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What's up with Lobste.rs blocking the Brave browser?
- iLoveOncall 2y agoThis is nothing new, Brave has basically been a malware since launch. If I remember correctly their first scandal was them injecting their own referral link during signups on cryptocurrency platforms. I just can't understand why some people, especially some people on HackerNews, keep using it. Of you think Google is bad, Brave is the antichrist.
- LeoPanthera 2y agoTheir whole business model of "block ads, and then show our own" is just so gross. I'm shocked anyone was ever happy to support it.
- ein0p 2y agoYou can just block ads and not show any ads at all, the way Internet should be. All the crypto bullshit is trivially disabled. Your other major choices are basically Firefox (which is not to everyone's liking either) and Chrome, in which it'll soon be impossible to block ads at all.
- XxCincinnatusxX 2y agoThey have to make money somehow. They're pretty upfront about the way it works. They just used a different idea than that of Google. You can also opt out of tailored ads. People like it because it's fast with a built-in ad blocker and some like the crypto stuff and the fact you can connect to Tor with it
- talldayo 2y agoIt's surprising how much of the educated tech workforce subscribes to the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic. Software has come such a long way to reach the point where you don't need to buy a compiler or textbook on learning C to be a developer. It's entirely lost on a generation of people that feel like the internet can be "fixed" with microtransactions and "healthy" advertisements. Brave itself is such a maelstrom of offensive ideas that I really am really surprised they didn't get sued into the ground after the Tom Scott incident. The people that still use Brave better know how to set their useragent - this sort of blocking won't go away anytime soon.
- cykros 2y agoMost judges aren't really all that interested in hearing cases because someone was offended. Usually there need to be damages, or laws broken. Turns out the world isn't bsky.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jsheard 2y ago> If I remember correctly their first scandal was them injecting their own referral link during signups on cryptocurrency platforms. Before that they were soliciting crypto donations on behalf of creators without their knowledge or consent. https://web.archive.org/web/20181224011529/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160979388518407 https://web.archive.org/web/20181224011529/https://twitter.c...
- RodgerTheGreat 2y agoAnd as insult to injury, since it's based on the Chromium codebase, using Brave still supports Chrome's creep toward total browser monoculture, much like Edge.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- immibis 2y agoMaybe they don't think injecting referral links is bad behaviour. It doesn't hurt anyone's experience, and often gives a financial bonus to both parties in exchange for creating a database record that doesn't tell anyone anything they didn't already know from the User-Agent string or fingerprinting. "The content you see on a site may not be the content being sent" is a low-effort excuse, too: plenty of users don't want to see plenty of things that site owners want them to see, and use browsers that display what they want to see.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoYikes. Thank god Eich never got a chance to poison Firefox with this.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gpvos 2y agoWhy would you think he'd do that? That is a rather strong insinuation.
- sumeno 2y agoHe did it with Brave, why wouldn't he have done it with Firefox if given the chance? Acting like it's a weird logical jump that someone who did something bad would have also done the same bad thing if circumstances were slightly different is bizarre
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoEich founded Brave, which is doing this.
- gpvos 2y agoAh thanks, missed that.
- chasil 2y agoAs I understand it, Brave added a "donate to lobste.rs" link when viewed in their browser, and then kept all the money. If you are using Brave, confirm any donation (and maybe anything else involving money) in another browser.
- BrendanEich 2y ago"As I understand it" is not true, but I'm curious whether you heard it from a Lobste.rs principal, or just some echo chamber spinning stories against us. All the tokens in that late 2018 came from our user growth pool — we never misappropriate any user-bought BAT.
- unsnap_biceps 2y agoJust to be clear, are you saying that 100% of every BAT token that was pooled for a site has been distributed to the intended site? Or are you saying that only 100% of every BAT token that was purchased directly by an end user has been distributed to the intended site? Is there a page somewhere with the information on the tokens for each site and their payouts status?
