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Love to see this. Just curious why I would use something like this over brave? I don't pay too much attention to my browser honestly. I am ready to be convinced

by enono 5y ago

Love to see this. Just curious why I would use something like this over brave? I don't pay too much attention to my browser honestly. I am ready to be convinced to switch though :-)

AlexAndScripts 5y ago
It doesn't have the arguably sketchy crypto, it doesn't inject affiliate links into URLs, it doesn't use an engine built by Google, and it supports the open Web. The reason it supports the open Web is that Brave uses the Chromium engine used in Chrome, Edge, Opera, and basically everything but Firefox. Firefox doesn't, and is the only thing stopping Google being the sole arbitrator of Web standards (and they do not have your best interests at heart.) Google is already abusing their near-monopoly; keeping Firefox market share high is helping stop it, though. This browser is Firefox based, so it has all of those advantages.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ehg45h5h56 5y ago
  If there is not an extreme pivot in Firefox's adoption in the next 5 years, I believe it will be a dead browser. One thing I have noticed is that developers have slowly been forgetting or not motivated to work on ensuring Firefox users have same level features. For example, there are browser extensions for chrome that do not exist on Firefox. These can range from popular extensions to smaller, more specific productivity extensions. As a specific example, there is a Zendesk extension that can help load all links you click load in a single instance rather than having multiple tabs. It uses Zendesk's built in tabbing system for tickets and is very helpful for workflow. The problem is this is only a chrome extension, and no such thing exists for Firefox. This is one example but there are so many more, and more of those situations are happening over time. That is a worrying trend. It means that the chrome browser has such a massive market share, that in a lot of cases worrying about Firefox compatibility isn't even a productive concern anymore. This will eventually end in life support compatibility such as developers putting up splash pages or in-page notifications for users to switch to a more compatible browser. I have already seen extremely rare instances of this, but not enough where I would consider it a concern yet, just an asshole move.
  - enderdev 5y ago
    I totally get this. It's worrying what Mozilla are doing, and since they're putting in little to no effort to get Firefox back on track I decided I had to help out. Google's massive market share is seriously worrying for Mozilla and other browser vendors. I switched to Firefox from Chrome over 4 years ago and I was disappointed to find some of my favourite Chrome extensions weren't available. I plan to add support for those Chrome extensions in Dot Browser by implementing those APIs and making them work in Gecko/Firefox environment.
    - dblohm7 5y ago
      No interest in landing those APIs upstream?
    - ehg45h5h56 5y ago
      Sick. I think Dot has a real chance if Mozilla isn't willing to step up to the plate.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  Really interested to see the mental gymnastics it takes to argue that implementing new features for the Web Platform--in open, freely-available standards that are negotiated with all the major stakeholders, including Mozilla, who is allowed to implement them whenever they feel like stopping chasing after shiny baubles and get back to developing Web browsers--is "abusing [Google's] near-monoply", versus Apple not implementing standards to push developers off the Web and into the App Store. But sure, yeah, let's keep the Web Platform at early 2000s standards. Let's make everyone download apps from a small set of walled garden app stores. Let's force developers to submit to those app store review processes and potentially have their content blocked for whatever opaque whims the store has today (ever changing, with little chance for appeal!). And then they can just snoop on their users through the local, natively installed app, that has all the permissions granted under the sun because users don't read installation prompts. That's so much better for privacy.
