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I don't know how everyone's experience has been with Brave. For me, I installed it and used it for a few minutes, then forgot about it. A few days later a notif

by a1371 5y ago

I don't know how everyone's experience has been with Brave. For me, I installed it and used it for a few minutes, then forgot about it. A few days later a notification popped up on the screen advertising a cryptocurrency. Distressed, I looked for the culprit and it was Brave. So I uninstalled it. Not sure why I would use them for anything ever after that.

echelon 5y ago
The only way to make money with a free commercially built product is advertising. The only way to make money with a free commercially built product that kills other advertising... is advertising. They don't have the coffers for this to be an instance of "commoditizing their complement" as there is no other fat revenue stream from another of their business units to speak of. (I don't even think they have multiple business units.) So they have to make money with Brave somehow. The original concept of their "basic attention token" was an experiment to see if they could drive growth by paying users to watch ads with some abstract and dubious crypto coin. Their hope is that it's attractive enough to peel users away from Chrome, then they can sell targeted ads. I don't buy it. In any case, you're not paying for Brave, so therefore you're the product. Yet again. No matter what their marketing says. There's literally no reason for Brave to exist. You can run Firefox or Chromium just fine.
tsumnia 5y ago
Their notification ads are annoying, but you can disable them. I do use it, only get the new tab ads, which aren't bad and hey, free "pennies" (I've opted in for them).
kybernetikos 5y ago
Trackers & ads blocked 202,822 Bandwidth saved 5.23GB Time saved 2.8hours
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  What advantages does Brave's adblocker have over Ublock Origin?
  - antonok 5y ago
    Here's a few: - performance gains from optimized machine code - CNAME adblocking, which is otherwise not possible on Chromium-based browsers - robustness against potential changes from upstream (i.e. Manifest v3) And, not exactly adblocking, but other privacy protections that are only possible with a deep level of control over browser APIs: - advanced fingerprinting protections, including subtle randomized perturbations of canvas reads, fonts, user agent, etc. - ephemeral storage sandboxing for third-party content
    - throw16489 5y ago
      Ublock Origin on Firefox has CNAME blocking. Also Firefox is not affected by manifest v3
      - aaravchen 5y ago
        Ironically, CNAME blocking is actually a (potential) privacy leak depending on your network configuration. It does a DNS look up (ignoring your system DNS settings) and checks what the CNAME record is pointing to against the block list. Assuming you have control of your DNS settings, you've (hopefully) configured your DNS to use Quad9 or something similar rather than Cloudflare (questionable) or Google (outright invasive). UBO ignores this choice. UBO also recently added a warning about this in their extended info on the option, and it's been featured on HN a few times.
  - udbhavs 5y ago
    It works on iOS
- bozhark 5y ago
  if that mattered to you, do it DNS level
  - uo21tp5hoyg 5y ago
    DNS based blocking isn't even close to as effective as request level blocking, most Google based tracking is all first party.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Or just use the browser because not everyone wants to muck with DNS or proxies or any of that.
  - veidr 5y ago
    I do that, but it is certainly not anywhere near as easy as using Brave. I am skeptical of Brave, because their business model seems hand-wavy and their crypto shit seems skeezy. But right now, I can't think of anything offering better ROI for ad/tracker blocking. If you are going to tell your parents "just set up pi-hole on a cheap raspi, or spin up an LXC or Docker container to run it on your LAN, then use it for DNS" then you definitely have different parents than I do. But pretty much anybody who uses a computer can install and run Brave.
    - carlivar 5y ago
      I think the crypto is quite interesting. I'm fascinated to see the sites that have opted in to receive "tips" from me in the form of their BAT token. Micropayments in lieu of ads has been a dream of many for a long time. Brave is doing that, and the crypto part seems like a rare appropriate use case.
      - veidr 5y ago
        Yeah, I am skeptical, but not totally dismissive. I would love to see those micropayments in lieu of ads work — but I have never seen a site that takes Brave tips. (Admittedly, I only use Brave for a small subset of websites.)
- numeri 5y ago
  Trackers & ads blocked 418,856 Bandwidth saved 15.84GB Time saved 5.8hours
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Just turn off the ads, you'll never see anything like that again until you do a fresh install somewhere else.
uo21tp5hoyg 5y ago
Brave ads are opt in, I've installed it a bunch of times on all sorts of systems and never once had a notification ad, are you sure you didn't just accidentally opt in when clicking through the install dialogue?