- BrendanEich 2y agoAt that time we had no way for users to buy BAT they sent — it was all from our grant pool. In any event, a creator might not sign or could fail to collect, so those grants came back to us after a 90 day timeout if I recall correctly.
- BrendanEich 2y ago> Is there a page https://bravebat.info/ https://bravebat.info/
- mary-ext 2y agoThe only browsers with actually good adblocking on Android are Firefox (uBlock) and Brave (on par with uBlock.) Firefox is plain unusable on Android if you don't use an upper-range device. Nothing else comes close, either they're out of date (Kiwi) or they're using Chrome's built-in ad blocking support (Vivaldi). Microsoft Edge has eyeo's native ABP port but there's no customizability.
- JeDaYoshi 2y ago> Firefox is plain unusable on Android if you don't use an upper-range device. Interesting one - I generally found it to be the other way for me. Chrome was sluggish on my older phone, but Firefox was faster.
- rstuart4133 2y agoI'd say just plain wrong. My preferred browser on Android is Firefox, but I use Chrome too. It's a three year old $300 phone. Firefox runs much faster Chrome, but I suspect that's only because it has ad blockers.
- mary-ext 2y agothat's never been my experience. my Snapdragon 662 phone has never been able to juggle more than one tabs on Firefox without it OOM'ing, while I could on Chromium-based browsers.
- rcxdude 2y agoI mean, the core thing they do has pissed people off: they're yet another attempt at an alternate monetization strategy for the web, but their approach do doing so is to basically forcibly insert themselves into the existing ways that websites and creators get paid, while not telling the users that the money they're collecting on their behalf might not actually be going to that site/creator (because the site isn't actually interested in having a business relationship with Brave, or they are but are still unable to get the money out)
- anacrolix 2y agoI wondered why it stopped working for me
- cr3ative 2y ago[flagged]
- klipt 2y agoIs there a better browser that fits the use case of playing audio from say, YouTube, without requiring the app to be in the foreground? Chrome won't do that.
- jansommer 2y agoFirefox, also on Android, is what you want for this.
- boomboomsubban 2y agoAssuming you're on Android, NewPipe.
- cykros 2y agoYandex Browser. Has full extension support on mobile too, which Brave does not.
- chasil 2y agoThe actual text that all Brave users are seeing when they visit Lobste.rs is: Blocking a cryptocurrency scam where the Brave browser pretended to be fundraising on behalf of a site without that site's knowledge or consent, then lied about funds being held in escrow and kept them for itself. For details: https://lobste.rs/c/bwbssx https://lobste.rs/c/bwbssx https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 and https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/issues/761 https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/issues/761 Edit: repeated below comment. As I understand it, Brave added a "donate to lobste.rs" link when viewed in their browser, and then kept all the money. If you are using Brave, confirm any donation (and maybe anything else involving money) in another browser.
- dannyobrien 2y agoIt does this under some conditions (I haven't worked out which), but mostly it seems to give a "This site can’t be reached The webpage at https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address. ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE" message. Which is probably a bug if pushcx wants to convey why they are blocking the browser (the issues are closed, so hard to let them know this)
- mcint 2y agoI've only see the ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE in all my attempts.
- mcint 2y agoChecking in incognito set me right. That message didn't go up for quite some days.
- madkangas 2y agoAgreed. That is the only message I've seen on Brave mobile (Android), which I'm using to post this. I use Brave for privacy. I have all crypto BS disabled. I previously assumed that a TLS cert change on lobster.rs was at fault. Wasn't aware that any message was intended for me! I'm glad to learn of it! PS: I now see that Chromium is at fault for hiding the message. :(
- fishgoesblub 2y agoAs a visitor, if a website I browse decides to block the browser of my choosing, I'd be more inclined to stop using the hostile website than change my browser of choice. that, or faking my UserAgent.
- tapirl 2y agoAre there any other choices? :D
- technofiend 2y agoLobster's barrier to entry is high enough (shades of gmail invitations) that in my humble opinion most people will choose the site over the browser.
