11 ms·

Why would you switch people to Brave and not to Firefox..? Brave being a cryptocurrency scam should be enough to enough to turn people away, but I'd also worry

by mort96 4y ago

Why would you switch people to Brave and not to Firefox..? Brave being a cryptocurrency scam should be enough to enough to turn people away, but I'd also worry about the position of a browser which is in a hostile relationship with the browser engine it's based on.

sascha_sl 4y ago
Being honest? I use Edge or Brave over Firefox because of compatibility edge cases and battery life. And while Mozilla might be the least bad browser vendor, they're not exactly great and dependent on Google for funding.
- dmitryminkovsky 4y ago
  The edge case compat issues are rare for me, battery life seems the same, and FF is otherwise such a good, fast browser with nice extensions... I like it a lot more than Chrome now
  - sascha_sl 4y ago
    I'll admit they are rare - but if they appear they usually break apps that I can't really opt out of using. Teams for instance.
- seanw444 4y ago
  I don't understand the "dependent on Google funding" statement that everyone mentions. Yeah, they're Google's bitch. But for what purpose? To act independently and make their own decisions, otherwise Google has a monopoly and they're screwed.
  - account42 4y ago
    No, Mozilla's purpose is to appear to act independently while never doing anything that would upset Google too much. This incentive works even without Google ever even hinting at the funds being conditional on Mozilla being their bitch - someone who makes 3 million a year from a failing browser is not going to risk that setup.
  - sascha_sl 4y ago
    Because they seem to invest it in the wrong place. Monitor, Relay, Pocket, Focus, VPN. Who cares. All while defunding the one project that might ensure their relevance - Servo. (And also once attempting to defund Thunderbird)
princevegeta89 4y ago
You can do either. Out of all Chromium-based browsers, Brave seems to be the only open-source, the most secure and transparent browser with a lot of development capacity. I currently only use Brave and Firefox on all my devices. Never liked the BAT crap Brave has built-in, but you can disable it and move on.
- hunterb123 4y ago
  > but you can disable it and move on BAT is disabled by default.
- moviuro 4y ago
  > transparent browser previously: Brave’s browser has been autocompleting websites with referral codes [2y ago, 57 point, 32 comments] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23441605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23441605
  - princevegeta89 4y ago
    I am aware of this, please note the aspect of relativity when it comes to comparing with all the other chromium-based browsers.
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    (2y ago) The change was transparent, the response was transparent, and it was reversed immediately. You do know that FireFox gets paid for Google search referrals to this day right? In comparison this was responded to and resolved 2 years ago.
    - dralley 4y ago
      >You do know that FireFox gets paid for Google search referrals to this day right? Messing with referral codes to websites is not even remotely in the same ballpark as being paid for searches from the default search provider. It's asinine to compare them.
Phemist 4y ago
Any form of advertising will eventually corrupt the platforms that rely on it to exist. I guess any platform which supports advertising will eventually turn into an advertising platform. Brave essentially is an advertising platform through their brave rewards (however complicated they make this relationship out to be) and likely will at some point start behaving like one. Even if this does not happen in a reasonable timeframe, it is indeed a question how long it will take before chromium itself is corrupted by the same influences.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
fastball 4y ago
How is Brave a cryptocurrency scam?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- chaxor 4y ago
  Its not, but a lot of HN folks are blinded by their own stupidity whenever they see the word 'crypto'. The knee jerk reaction to that word shields them from any engagement in thought - it's just simply "some association with crypto? - it's terrible!". This phenomenon early on was even targeted at simply cryptography based security (Although not super common on HN thankfully), since the word 'crypto' was associated with the software. Ironically, it was born as a response to the crypto-crazed people that had the same thoughtless reaction in reverse
  - monetus 4y ago
    They were, for a time, taking donations on behalf of websites despite those websites not knowing that brave existed, or the donors not knowing that their donation was going to an unclaimed wallet. I can't remember what happened to the BAT - held for them if they ever did pick up brave I think, but eventually dumped back into the BAT pool. That, and substituting Amazon referral links, engendered distrust that is hard to overstate. Do you think is just a crypto=bad thing alone? That wasn't my impression.
    - monetus 4y ago
      It actually wasn't Amazon links, but links to sites partnered with brave, like binance and Coinbase. They didn't seem to know about it ahead of time.
    - soundnote 4y ago
      Not Amazon referral links. More like Firefox Suggest or the like: Write eg. "Binance" in the URL bar, and one of the results in the dropdown menu is a sponsored link to "binance.us" who are partnered with Brave. The feature had a bug that caused complete, valid URLs (ie. you wrote "binance.us") to be shown the sponsored link as a primary completion option. The issue persisted, as far as I know, one day. The response was to both fix the bug and make the feature be off by default.
