15 ms·

Deviations from Chromium (features we disable or remove)

290 points by jacooper 4y ago

stopcensoring 4y ago
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jacooper 4y ago
I dont work for brave, the page's title uses "we". I just added " brave's" to give more context.
datchi 4y ago
> Services We Proxy Through Brave Servers Would it not be better to proxy these through Tor? Brave already has support for Tor built in.
- lillecarl 4y ago
  If they're reachable through Tor, that's not a given.
- Phelinofist 4y ago
  In what way is proxying through Brave better than talking to the G directly anyway?
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    Any request you make to Google's servers, including something as innocuous as e.g. Google Fonts can be used to shape and track you, your habits, and so on. When it goes through a proxy, that becomes much more difficult.
- gunapologist99 4y ago
  That would probably massively increase latency, and most regular users would probably not tolerate that (and they'd think it was Brave's fault).
godelski 4y ago
As cool as Brave is, I still think it has big issues running Chromium. Chromium still allows Google to dictate a lot of the internet. We should have more competition in the space and that will help us all. I honestly even wish there was more than Chromium (and the various colors), Safari, and Firefox. It really seems a lot of these decentralized services have become highly centralized and thus a lack or competition and growth.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  I respect your opinion but honestly fragmentation sucks. I wish there was even more consolidation - ever use a power drill? 7 different battery types non compatible with each other. On a related note I’m happy usb seems to be the general connector winner (though it’s certainly not without fault). What would the average consumer gain if there were say, 10 different browser engines equally popular? Chromium is open source and you can easily disable features you disagree with. Don’t see the downside. Fork it and add functionality you’d like, like Brave.
  - marricks 4y ago
    A lot of if there was an independent web consortium which agreed on standards. Which, hey, we do have and the more power chromium gets the more Google can just ignore that.
  - mike_hock 4y ago
    The same the average user gains from having 10 manufacturers to choose from when buying standardized USB connectors.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      More browser engines does not imply standardization. Would you prefer the 2000s when you had your choice of dozens of power connectors for cell phones? There’s a reason the EU is mandating USB-C. Corporations have no reason and historically will not standardize amongst themselves for most things unless there’s a single winner.
speedgoose 4y ago
Is there a web browser based on Brave but without the crypto scam features?
- cowtools 4y ago
  Ungoogled Chromium? I've heard that the cryptocurrency features are disabled by default in Brave, but I've never used it.
  - ycta39840398 4y ago
    No, they're enabled by default. Brave makes a big deal about all of its features being opt-in, but the crypto shit is a big, glaring exception.
    - jacooper 4y ago
      That's not correct. Brave awards aren't enabled by default, and you have to manually to opt in for it to work. Yes the button is there, but you can just hide it.
      - notsrg 4y ago
        "Show Brave Rewards icon in address bar" is the only setting you really need to disable. Every once in a while they launch a new feature related to crypto i.e. in the new tab page but generally they're pretty good at letting you opt out entirely.
        jacooper 4y ago
        You can disable the ads on the new tab page too.
      - robotnikman 4y ago
        At least on the mobile version it seems to be. You get a popup letting you know about BAT when you visit some sites, and whenever you open a new tab the page usually have some background or story about NFT's or some other crypto thing.
gnicholas 4y ago
Is there a way to use tree style tabs on Brave? I was using Sidewise (via sideloading since it's not in the Chrome Store anymore), but it seems to have been broken by a recent update. I'm about ready to jump ship because I need TST. I have otherwise liked using Brave though!
- spiffytech 4y ago
  Chrome-based browsers have poor support for side tabs. There are some extensions that mimic it with an extra window, but it's not great. The Cluster Tab Manager extension has been good enough for me. I have to open it explicitly as a tab, but then I can easily see and manage all of my open tabs.
  - sascha_sl 4y ago
    > Chrome-based browsers have poor support for side tabs. Edge has the best side tabs, closely followed by Vivaldi.
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      How does Edge compare to Orion? Does it also have nested tabs? Vertical is good, but nested is what I need!
- kyleee 4y ago
  Here is most up to date work I am aware of to be implemented directly in brave: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/23467 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/23467
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    Super cool. I'm on the Developer edition and will look forward to this rolling out, hopefully soon!
    - coffeeling 4y ago
mminer237 4y ago
> Disable Scroll To Text Fragment Why would Brave disable this? In my opinion, this is one of the most useful additions to browsers in recent memory, and it's quite annoying to click a link expecting to go a specific section and just be put at the top of the page. I noticed this was broken in Brave, but I never would have imagined they intentionally broke the feature.
- Phelinofist 4y ago
  Came to ask the same question
  - FatalLogic 4y ago
    >Came to ask the same question It IS an interesting question. But you should simply upvote it, if you have nothing at all to add.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  This is probably the #1 feature that gives me the most personal conflict. I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking, “oh here we go. Google needed browsers to have a feature to make its search engine UX better…” But I also cannot deny just how useful it is.