  - wisniewskit 5y ago
    As someone working at Mozilla on web compatibility, I'm tired of people excusing Google like this. I personally spend most of my time figuring out the Chrome-specific quirks that pages rely on which are non-standard, and the Chrome devs almost never fix before conjuring up some new, ill-defined "standard" that they ship to production before others have even had a chance to figure out the last three. It's maddening, especially when you look at Google's not-so-sterling track record just with major new "standards" like Web Components, WebRTC and Pointer/Touch events, not to mention how often they ignore Chrome's spec bugs until the web is reliant on them, and other vendors have to change their behavior and the spec to match them. Folks always seem to ignore all of the trouble Google causes, and just think "ooh, shiny new toy! Google good!" Just imagine trying to implement all of those "standards" while Google is constantly changing them, under-documenting everything, have no reference implementation aside from the one they ship that's deeply tied to Chrome, and expect you to work on their time frame. All while not fixing bugs in the last two new APIs they pushed out, while pushing out two more at the same time. You wonder if they're doing it on purpose so no matter what the "standards" say, they just wait for the web to become reliant on their bugs, and then everyone else has to figure the whole mess out for them, like glorified janitors. And then you look at the backlog of things you'd like to have fixed instead of figuring out the latest interop issue with some quirk that has a crbug open for three years, and the new privacy APIs and features you'd like to push and you start to feel a bit burned out. So you hop onto HN only to see yet another comment like yours, acting like we're doing nothing at all except "chasing shiny baubles". It's enough to make me wonder whether people like you actually care about the web at all or just want more half-broken new APIs to complain about.
- thegabez 5y ago
  The crypto token seems like a way for someone who knows nothing about crypto to get dip their toes, with zero risk.
  - ehg45h5h56 5y ago
    It is evidence to me that Brave does not have the end user in mind and there is deeper malicious intent. If anyone isn't current on bitcoin, then the jist of it is Brave's entire BAT use case can be built on bitcoin, using lightning or things such as the liquid network side chain. They are aware of this.
- jefftk 5y ago
  > the only thing stopping Google being the sole arbitrator of Web standards In addition to Mozilla, Apple (Safari) and Microsoft (Edge) also have significant participation in web standards. I'm really glad Firefox exists, and they definitely punch above their weight in the standardization process, but Microsoft and Apple are also serious participants. (Disclosure: I work at Google, speaking only for myself)
  - trulyme 5y ago
    Google, Apple and MS are huge businesses who only care about their respective browsers as something that will help them reach some pretty unrelated goals. Mozilla's business, however, is closely related to the browser itself, which makes their incentives.. less misaligned. :) While they have made some questionable moves in the past, I still trust them a whole lot more than any of the bigtech.
CodeGlitch 5y ago
I occasionally read the Brave Blog: https://brave.com/blog/ https://brave.com/blog/ The technical requirements and research that needs to go into a web browser to ensure it's secure & private makes me skeptical that Dot Browser or any open source browser is going to be able to achieve those things without serious financial backing. Happy to be proven wrong though
- howolduis 5y ago
  that's kinds stupid. They wouldnt tell you about the negative side. Brave used to farm cryptocurrency from their users. look up their wikipedia page if u wanna read more about it, u probably not gonna find it on their "blog"
howolduis 5y ago
because Brave may inject your browser to farm cryptocurrency. Read their wikipedia page to learn more