zaphod420 4y ago
You don't have to use BAT when using brave... Just don't turn that feature on.
logicalmonster 4y ago
> Brave being a cryptocurrency scam How so? I think it's reasonable to dislike crypto for any reason you choose, but merely having a crypto wallet feature (that you're free to never use) doesn't mean that something is a scam. Scam is a pretty powerful word and shouldn't be bandied about so casually.
- mort96 4y ago
  Here's a discussion about why lobste.rs blocks (or blocked?) the Brave user agent: https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 Here's a hacker news discussion about same issue but affecting Tom Scott rather than the lobste.rs people: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999 (archive of the linked tweet: https://web.archive.org/web/20190203094117/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160882873380870 https://web.archive.org/web/20190203094117/https://twitter.c...) EDIT: Oh, and we can't forget the time when they silently changed links to contain their own referral codes: https://www.theblock.co/linked/67594/braves-browser-has-been-autocompleting-websites-with-referral-codes https://www.theblock.co/linked/67594/braves-browser-has-been... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23441605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23441605)
  - monetus 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing the links
- remedan 4y ago
  This is my recollection of events, is it wrong? 1. Brave replaced ads on creator's websites with their own ads. 2. Brave's ads generated some sort of tokens, that the creator then could claim and cash out. 3. Brave happily collected those tokens on behalf of creators who didn't want to be a part of the scheme (e.g. Tom Scott). They stripped the creators of revenue from the original ads and just kept the tokens/revenue from their ads.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
temp0826 4y ago
I'm with you, my jaw drops when I see so much support for brave on hn. Super shady. Do they still replace website ads with their own ad network? (I'm all for blocking ads, but does this really not seem wrong to anyone?
- jason-phillips 4y ago
  I use Brave all day long and have never experienced this. I see no ads, so working as intended, I guess. Also, I love the useful little features they include like redirecting all http requests from www.reddit.com to old.reddit.com. One can also bypass paywalls at the NY Times and The Economist with the click of a button.
  - uncletammy 4y ago
    > Also, I love the useful little features they include like redirecting all http requests from www.reddit.com to old.reddit.com. I use Brave daily and have never heard of this feature. How do I turn this on?
    - iamacyborg 4y ago
      You can literally just set this up in your reddit settings though.
      - grumbel 4y ago
        That requires being logged in and gets regularly reset.
    - jason-phillips 4y ago
      Three-dots menu > settings > website redirects
      - uncletammy 4y ago
        I've looked everywhere for this but can't find it. I'm on Brave Desktop v1.44.112
rglullis 4y ago
> Brave being a cryptocurrency scam should be enough to enough to turn people away You are not required to buy anything. You are not required to invest anything. You can use the browser without any of the crypto features, or the ad rewards program. They are opt-in. There is no scam about Brave's program. Stop projecting. If you don't like crypto, fine. But to disparage it on false statements is beyond lame.
- mort96 4y ago
  - rglullis 4y ago
    No, it is not a better word. Please explain exactly what is fraudulent about Brave's business model. Who is getting duped? The advertisers, the users who receive their rewards in crypto?
    - mort96 4y ago
      Here's my response to another comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620
      - rglullis 4y ago
        mort96 4y ago
        Well, it's deception which appears to be intended to result in financial gain. That fits the definition of "fraud" which I use. It's incredibly shady in any case.
        rglullis 4y ago
        There is no deception. They promptly admitted the mistake and corrected it. It is a lot less "shady" than the billions of dollars every year spent in Google/Facebook/Twitter/Bing ads who turn out to be fraudulent and makes business owners with no way to actually verify and recourse, and Mozilla directly benefits from.
josu 4y ago
>Brave being a cryptocurrency scam Brave initially launched using bitcoin micropayments [1], but they had a very hard time getting any traction, since people weren't really willing to pay to not see ads. Launching their own cryptocurrency seemed like an OK idea, and it seems to have worked out well. [1] https://brave.com/introducing-brave-payments/ https://brave.com/introducing-brave-payments/
rdtsc 4y ago
> Brave being a cryptocurrency scam Not grandparent poster, but I have been using Brave for a few years. I disabled/removed all the crypto bits it just works as a better Chrome-compatible browser. I would have liked to use Firefox, but some websites didn't work well with, and at the time I tried it was slower so stuck with Brave.
- MasterYoda 4y ago
  I have never had any problem with Firefox on any website. It feels most time people say that, it is actually an addon that is the problem, not Firefox. I even have a relocation Mozilla also have mentioning this, and if I remember correctly it was like 99% of the time people blamed Firefox it was a actually an addon that was the problem.
StevePerkins 4y ago
