6 ms·

Brave is crapware and always has been. If you actually care about privacy rather than want to pay lip service to some marketing, then there are better options.

by baz00 3y ago

SteeCee 3y ago
Care to share the best options? I'm interested.
- pluc 3y ago
  There's only one that isn't Chrome.
  - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
    Links it is then :oP
    - barbazoo 3y ago
      you mean Lynx?
      - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
        No, links is (was?) ab updated branch of lynx that optionally does images, media loading, and some simple JavaScript. I haven't used it for quite a while, at least a decade.
    - pluc 3y ago
      Honestly, Firefox with all the "privacy" addons I have (NoScript, CookieMaster, uBlock, Decentraleyes, behind a PiHole), the experience I have on the web is probably closer to Lynx than it is to stock Chrome in that it's heavily content-focused.
- baz00 3y ago
  Firefox + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger + not shit ISP.
  - attentive 3y ago
    get yourself DNSCrypt
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > + not shit ISP I dearly wish I had an option for a non-shit ISP. But my only option is Comcast.
    - baz00 3y ago
      My sincerest commiserations.
    - SahAssar 3y ago
      Not-shit-isp can be helped with not-shit-vpn (like mullvad)
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        That doesn't make it a non-shit ISP, though. And, honestly, there isn't a commercial VPN provider that I trust at all. Most of them are extremely questionable. I'm certain some aren't, and perhaps Mullvad is one of those, but it's impossible for me to know one way or another so I avoid them all.
        SahAssar 3y ago
        For privacy I trust mullvad more than my ISP and I think they have the track record to back it up. If your ISP is shit in other ways then a VPN does not help of course. All a VPN does is either move a bit of trust to the VPN or move your apparent IP to another ASN/location. The first of those can be helpful for dealing with some ISPs,
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  On KDE, “Falkon”. On GNOME, “Web”. On Macs, Safari. On all platforms, Firefox. Firefox is a little disppointing in that it’s still bundled with stuff you probably don’t want, but it’s far far less objectionable than Chrome, Edge, Brave.
  - quietpain 3y ago
    On Macs, Safari Could you inform me how to get uBlock Origin working on Safari? Or any other adblocker that isn’t a joke?
    - tentacleuno 3y ago
      I'm fairly sure AdGuard works fine on Safari, though I have heard its performance is lacking -- shame, as Safari is a great little browser (despite my personal dislike for macOS).
    - haarolean 3y ago
      You might wanna take a look at Orion browser by Kagi. Built on WebKit like Safari, but not open-source (yet, as they say). The interesting part is that it supports addons from both Chrome and FF.
    - LeoPanthera 3y ago
      AdGuard for Safari is free and well respected. (And GPL3, if that floats your boat.) https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardForSafari https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardForSafari 1Blocker is also well respected, but not free. If uBlock Origin is a hard requirement, Firefox is available for the Mac.
- Isthatablackgsd 3y ago
  Non-Chromium: Firefox Chromium: Vivaldi
  - SahAssar 3y ago
    Vivaldi is pretty much closed source, no?
    - Isthatablackgsd 3y ago
      It seems to be half and half. https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/privacy/is-vivaldi-open-source/ https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/privacy/is-vivaldi-open-sou...
- subjectsigma 3y ago
  Yeah I really don’t know what to use anymore: FF installs plugins without your consent. Brave installs software which can circumvent security controls without your consent. Safari has no plugins and is Mac/iOS-only. Chrome is designed to be as privacy invasive as humanly possible. I think Edge is right behind it and has the added insult of looking like a Fischer-Price toy. Arc, Vivaldi, Orion, and Opera are irrelevant jokes. I wouldn’t trust Pale Moon, Waterfox, Ungoogled Chromuim, etc. because I still remember Iron Browser. I can’t use Google Meet on Lynx. Even if I could use Google Meet on Surf, I wouldn’t want to because the authors are Neo-Nazi trash. And Ladybird isn’t anywhere near done yet! What browser am I supposed to use??
  - ozyschmozy 3y ago
    > FF installs plugins without your consent. Brave installs software which can circumvent security Controls without your consent. I've never heard about this, can you elaborate? Are you talking about the Pocket stuff that comes built-in?
    - subjectsigma 3y ago
      https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-looking-glass/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-l...
      - ozyschmozy 3y ago
        TIL, thanks. What an odd thing to do. Seems well intentioned though at least
  - freediver 3y ago
    I wonder why you call Orion irrelevant joke?
    - subjectsigma 3y ago
      I tried it and it didn’t seem to provide any features not present in other browsers outside of the significant extension support, which isn’t really relevant for me (I rely heavily on like three FF extensions, if you have those I don’t really need Chrome extensions on top). It didn’t seem noticeably faster or more performant. It has no market share, which almost always means worse support overall. I don’t know of any security audits performed and I have no experience with Kagi so I don’t know if they are trustworthy. Another comment pointed out since the browser is in beta, this might be premature judgement. That’s a good point.
filterfiber 3y ago
> If you actually care about privacy rather than want to pay lip service to some marketing, I disagree that it's lip service Brave has a ton of engine level privacy patches https://github.com/brave/brave-core/tree/master/patches https://github.com/brave/brave-core/tree/master/patches To my understanding you can't match it with just js extensions. Only firefox on the highest security mode comes close I think? Or ungoogled chromium? (brave has most of their patches IIRC) Are there other options that have this number of patches? I'm not saying I like the company but I think it's incorrect to say they don't do anything for privacy. EDIT: better link - https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Fingerprinting-Protections https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Fingerprinting-P...
- SahAssar 3y ago
  Number of patches seems like a very bad metric. Especially since many of braves patches are not about security or privacy, but rather implementing their custom stuff on top of it. I clicked around that github folder and of around 15-ish patches I looked at it seemed like at least 13 were UI-customization and not privacy-focused.
- 416abc 3y ago
  Brave has also stolen lots of patches and merged them into their codebase against the respective license(s) of the developers who found and patched the gapping security issues. I remember quite the slap fight in the Github issues section.
  - attentive 3y ago
    From whom? Chromium is bsd-3 license.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Wouldn't that open Brave to legal consequences if the author's chose to pursue them? Also surprising to hear Eich playing fast and loose with licensing since Firefox benefited so much from Netscape's open sourcing itself.
  - 3y ago