SeanAnderson 5y ago
I don't use Brave yet, but I suspect I will have to make a decision between Brave and Firefox next January. Chrome Manifest v3 is going to be strictly enforced, which will neuter uBlock Origin, which will significantly increase the number of ads I interact with while browsing. Firefox is the nobler choice, to be sure, but I enjoy working within the Chromium ecosystem. Brave is built on top of Chromium and will still be affected, but Brave Shields is a native implementation, not an extension, and will be unaffected. They will also work to support v2 as best as possible. This gives them a certain allure!
- jffry 5y ago
  > I enjoy working within the Chromium ecosystem Curious what you mean by this. If you're talking about devtools, Firefox dev tools are also great, although there's nothing to say you couldn't use Firefox as a daily driver and pop open Chrome for developer work to avoid learning a new set of browser devtools.
  - SeanAnderson 5y ago
    Eh, thanks for calling me out on this. As I reflect a bit more, really what it comes down to is: - Yes, dev work. I generally always need to be testing against Chromium where FF has such a small userbase that code regressions aren't costly. Keeping two browsers open all the time isn't a big deal, but feels like a hassle for some reason. - There's a barrier to transitioning away from Google Chrome, but I have to overcome that for either transition. Exporting/importing passwords, hunting down extensions, etc. There's likely replacements for everything on Firefox, but there's absolutely everything on Brave as it's compatible with the Chrome Web Store. - I don't give bonus points to Firefox for its approach to open source. Yes, it's better to be open source, but compelling, interesting features are where it's at for me. - I don't give bonus points to Brave for being pro-crypto, but I'm not anti-crypto, either. It does seem like Brave has a faster pace of development these days, and I think it would be more interesting in conversations to discuss that I'm on Brave, and those facts, while relatively trivial, cause me to lean more towards it. So I suppose it's not so much about staying within the Chromium ecosystem. It's mostly that Brave feels more alive and doesn't have such a bad reputation (IMO) to dissuade me from using it.
throwamon 5y ago
I mean... I don't want to sound harsh or like a Brave shill, but it sounds like you installed it without having a clue about what it is. I keep seeing negative comments about it that are dismissive like this or just plain wrong and I even though I don't even use it anymore I believe it's highly injusticed. First off, if you installed it and used it to the point where it showed you an ad, you must have seen the initial screen asking whether you'd like to opt into ads. There's no dark pattern, it's spelled out for you. If you just went "yeah, yeah, whatever", that's on you. Second, the reason why they have ads is pretty much why the browser itself exists. They introduced a suite of privacy features and an ad model that aims to be privacy-preserving and sustainable (especially in the sense of not letting the web turn into a content cesspool like Google has been doing). In fact their model is the only one I've seen so far that is actually desirable to all actors (advertisers, content producers and content consumers -- yes, including those that don't want any ads, ever). It's a shame it comes with all the stigma crypto has and so it's unlikely to take off.
- soared 5y ago
  Replacing publishers ads with your own and stealing their revenue is not sustainable. Even if you allow them to sign up and claim that revenue. Also to be clear, brave is not remotely desirable to advertisers. (See my post history) I manage tens of millions of dollars in ad spend and 0% of that goes to brave. Full stop. Brave is adlbocking crypto circle jerk and nothing more. Give me a browser that is privacy first without crypto/scam bullshit and I am all in.
  - dreadlordbone 5y ago
    "Replacing publishers ads with your own and stealing their revenue is not sustainable. Even if you allow them to sign up and claim that revenue." Tell that to Google.
    - soared 5y ago
      Google doesn’t do that
chrysoprace 5y ago
It appears you opted into Brave Rewards. There would've been a screen which very explicitly asked you if this is what you want as Brave Rewards is off by default.
prepend 5y ago
I’ve been using it as my daily driver for a few years and like it. I didn’t turn on OS notifications so didn’t get the same pop up you did. I like it because it’s built in ad blockers do a good job of reducing traffic and simplifying browsing. I can configure blockers in other browsers, but it’s one less thing. It’s also small compared to chrome. I like being able to have small downloads because my home internet is only 50Mbps. It also prompts me for updates and doesn’t run any secret background agents that occasionally flip out and peg my cpu (like chrome does). I don’t care enough about timely browser updates to have a process that just watches for this.