Brave has some "blockchain" based features, to appeal to those who are drawn to that hype. They make money by selling ads, either for crypto-related companies or else using a crypto-based mechanism. Absolutely all of this is either opt-in, or else trivial to opt-out from with a few clicks. Mozilla is an entity that essentially exists at the whim of Google. Funded by Google to sit in the corner and be semi-relevant at best, so that Google can stave off anti-trust attacks on Chromium. It earns a half-billion dollars per year in revenue, and essentially pisses away most of that on MBA nonsense that has nothing to do with maintaining a web browser. You don't have to care about or pay attention to any of that to use Firefox. Neither of these two organizations are indisputably "perfect". If you are the type of person for whom your web browser choice is a component of your personal "identity", then attaching either of these logos to your own personal brand can be problematic. However, wrapping up your personal brand identity in web browser selection is ridiculous. All of the above is essentially irrelevant nonsense. Meanwhile, back in the land of objective reality... the world has standardized on Chromium for better or worse, and so Brave has a bigger plugin ecosystem and far fewer if any compatibility issues with any website.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Thank you. My god, WFH and crypto are two topics HN is not good at discussing.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  It does make me sad what became of Mozilla
insanitybit 4y ago
I'm extremely critical of cryptocurrency, but what Brave is doing makes sense. Blockchain is useful for situations where you need proof of work with untrusted clients. Firefox's entire revenue model is "get money from Google", how is that not a concern? Ultimately Firefox's money comes from advertising. Brave is trying to find a way to monetize the web that doesn't require user tracking and ads.
SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
Firefox is not what it once was. It ships with many user-hostile settings enabled by default. For example: telemetry, Pocket integration, sponsored shortcuts on the New Tab page, sponsored suggestions in the search bar. The knobs to turn off each of the 4 things I just listed are found in 4 different places within the UI.
- deepstack 4y ago
  Kinda make sense, since the founder of Mozilla left and went to start Brave. Makes one wonder how the company is really defined by their founders.
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    Yes, Brave is much better. That defaults to Crypto ads, Crypto "sponsored backrounds", Crypto wallet and Brave news.
    - soundnote 4y ago
      Literally all of that is opt-in, except for the sponsored new tab page backgrounds, which are one toggle (and a separate one from having other rotating pretty backgrounds delivered at Brave's expense)
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  ... and once you do it (tbh the only thing I could care about is the telemetry thingie, but need to check details and I never see anything sponsored on new tab ) what are your objections against it?
  - SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
    Years ago I could simply tell friends and family to install Firefox. Now I'd have to tell them: install Firefox, then go here and click this, go there and click that, etc.
colordrops 4y ago
How is it a scam?
tomjen3 4y ago
Because many websites don't work well with Firefox engine. Video calls are one example. So I picked the most practical example, which was Brave. Mind you there is nothing scamming about it. I have no use for it (but I do like the idea of being able to give small direct awards to people for great posts), so I just turned it of.
cloutchaser 4y ago
It’s not a scam, it’s a business model being tried by a startup in one of the most competitive and dirty industries ever. Much less scammy than what google and chrome does.
newZWhoDis 4y ago
The cryptophobes here are far more obnoxious than the fanboys ever have been. It’s a browser, not a “crypto scam”
wsername_with_w 4y ago
You comment is a very important reason. Why not use constructive arguments to state your point? Brave has an option to use BAT to pay content creators, and to earn BAT by opting into viewing ads. That's all. I've been using Brave for years, have the option turned off, and never see any of it. Could you explain where the "scam" is? Firefox has become a political organization. I used it since the "Phoenix 0.1" days. Stopped using it when it was taken over by hateful activists.
lake_vincent 4y ago
I am all for a business model that has an opt-in feature that generates revenue. I love Brave, and want to stick around, so I have no moral qualms with them making some money. I personally opt out, but I am grateful for those who use it. Their crypto system itself is quite benign - I tried it, and it required no investment on my part, so I don't understand where the "scam" is you speak of...
slashink 4y ago
I WANT to switch to Firefox but the reality is that the experience is still sometimes rough compared to chrome. It’s the small things that gets me. On Mac, clicking a link when Firefox isn’t open sometimes opens two windows. Sometimes the keyboard shortcuts stops working if you just tab to the app as you have to click on it for keyboard shortcuts to start working etc. I know other browsers plays a lot of tricks to feel snappy but reality is that the tricks works, Firefox can at times “feel” slower doing operations. Chrome has none of these issues and as an effect brave is good. That’s why I’m testing brave. I really tried this time, 9 month of Firefox.
dang 4y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33261988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33261988.