Brave is crapware and always has been. If you actually care about privacy rather than want to pay lip service to some marketing, then there are better options.

by baz00 3y ago

Brave is crapware and always has been. If you actually care about privacy rather than want to pay lip service to some marketing, then there are better options.

SteeCee 3y ago

Care to share the best options? I'm interested.

pluc 3y ago
There's only one that isn't Chrome.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  Links it is then :oP
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    you mean Lynx?
    - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
      No, links is (was?) ab updated branch of lynx that optionally does images, media loading, and some simple JavaScript. I haven't used it for quite a while, at least a decade.
  - pluc 3y ago
    Honestly, Firefox with all the "privacy" addons I have (NoScript, CookieMaster, uBlock, Decentraleyes, behind a PiHole), the experience I have on the web is probably closer to Lynx than it is to stock Chrome in that it's heavily content-focused.
baz00 3y ago
Firefox + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger + not shit ISP.
- attentive 3y ago
  get yourself DNSCrypt
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > + not shit ISP I dearly wish I had an option for a non-shit ISP. But my only option is Comcast.
  - baz00 3y ago
    My sincerest commiserations.
  - SahAssar 3y ago
    Not-shit-isp can be helped with not-shit-vpn (like mullvad)
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      That doesn't make it a non-shit ISP, though. And, honestly, there isn't a commercial VPN provider that I trust at all. Most of them are extremely questionable. I'm certain some aren't, and perhaps Mullvad is one of those, but it's impossible for me to know one way or another so I avoid them all.
      - SahAssar 3y ago
        For privacy I trust mullvad more than my ISP and I think they have the track record to back it up. If your ISP is shit in other ways then a VPN does not help of course. All a VPN does is either move a bit of trust to the VPN or move your apparent IP to another ASN/location. The first of those can be helpful for dealing with some ISPs,
- unethical_ban 3y ago
LeoPanthera 3y ago
On KDE, “Falkon”. On GNOME, “Web”. On Macs, Safari. On all platforms, Firefox. Firefox is a little disppointing in that it’s still bundled with stuff you probably don’t want, but it’s far far less objectionable than Chrome, Edge, Brave.
- quietpain 3y ago
  On Macs, Safari Could you inform me how to get uBlock Origin working on Safari? Or any other adblocker that isn’t a joke?
  - tentacleuno 3y ago
    I'm fairly sure AdGuard works fine on Safari, though I have heard its performance is lacking -- shame, as Safari is a great little browser (despite my personal dislike for macOS).
  - haarolean 3y ago
    You might wanna take a look at Orion browser by Kagi. Built on WebKit like Safari, but not open-source (yet, as they say). The interesting part is that it supports addons from both Chrome and FF.
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    AdGuard for Safari is free and well respected. (And GPL3, if that floats your boat.) https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardForSafari https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardForSafari 1Blocker is also well respected, but not free. If uBlock Origin is a hard requirement, Firefox is available for the Mac.
Isthatablackgsd 3y ago
Non-Chromium: Firefox Chromium: Vivaldi
- SahAssar 3y ago
  Vivaldi is pretty much closed source, no?
  - Isthatablackgsd 3y ago
    It seems to be half and half. https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/privacy/is-vivaldi-open-source/ https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/privacy/is-vivaldi-open-sou...