  - maven29 4y ago
    Does the internet have any discovery mechanisms except social media curation and search engines? If videos can be timestamped for links, why not webpages? Linking to automatic content-indexed excerpts shows respect for the time spent by recipient and saves markup effort for the author.
    - Frost1x 4y ago
      I mean you can arbitrarily type domain names with common TLDs in and see what happens. I hear the white house may not be a good start to roll the dice on. Yahoo, Altavista, and others used to have a curated index of quality websites. Links are inherently a discovery feature. Services like StumbleUpon used to exist but could arguably be seen as "social." The problem with "social media curation" as a qualifier could be interpreted as "a human is involved." Pretty much all forms of discovery, internet or not, requires either search or a human involved. Some services of course have broadcast mechanisms for curating an index but that's about the only exception I can think of for discovery that breaks away from these two qualifiers. To some degree, DNS is a broadcast system for discovery.
gigel82 4y ago
Also check out Ungoogled Chromium (https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium) which goes above & beyond by not just "proxying" services but rather removing all phone-home functionality altogether. There's no for-profit entity behind it, so no perverse incentives to monetize either (but that also means they don't have a budget for proper CI, signing, distribution, etc.) so there's a bit of DIY work involved on less-popular platforms. I use Ungoogled Chromium as a backup whenever a website makes the unfortunate choice of not properly supporting my main browser, Firefox.
- jacooper 4y ago
  The reason brave is a bit less hardcore ungoogled-chromium is usability. Brave can be used by anyone, with the experience they expect from a modern browser. No need for some weird workarounds to install extensions, no support for widevine, etc.
- chasil 4y ago
  I personally use Bromite. https://www.bromite.org/ https://www.bromite.org/ I used to use SRWare Iron on the desktop, but not for many years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron
- commoner 4y ago
  Ungoogled Chromium is the Chromium-based desktop browser that I use as a backup to Firefox, but I almost never need it. I have two installations of Firefox: a primary installation that has Enhanced Tracking Protection and privacy extensions enabled, and a secondary installation that has neither but clears all history when the browser is closed. I'll switch to the secondary installation when the primary one doesn't work with a site, usually because the privacy features interfere in some way. It's easy to do this with two editions of Firefox (e.g. stable and Beta/Developer Edition, or a fork like LibreWolf or Mull). With this setup, I rarely ever use Ungoogled Chromium, and haven't used it for some time.
  - deadbunny 4y ago
Dwedit 4y ago
> Cookies are given a maximum lifetime of 7 days for cookies set through Javascript and 6 months for cookies set through HTTP What the hell, I don't want my logon cookies to expire so quickly.
- polski-g 4y ago
  This might be why my browser is constantly logged out of SteamPowered.com
  - PufPufPuf 4y ago
    Nope. Same problem on Firefox. Steam just loves logging you out.
- forgotusername6 4y ago
  Do you mean if you open up a website you used two weeks ago you still want to be signed in? For a website you visited daily the cookie could be refreshed.
  - tetromino_ 4y ago
    Depends. A banking website? No, a quick automatic signout is obviously safe and correct. An entertainment site, a forum, some kind of social media? Certainly I want to stay signed in.
  - 9dev 4y ago
    To the contrary, why would you want to be signed out? Your account, and therefore by extension, your cookies, should only be usable by you. I cannot think of a reason why I would want to loose my sessions every other day.
    - stjohnswarts 4y ago
      If you're religious about locking your phone/PC then you probably don't have anything to worry about otherwise someone could easily just see what you have going on in your browser
k__ 4y ago
This makes Chrome look like a garbage fire.
- jacooper 4y ago
  It always has been. Chrome is a privacy nightmare.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  This isn't about Chrome, but about Chromium... the same source that Brave is based on. Most of these settings are configurable via policies as well. Firefox looks equally bad if not worse.
  - k__ 4y ago
    I can read, thank you.
hammyhavoc 4y ago
- jacooper 4y ago
  Which is totally irrelevant to the product, the company and the users experience. This gossip costed Mozilla its last chance to get back on its feet IMO.
  - mmastrac 4y ago
    It wasn't gossip. Brendan Eich did contribute to a homophobic cause and there was a paper record of such. While it's not my only reason for avoiding Brave (the weird, scammy-feeling tokens are another big part), I'd rather stick to my principals.
    - BrendanEich 4y ago
      What browser(s) do you use, out of curiosity?
- theteapot 4y ago
  No one cares.
- TGRush 4y ago
  I expected many things to be critiqued here, but this certainly wasn't one of them Jeez.
- MrStonedOne 4y ago
- rav3ndust 4y ago
  And what do Brendan Eich's personal views have to do with the software or how it functions? If you refuse to use anything with any connection to Mr. Eich, don't use JavaScript at all - he wrote it. I have never been able to understand this sort of take- I don't agree with everything Richard Stallman has said, but I follow him for his views on free software, not his political stances.
eternityforest 4y ago
These are why I don't use Brave. If they made them toggle-able options, or added a global privacy mode switch to get them back, it would be a great browser besides the cryptocurrency stuff. I left a year ago when the list of removed stuff started growing.
Nextlevelpepega 4y ago
