17 ms·

I've used Brave since March, and I'm really not impressed. For a browser that tries to be different, it's incredible how little consideration has been given to

by Hamcha 7y ago

I've used Brave since March, and I'm really not impressed. For a browser that tries to be different, it's incredible how little consideration has been given to things that annoy users and that could probably be trivial to remove. To be more specific, my issues with Brave are: - Still uses the Chrome Web Store as main store - Does not have an easy way to load packaged extensions from 3rd party sources - Even after adding them as unpacked, you still get the same annoying popup every time you open the browser. - I received notices that "My account was waiting for a deposit" the entire time, even though I never allocated any money to anyone - Tipping amounts are fixed I always saw Brave as "not chrome, and not as much of a change as Firefox", but their approach seem lazy, features halfassed at best and the sneaky anti-features that Chrome has been adding to push users to lock into Google stuff (see all my remarks about extensions) not addressed at all. I'm using Firefox as main browser now, and I haven't been missing brave once.

colordrops 7y ago
It's perfect for my use case: Chrome but with all the google bits removed and built-in ad-blocking. Can't say any of those things you listed have bothered me. I don't use BAT. Edit: Why do so many new accounts (green text) post to any thread about Brave?
- grzte 7y ago
  I was thinking the same. I considered Vivaldi for some time but it was just buggy. That's a shame because now that Chrome is going to release manifest v3, many users will look for alternatives. Vivaldi has had years to polish their UI but they have missed the train. Eventually I'll settle with Brave, I think.
  - colordrops 7y ago
    I tried both Vivaldi and Brave and ended up with Brave because it is open source.
  - larntz 7y ago
    I used Vivaldi for a long time and never encountered many UI bugs. About a year ago I switched to Firefox mainly because I don't want Chromium to take over the world. What I miss most using Firefox is the ability to customize almost everything.
  - thanatropism 7y ago
    I used Vivaldi for about six months. I loved many aspects of the UI, which I found innovative and highly configurable. But it was so slow!
- itake 7y ago
  It also has "built-in ad-adding". https://brave.com/brave-ads-waitlist/ https://brave.com/brave-ads-waitlist/
  - AgentME 7y ago
    That's opt-in. Maybe they should make that more obvious on that page.
- n1231231231234 7y ago
  > with all the google bits removed well, except for the fact that it's still a chromium browser and google really sets the general agenda for all chromium browsers.
  - dyslexit 7y ago
    What do you mean by "general agenda"?
    - Arnt 7y ago
      Google basically decides what to implement, what not to implement, what to deprecate. For example the current controversial change: Google says "slow web is bad" and deprecates an API that allowed extensions to do almost unlimited work for any web page. Oops. Adblockers depended on that and did want to do almost unlimited work for any web page, and that wasn't a bug, but the API gets dropped, AIUI because Google wants performance. The reason doesn't matter though. Google gets to set the agenda, no matter what its reasons are.
      - dyslexit 7y ago
        I'm not sure if that's what the person I was asking meant by "general agenda", considering the change you're talking about (Manifest v3) doesn't even affect Brave[0], or any other Chromium based browser that simply doesn't wish to implement that specific change. Chromium based browsers change their code all the time, and decide whether or not incoming changes will be fully adopted by their browser themselves. [0]https://twitter.com/flamsmark/status/1088170219695071232?s=09 https://twitter.com/flamsmark/status/1088170219695071232?s=0...
        im3w1l 7y ago
        Any divergence from upstream means a) ongoing cost of merging b) security updates delayed because of merging. This means that there is a limit to how much any fork can allow itself to diverge. They will have to pick their battles and accept the least-worst. It's possible the limit is high enough that it wont be a problem in practice though.
- GordonS 7y ago
  Same here - I don't want extensions or complexity on mobile, just a simple, fast browser with and blocking. Brave is perfect for me on mobile. On desktop I browse differently, and use extensions, so Firefox with uBlock Origin works perfectly for me on desktop
- dation 7y ago
  https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
- Hdddissj 7y ago
  https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium ungoogled-chromium A lightweight approach to removing Google web service dependency ungoogled-chromium is Google Chromium, sans dependency on Google web services. It also features some tweaks to enhance privacy, control, and transparency (almost all of which require manual activation or enabling). ungoogled-chromium retains the default Chromium experience as closely as possible. Unlike other Chromium forks that have their own visions of a web browser, ungoogled-chromium is essentially a drop-in replacement for Chromium.
- neets 7y ago
  And if you want a browser with all the brave parts taken out of it you can use dissenter https://dissenter.com/download https://dissenter.com/download
- Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