subjectsigma 3y ago
Yeah I really don’t know what to use anymore: FF installs plugins without your consent. Brave installs software which can circumvent security controls without your consent. Safari has no plugins and is Mac/iOS-only. Chrome is designed to be as privacy invasive as humanly possible. I think Edge is right behind it and has the added insult of looking like a Fischer-Price toy. Arc, Vivaldi, Orion, and Opera are irrelevant jokes. I wouldn’t trust Pale Moon, Waterfox, Ungoogled Chromuim, etc. because I still remember Iron Browser. I can’t use Google Meet on Lynx. Even if I could use Google Meet on Surf, I wouldn’t want to because the authors are Neo-Nazi trash. And Ladybird isn’t anywhere near done yet! What browser am I supposed to use??
- ozyschmozy 3y ago
  > FF installs plugins without your consent. Brave installs software which can circumvent security Controls without your consent. I've never heard about this, can you elaborate? Are you talking about the Pocket stuff that comes built-in?
  - subjectsigma 3y ago
    https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-looking-glass/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-l...
    - ozyschmozy 3y ago
      TIL, thanks. What an odd thing to do. Seems well intentioned though at least
- freediver 3y ago
  I wonder why you call Orion irrelevant joke?
  - subjectsigma 3y ago
    I tried it and it didn’t seem to provide any features not present in other browsers outside of the significant extension support, which isn’t really relevant for me (I rely heavily on like three FF extensions, if you have those I don’t really need Chrome extensions on top). It didn’t seem noticeably faster or more performant. It has no market share, which almost always means worse support overall. I don’t know of any security audits performed and I have no experience with Kagi so I don’t know if they are trustworthy. Another comment pointed out since the browser is in beta, this might be premature judgement. That’s a good point.

filterfiber 3y ago

> If you actually care about privacy rather than want to pay lip service to some marketing, I disagree that it's lip service Brave has a ton of engine level privacy patches https://github.com/brave/brave-core/tree/master/patches https://github.com/brave/brave-core/tree/master/patches To my understanding you can't match it with just js extensions. Only firefox on the highest security mode comes close I think? Or ungoogled chromium? (brave has most of their patches IIRC) Are there other options that have this number of patches? I'm not saying I like the company but I think it's incorrect to say they don't do anything for privacy. EDIT: better link - https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Fingerprinting-Protections https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Fingerprinting-P...

SahAssar 3y ago
Number of patches seems like a very bad metric. Especially since many of braves patches are not about security or privacy, but rather implementing their custom stuff on top of it. I clicked around that github folder and of around 15-ish patches I looked at it seemed like at least 13 were UI-customization and not privacy-focused.
416abc 3y ago
Brave has also stolen lots of patches and merged them into their codebase against the respective license(s) of the developers who found and patched the gapping security issues. I remember quite the slap fight in the Github issues section.
- attentive 3y ago
  From whom? Chromium is bsd-3 license.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Wouldn't that open Brave to legal consequences if the author's chose to pursue them? Also surprising to hear Eich playing fast and loose with licensing since Firefox benefited so much from Netscape's open sourcing itself.
- 3y ago