4 ms·

I'm always staying away from Brave because I've been confronted so many times with bait-and-switch tactics that I have the feeling that one day they will move a

I'm always staying away from Brave because I've been confronted so many times with bait-and-switch tactics that I have the feeling that one day they will move away from being good and monetize all the collected data, even though they don't collect data. I'm so skeptical that I'm just now starting to develop a feeling of trust towards DuckDuckGo. In the browser domain, Mozilla is the only company of which I feel that it is genuinely pro-customer. So I give all my stuff to Google and hope that they at least just protect it from hackers, while I am aware that they analyze my data in order to see how they can monetize me better, but at least with anonymity in regards to 3rd parties. I just hope I'm not wrong.

metadat 3y ago
You should check these assumptions, Mozilla has been hard at work enshittifying their entire portfolio. Instead of giving the public features they actually want (the most secure, performant, and predictable web browser), the current CEO has directed the focus towards revenue-generating features. My god, there is so much telemetry in FF now, and it's tricky to hunt down all the about:configs to disable it. Not friendly or privacy conscious at all. Do you really want Mozilla to get pinged with your IP address every time your browser process starts and exits? Yuck! Quick FF enshittification example from 2 months ago: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36351322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36351322 (48 comments) Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36085642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36085642 (220 comments)
- hipsterstal1n 3y ago
  > the current CEO has directed the focus towards revenue-generating features. They literally can't win. One group of vocal users is outraged by how much money Mozilla takes from Google while the other half screams about how Mozilla is trying to gasp gain additional revenue streams that isn't taking money from their biggest competitor. > Do you really want Mozilla to get pinged with your IP address every time your browser process starts and exits? Yuck! No, but I really don't give a shit either. At a certain point, I looked in the mirror and said life is too short to care about stupid shit like that. If I was a spy or a journalist in some state like China or Iran, maybe I would care. But this feels odd to hone in on when any website you go to is collecting all sorts of info of this sort.
  - esperent 3y ago
    > No, but I really don't give a shit either. Nobody's asking you to personally fight for everything. Life truly is too short for that. All we're asking for is your tacit support, or failing even that, your abstinence from the conversation. I don't personally have time to look after stray dogs in my area, for example. But I sure as hell don't come out with "I looked in the mirror and decided I don't give a shit" when I meet someone who does care about that. Not online and not offline. Instead I'll be supportive and tell them how amazing they are for spending their valuable time on this. Even if it's something I don't personally care about at all, or even if I think it's a massive waste of time but I can see it's important to someone else, I'd still never tell them that I don't give a shit. Is it too much to ask you to have the same respect for people who care about important issues like online privacy? If it's not important to you, that's fine! Go be somewhere else instead of interrupting people who do care about this. There's about 500 million other conversations happening on the internet at this very second. Surely one of them is something you actually do care about enough to engage with in a positive way?
  - metadat 3y ago
    The thing is about Mozilla of today is that the leadership isn't committed to the fundamentals -- privacy, security, functionality, and control by the end user. At this point, Brave is a more promising bet than MZ.