  > Edit: Why do so many new accounts (green text) post to any thread about Brave? There's a pretty ridiculous amount of astroturfing going on in these comments.
  - dang 7y ago
    This comment breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Would you please review them and stick to the rules when posting here? Gratuitous insinuation about astroturfing is probably the most toxic of the common internet poisons, and it's important not to spread that unless you have some specific evidence for thinking so—and in that case you should email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. Note, however, that accounts posting opposing views on a topic doesn't count as evidence of astroturfing—only evidence that people have opposing views on the topic, which is the most routine of internet forum facts. Lots more explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
hunterloftis 7y ago
I had the opposite take on the same product decisions. As a long-time Chrome user, I have a set of useful extensions that have become a part of my daily browsing experience. I found converting to Brave an easy transition since everything I’m used to in Chrome is still available, right down to the developer tools. As far as I can tell, Brave is basically Chrome with built-in Adblock and anti-tracking, plus an innovative mechanism for user-controlled advertising and content-author micropayments. I’m very impressed.
DeckOfSardines 7y ago
Have you had the same experience with their mobile browser? I found the desktop experience lackluster but the only browser that's run faster on my phone is Firefox Focus.
- withdavidli 7y ago
  Been running it on mobile for years. Built in adblock was all that I was looking for. Without the adblock all the video ads were draining my battery 1% per minute. Decent UI, good for people with basic needs.
mistrial9 7y ago
I guess that a big amount of time and energy is used to bicker about money and legalities, instead of improving the GUI and UX. However, this may simply be the price for something new.. the net had twenty years to decide on micropayments, and now its ad-infestation and surveillance capitalism instead. So, the GUI whining is not convincing here...
uncletammy 7y ago
Here's an idea. Go help them make it better. Fixing our broken ass network and the (bad) incentives that keep is afloat is one tough job. We need all the help we can get! You can start here: https://github.com/brave https://github.com/brave
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  Why should anyone volunteer their time to enrich Eich and his cohorts who hold the plurality of BAT?
  - BrendanEich 7y ago
    https://etherscan.io/token/tokenholderchart/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb6250d2887ef https://etherscan.io/token/tokenholderchart/0x0d8775f6484306... Public ledger nicely allows anyone to see what's going on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality sounds fancy but you are using it wrong, on top of what it would mean if we were talking about votes being false counting tokens as votes.
    - jamiequint 7y ago
      See 1c "the state of being numerous" or 3a "a number greater than another" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plurality https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plurality)
      - BrendanEich 7y ago
        Yeah, but we aren't. What's your point?
        jamiequint 7y ago
        > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality sounds fancy but you are using it wrong You said OP used the word wrong but he didn't. He was wrong about his statement but not about his word use. If you're going to correct people you should probably be correct yourself.
nostrademons 7y ago
I've also been using it since about March, and been generally happy with it. It's faster than Chrome, and the built-in adblock is great, and the easy incognito/TOR modes are handy. That's basically all I want out of it - it's got all the other nifty Chrome goodies that I use (devtools etc.), the only Chrome extension I used regularly was Adblock, I don't use a whole lot of other power-user features. I've had some stability issues (it crashes about once every 2-3 days), but that could be because I'm running several versions behind. Looking forwards to trying 1.0.
the_duke 7y ago
These mostly seem like very specific power user concerns that wouldn't be relevant to most users. (not advocating for Brave, I'm a happy Firefox user. Just saying...)
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
You’ve used a browser you aren’t impressed with for seven months?
wjoe 7y ago
> I always saw Brave as "not chrome, and not as much of a change as Firefox" It seems more like "Chrome, with some plugins" than anything else. It's a shame really, I like the concept of the BAT project, I'd be interested in using it as a plugin for Firefox, but I'm not interested enough to switch browsers and lose all the features and plugins I'm used to in Firefox.
- fastball 7y ago
  What features and plugins for FF do you not want to lose by switching to a Chromium browser?
- hunterloftis 7y ago
  A BAT plugin for FF sounds like a brilliant way for Brave to build a broader community of users.
fastball 7y ago
Sooooo, basically all of your issues are related to extensions. Also don't know what you're talking about with items 3-4, I have 3rd party extensions loaded, it was pretty easy, and I don't get any error messages on startup. Also I love the fact that all the Chrome extensions work in Brave.

