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It's always surprising to me when I hear people using the brave browser... It's by a company that initially tried to replace their blocked ads with their own "s

It's always surprising to me when I hear people using the brave browser... It's by a company that initially tried to replace their blocked ads with their own "safe and non-intrusive" ads as far as I remember, until they backpaddled because of the outrage. It's also a for-profit company and you're not the customer, as you're not paying them money. I'd be way more worried how they're using the data they're collecting on you vs Google or MS

siquick 3y ago
There are multiple ways you can pay Brave. https://brave.com/firewall-vpn/ https://brave.com/firewall-vpn/ https://account.brave.com/?intent=checkout&product=search https://account.brave.com/?intent=checkout&product=search https://brave.com/search/api/ https://brave.com/search/api/
nicce 3y ago
People still like to defend Brave when it gets caught on shady things over and over again. I guess there are no too many other options. For some people it is already too difficult to install uBlock or know its existence.
- lalaland1125 3y ago
  It's because a lot of people are bought into BAT (Brave's cryptocurrency) and have a strong financial incentive to shill Brave.
  - DaSHacka 3y ago
    BAT gives like no money, especially after the crypto crash. Its far more likely its just the browser wars of old, but with even less options to choose from people are going to be more adamant their choice is the best.
  - boondoggle16 3y ago
    I do not use BAT or any crypto. Brave just works, and it blocks ads automatically when I tell friends to install it on their computers. I used to recommend Firefox, but Mozilla has totally jumped the shark (privacy violations [multiple], wastes too much money, blocks APIs that are useful with no real security risks while approving APIs with little use that do have security risks, etc, very user hostile). Chromium is obviously not trustworthy at this point, let alone Chrome. So that leaves like, Safari and Opera? Brendan Eich is the CEO of Brave, and I trust him. Mozilla was good until he was ousted for political reasons.
    - nicce 3y ago
      > Chromium is obviously not trustworthy at this point, let alone Chrome. So that leaves like, Safari and Opera Brave is like 99% of Chromium + uBlock…
      - boondoggle16 3y ago
        Right, I should have said "the main Chromium branch is obviously not trustworthy". It is possible to remove the untrustworthy bits, however, and there are a variety of de-googled Chromium builds. Chromium is a great browser, unfortunately the official branch has been poisoned by Google.
  - tokai 3y ago
    Ah that makes sense why brave fans post a bit like cryptobros.
2Gkashmiri 3y ago
We have these cropping up like ants. Mullvad Brave Opera Vivaldi Microsoft Heck zoho is in on a browser now What net gain does each of these companies provide over skinning chromium that isn't in Firefox? Last time I asked brave fanboys why they don't redskin Firefox and the response was "Firefox is pita to build" all the while we have projects like palemoon and waterfox that are hobby projects. If they can work with firefox, so could someone else but no
- ArclightMat 3y ago
  Mullvad is actually a Firefox fork and it directly uses Tor's privacy enhancements[0] to Firefox for a private web browsing experience. As a matter of fact, it really looks like Tor Browser but with a VPN baked in instead of Tor. [0] https://mullvad.net/en/browser https://mullvad.net/en/browser
- wallmountedtv 3y ago
  Uh. "cropping up like ants" is definitely a take. Not a good one, as most the browsers here had their first release date of 199*. I will list them out. Mullvad, is the Tor Browser with the Mullvad VPN included, and released 2023. However, the Tor Browser, which it effectively is, is from 2002. Brave, the one in this article, is from 2019. Opera is from 1994. Vivaldi is from 2015, and is developed by Opera's previous dev-team after a bad sale to a Chinese company. Microsoft's first browser, Internet Explorer, is from 1995. I can not comment about Zoho's browser, as i know little about it.
- throwawayadvsec 3y ago
  opera offers a free vpn and builtin adblocker i would use it daily if the UI/UX was better, or more similar to firefox
  - Timber-6539 3y ago
    If am not wrong, Opera is owned by some Chinese company and they are known for doing some really shady stuff [0][1] in African countries. [0] https://blogs.opera.com/africa/2022/05/free-data-with-opera-and-mtn-in-south-africa/ https://blogs.opera.com/africa/2022/05/free-data-with-opera-... [1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/21/opera-predatory-loans/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/21/opera-predatory-loa...
cempaka 3y ago
> I'd be way more worried how they're using the data they're collecting on you vs Google or MS Why? They don't even have access to my emails and texts like those other companies do. I also don't see the names of their top executives and founders showing up in articles about connections to Jeffrey Epstein every few months.
rglullis 3y ago
You are a victim of the Mandella effect. There never was anything related to replacing ads in-page, yet if you ask all detractors what they don't like about it, that's the first point they bring up.
- impissedoff1 3y ago
  I think some initial news articles claimed this and everyone went with it. Which is basically how it worked, replacing ads, but in a different way, and actually more annoying.. block everyone else's ads...and have their own little popup ads, and if you enabled that, you'd get paid in BAT tokens per view too.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  As a detractor and therefore a part of the set "all detractors", I do not believe this. I just don't buy their shady marketing and try not to support engine monoculture.
- lalaland1125 3y ago
  They don't replace ads in-page, but they do something very very similar. They block the in-page ads and instead provide their own ads through popup notifications. So they are replacing advertisements on websites.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    Every time this comes up, the argument is the same. People always forget: - The ad blocker works separately from their own ad service. - Their own ads are opt-in. - People receive 70% of the revenue from the ads they see. - The ads from Brave do not track you and whatever personalisation happens in-device, no data is mined. So, no. They are not "replacing" anything. They are not stealing anyone's revenue (and no matter how much Linus from LTT argues, he is not entitled to any revenue just because I watched any of his videos) and Brave's own ads are from deals that they closed themselves and a essentially fraud-proof compared with whatever payouts are given by largest ad networks. In other words, they are just offering something that happens to be infinitely more user-focused than the status quo. Every attempt at framing this as unethical came from an uninformed or biased source.