by mort96 4y ago

sascha_sl 4y ago

Being honest? I use Edge or Brave over Firefox because of compatibility edge cases and battery life. And while Mozilla might be the least bad browser vendor, they're not exactly great and dependent on Google for funding.

dmitryminkovsky 4y ago
The edge case compat issues are rare for me, battery life seems the same, and FF is otherwise such a good, fast browser with nice extensions... I like it a lot more than Chrome now
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  I'll admit they are rare - but if they appear they usually break apps that I can't really opt out of using. Teams for instance.
seanw444 4y ago
I don't understand the "dependent on Google funding" statement that everyone mentions. Yeah, they're Google's bitch. But for what purpose? To act independently and make their own decisions, otherwise Google has a monopoly and they're screwed.
- account42 4y ago
  No, Mozilla's purpose is to appear to act independently while never doing anything that would upset Google too much. This incentive works even without Google ever even hinting at the funds being conditional on Mozilla being their bitch - someone who makes 3 million a year from a failing browser is not going to risk that setup.
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  Because they seem to invest it in the wrong place. Monitor, Relay, Pocket, Focus, VPN. Who cares. All while defunding the one project that might ensure their relevance - Servo. (And also once attempting to defund Thunderbird)

princevegeta89 4y ago

You can do either. Out of all Chromium-based browsers, Brave seems to be the only open-source, the most secure and transparent browser with a lot of development capacity. I currently only use Brave and Firefox on all my devices. Never liked the BAT crap Brave has built-in, but you can disable it and move on.