by Hamcha 7y ago

colordrops 7y ago

It's perfect for my use case: Chrome but with all the google bits removed and built-in ad-blocking. Can't say any of those things you listed have bothered me. I don't use BAT. Edit: Why do so many new accounts (green text) post to any thread about Brave?

grzte 7y ago
I was thinking the same. I considered Vivaldi for some time but it was just buggy. That's a shame because now that Chrome is going to release manifest v3, many users will look for alternatives. Vivaldi has had years to polish their UI but they have missed the train. Eventually I'll settle with Brave, I think.
- colordrops 7y ago
  I tried both Vivaldi and Brave and ended up with Brave because it is open source.
- larntz 7y ago
  I used Vivaldi for a long time and never encountered many UI bugs. About a year ago I switched to Firefox mainly because I don't want Chromium to take over the world. What I miss most using Firefox is the ability to customize almost everything.
- thanatropism 7y ago
  I used Vivaldi for about six months. I loved many aspects of the UI, which I found innovative and highly configurable. But it was so slow!
itake 7y ago
It also has "built-in ad-adding". https://brave.com/brave-ads-waitlist/ https://brave.com/brave-ads-waitlist/
- AgentME 7y ago
  That's opt-in. Maybe they should make that more obvious on that page.
n1231231231234 7y ago
> with all the google bits removed well, except for the fact that it's still a chromium browser and google really sets the general agenda for all chromium browsers.
- dyslexit 7y ago
  What do you mean by "general agenda"?
  - Arnt 7y ago
    Google basically decides what to implement, what not to implement, what to deprecate. For example the current controversial change: Google says "slow web is bad" and deprecates an API that allowed extensions to do almost unlimited work for any web page. Oops. Adblockers depended on that and did want to do almost unlimited work for any web page, and that wasn't a bug, but the API gets dropped, AIUI because Google wants performance. The reason doesn't matter though. Google gets to set the agenda, no matter what its reasons are.
    - dyslexit 7y ago
      I'm not sure if that's what the person I was asking meant by "general agenda", considering the change you're talking about (Manifest v3) doesn't even affect Brave[0], or any other Chromium based browser that simply doesn't wish to implement that specific change. Chromium based browsers change their code all the time, and decide whether or not incoming changes will be fully adopted by their browser themselves. [0]https://twitter.com/flamsmark/status/1088170219695071232?s=09 https://twitter.com/flamsmark/status/1088170219695071232?s=0...
      - im3w1l 7y ago
        Any divergence from upstream means a) ongoing cost of merging b) security updates delayed because of merging. This means that there is a limit to how much any fork can allow itself to diverge. They will have to pick their battles and accept the least-worst. It's possible the limit is high enough that it wont be a problem in practice though.
GordonS 7y ago
Same here - I don't want extensions or complexity on mobile, just a simple, fast browser with and blocking. Brave is perfect for me on mobile. On desktop I browse differently, and use extensions, so Firefox with uBlock Origin works perfectly for me on desktop
dation 7y ago
https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
Hdddissj 7y ago
https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium ungoogled-chromium A lightweight approach to removing Google web service dependency ungoogled-chromium is Google Chromium, sans dependency on Google web services. It also features some tweaks to enhance privacy, control, and transparency (almost all of which require manual activation or enabling). ungoogled-chromium retains the default Chromium experience as closely as possible. Unlike other Chromium forks that have their own visions of a web browser, ungoogled-chromium is essentially a drop-in replacement for Chromium.
neets 7y ago
And if you want a browser with all the brave parts taken out of it you can use dissenter https://dissenter.com/download https://dissenter.com/download
Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
> Edit: Why do so many new accounts (green text) post to any thread about Brave? There's a pretty ridiculous amount of astroturfing going on in these comments.
- dang 7y ago
  This comment breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Would you please review them and stick to the rules when posting here? Gratuitous insinuation about astroturfing is probably the most toxic of the common internet poisons, and it's important not to spread that unless you have some specific evidence for thinking so—and in that case you should email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. Note, however, that accounts posting opposing views on a topic doesn't count as evidence of astroturfing—only evidence that people have opposing views on the topic, which is the most routine of internet forum facts. Lots more explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

