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Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites
- merunas 6y agoWell not so private after all. First duckduckgo now this. I wonder how many more apps advertise themselves as private yet expose too much
- niftylettuce 6y agoIf you need an alternative to Brave, then see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23708688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23708688. This comment also shares the auto-suggestions-for-profit which is another reason I'm not using it. Since I cannot use DDG nor Brave, the only alternative (besides the currently bloated Firefox -- in my biased opinion) is ungoogled-chromium.
- nichch 6y agoPlease read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23708986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23708986 before deciding on which browser to switch to. “Currently bloated Firefox” is a baseless claim in my opinion.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tibet_13 6y agoI've been using ff for years and had no problem with it. Uninstalled Brave after the affiliate link incident.
- andrepd 6y agoIn what sense is Firefox bloated compared to brave?
- fullstop 6y agoNot GP, but excluding benchmarks and profiling data, since I've not done that, Brave feels faster. There are times when Firefox gets slow and I need to restart it, new tabs take more time than they should to open, stuff like that. My experience is 100% on Linux, and perhaps Firefox on Windows or OS X is quite different.
- kohtatsu 6y agoAre you a former DDG employee? And to clarify you do use the DDG search engine, just not their browser.
- rydre 6y agoDDG's CEO has a shady background. It's not as privacy centric as they claim to be.
- 1f60c 6y agoSource?
- rydre 6y agoHis investments into Locately in 2010. Locately is pioneering the science of Location Analytics. Locately's software analyzes semi-continuous GPS data from mobile phones to better understand what consumers do and how they shop. Edit: why the downvotes? :/ I like my HN points...
- oefrha 6y agoLast time this came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23709270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23709270 founder has a bad track record on user privacy. Founded Names Database[1], a social media website designed to collect user information as aggressively as possible, before selling all the information to classmates.com. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database
- Batman8675309 6y agoYeah, using software you have to build yourself is a much better alternative. Especially when it's not available for Android at all..
- niftylettuce 6y agoYes it is
- girst 6y agowell, compared to undisclosed affiliate marketing for trading sites[1], soliciting of donations without consent[2] or the recent redirection through affiliate links[3], this seems pretty tame. [1]: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/8793 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/8793 [2]: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br... [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027
- Fiveplus 6y agoI'm already using Windows and despite me ticking all privacy checks - I am, as such, trusting MS with my data. Might as well switch over to Edge when I need a chromium-based browser. Threads like these move me in inch closer to that decision. (currently default: Firefox and secondary: Brave) ps: Edge's reader mode and narrator are top-notch.
- bartread 6y agoI can definitely see the reasoning. I suppose I'm still debating whether it's good to have all my personal information with only one company or spread around a bit more. If I was going to plump for one company, Microsoft might not be the worst choice simply because their business model doesn't revolve around monetizing my personal information.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y ago> Microsoft might not be the worst choice simply because their business model doesn't revolve around monetizing my personal information. Yet they seem intent on collecting as much data as possible.
- thekyle 6y agoI know right. I don't get it. I would expect a company like Microsoft that makes most of their money selling to businesses would take privacy and security more seriously.
- KingOfCoders 6y agoLost all trust in Brave some time ago, back to FF.
- bb123 6y agoIs it fair to _ever_ say that clearing the history completely removes all traces of visited sites? I have always operated under the assumption that some trace will remain pretty much forever.
- jonathanstrange 6y agoWhy would you make this assumption? It seems perfectly reasonable to me to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that a program actually does what it claims to do.
- rydre 6y agoI sometimes do computer forensics for clients and you can be sure that you leave traces. You'd need to wipe out the area of the disk over and over again to fully remove it (sometimes it'll still remain despite that, for undisclosed reasons).
- bartread 6y agoAsking because I don't know: does that also hold true for SSDs if the sectors are overwritten (either with new data, or due to wear levelling)?
- rydre 6y agoCorrect. None of the publicly/commercially available software can do that, so don't worry most people won't pay for it.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y agosecure erase is the only way to clear all sectors on an SSD but at that point you're just relying on the manufacturer's implementation (and past experience from encryption has ruled that to be a derp). an easy alternative is just to encrypt the drive using software-based encryption and just delete the key. Windows 10 has now stopped relying on hardware-based ssd encryption because it was found some of it was just garbage. Edit: Additional caveats: some drives can move data in and out of the non-system viewable area and dead cells cannot be written if they're no longer viable so data can still remain there.
- oefrha 6y ago> It doesn't seem to be anywhere (in text) in: /Users/mark/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware Of course it's not in text. It's a SQLite3 database: $ sqlite3 ~/'Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default/Top Sites' .dump PRAGMA foreign_keys=OFF; BEGIN TRANSACTION; CREATE TABLE meta(key LONGVARCHAR NOT NULL UNIQUE PRIMARY KEY, value LONGVARCHAR); INSERT INTO meta VALUES('mmap_status','-1'); INSERT INTO meta VALUES('version','4'); INSERT INTO meta VALUES('last_compatible_version','4'); CREATE TABLE top_sites (url LONGVARCHAR PRIMARY KEY,url_rank INTEGER,title LONGVARCHAR,redirects LONGVARCHAR); INSERT INTO top_sites VALUES('https://chrome.google.com/webstore?hl=en',0,'Web Store',NULL); COMMIT; This is actually a database inherited from Chromium, so I'm not sure if the issue is inherited from Chromium. Edit: Tried this on Chromium 86.0.4185.0, top sites db is cleared after clearing all browsing data, so probably not inherited from Chromium. (Btw I wasn't able to repro on Brave because however many times I open news.ycombinator.com, it simply won't register in top sites -.-)
- slezyr 6y agoThey still use 83.0.4103.116 even with that it's easy to mess chromium up with your patches. I don't think it has malicious intend, just a bug. [1]: https://brave.com/latest/ https://brave.com/latest/
- oefrha 6y ago83.0.4103.116 is current stable. Chromium itself is distributed in snapshot form (I cask installed it) so naturally it's ahead — kind of like Canary, which is currently at 86.0.4194.0.