hunterb123 4y ago
> but you can disable it and move on BAT is disabled by default.
moviuro 4y ago
> transparent browser previously: Brave’s browser has been autocompleting websites with referral codes [2y ago, 57 point, 32 comments] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23441605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23441605
- princevegeta89 4y ago
  I am aware of this, please note the aspect of relativity when it comes to comparing with all the other chromium-based browsers.
- hunterb123 4y ago
  (2y ago) The change was transparent, the response was transparent, and it was reversed immediately. You do know that FireFox gets paid for Google search referrals to this day right? In comparison this was responded to and resolved 2 years ago.
  - dralley 4y ago
    >You do know that FireFox gets paid for Google search referrals to this day right? Messing with referral codes to websites is not even remotely in the same ballpark as being paid for searches from the default search provider. It's asinine to compare them.

Phemist 4y ago

Any form of advertising will eventually corrupt the platforms that rely on it to exist. I guess any platform which supports advertising will eventually turn into an advertising platform. Brave essentially is an advertising platform through their brave rewards (however complicated they make this relationship out to be) and likely will at some point start behaving like one. Even if this does not happen in a reasonable timeframe, it is indeed a question how long it will take before chromium itself is corrupted by the same influences.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

fastball 4y ago

How is Brave a cryptocurrency scam?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chaxor 4y ago
Its not, but a lot of HN folks are blinded by their own stupidity whenever they see the word 'crypto'. The knee jerk reaction to that word shields them from any engagement in thought - it's just simply "some association with crypto? - it's terrible!". This phenomenon early on was even targeted at simply cryptography based security (Although not super common on HN thankfully), since the word 'crypto' was associated with the software. Ironically, it was born as a response to the crypto-crazed people that had the same thoughtless reaction in reverse
- monetus 4y ago
  They were, for a time, taking donations on behalf of websites despite those websites not knowing that brave existed, or the donors not knowing that their donation was going to an unclaimed wallet. I can't remember what happened to the BAT - held for them if they ever did pick up brave I think, but eventually dumped back into the BAT pool. That, and substituting Amazon referral links, engendered distrust that is hard to overstate. Do you think is just a crypto=bad thing alone? That wasn't my impression.
  - monetus 4y ago
    It actually wasn't Amazon links, but links to sites partnered with brave, like binance and Coinbase. They didn't seem to know about it ahead of time.
  - soundnote 4y ago
    Not Amazon referral links. More like Firefox Suggest or the like: Write eg. "Binance" in the URL bar, and one of the results in the dropdown menu is a sponsored link to "binance.us" who are partnered with Brave. The feature had a bug that caused complete, valid URLs (ie. you wrote "binance.us") to be shown the sponsored link as a primary completion option. The issue persisted, as far as I know, one day. The response was to both fix the bug and make the feature be off by default.

zaphod420 4y ago

You don't have to use BAT when using brave... Just don't turn that feature on.

logicalmonster 4y ago

> Brave being a cryptocurrency scam How so? I think it's reasonable to dislike crypto for any reason you choose, but merely having a crypto wallet feature (that you're free to never use) doesn't mean that something is a scam. Scam is a pretty powerful word and shouldn't be bandied about so casually.

mort96 4y ago
Here's a discussion about why lobste.rs blocks (or blocked?) the Brave user agent: https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 Here's a hacker news discussion about same issue but affecting Tom Scott rather than the lobste.rs people: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999 (archive of the linked tweet: https://web.archive.org/web/20190203094117/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160882873380870 https://web.archive.org/web/20190203094117/https://twitter.c...) EDIT: Oh, and we can't forget the time when they silently changed links to contain their own referral codes: https://www.theblock.co/linked/67594/braves-browser-has-been-autocompleting-websites-with-referral-codes https://www.theblock.co/linked/67594/braves-browser-has-been... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23441605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23441605)
- monetus 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing the links
remedan 4y ago
This is my recollection of events, is it wrong? 1. Brave replaced ads on creator's websites with their own ads. 2. Brave's ads generated some sort of tokens, that the creator then could claim and cash out. 3. Brave happily collected those tokens on behalf of creators who didn't want to be a part of the scheme (e.g. Tom Scott). They stripped the creators of revenue from the original ads and just kept the tokens/revenue from their ads.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

temp0826 4y ago

I'm with you, my jaw drops when I see so much support for brave on hn. Super shady. Do they still replace website ads with their own ad network? (I'm all for blocking ads, but does this really not seem wrong to anyone?