- christophilus 2y agoWhat? Why is that?
- technofiend 2y agoLobsters is invitation only: you have to find someone willing to sponsor you and your sponsor's reputation is tied to yours. In fact, the entire tree of sponsors is public. So people aren't just going to sponsor a stranger, and ostensibly people who use the site are well-behaved due to potential reputational impacts to both themselves and their sponsor if they misbehave. In my humble opinion someone who went through all the trouble to get access and maintain it is far more likely to switch browsers to stay on the site. Then again I'm just guessing because I don't have access to lobsters myself! Perhaps it's just projection on my part.
- Gud 2y agoAnd to be clear, “misbehave” also means having a dissenting, unpopular opinion.
- SansGuidon 2y ago
- anonymousDan 2y agoI love brave. By far the best browsing experience. Gets rid of so much garbage adware.
- itake 2y agoBrave replaces their adware with their own adware..
- mistrial9 2y agoreading with Brave now, seeing no adware
- sumeno 2y agoIt's not always the adware that you see that is the problem. They've hidden it in the past and there's no reason to think they won't again in the future if they aren't already
- BrendanEich 2y agoWe didn't hide "adware", probably you are thinking of this: https://brave.com/blog/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/ https://brave.com/blog/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/ We made $0 off it, it was a blunder, we fixed it right away. But if you mean something else, please let me know.
- sumeno 2y agoOff the top of my head there's that, collecting money for others and keeping it, and replacing ads with your own. All of which are adware/malware behavior. How many "oopsies" do you think people are going to overlook before realizing you are just a scam artist?
- mistrial9 2y agoI completely disagree with the slant on this summary. The ad business with The Google shaped American business and then quite a lot of the entire Internet. A company is formed to build something different, in that economic context. I turned off my ad options in Brave as soon as I learned how. I do not participate in their ad market. Yet I find Brave a great browser for multiple reasons. Am I filled with angst and retaliatory drive because Brave tried to start an ad ecosystem ? Maybe for a minute, but compared to the winners in that space, and their almost uncountable monetary fortunes.. no. There is a business layer to society. Personal characterizations of "scam artist" pale compared to the bigger scam artists, who wear suits and have expensive attorneys. Perfect is in short supply. Let Brave Browser compete and make some people annoyed because of ads. Let me turn off my ad options and use their reliable browser.
- bravoetch 2y agoAre they able to stay in business because they enriched themselves on early BAT token shitcoinery? Yes, yes they are.
- TiredOfLife 2y agoIf an elite closed community wants to ban a browser, who cares.
- cykros 2y agos/elite/elitist/
- mcint 2y agoThanks for posting this! I was bitten by this since last weekend and I didn't think to share here.
- mcint 2y agopushcx undermines his case by mixing more and less legitimate reasons. It's hard building a browser to be accepted widely. Though Brave also does incredible research in security and privacy --- and actually deploys it to millions of clients. The 5-8 settings toggles to turn off sponsored features are a small price. Inserting their own referral codes into links was a bit far -- though with 1) explicit notification, and 2) a setting to disable it, I would find it perfectly unobjectionable. Some of the complaints are legitimate, that brave team discusses quite clearly in GitHub issues how to bypass blocks, though in many cases this amounts to the same as bypassing paywall or registration blocks with extensions, something I presume is so standard among hn and lobsters readership alike, that its absence would be remarkable.
- BrendanEich 2y agoNo referral codes ever injected into links, which mean those blue or purple text things you click on pages. The bug affected typed-in binance.us and finance.com only, we made nothing off it, and we fixed it right away: https://brave.com/blog/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/ https://brave.com/blog/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/ Anyway, thanks for your comment.
- BrendanEich 2y ago* binance.com I hate soellcorrkt
- chomp 2y agoI mean, it’s a scammy browser, so I don’t think there’s much news worthy here