I don't know how people can use the Brave browser: Scandals: 1º First scandal. Source: https://archive.ph/cAGpe 2º Scamming people into thinking they are giving donations to content creators. Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20190606100032/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160882873380870 3º Injecting affiliate codes into url's without user consent. Source: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ Extra sources: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-affiliate-links-crypto-privacy-ceo-apology https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-aff... From a security standpoint, Brave is most of the time at least 1 to 3 days behind security patches from chromium plus they add a new superfice of security issues with all the changes they do to it, with chromium at least I know they are the first to patch things due to it coming from Google. I welcome competition but I just can't see what the Brave browser brings to the table.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rising-sky 4y ago
  This is a subset of what they bring to the table: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove)/#what-chromium-features-are-removed-for-privacysecurity-reasons https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-... I personally use either Safari or Brave (for chrome extensions and debugging) exclusively
- mmastrac 4y ago
  I don't remember hearing about #2 at the time, but that's incredibly disappointing. I don't really get the love for Brave. It always strikes me as being a completely opportunistic company (brave tokens were are particular turnoff).
  - jonathansampson 4y ago
    There's some considerable context missing here. When Brave held its token sale in 2017, we allocated 300M tokens to the User Growth Pool. Shortly thereafter we began staking Brave users with tokens to identify creators for whom they would like to offer support. Brave's UI showed a check-mark for verified creators, and nothing for unverified creators (we naively followed the Twitter model). Some users took the BAT grant they received from Brave, and attempted to tip it to unverified creators (which landed those tokens in an omnibus settlement wallet where it could later be claimed, similar to the PayPal model of sending money). The UI/UX of this feature and process caused a great deal of confusion towards the end of 2018, leading to monumental feedback from several content creators, including Tom Scott of YouTube. Tom's insights gave us the direction we needed to overhaul the Rewards (called 'Payments' at the time) system in major ways. Ultimately, Tom approved of the changes. But note, there was clearly no scam involved. Additional details are provided in our 2018 blog post at https://brave.com/rewards-update/ https://brave.com/rewards-update/. I hope this helps!
skrowl 4y ago
Interesting, but I think I'll still use Firefox and Mull
NonNefarious 4y ago
I don't really care what they do. You can't use their browser without signing up for an account, which is absolute hypocrisy and even WORSE than regular browsers.
- gunapologist99 4y ago
  This is incorrect. I've used Brave and never created an account (not even sure how). Are you confusing this with Google Chrome and its accounts, because that also can be used without creating a Google account?
  - NonNefarious 4y ago
    No, I do not use Chrome.
- rav3ndust 4y ago
  I've been using Brave since 2019, and I am unsure what a "Brave Account" is. In fact, I don't know of a desktop browser that requires account signin. Chrome encourages it, but you don't have too to be able to use the browser.
- kunwon1 4y ago
  I've never used Brave before. I was curious about this, so I just downloaded the browser. I'm able to use it without signing up for an account. I was never even prompted to create an account.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Comments like this make me wonder if people are just making shit up because they hate Brendon Eich. If you're not just making it up, where did you get this idea from?
  - NonNefarious 4y ago
    As I recall, I signed up for the beta, so maybe they removed this requirement after release. I deleted Brave, and I was pretty sure it was for this reason. I just re-downloaded it and installed it, and sure enough there was no log-in requirement. Was there some other privacy-touting or "alternative" browser that came out in the last couple of years? One thing I did find annoying after installing it just now is that it doesn't import bookmarks from Safari, but rather only Firefox. It would be nice if it did; in fact it would be cool if some browser would do bi-directional bookmark syncing with Safari, to piggyback on iCloud syncing across devices.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sammyteee 4y ago
Anyone know why Chromium lacks H.264 & AAC support?
- gunapologist99 4y ago
  Both are patent-encumbered and good to very-good alternatives exist.
- brnt 4y ago
  It lacks DRM support I thought.
- Thoreandan 4y ago
  MPEG-LA Patents, over 5,500 of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding#Patent_holders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding#Patent_h... https://www.mpegla.com/programs/avc-h-264/ https://www.mpegla.com/programs/avc-h-264/ To get h.264 into Firefox, Cisco stepped up and offered to take the heat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenH264 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenH264 https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/royalty-free-web-video-codecs/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/royalty-free-web-video-c... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706252 (recent HN repost) but that doesn't mean they can safely be in Chromium. See also: The entire reason VLC can do MPEG-2 decoding being a French student research project.
gunapologist99 4y ago
Once FF started doing experiments on its userbase and started churning through their executive teams (and userbase!), I was already looking for an alternative. IMO, Brave has now definitely overtaken Firefox as the most privacy-focused browser. Releasing this list publicly on Github is an awesome move, especially given the links to the issues that explain the reasoning and discussion behind all of it. Kudos on this transparency.