- soundnote 3y ago
  I mind Mozilla trying to find alternate revenue sources 0%. It's a good thing: Organizations like Mozilla and Brave SHOULD be making their own money and not be stuck to the Google teat. Mozilla doesn't go about it in as upfront way as Brave does, IME, but stuff like VPN, Pocket and other browser-related services I mind not at all. I have no sympathy to the current political shitfest that Mozilla is as an organization, but as makers of Firefox I feel like Mozilla is in an impossible bind: Their users expect a fairytale of an independent, donation-funded browser that people spontaneously adopt, and go nuts about stuff like the inclusion of Pocket. I know, I used to be one of those people back when Pocket was introduced. But reeing about Mozilla trying to have independent funding by giving people useful services is just strange. It's exactly what they should be doing, and Brave setting up revenue streams like Talk and Search is great. Especially because they operate in the normal money universe for those of us who aren't terribly enthusiastic about crypto.
  - reitanqild 3y ago
    I also think it is great that browsers seek out alternative sources of funding. My problems with Mozilla are: - Misuse of money: the browser team have brought in lots of money over the years (we talk billions) and the foundation is milking it dry. If the income created by the browser had stayed with the browser team they would have had funding for years to come. - Being dishonest: Mozilla has sought donations for Firefox and I think many of us have donated thinking we supported Firefox, while in reality the Firefox team funds itself and the rest of Mozilla and Mozilla isn't even allowed to send money the other way. - Not being up front about what they do: they more or less lied about their relationship with Pocket. I like Pocket, both the product and as a way to bring in income, but whenever it comes up, everyone who was there starts thinking about their lies. - Nerfing the extension API. - Writing "dear community members" in emails begging for money while simultaneously being rude to us in responses to real issues in Bugzilla. Now, if anyone think I use Chrome, think again. I am still optimistically waiting for authorities to wake up and punish Google the same way they punished Microsoft - huge fines and browser ballots - but that does not mean I give Mozilla a free pass ;-)
    - soundnote 3y ago
- _7tgr 3y ago
  https://github.com/brave/web-discovery-project/blob/main/modules/web-discovery-project/sources/README.md https://github.com/brave/web-discovery-project/blob/main/mod... I'm curious to see what you think about this. If you're not okay with Firefox telling Mozilla your IP address every time you connect, does the same go for Brave sending entire pages of your search results to them? This also includes which results you've clicked on.
  - gurgunday 3y ago
    This is opt-in, and a rather hard-to-mistakenly-enable kind of opt-in that I personally think is consistent with their great™ privacy by default stance Brave offers a simple deal: if you believe or have audited their technical claims, you give them fully anonymized snippets of URLs and web pages, and they improve their search index for everyone
guerrilla 3y ago
> I'm always staying away from Brave because I've been confronted so many times with bait-and-switch tactics that I have the feeling that one day they will move away from being good and monetize all the collected data, even though they don't collect data. The thing is that it will always get worse. Every company needs to grow in order to stay alive and eventually quality and your user experience will suffer because of this, but here's the thing: Always choose the upstart competition but just be prepared to jump to the next up-and-comer after that. For me, I found DuckDuckGo getting worse over time (probably not on purpose, just spam) and somehow Brave is better so I'm sticking with that, but as soon as Brave decides to fuck me (and they will!) then I'll be jumping to whoever the new underdog is at that time.