by a1371 5y ago

echelon 5y ago

The only way to make money with a free commercially built product is advertising. The only way to make money with a free commercially built product that kills other advertising... is advertising. They don't have the coffers for this to be an instance of "commoditizing their complement" as there is no other fat revenue stream from another of their business units to speak of. (I don't even think they have multiple business units.) So they have to make money with Brave somehow. The original concept of their "basic attention token" was an experiment to see if they could drive growth by paying users to watch ads with some abstract and dubious crypto coin. Their hope is that it's attractive enough to peel users away from Chrome, then they can sell targeted ads. I don't buy it. In any case, you're not paying for Brave, so therefore you're the product. Yet again. No matter what their marketing says. There's literally no reason for Brave to exist. You can run Firefox or Chromium just fine.

tsumnia 5y ago

Their notification ads are annoying, but you can disable them. I do use it, only get the new tab ads, which aren't bad and hey, free "pennies" (I've opted in for them).

kybernetikos 5y ago

Trackers & ads blocked 202,822 Bandwidth saved 5.23GB Time saved 2.8hours

cyber_kinetist 5y ago
What advantages does Brave's adblocker have over Ublock Origin?
- antonok 5y ago
  Here's a few: - performance gains from optimized machine code - CNAME adblocking, which is otherwise not possible on Chromium-based browsers - robustness against potential changes from upstream (i.e. Manifest v3) And, not exactly adblocking, but other privacy protections that are only possible with a deep level of control over browser APIs: - advanced fingerprinting protections, including subtle randomized perturbations of canvas reads, fonts, user agent, etc. - ephemeral storage sandboxing for third-party content
  - throw16489 5y ago
    Ublock Origin on Firefox has CNAME blocking. Also Firefox is not affected by manifest v3
    - aaravchen 5y ago
      Ironically, CNAME blocking is actually a (potential) privacy leak depending on your network configuration. It does a DNS look up (ignoring your system DNS settings) and checks what the CNAME record is pointing to against the block list. Assuming you have control of your DNS settings, you've (hopefully) configured your DNS to use Quad9 or something similar rather than Cloudflare (questionable) or Google (outright invasive). UBO ignores this choice. UBO also recently added a warning about this in their extended info on the option, and it's been featured on HN a few times.
- udbhavs 5y ago
  It works on iOS
bozhark 5y ago
if that mattered to you, do it DNS level
- uo21tp5hoyg 5y ago
  DNS based blocking isn't even close to as effective as request level blocking, most Google based tracking is all first party.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Or just use the browser because not everyone wants to muck with DNS or proxies or any of that.
- veidr 5y ago
  I do that, but it is certainly not anywhere near as easy as using Brave. I am skeptical of Brave, because their business model seems hand-wavy and their crypto shit seems skeezy. But right now, I can't think of anything offering better ROI for ad/tracker blocking. If you are going to tell your parents "just set up pi-hole on a cheap raspi, or spin up an LXC or Docker container to run it on your LAN, then use it for DNS" then you definitely have different parents than I do. But pretty much anybody who uses a computer can install and run Brave.
  - carlivar 5y ago
    I think the crypto is quite interesting. I'm fascinated to see the sites that have opted in to receive "tips" from me in the form of their BAT token. Micropayments in lieu of ads has been a dream of many for a long time. Brave is doing that, and the crypto part seems like a rare appropriate use case.
    - veidr 5y ago
      Yeah, I am skeptical, but not totally dismissive. I would love to see those micropayments in lieu of ads work — but I have never seen a site that takes Brave tips. (Admittedly, I only use Brave for a small subset of websites.)
numeri 5y ago
Trackers & ads blocked 418,856 Bandwidth saved 15.84GB Time saved 5.8hours

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Just turn off the ads, you'll never see anything like that again until you do a fresh install somewhere else.

uo21tp5hoyg 5y ago

Brave ads are opt in, I've installed it a bunch of times on all sorts of systems and never once had a notification ad, are you sure you didn't just accidentally opt in when clicking through the install dialogue?

