'd better not use it, because as a Chromium browser it's a part of that hegemony.
- jorvi 7y ago
  > People who want to block all ads can opt into that with a Firefox ad-blocking extension Except on iOS, where you have to finagle with VPN-based blockers > because as a Chromium browser it's a part of that hegemony I'm well aware. I'd rather use (and recommend to less techy people) Firefox, but I can't with their current stance. People want/need adblocking but they also want sync. If Firefox had an ad-blocking toggle that was off by default that'd be fine by me.
  - BrendanEich 7y ago
    Just to clarify, Brave blocks tracking not ads, and so does what @roca advocates — but we have always done it by default, and we block more tracking than Firefox belatedly does. What’s more, we include an optional way to support your favorite sites and channels. See https://batgrowth.com/ https://batgrowth.com/ for results so far. I’m curious what ads you want to block that effective tracking protection does not block as an effect of blocking scripts that both track and (via generated scripts) place ads. Thanks.
icebraining 7y ago
> Their model is very solid and seems a lot more sustainable than depending on Google as their overlord Brave also depends on Google as their overlord, it's just that the contribution is made in code instead of dollars. There's no evidence Brave could survive if Google changed that deal, whereas Firefox has already spent years independent from them.
- BrendanEich 7y ago
  Lots of browsers use chromium, now including Microsoft. It’s all open source apart from Widevine, so the “deal” you must mean is Google paying for most of the engineers. With the new Microsoft Edge out, this deal is less of a risk for Brave or any small chromium-based Browser, but the risk was always low. It is misleading to equate open source with paid search deals of the kind Mozilla has with Google. Brave has no such deal and is not likely to get one without leverage via market share or other scale advantages.

by jorvi 7y ago

roca 7y ago

Blocking ads by default would require a judgement that ads and ad-supported Web sites are bad by default. That is a much more extreme and less supportable position than Mozilla's position that tracking is bad by default. People who want to block all ads can opt into that with a Firefox ad-blocking extension (including on Android, unlike Chrome). Brave's fine, but if you're worried about Google/Chrome hegemony you'd better not use it, because as a Chromium browser it's a part of that hegemony.

jorvi 7y ago
> People who want to block all ads can opt into that with a Firefox ad-blocking extension Except on iOS, where you have to finagle with VPN-based blockers > because as a Chromium browser it's a part of that hegemony I'm well aware. I'd rather use (and recommend to less techy people) Firefox, but I can't with their current stance. People want/need adblocking but they also want sync. If Firefox had an ad-blocking toggle that was off by default that'd be fine by me.
- BrendanEich 7y ago
  Just to clarify, Brave blocks tracking not ads, and so does what @roca advocates — but we have always done it by default, and we block more tracking than Firefox belatedly does. What’s more, we include an optional way to support your favorite sites and channels. See https://batgrowth.com/ https://batgrowth.com/ for results so far. I’m curious what ads you want to block that effective tracking protection does not block as an effect of blocking scripts that both track and (via generated scripts) place ads. Thanks.

icebraining 7y ago

> Their model is very solid and seems a lot more sustainable than depending on Google as their overlord Brave also depends on Google as their overlord, it's just that the contribution is made in code instead of dollars. There's no evidence Brave could survive if Google changed that deal, whereas Firefox has already spent years independent from them.

BrendanEich 7y ago
Lots of browsers use chromium, now including Microsoft. It’s all open source apart from Widevine, so the “deal” you must mean is Google paying for most of the engineers. With the new Microsoft Edge out, this deal is less of a risk for Brave or any small chromium-based Browser, but the risk was always low. It is misleading to equate open source with paid search deals of the kind Mozilla has with Google. Brave has no such deal and is not likely to get one without leverage via market share or other scale advantages.