- meerita 6y agoSee it. These new browsers claiming "privacy" aren't private at all.
- AzzieElbab 6y agoThis is a bug, have you guys seen a software bug before? What is it with the appetite for outrage? Using brave on Android devices and not planning to switch
- nvr219 6y agoPrivacy is Brave's value proposition and this bug hasn't been fixed or meaningfully discussed in like six weeks. Firefox
- edoceo 6y agoRight! If X is your value prop you unit test the shit out of X. And patch bugs in X quickly. Here X=Privacy so, where are the unit tests and patch? Faster now that it's Top on HN.
- anonymousDan 6y agoYa I find the outright hatred for Brave on HN a bit bizarre. The more sustainable alternatives we have to Google Chrome hegemony the better IMHO. I say this as both a FF and Brave user.
- afiori 6y agoI know nothing about pro and cons of Brave, but many people that criticize Chrome hegemony often see Brave as inconsequential. It has zero leverage on the evolution of web standards as they will never be able to hard-fork the engine. In particular it does close to nothing to solve the problem of chrome-only websites. It is one of the reason the demise of edgeHTML/chakra was a bittersweet news for many (in this case Microsoft could have the resources, in extreme cases, to hard-fork blink/V8).
- admax88q 6y agoI find HN has a bias against anything that hurts advertising and user tracking revenue. AMP and Brave seem to get a disproportionate amount of attention.
- 6y ago
- pschastain 6y agoBrave Browser continues to behave in ways that are contrary to their stated principles. I dropped the browser a couple of months ago on the heels of the bitcoin affiliate link scandal and went back to Safari and Firefox. I am keeping an eye on Braver Browser, a fork of Brave with the intention of removing the questionable behavior: https://github.com/braver-browser https://github.com/braver-browser
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- monokh 6y agoI've also been keeping an eye on Braver. There was an initial flurry of work that seemed to have gotten it to a decent point but no activity since.
- smt88 6y agoWhat's the advantage of Braver over Firefox? Is it just that you're trying to get ad blocking on iOS?
- pschastain 6y agoI don't use IOS (yet) so "no" on that front. I tried Brave and was happy with it until these recent revelations, so upon hearing about Braver I simply decided to keep an eye on it.
- smt88 6y agoFirefox with gorhill's uBlock (search GitHub for official links, because there are imposters) is less buggy than Brave. I highly recommend it.
- meddlepal 6y agoThat's pretty much the only reason I use Brave. But also fuck Apple for forcing everyone to use WebKit.
- favorited 6y ago
- kirubakaran 6y agoThey are an adtech company. That should be all we need to know, right? I'm willing to change my mind, so far it doesn't make sense to use Brave.
- eredengrin 6y ago> That should be all we need to know, right? Not really, their whole proposition is to do ads in a privacy respecting way, and you always have the option to just turn them off entirely. The payments model they have for websites is my favorite thing about the browser and I'd love to see more models like it catch on. Giving the ability to easily fund content creators by just filling up your wallet periodically (without having to view ads if you don't want) is a great idea. Perhaps the execution leaves something to be desired, but I wish people would at least discuss the important ideas it brings rather than simply dismiss it as an evil browser and recommend Firefox + ublock origin (which, while a good temporary solution, is ultimately just kicking the can down the road and doesn't do a whole lot to solve the root issues).
- john-shaffer 6y ago> you always have the option to just turn them off entirely This is not fully accurate. You have to explicitly find and enable ads if you want them. They are off by default.
- eredengrin 6y agoThanks for the correction. I like the idea of what Brave does, but I'm too reliant on some Firefox features (tree style tabs + containers) so I don't actually use it myself and sometimes get it a bit wrong.
- kirubakaran 6y agoHmm, that's a good point. I wish a non-adtech company created a "pay publishers" tool.
- basch 6y agoIts a very different ad tech company. Not only is it opt in, but all the ad matching happens locally. 1) The browser periodically downloads an ad catalog (signal in, no signal out). 2) The browser now holds (1) the ad catalog (with some targeting keywords and terms set by advertisers); (2) your browsing history. 3) It then matches the ads from the catalog against your browsing history.
- umeshsingh01 6y agoWhat do you know about this? https://www.bestinterviewquestion.com/python-interview-questions https://www.bestinterviewquestion.com/python-interview-quest...
- xwdv 6y agoI don’t get the name Brave, for a browser whose supposed purpose is hiding data and keeping private. That should be called fucking Coward. A brave browser for brave people would be one that pushes out as much data as possible, silently clicks every ad, allows all kinds of fingerprints and cookies.
- SmokeyHamster 6y agoI wonder if this is true of "private window" mode as well?
- fortran77 6y agoI'm glad I didn't believe the hype. I just run edge, and I have a powershell script that runs on startup, shutdown to wipe everything.
- binaryblitz 6y agoSomeone posted on the GH issue that someone posted the GH issue on HackerNews. https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/9929#issuecomment-654154773 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/9929#issuecomm...