- karlzt 4y ago
  check Librewolf https://librewolf.net/ https://librewolf.net/ .
  - gunapologist99 4y ago
    Good point, and also Mull on F-droid.
js2 4y ago
> The gclient utility (part of depot tools) will fetch the official Chromium source code. The tag that is fetched is captured in our package.json (for example, 70.0.3538.35). All of the source code will be downloaded into the ./src/ folder The captured in our package.json text links to https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/blob/master/package.json https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/blob/master/package.j... But I think it's supposed to link to https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/master/package.json https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/master/package.json
zerotrustonthis 4y ago
Imagine trusting Brave to be your browser: 1º Injecting affiliate codes into users url's without consent: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ 2º Scamming people into thinking they are giving donations to content creatos: https://web.archive.org/web/20190606100032/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160882873380870 https://web.archive.org/web/20190606100032/https://twitter.c... Brave is always behind in security patches to Chrome by design, Google first need to push the patch to Chromium, Brave need to grab that patch and adapt it to Brave. Brave adds new potentially security issues with all the modificatios and code they add to it.
- suprjami 4y ago
  I don't use Brave and I'm not shilling for it, but it does consistently rate high in privacy research: https://privacytests.org/ https://privacytests.org/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/study-ranks-edges-default-privacy-settings-the-lowest-of-all-major-browsers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/study...
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    It should be noted that the person behind privacytests.org is a current Brave employee. That said, I haven't seen any signs of compromise yet; it makes sense that privacy-focused developers end up at privacy-focused companies. However, you can have a good privacy record for protecting users from third parties and still make bad decisions. Not informing users about what websites do or do not take part in the crypto collection programme from the start was a bad decision IMO. Altering URLs to insert referrer codes is also a bad idea. This doesn't mean Brave doesn't try to protect your privacy, but it's still quite user hostile in my opinion.
    - suprjami 4y ago
      > the person behind privacytests.org is a current Brave employee I wasn't aware of this, thanks. It doesn't seem like such a good impartial reference now :/ > and still make bad decisions Agree 100%. I hope the Binance fiasco scared Brave into being more honest, and resulted in more scrutiny of their codebase. One more misstep like that and I'd consider Brave completely untrustworthy, regardless of privacy scores or research paper findings.
imbnwa 4y ago
Real question is how're they gonna support distribution of critical Manifest v2 extensions like uBlock Origin once the Chrome extension store ceases to distribute v2 extensions in January[0] [0]https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/15187 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/15187
- HKH2 4y ago
  uBlock Origin is not so critical for a browser that comes with a decent ad blocker that is on by default.
  - imbnwa 4y ago
    If that were true then they wouldn't have committed to support v2 extensions past the sunset date in perpetuity (which they made a public announcement of) since uBO is the biggest reason for as indicated by other issues in their tracker as well as the fact that this ticket hasn't been immediately closed. Also, good luck with the privacy crowd if you're not providing feature-for-feature behavior in your native adblocker, which Brave's adblock does not.
    - HKH2 4y ago
      You overlook how it is on by default yet it works well. Many browsers with security features inbuilt often visibly affect usability.
joshspankit 4y ago
It seems so trivial, but I really wish they found a way to support the Serial API. If I want to flash an ESP32 through the web browser, my only choice (besides installing Chrome) is to boot up Windows and use Edge.
- bawolff 4y ago
  I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    I have to admit that the ESPHome flash tool is quite convenient. There's a quick web interface to set up some config and you can flash microcontrollers with dedicated firmware from pretty much any device. It's one of those silly features that you use maybe once or twice a year at best; same with WebUSB and WebBluetooth.
    - joshspankit 4y ago
      ^ this. Also WLED and now Squeezelite-esp32 Yes it seems trivial vs just downloading the bin and flashing it from the terminal, but the authors are throwing extra conveniences in to the web installers.
maybebutnot 4y ago
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Iwishbutnot 4y ago
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bawolff 4y ago
Huh,they list lang client hints, but not accept-language header???
dark-star 4y ago
> Services We Proxy Through Brave Servers So they're asking users to trust that their servers don't track them? Has there been any audit done on their infrastructure (a quick Google search didn't reveal anything)? How are they making sure that there are no employees who enable some simple tracking on their proxies for some extra cash? True, it's probably far-fetched, and one could argue that "it's still miles better than Google", but (as some others further down have noted) Brave didn't have the best track record in the past (they tried tracking their users too...)
- senttoschool 4y ago
  >Has there been any audit done on their infrastructure Any centralized crypto company (Brave is considered a crypto company IMO) is less trustworthy than centralized non-crypto company. I stand by this. Also, the shady way Brave makes money should already warn you.