SeanAnderson 5y ago

I don't use Brave yet, but I suspect I will have to make a decision between Brave and Firefox next January. Chrome Manifest v3 is going to be strictly enforced, which will neuter uBlock Origin, which will significantly increase the number of ads I interact with while browsing. Firefox is the nobler choice, to be sure, but I enjoy working within the Chromium ecosystem. Brave is built on top of Chromium and will still be affected, but Brave Shields is a native implementation, not an extension, and will be unaffected. They will also work to support v2 as best as possible. This gives them a certain allure!

jffry 5y ago
> I enjoy working within the Chromium ecosystem Curious what you mean by this. If you're talking about devtools, Firefox dev tools are also great, although there's nothing to say you couldn't use Firefox as a daily driver and pop open Chrome for developer work to avoid learning a new set of browser devtools.
- SeanAnderson 5y ago
  Eh, thanks for calling me out on this. As I reflect a bit more, really what it comes down to is: - Yes, dev work. I generally always need to be testing against Chromium where FF has such a small userbase that code regressions aren't costly. Keeping two browsers open all the time isn't a big deal, but feels like a hassle for some reason. - There's a barrier to transitioning away from Google Chrome, but I have to overcome that for either transition. Exporting/importing passwords, hunting down extensions, etc. There's likely replacements for everything on Firefox, but there's absolutely everything on Brave as it's compatible with the Chrome Web Store. - I don't give bonus points to Firefox for its approach to open source. Yes, it's better to be open source, but compelling, interesting features are where it's at for me. - I don't give bonus points to Brave for being pro-crypto, but I'm not anti-crypto, either. It does seem like Brave has a faster pace of development these days, and I think it would be more interesting in conversations to discuss that I'm on Brave, and those facts, while relatively trivial, cause me to lean more towards it. So I suppose it's not so much about staying within the Chromium ecosystem. It's mostly that Brave feels more alive and doesn't have such a bad reputation (IMO) to dissuade me from using it.

throwamon 5y ago

I mean... I don't want to sound harsh or like a Brave shill, but it sounds like you installed it without having a clue about what it is. I keep seeing negative comments about it that are dismissive like this or just plain wrong and I even though I don't even use it anymore I believe it's highly injusticed. First off, if you installed it and used it to the point where it showed you an ad, you must have seen the initial screen asking whether you'd like to opt into ads. There's no dark pattern, it's spelled out for you. If you just went "yeah, yeah, whatever", that's on you. Second, the reason why they have ads is pretty much why the browser itself exists. They introduced a suite of privacy features and an ad model that aims to be privacy-preserving and sustainable (especially in the sense of not letting the web turn into a content cesspool like Google has been doing). In fact their model is the only one I've seen so far that is actually desirable to all actors (advertisers, content producers and content consumers -- yes, including those that don't want any ads, ever). It's a shame it comes with all the stigma crypto has and so it's unlikely to take off.

soared 5y ago
Replacing publishers ads with your own and stealing their revenue is not sustainable. Even if you allow them to sign up and claim that revenue. Also to be clear, brave is not remotely desirable to advertisers. (See my post history) I manage tens of millions of dollars in ad spend and 0% of that goes to brave. Full stop. Brave is adlbocking crypto circle jerk and nothing more. Give me a browser that is privacy first without crypto/scam bullshit and I am all in.
- dreadlordbone 5y ago
  "Replacing publishers ads with your own and stealing their revenue is not sustainable. Even if you allow them to sign up and claim that revenue." Tell that to Google.
  - soared 5y ago
    Google doesn’t do that

chrysoprace 5y ago

It appears you opted into Brave Rewards. There would've been a screen which very explicitly asked you if this is what you want as Brave Rewards is off by default.

prepend 5y ago

I’ve been using it as my daily driver for a few years and like it. I didn’t turn on OS notifications so didn’t get the same pop up you did. I like it because it’s built in ad blockers do a good job of reducing traffic and simplifying browsing. I can configure blockers in other browsers, but it’s one less thing. It’s also small compared to chrome. I like being able to have small downloads because my home internet is only 50Mbps. It also prompts me for updates and doesn’t run any secret background agents that occasionally flip out and peg my cpu (like chrome does). I don’t care enough about timely browser updates to have a process that just watches for this.