jason-phillips 4y ago
I use Brave all day long and have never experienced this. I see no ads, so working as intended, I guess. Also, I love the useful little features they include like redirecting all http requests from www.reddit.com to old.reddit.com. One can also bypass paywalls at the NY Times and The Economist with the click of a button.
- uncletammy 4y ago
  > Also, I love the useful little features they include like redirecting all http requests from www.reddit.com to old.reddit.com. I use Brave daily and have never heard of this feature. How do I turn this on?
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    You can literally just set this up in your reddit settings though.
    - grumbel 4y ago
      That requires being logged in and gets regularly reset.
  - jason-phillips 4y ago
    Three-dots menu > settings > website redirects
    - uncletammy 4y ago
      I've looked everywhere for this but can't find it. I'm on Brave Desktop v1.44.112

rglullis 4y ago

> Brave being a cryptocurrency scam should be enough to enough to turn people away You are not required to buy anything. You are not required to invest anything. You can use the browser without any of the crypto features, or the ad rewards program. They are opt-in. There is no scam about Brave's program. Stop projecting. If you don't like crypto, fine. But to disparage it on false statements is beyond lame.

mort96 4y ago
- rglullis 4y ago
  No, it is not a better word. Please explain exactly what is fraudulent about Brave's business model. Who is getting duped? The advertisers, the users who receive their rewards in crypto?
  - mort96 4y ago
    Here's my response to another comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620
    - rglullis 4y ago
      - mort96 4y ago
        Well, it's deception which appears to be intended to result in financial gain. That fits the definition of "fraud" which I use. It's incredibly shady in any case.
        rglullis 4y ago
        There is no deception. They promptly admitted the mistake and corrected it. It is a lot less "shady" than the billions of dollars every year spent in Google/Facebook/Twitter/Bing ads who turn out to be fraudulent and makes business owners with no way to actually verify and recourse, and Mozilla directly benefits from.

josu 4y ago

>Brave being a cryptocurrency scam Brave initially launched using bitcoin micropayments [1], but they had a very hard time getting any traction, since people weren't really willing to pay to not see ads. Launching their own cryptocurrency seemed like an OK idea, and it seems to have worked out well. [1] https://brave.com/introducing-brave-payments/ https://brave.com/introducing-brave-payments/

rdtsc 4y ago

> Brave being a cryptocurrency scam Not grandparent poster, but I have been using Brave for a few years. I disabled/removed all the crypto bits it just works as a better Chrome-compatible browser. I would have liked to use Firefox, but some websites didn't work well with, and at the time I tried it was slower so stuck with Brave.

MasterYoda 4y ago
I have never had any problem with Firefox on any website. It feels most time people say that, it is actually an addon that is the problem, not Firefox. I even have a relocation Mozilla also have mentioning this, and if I remember correctly it was like 99% of the time people blamed Firefox it was a actually an addon that was the problem.

StevePerkins 4y ago

Brave has some "blockchain" based features, to appeal to those who are drawn to that hype. They make money by selling ads, either for crypto-related companies or else using a crypto-based mechanism. Absolutely all of this is either opt-in, or else trivial to opt-out from with a few clicks. Mozilla is an entity that essentially exists at the whim of Google. Funded by Google to sit in the corner and be semi-relevant at best, so that Google can stave off anti-trust attacks on Chromium. It earns a half-billion dollars per year in revenue, and essentially pisses away most of that on MBA nonsense that has nothing to do with maintaining a web browser. You don't have to care about or pay attention to any of that to use Firefox. Neither of these two organizations are indisputably "perfect". If you are the type of person for whom your web browser choice is a component of your personal "identity", then attaching either of these logos to your own personal brand can be problematic. However, wrapping up your personal brand identity in web browser selection is ridiculous. All of the above is essentially irrelevant nonsense. Meanwhile, back in the land of objective reality... the world has standardized on Chromium for better or worse, and so Brave has a bigger plugin ecosystem and far fewer if any compatibility issues with any website.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
Thank you. My god, WFH and crypto are two topics HN is not good at discussing.
sirsinsalot 4y ago
It does make me sad what became of Mozilla