290 points by jacooper 4y ago

stopcensoring 4y ago

[dead]

jacooper 4y ago

I dont work for brave, the page's title uses "we". I just added " brave's" to give more context.

datchi 4y ago

> Services We Proxy Through Brave Servers Would it not be better to proxy these through Tor? Brave already has support for Tor built in.

lillecarl 4y ago
If they're reachable through Tor, that's not a given.
Phelinofist 4y ago
In what way is proxying through Brave better than talking to the G directly anyway?
- somenameforme 4y ago
  Any request you make to Google's servers, including something as innocuous as e.g. Google Fonts can be used to shape and track you, your habits, and so on. When it goes through a proxy, that becomes much more difficult.
gunapologist99 4y ago
That would probably massively increase latency, and most regular users would probably not tolerate that (and they'd think it was Brave's fault).

godelski 4y ago

As cool as Brave is, I still think it has big issues running Chromium. Chromium still allows Google to dictate a lot of the internet. We should have more competition in the space and that will help us all. I honestly even wish there was more than Chromium (and the various colors), Safari, and Firefox. It really seems a lot of these decentralized services have become highly centralized and thus a lack or competition and growth.

endisneigh 4y ago
I respect your opinion but honestly fragmentation sucks. I wish there was even more consolidation - ever use a power drill? 7 different battery types non compatible with each other. On a related note I’m happy usb seems to be the general connector winner (though it’s certainly not without fault). What would the average consumer gain if there were say, 10 different browser engines equally popular? Chromium is open source and you can easily disable features you disagree with. Don’t see the downside. Fork it and add functionality you’d like, like Brave.
- marricks 4y ago
  A lot of if there was an independent web consortium which agreed on standards. Which, hey, we do have and the more power chromium gets the more Google can just ignore that.
- mike_hock 4y ago
  The same the average user gains from having 10 manufacturers to choose from when buying standardized USB connectors.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    More browser engines does not imply standardization. Would you prefer the 2000s when you had your choice of dozens of power connectors for cell phones? There’s a reason the EU is mandating USB-C. Corporations have no reason and historically will not standardize amongst themselves for most things unless there’s a single winner.

speedgoose 4y ago

Is there a web browser based on Brave but without the crypto scam features?

cowtools 4y ago
Ungoogled Chromium? I've heard that the cryptocurrency features are disabled by default in Brave, but I've never used it.
- ycta39840398 4y ago
  No, they're enabled by default. Brave makes a big deal about all of its features being opt-in, but the crypto shit is a big, glaring exception.
  - jacooper 4y ago
    That's not correct. Brave awards aren't enabled by default, and you have to manually to opt in for it to work. Yes the button is there, but you can just hide it.
    - notsrg 4y ago
      "Show Brave Rewards icon in address bar" is the only setting you really need to disable. Every once in a while they launch a new feature related to crypto i.e. in the new tab page but generally they're pretty good at letting you opt out entirely.
      - jacooper 4y ago
        You can disable the ads on the new tab page too.
    - robotnikman 4y ago
      At least on the mobile version it seems to be. You get a popup letting you know about BAT when you visit some sites, and whenever you open a new tab the page usually have some background or story about NFT's or some other crypto thing.

gnicholas 4y ago

Is there a way to use tree style tabs on Brave? I was using Sidewise (via sideloading since it's not in the Chrome Store anymore), but it seems to have been broken by a recent update. I'm about ready to jump ship because I need TST. I have otherwise liked using Brave though!

spiffytech 4y ago
Chrome-based browsers have poor support for side tabs. There are some extensions that mimic it with an extra window, but it's not great. The Cluster Tab Manager extension has been good enough for me. I have to open it explicitly as a tab, but then I can easily see and manage all of my open tabs.
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  > Chrome-based browsers have poor support for side tabs. Edge has the best side tabs, closely followed by Vivaldi.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    How does Edge compare to Orion? Does it also have nested tabs? Vertical is good, but nested is what I need!
kyleee 4y ago
Here is most up to date work I am aware of to be implemented directly in brave: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/23467 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/23467
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Super cool. I'm on the Developer edition and will look forward to this rolling out, hopefully soon!
  - coffeeling 4y ago

mminer237 4y ago

> Disable Scroll To Text Fragment Why would Brave disable this? In my opinion, this is one of the most useful additions to browsers in recent memory, and it's quite annoying to click a link expecting to go a specific section and just be put at the top of the page. I noticed this was broken in Brave, but I never would have imagined they intentionally broke the feature.