metadat 3y ago

You should check these assumptions, Mozilla has been hard at work enshittifying their entire portfolio. Instead of giving the public features they actually want (the most secure, performant, and predictable web browser), the current CEO has directed the focus towards revenue-generating features. My god, there is so much telemetry in FF now, and it's tricky to hunt down all the about:configs to disable it. Not friendly or privacy conscious at all. Do you really want Mozilla to get pinged with your IP address every time your browser process starts and exits? Yuck! Quick FF enshittification example from 2 months ago: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36351322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36351322 (48 comments) Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36085642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36085642 (220 comments)

hipsterstal1n 3y ago
> the current CEO has directed the focus towards revenue-generating features. They literally can't win. One group of vocal users is outraged by how much money Mozilla takes from Google while the other half screams about how Mozilla is trying to gasp gain additional revenue streams that isn't taking money from their biggest competitor. > Do you really want Mozilla to get pinged with your IP address every time your browser process starts and exits? Yuck! No, but I really don't give a shit either. At a certain point, I looked in the mirror and said life is too short to care about stupid shit like that. If I was a spy or a journalist in some state like China or Iran, maybe I would care. But this feels odd to hone in on when any website you go to is collecting all sorts of info of this sort.
- esperent 3y ago
  > No, but I really don't give a shit either. Nobody's asking you to personally fight for everything. Life truly is too short for that. All we're asking for is your tacit support, or failing even that, your abstinence from the conversation. I don't personally have time to look after stray dogs in my area, for example. But I sure as hell don't come out with "I looked in the mirror and decided I don't give a shit" when I meet someone who does care about that. Not online and not offline. Instead I'll be supportive and tell them how amazing they are for spending their valuable time on this. Even if it's something I don't personally care about at all, or even if I think it's a massive waste of time but I can see it's important to someone else, I'd still never tell them that I don't give a shit. Is it too much to ask you to have the same respect for people who care about important issues like online privacy? If it's not important to you, that's fine! Go be somewhere else instead of interrupting people who do care about this. There's about 500 million other conversations happening on the internet at this very second. Surely one of them is something you actually do care about enough to engage with in a positive way?
- metadat 3y ago
  The thing is about Mozilla of today is that the leadership isn't committed to the fundamentals -- privacy, security, functionality, and control by the end user. At this point, Brave is a more promising bet than MZ.
soundnote 3y ago
I mind Mozilla trying to find alternate revenue sources 0%. It's a good thing: Organizations like Mozilla and Brave SHOULD be making their own money and not be stuck to the Google teat. Mozilla doesn't go about it in as upfront way as Brave does, IME, but stuff like VPN, Pocket and other browser-related services I mind not at all. I have no sympathy to the current political shitfest that Mozilla is as an organization, but as makers of Firefox I feel like Mozilla is in an impossible bind: Their users expect a fairytale of an independent, donation-funded browser that people spontaneously adopt, and go nuts about stuff like the inclusion of Pocket. I know, I used to be one of those people back when Pocket was introduced. But reeing about Mozilla trying to have independent funding by giving people useful services is just strange. It's exactly what they should be doing, and Brave setting up revenue streams like Talk and Search is great. Especially because they operate in the normal money universe for those of us who aren't terribly enthusiastic about crypto.
- reitanqild 3y ago
  I also think it is great that browsers seek out alternative sources of funding. My problems with Mozilla are: - Misuse of money: the browser team have brought in lots of money over the years (we talk billions) and the foundation is milking it dry. If the income created by the browser had stayed with the browser team they would have had funding for years to come. - Being dishonest: Mozilla has sought donations for Firefox and I think many of us have donated thinking we supported Firefox, while in reality the Firefox team funds itself and the rest of Mozilla and Mozilla isn't even allowed to send money the other way. - Not being up front about what they do: they more or less lied about their relationship with Pocket. I like Pocket, both the product and as a way to bring in income, but whenever it comes up, everyone who was there starts thinking about their lies. - Nerfing the extension API. - Writing "dear community members" in emails begging for money while simultaneously being rude to us in responses to real issues in Bugzilla. Now, if anyone think I use Chrome, think again. I am still optimistically waiting for authorities to wake up and punish Google the same way they punished Microsoft - huge fines and browser ballots - but that does not mean I give Mozilla a free pass ;-)
  - soundnote 3y ago
_7tgr 3y ago
https://github.com/brave/web-discovery-project/blob/main/modules/web-discovery-project/sources/README.md https://github.com/brave/web-discovery-project/blob/main/mod... I'm curious to see what you think about this. If you're not okay with Firefox telling Mozilla your IP address every time you connect, does the same go for Brave sending entire pages of your search results to them? This also includes which results you've clicked on.
- gurgunday 3y ago
  This is opt-in, and a rather hard-to-mistakenly-enable kind of opt-in that I personally think is consistent with their great™ privacy by default stance Brave offers a simple deal: if you believe or have audited their technical claims, you give them fully anonymized snippets of URLs and web pages, and they improve their search index for everyone

guerrilla 3y ago

> I'm always staying away from Brave because I've been confronted so many times with bait-and-switch tactics that I have the feeling that one day they will move away from being good and monetize all the collected data, even though they don't collect data. The thing is that it will always get worse. Every company needs to grow in order to stay alive and eventually quality and your user experience will suffer because of this, but here's the thing: Always choose the upstart competition but just be prepared to jump to the next up-and-comer after that. For me, I found DuckDuckGo getting worse over time (probably not on purpose, just spam) and somehow Brave is better so I'm sticking with that, but as soon as Brave decides to fuck me (and they will!) then I'll be jumping to whoever the new underdog is at that time.