insanitybit 4y ago

I'm extremely critical of cryptocurrency, but what Brave is doing makes sense. Blockchain is useful for situations where you need proof of work with untrusted clients. Firefox's entire revenue model is "get money from Google", how is that not a concern? Ultimately Firefox's money comes from advertising. Brave is trying to find a way to monetize the web that doesn't require user tracking and ads.

SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago

Firefox is not what it once was. It ships with many user-hostile settings enabled by default. For example: telemetry, Pocket integration, sponsored shortcuts on the New Tab page, sponsored suggestions in the search bar. The knobs to turn off each of the 4 things I just listed are found in 4 different places within the UI.

deepstack 4y ago
Kinda make sense, since the founder of Mozilla left and went to start Brave. Makes one wonder how the company is really defined by their founders.
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Yes, Brave is much better. That defaults to Crypto ads, Crypto "sponsored backrounds", Crypto wallet and Brave news.
  - soundnote 4y ago
    Literally all of that is opt-in, except for the sponsored new tab page backgrounds, which are one toggle (and a separate one from having other rotating pretty backgrounds delivered at Brave's expense)
saiya-jin 4y ago
... and once you do it (tbh the only thing I could care about is the telemetry thingie, but need to check details and I never see anything sponsored on new tab ) what are your objections against it?
- SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
  Years ago I could simply tell friends and family to install Firefox. Now I'd have to tell them: install Firefox, then go here and click this, go there and click that, etc.

colordrops 4y ago

How is it a scam?

tomjen3 4y ago

Because many websites don't work well with Firefox engine. Video calls are one example. So I picked the most practical example, which was Brave. Mind you there is nothing scamming about it. I have no use for it (but I do like the idea of being able to give small direct awards to people for great posts), so I just turned it of.

cloutchaser 4y ago

It’s not a scam, it’s a business model being tried by a startup in one of the most competitive and dirty industries ever. Much less scammy than what google and chrome does.

newZWhoDis 4y ago

The cryptophobes here are far more obnoxious than the fanboys ever have been. It’s a browser, not a “crypto scam”

wsername_with_w 4y ago

You comment is a very important reason. Why not use constructive arguments to state your point? Brave has an option to use BAT to pay content creators, and to earn BAT by opting into viewing ads. That's all. I've been using Brave for years, have the option turned off, and never see any of it. Could you explain where the "scam" is? Firefox has become a political organization. I used it since the "Phoenix 0.1" days. Stopped using it when it was taken over by hateful activists.

lake_vincent 4y ago

I am all for a business model that has an opt-in feature that generates revenue. I love Brave, and want to stick around, so I have no moral qualms with them making some money. I personally opt out, but I am grateful for those who use it. Their crypto system itself is quite benign - I tried it, and it required no investment on my part, so I don't understand where the "scam" is you speak of...

slashink 4y ago

I WANT to switch to Firefox but the reality is that the experience is still sometimes rough compared to chrome. It’s the small things that gets me. On Mac, clicking a link when Firefox isn’t open sometimes opens two windows. Sometimes the keyboard shortcuts stops working if you just tab to the app as you have to click on it for keyboard shortcuts to start working etc. I know other browsers plays a lot of tricks to feel snappy but reality is that the tricks works, Firefox can at times “feel” slower doing operations. Chrome has none of these issues and as an effect brave is good. That’s why I’m testing brave. I really tried this time, 9 month of Firefox.

dang 4y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33261988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33261988.