Phelinofist 4y ago
Came to ask the same question
- FatalLogic 4y ago
  >Came to ask the same question It IS an interesting question. But you should simply upvote it, if you have nothing at all to add.
Waterluvian 4y ago
This is probably the #1 feature that gives me the most personal conflict. I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking, “oh here we go. Google needed browsers to have a feature to make its search engine UX better…” But I also cannot deny just how useful it is.
- maven29 4y ago
  Does the internet have any discovery mechanisms except social media curation and search engines? If videos can be timestamped for links, why not webpages? Linking to automatic content-indexed excerpts shows respect for the time spent by recipient and saves markup effort for the author.
  - Frost1x 4y ago
    I mean you can arbitrarily type domain names with common TLDs in and see what happens. I hear the white house may not be a good start to roll the dice on. Yahoo, Altavista, and others used to have a curated index of quality websites. Links are inherently a discovery feature. Services like StumbleUpon used to exist but could arguably be seen as "social." The problem with "social media curation" as a qualifier could be interpreted as "a human is involved." Pretty much all forms of discovery, internet or not, requires either search or a human involved. Some services of course have broadcast mechanisms for curating an index but that's about the only exception I can think of for discovery that breaks away from these two qualifiers. To some degree, DNS is a broadcast system for discovery.

gigel82 4y ago

Also check out Ungoogled Chromium (https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium) which goes above & beyond by not just "proxying" services but rather removing all phone-home functionality altogether. There's no for-profit entity behind it, so no perverse incentives to monetize either (but that also means they don't have a budget for proper CI, signing, distribution, etc.) so there's a bit of DIY work involved on less-popular platforms. I use Ungoogled Chromium as a backup whenever a website makes the unfortunate choice of not properly supporting my main browser, Firefox.

jacooper 4y ago
The reason brave is a bit less hardcore ungoogled-chromium is usability. Brave can be used by anyone, with the experience they expect from a modern browser. No need for some weird workarounds to install extensions, no support for widevine, etc.
chasil 4y ago
I personally use Bromite. https://www.bromite.org/ https://www.bromite.org/ I used to use SRWare Iron on the desktop, but not for many years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron
commoner 4y ago
Ungoogled Chromium is the Chromium-based desktop browser that I use as a backup to Firefox, but I almost never need it. I have two installations of Firefox: a primary installation that has Enhanced Tracking Protection and privacy extensions enabled, and a secondary installation that has neither but clears all history when the browser is closed. I'll switch to the secondary installation when the primary one doesn't work with a site, usually because the privacy features interfere in some way. It's easy to do this with two editions of Firefox (e.g. stable and Beta/Developer Edition, or a fork like LibreWolf or Mull). With this setup, I rarely ever use Ungoogled Chromium, and haven't used it for some time.
- deadbunny 4y ago

Dwedit 4y ago

> Cookies are given a maximum lifetime of 7 days for cookies set through Javascript and 6 months for cookies set through HTTP What the hell, I don't want my logon cookies to expire so quickly.

polski-g 4y ago
This might be why my browser is constantly logged out of SteamPowered.com
- PufPufPuf 4y ago
  Nope. Same problem on Firefox. Steam just loves logging you out.
forgotusername6 4y ago
Do you mean if you open up a website you used two weeks ago you still want to be signed in? For a website you visited daily the cookie could be refreshed.
- tetromino_ 4y ago
  Depends. A banking website? No, a quick automatic signout is obviously safe and correct. An entertainment site, a forum, some kind of social media? Certainly I want to stay signed in.
- 9dev 4y ago
  To the contrary, why would you want to be signed out? Your account, and therefore by extension, your cookies, should only be usable by you. I cannot think of a reason why I would want to loose my sessions every other day.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    If you're religious about locking your phone/PC then you probably don't have anything to worry about otherwise someone could easily just see what you have going on in your browser

k__ 4y ago

This makes Chrome look like a garbage fire.

jacooper 4y ago
It always has been. Chrome is a privacy nightmare.
encryptluks2 4y ago
This isn't about Chrome, but about Chromium... the same source that Brave is based on. Most of these settings are configurable via policies as well. Firefox looks equally bad if not worse.
- k__ 4y ago
  I can read, thank you.

hammyhavoc 4y ago

jacooper 4y ago
Which is totally irrelevant to the product, the company and the users experience. This gossip costed Mozilla its last chance to get back on its feet IMO.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  It wasn't gossip. Brendan Eich did contribute to a homophobic cause and there was a paper record of such. While it's not my only reason for avoiding Brave (the weird, scammy-feeling tokens are another big part), I'd rather stick to my principals.
  - BrendanEich 4y ago
    What browser(s) do you use, out of curiosity?
theteapot 4y ago
No one cares.
TGRush 4y ago
I expected many things to be critiqued here, but this certainly wasn't one of them Jeez.
MrStonedOne 4y ago
rav3ndust 4y ago
And what do Brendan Eich's personal views have to do with the software or how it functions? If you refuse to use anything with any connection to Mr. Eich, don't use JavaScript at all - he wrote it. I have never been able to understand this sort of take- I don't agree with everything Richard Stallman has said, but I follow him for his views on free software, not his political stances.

eternityforest 4y ago

These are why I don't use Brave. If they made them toggle-able options, or added a global privacy mode switch to get them back, it would be a great browser besides the cryptocurrency stuff. I left a year ago when the list of removed stuff started growing.