by enono 5y ago

Love to see this. Just curious why I would use something like this over brave? I don't pay too much attention to my browser honestly. I am ready to be convinced to switch though :-)

AlexAndScripts 5y ago

It doesn't have the arguably sketchy crypto, it doesn't inject affiliate links into URLs, it doesn't use an engine built by Google, and it supports the open Web. The reason it supports the open Web is that Brave uses the Chromium engine used in Chrome, Edge, Opera, and basically everything but Firefox. Firefox doesn't, and is the only thing stopping Google being the sole arbitrator of Web standards (and they do not have your best interests at heart.) Google is already abusing their near-monopoly; keeping Firefox market share high is helping stop it, though. This browser is Firefox based, so it has all of those advantages.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ehg45h5h56 5y ago
If there is not an extreme pivot in Firefox's adoption in the next 5 years, I believe it will be a dead browser. One thing I have noticed is that developers have slowly been forgetting or not motivated to work on ensuring Firefox users have same level features. For example, there are browser extensions for chrome that do not exist on Firefox. These can range from popular extensions to smaller, more specific productivity extensions. As a specific example, there is a Zendesk extension that can help load all links you click load in a single instance rather than having multiple tabs. It uses Zendesk's built in tabbing system for tickets and is very helpful for workflow. The problem is this is only a chrome extension, and no such thing exists for Firefox. This is one example but there are so many more, and more of those situations are happening over time. That is a worrying trend. It means that the chrome browser has such a massive market share, that in a lot of cases worrying about Firefox compatibility isn't even a productive concern anymore. This will eventually end in life support compatibility such as developers putting up splash pages or in-page notifications for users to switch to a more compatible browser. I have already seen extremely rare instances of this, but not enough where I would consider it a concern yet, just an asshole move.
- enderdev 5y ago
  I totally get this. It's worrying what Mozilla are doing, and since they're putting in little to no effort to get Firefox back on track I decided I had to help out. Google's massive market share is seriously worrying for Mozilla and other browser vendors. I switched to Firefox from Chrome over 4 years ago and I was disappointed to find some of my favourite Chrome extensions weren't available. I plan to add support for those Chrome extensions in Dot Browser by implementing those APIs and making them work in Gecko/Firefox environment.
  - dblohm7 5y ago
    No interest in landing those APIs upstream?
  - ehg45h5h56 5y ago
    Sick. I think Dot has a real chance if Mozilla isn't willing to step up to the plate.
moron4hire 5y ago
Really interested to see the mental gymnastics it takes to argue that implementing new features for the Web Platform--in open, freely-available standards that are negotiated with all the major stakeholders, including Mozilla, who is allowed to implement them whenever they feel like stopping chasing after shiny baubles and get back to developing Web browsers--is "abusing [Google's] near-monoply", versus Apple not implementing standards to push developers off the Web and into the App Store. But sure, yeah, let's keep the Web Platform at early 2000s standards. Let's make everyone download apps from a small set of walled garden app stores. Let's force developers to submit to those app store review processes and potentially have their content blocked for whatever opaque whims the store has today (ever changing, with little chance for appeal!). And then they can just snoop on their users through the local, natively installed app, that has all the permissions granted under the sun because users don't read installation prompts. That's so much better for privacy.
- wisniewskit 5y ago
  As someone working at Mozilla on web compatibility, I'm tired of people excusing Google like this. I personally spend most of my time figuring out the Chrome-specific quirks that pages rely on which are non-standard, and the Chrome devs almost never fix before conjuring up some new, ill-defined "standard" that they ship to production before others have even had a chance to figure out the last three. It's maddening, especially when you look at Google's not-so-sterling track record just with major new "standards" like Web Components, WebRTC and Pointer/Touch events, not to mention how often they ignore Chrome's spec bugs until the web is reliant on them, and other vendors have to change their behavior and the spec to match them. Folks always seem to ignore all of the trouble Google causes, and just think "ooh, shiny new toy! Google good!" Just imagine trying to implement all of those "standards" while Google is constantly changing them, under-documenting everything, have no reference implementation aside from the one they ship that's deeply tied to Chrome, and expect you to work on their time frame. All while not fixing bugs in the last two new APIs they pushed out, while pushing out two more at the same time. You wonder if they're doing it on purpose so no matter what the "standards" say, they just wait for the web to become reliant on their bugs, and then everyone else has to figure the whole mess out for them, like glorified janitors. And then you look at the backlog of things you'd like to have fixed instead of figuring out the latest interop issue with some quirk that has a crbug open for three years, and the new privacy APIs and features you'd like to push and you start to feel a bit burned out. So you hop onto HN only to see yet another comment like yours, acting like we're doing nothing at all except "chasing shiny baubles". It's enough to make me wonder whether people like you actually care about the web at all or just want more half-broken new APIs to complain about.
thegabez 5y ago
The crypto token seems like a way for someone who knows nothing about crypto to get dip their toes, with zero risk.
- ehg45h5h56 5y ago
  It is evidence to me that Brave does not have the end user in mind and there is deeper malicious intent. If anyone isn't current on bitcoin, then the jist of it is Brave's entire BAT use case can be built on bitcoin, using lightning or things such as the liquid network side chain. They are aware of this.
jefftk 5y ago
> the only thing stopping Google being the sole arbitrator of Web standards In addition to Mozilla, Apple (Safari) and Microsoft (Edge) also have significant participation in web standards. I'm really glad Firefox exists, and they definitely punch above their weight in the standardization process, but Microsoft and Apple are also serious participants. (Disclosure: I work at Google, speaking only for myself)
- trulyme 5y ago
  Google, Apple and MS are huge businesses who only care about their respective browsers as something that will help them reach some pretty unrelated goals. Mozilla's business, however, is closely related to the browser itself, which makes their incentives.. less misaligned. :) While they have made some questionable moves in the past, I still trust them a whole lot more than any of the bigtech.

CodeGlitch 5y ago

I occasionally read the Brave Blog: https://brave.com/blog/ https://brave.com/blog/ The technical requirements and research that needs to go into a web browser to ensure it's secure & private makes me skeptical that Dot Browser or any open source browser is going to be able to achieve those things without serious financial backing. Happy to be proven wrong though

howolduis 5y ago
that's kinds stupid. They wouldnt tell you about the negative side. Brave used to farm cryptocurrency from their users. look up their wikipedia page if u wanna read more about it, u probably not gonna find it on their "blog"

howolduis 5y ago

because Brave may inject your browser to farm cryptocurrency. Read their wikipedia page to learn more