siquick 3y ago

There are multiple ways you can pay Brave. https://brave.com/firewall-vpn/ https://brave.com/firewall-vpn/ https://account.brave.com/?intent=checkout&product=search https://account.brave.com/?intent=checkout&product=search https://brave.com/search/api/ https://brave.com/search/api/

nicce 3y ago

People still like to defend Brave when it gets caught on shady things over and over again. I guess there are no too many other options. For some people it is already too difficult to install uBlock or know its existence.

lalaland1125 3y ago
It's because a lot of people are bought into BAT (Brave's cryptocurrency) and have a strong financial incentive to shill Brave.
- DaSHacka 3y ago
  BAT gives like no money, especially after the crypto crash. Its far more likely its just the browser wars of old, but with even less options to choose from people are going to be more adamant their choice is the best.
- boondoggle16 3y ago
  I do not use BAT or any crypto. Brave just works, and it blocks ads automatically when I tell friends to install it on their computers. I used to recommend Firefox, but Mozilla has totally jumped the shark (privacy violations [multiple], wastes too much money, blocks APIs that are useful with no real security risks while approving APIs with little use that do have security risks, etc, very user hostile). Chromium is obviously not trustworthy at this point, let alone Chrome. So that leaves like, Safari and Opera? Brendan Eich is the CEO of Brave, and I trust him. Mozilla was good until he was ousted for political reasons.
  - nicce 3y ago
    > Chromium is obviously not trustworthy at this point, let alone Chrome. So that leaves like, Safari and Opera Brave is like 99% of Chromium + uBlock…
    - boondoggle16 3y ago
      Right, I should have said "the main Chromium branch is obviously not trustworthy". It is possible to remove the untrustworthy bits, however, and there are a variety of de-googled Chromium builds. Chromium is a great browser, unfortunately the official branch has been poisoned by Google.
- tokai 3y ago
  Ah that makes sense why brave fans post a bit like cryptobros.

2Gkashmiri 3y ago

We have these cropping up like ants. Mullvad Brave Opera Vivaldi Microsoft Heck zoho is in on a browser now What net gain does each of these companies provide over skinning chromium that isn't in Firefox? Last time I asked brave fanboys why they don't redskin Firefox and the response was "Firefox is pita to build" all the while we have projects like palemoon and waterfox that are hobby projects. If they can work with firefox, so could someone else but no

ArclightMat 3y ago
Mullvad is actually a Firefox fork and it directly uses Tor's privacy enhancements[0] to Firefox for a private web browsing experience. As a matter of fact, it really looks like Tor Browser but with a VPN baked in instead of Tor. [0] https://mullvad.net/en/browser https://mullvad.net/en/browser
wallmountedtv 3y ago
Uh. "cropping up like ants" is definitely a take. Not a good one, as most the browsers here had their first release date of 199*. I will list them out. Mullvad, is the Tor Browser with the Mullvad VPN included, and released 2023. However, the Tor Browser, which it effectively is, is from 2002. Brave, the one in this article, is from 2019. Opera is from 1994. Vivaldi is from 2015, and is developed by Opera's previous dev-team after a bad sale to a Chinese company. Microsoft's first browser, Internet Explorer, is from 1995. I can not comment about Zoho's browser, as i know little about it.
throwawayadvsec 3y ago
opera offers a free vpn and builtin adblocker i would use it daily if the UI/UX was better, or more similar to firefox
- Timber-6539 3y ago
  If am not wrong, Opera is owned by some Chinese company and they are known for doing some really shady stuff [0][1] in African countries. [0] https://blogs.opera.com/africa/2022/05/free-data-with-opera-and-mtn-in-south-africa/ https://blogs.opera.com/africa/2022/05/free-data-with-opera-... [1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/21/opera-predatory-loans/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/21/opera-predatory-loa...

cempaka 3y ago

> I'd be way more worried how they're using the data they're collecting on you vs Google or MS Why? They don't even have access to my emails and texts like those other companies do. I also don't see the names of their top executives and founders showing up in articles about connections to Jeffrey Epstein every few months.

rglullis 3y ago

You are a victim of the Mandella effect. There never was anything related to replacing ads in-page, yet if you ask all detractors what they don't like about it, that's the first point they bring up.

impissedoff1 3y ago
I think some initial news articles claimed this and everyone went with it. Which is basically how it worked, replacing ads, but in a different way, and actually more annoying.. block everyone else's ads...and have their own little popup ads, and if you enabled that, you'd get paid in BAT tokens per view too.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
As a detractor and therefore a part of the set "all detractors", I do not believe this. I just don't buy their shady marketing and try not to support engine monoculture.
lalaland1125 3y ago
They don't replace ads in-page, but they do something very very similar. They block the in-page ads and instead provide their own ads through popup notifications. So they are replacing advertisements on websites.
- rglullis 3y ago
  Every time this comes up, the argument is the same. People always forget: - The ad blocker works separately from their own ad service. - Their own ads are opt-in. - People receive 70% of the revenue from the ads they see. - The ads from Brave do not track you and whatever personalisation happens in-device, no data is mined. So, no. They are not "replacing" anything. They are not stealing anyone's revenue (and no matter how much Linus from LTT argues, he is not entitled to any revenue just because I watched any of his videos) and Brave's own ads are from deals that they closed themselves and a essentially fraud-proof compared with whatever payouts are given by largest ad networks. In other words, they are just offering something that happens to be infinitely more user-focused than the status quo. Every attempt at framing this as unethical came from an uninformed or biased source.