Nextlevelpepega 4y ago

I don't know how people can use the Brave browser: Scandals: 1º First scandal. Source: https://archive.ph/cAGpe 2º Scamming people into thinking they are giving donations to content creators. Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20190606100032/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160882873380870 3º Injecting affiliate codes into url's without user consent. Source: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ Extra sources: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-affiliate-links-crypto-privacy-ceo-apology https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-aff... From a security standpoint, Brave is most of the time at least 1 to 3 days behind security patches from chromium plus they add a new superfice of security issues with all the changes they do to it, with chromium at least I know they are the first to patch things due to it coming from Google. I welcome competition but I just can't see what the Brave browser brings to the table.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rising-sky 4y ago
This is a subset of what they bring to the table: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove)/#what-chromium-features-are-removed-for-privacysecurity-reasons https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-... I personally use either Safari or Brave (for chrome extensions and debugging) exclusively
mmastrac 4y ago
I don't remember hearing about #2 at the time, but that's incredibly disappointing. I don't really get the love for Brave. It always strikes me as being a completely opportunistic company (brave tokens were are particular turnoff).
- jonathansampson 4y ago
  There's some considerable context missing here. When Brave held its token sale in 2017, we allocated 300M tokens to the User Growth Pool. Shortly thereafter we began staking Brave users with tokens to identify creators for whom they would like to offer support. Brave's UI showed a check-mark for verified creators, and nothing for unverified creators (we naively followed the Twitter model). Some users took the BAT grant they received from Brave, and attempted to tip it to unverified creators (which landed those tokens in an omnibus settlement wallet where it could later be claimed, similar to the PayPal model of sending money). The UI/UX of this feature and process caused a great deal of confusion towards the end of 2018, leading to monumental feedback from several content creators, including Tom Scott of YouTube. Tom's insights gave us the direction we needed to overhaul the Rewards (called 'Payments' at the time) system in major ways. Ultimately, Tom approved of the changes. But note, there was clearly no scam involved. Additional details are provided in our 2018 blog post at https://brave.com/rewards-update/ https://brave.com/rewards-update/. I hope this helps!

skrowl 4y ago

Interesting, but I think I'll still use Firefox and Mull

NonNefarious 4y ago

I don't really care what they do. You can't use their browser without signing up for an account, which is absolute hypocrisy and even WORSE than regular browsers.

gunapologist99 4y ago
This is incorrect. I've used Brave and never created an account (not even sure how). Are you confusing this with Google Chrome and its accounts, because that also can be used without creating a Google account?
- NonNefarious 4y ago
  No, I do not use Chrome.
rav3ndust 4y ago
I've been using Brave since 2019, and I am unsure what a "Brave Account" is. In fact, I don't know of a desktop browser that requires account signin. Chrome encourages it, but you don't have too to be able to use the browser.
kunwon1 4y ago
I've never used Brave before. I was curious about this, so I just downloaded the browser. I'm able to use it without signing up for an account. I was never even prompted to create an account.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Comments like this make me wonder if people are just making shit up because they hate Brendon Eich. If you're not just making it up, where did you get this idea from?
- NonNefarious 4y ago
  As I recall, I signed up for the beta, so maybe they removed this requirement after release. I deleted Brave, and I was pretty sure it was for this reason. I just re-downloaded it and installed it, and sure enough there was no log-in requirement. Was there some other privacy-touting or "alternative" browser that came out in the last couple of years? One thing I did find annoying after installing it just now is that it doesn't import bookmarks from Safari, but rather only Firefox. It would be nice if it did; in fact it would be cool if some browser would do bi-directional bookmark syncing with Safari, to piggyback on iCloud syncing across devices.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sammyteee 4y ago

Anyone know why Chromium lacks H.264 & AAC support?

gunapologist99 4y ago
Both are patent-encumbered and good to very-good alternatives exist.
brnt 4y ago
It lacks DRM support I thought.
Thoreandan 4y ago
MPEG-LA Patents, over 5,500 of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding#Patent_holders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding#Patent_h... https://www.mpegla.com/programs/avc-h-264/ https://www.mpegla.com/programs/avc-h-264/ To get h.264 into Firefox, Cisco stepped up and offered to take the heat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenH264 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenH264 https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/royalty-free-web-video-codecs/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/royalty-free-web-video-c... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706252 (recent HN repost) but that doesn't mean they can safely be in Chromium. See also: The entire reason VLC can do MPEG-2 decoding being a French student research project.