hunterloftis 7y ago

I had the opposite take on the same product decisions. As a long-time Chrome user, I have a set of useful extensions that have become a part of my daily browsing experience. I found converting to Brave an easy transition since everything I’m used to in Chrome is still available, right down to the developer tools. As far as I can tell, Brave is basically Chrome with built-in Adblock and anti-tracking, plus an innovative mechanism for user-controlled advertising and content-author micropayments. I’m very impressed.

DeckOfSardines 7y ago

Have you had the same experience with their mobile browser? I found the desktop experience lackluster but the only browser that's run faster on my phone is Firefox Focus.

withdavidli 7y ago
Been running it on mobile for years. Built in adblock was all that I was looking for. Without the adblock all the video ads were draining my battery 1% per minute. Decent UI, good for people with basic needs.

mistrial9 7y ago

I guess that a big amount of time and energy is used to bicker about money and legalities, instead of improving the GUI and UX. However, this may simply be the price for something new.. the net had twenty years to decide on micropayments, and now its ad-infestation and surveillance capitalism instead. So, the GUI whining is not convincing here...

uncletammy 7y ago

Here's an idea. Go help them make it better. Fixing our broken ass network and the (bad) incentives that keep is afloat is one tough job. We need all the help we can get! You can start here: https://github.com/brave https://github.com/brave

lern_too_spel 7y ago
Why should anyone volunteer their time to enrich Eich and his cohorts who hold the plurality of BAT?
- BrendanEich 7y ago
  https://etherscan.io/token/tokenholderchart/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb6250d2887ef https://etherscan.io/token/tokenholderchart/0x0d8775f6484306... Public ledger nicely allows anyone to see what's going on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality sounds fancy but you are using it wrong, on top of what it would mean if we were talking about votes being false counting tokens as votes.
  - jamiequint 7y ago
    See 1c "the state of being numerous" or 3a "a number greater than another" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plurality https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plurality)
    - BrendanEich 7y ago
      Yeah, but we aren't. What's your point?
      - jamiequint 7y ago
        > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality sounds fancy but you are using it wrong You said OP used the word wrong but he didn't. He was wrong about his statement but not about his word use. If you're going to correct people you should probably be correct yourself.

nostrademons 7y ago

I've also been using it since about March, and been generally happy with it. It's faster than Chrome, and the built-in adblock is great, and the easy incognito/TOR modes are handy. That's basically all I want out of it - it's got all the other nifty Chrome goodies that I use (devtools etc.), the only Chrome extension I used regularly was Adblock, I don't use a whole lot of other power-user features. I've had some stability issues (it crashes about once every 2-3 days), but that could be because I'm running several versions behind. Looking forwards to trying 1.0.

the_duke 7y ago

These mostly seem like very specific power user concerns that wouldn't be relevant to most users. (not advocating for Brave, I'm a happy Firefox user. Just saying...)

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

You’ve used a browser you aren’t impressed with for seven months?

wjoe 7y ago

> I always saw Brave as "not chrome, and not as much of a change as Firefox" It seems more like "Chrome, with some plugins" than anything else. It's a shame really, I like the concept of the BAT project, I'd be interested in using it as a plugin for Firefox, but I'm not interested enough to switch browsers and lose all the features and plugins I'm used to in Firefox.

fastball 7y ago
What features and plugins for FF do you not want to lose by switching to a Chromium browser?
hunterloftis 7y ago
A BAT plugin for FF sounds like a brilliant way for Brave to build a broader community of users.

fastball 7y ago

Sooooo, basically all of your issues are related to extensions. Also don't know what you're talking about with items 3-4, I have 3rd party extensions loaded, it was pretty easy, and I don't get any error messages on startup. Also I love the fact that all the Chrome extensions work in Brave.