gunapologist99 4y ago

Once FF started doing experiments on its userbase and started churning through their executive teams (and userbase!), I was already looking for an alternative. IMO, Brave has now definitely overtaken Firefox as the most privacy-focused browser. Releasing this list publicly on Github is an awesome move, especially given the links to the issues that explain the reasoning and discussion behind all of it. Kudos on this transparency.

karlzt 4y ago
check Librewolf https://librewolf.net/ https://librewolf.net/ .
- gunapologist99 4y ago
  Good point, and also Mull on F-droid.

js2 4y ago

> The gclient utility (part of depot tools) will fetch the official Chromium source code. The tag that is fetched is captured in our package.json (for example, 70.0.3538.35). All of the source code will be downloaded into the ./src/ folder The captured in our package.json text links to https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/blob/master/package.json https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/blob/master/package.j... But I think it's supposed to link to https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/master/package.json https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/master/package.json

zerotrustonthis 4y ago

Imagine trusting Brave to be your browser: 1º Injecting affiliate codes into users url's without consent: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ 2º Scamming people into thinking they are giving donations to content creatos: https://web.archive.org/web/20190606100032/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160882873380870 https://web.archive.org/web/20190606100032/https://twitter.c... Brave is always behind in security patches to Chrome by design, Google first need to push the patch to Chromium, Brave need to grab that patch and adapt it to Brave. Brave adds new potentially security issues with all the modificatios and code they add to it.

suprjami 4y ago
I don't use Brave and I'm not shilling for it, but it does consistently rate high in privacy research: https://privacytests.org/ https://privacytests.org/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/study-ranks-edges-default-privacy-settings-the-lowest-of-all-major-browsers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/study...
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  It should be noted that the person behind privacytests.org is a current Brave employee. That said, I haven't seen any signs of compromise yet; it makes sense that privacy-focused developers end up at privacy-focused companies. However, you can have a good privacy record for protecting users from third parties and still make bad decisions. Not informing users about what websites do or do not take part in the crypto collection programme from the start was a bad decision IMO. Altering URLs to insert referrer codes is also a bad idea. This doesn't mean Brave doesn't try to protect your privacy, but it's still quite user hostile in my opinion.
  - suprjami 4y ago
    > the person behind privacytests.org is a current Brave employee I wasn't aware of this, thanks. It doesn't seem like such a good impartial reference now :/ > and still make bad decisions Agree 100%. I hope the Binance fiasco scared Brave into being more honest, and resulted in more scrutiny of their codebase. One more misstep like that and I'd consider Brave completely untrustworthy, regardless of privacy scores or research paper findings.

imbnwa 4y ago

Real question is how're they gonna support distribution of critical Manifest v2 extensions like uBlock Origin once the Chrome extension store ceases to distribute v2 extensions in January[0] [0]https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/15187 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/15187

HKH2 4y ago
uBlock Origin is not so critical for a browser that comes with a decent ad blocker that is on by default.
- imbnwa 4y ago
  If that were true then they wouldn't have committed to support v2 extensions past the sunset date in perpetuity (which they made a public announcement of) since uBO is the biggest reason for as indicated by other issues in their tracker as well as the fact that this ticket hasn't been immediately closed. Also, good luck with the privacy crowd if you're not providing feature-for-feature behavior in your native adblocker, which Brave's adblock does not.
  - HKH2 4y ago
    You overlook how it is on by default yet it works well. Many browsers with security features inbuilt often visibly affect usability.

joshspankit 4y ago

It seems so trivial, but I really wish they found a way to support the Serial API. If I want to flash an ESP32 through the web browser, my only choice (besides installing Chrome) is to boot up Windows and use Edge.

bawolff 4y ago
I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  I have to admit that the ESPHome flash tool is quite convenient. There's a quick web interface to set up some config and you can flash microcontrollers with dedicated firmware from pretty much any device. It's one of those silly features that you use maybe once or twice a year at best; same with WebUSB and WebBluetooth.
  - joshspankit 4y ago
    ^ this. Also WLED and now Squeezelite-esp32 Yes it seems trivial vs just downloading the bin and flashing it from the terminal, but the authors are throwing extra conveniences in to the web installers.

maybebutnot 4y ago

[dead]

Iwishbutnot 4y ago

[dead]

bawolff 4y ago

Huh,they list lang client hints, but not accept-language header???

dark-star 4y ago

> Services We Proxy Through Brave Servers So they're asking users to trust that their servers don't track them? Has there been any audit done on their infrastructure (a quick Google search didn't reveal anything)? How are they making sure that there are no employees who enable some simple tracking on their proxies for some extra cash? True, it's probably far-fetched, and one could argue that "it's still miles better than Google", but (as some others further down have noted) Brave didn't have the best track record in the past (they tried tracking their users too...)

senttoschool 4y ago
>Has there been any audit done on their infrastructure Any centralized crypto company (Brave is considered a crypto company IMO) is less trustworthy than centralized non-crypto company. I stand by this. Also, the shady way Brave makes money should already warn you.