[HN Gopher] Brave is a fork, not a Chromium reskin
___________________________________________________________________
Brave is a fork, not a Chromium reskin
Author : jacooper
Score : 253 points
Date : 2023-07-27 14:01 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| solarkraft wrote:
| Brave has issues. They may do some bad stuff. But they've doing
| something good here, let's appreciate that.
| baal80spam wrote:
| > We won't be shipping WEI support, just as we disable or
| otherwise nullify lots of other junk that Google puts into
| Chromium.
|
| Most relevant part of the tweet. Go Brave!
| worksonmine wrote:
| I never tried Brave, but they lost all credibility when they
| injected their own affiliate links in Coinbase URLs. I like
| that they use their own index in their search engine, but I
| will never use it, better alternatives exist and my trust is
| easy to lose and almost impossible to regain.
|
| So no, fuck Brave.
| kzhe wrote:
| Am opposed to brave due to their owner's donations, but they are
| a good product so this is good
| pshirshov wrote:
| No tree style tabs is a total no go. Brave and Chrome do not
| support tst.
|
| I don't like BAT crap either.
|
| Re WEI. I'm afraid that many websites will start demanding it.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| Recent versions of Brave apparently have a vertical tab bar, as
| many comments in this thread mention.
| pshirshov wrote:
| Vertical tab bar != tab tree
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Brave and Chrome do not support tst.
|
| I don't know why Google didn't and doesn't prioritize it. I
| might have accidentally switched to chrome years ago if they
| had a TST-style plugin. TST fully recovered (eventually) after
| plugin ragnarok and Firefox's bad and opinionated UI, and can
| be made perfectly nice with CSS. For me it ranks as one of the
| best Japanese things.
|
| TST has 2/3 the number of installs that _translation_ has.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Whatever it is, I don't need to earn crypto while browsing the
| web. I want to like brave, but it jumped the shark a long time
| ago.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| Same. The affiliate link autofill fiasco left a bad taste in my
| mouth.
| Timber-6539 wrote:
| Even though the toggles are hidden deep within the settings,
| you can disable all the crypto nonsense.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Do you mean https://brave.com/wallet/?
|
| > The secure, built-in crypto wallet that supercharges your
| browser for Web3.
|
| It sounds like it's simply a wallet, not that I personally want
| that in a browser at least not yet, not "earning" (do you mean
| mining).
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Nope, I mean https://brave.com/brave-rewards/
|
| I'm talking about getting paid in BAT coin for looking at ads
| they hijack on other peoples websites.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Ugh, ok, yeah, I have no interest in that either.
| xNeil wrote:
| I mean, it's optional. Don't remember what the default
| is, but you can opt out of their ads.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Brave ads and the whole BAT thing are opt _in_. You have
| to explicitly turn that on if you want it.
| mminer237 wrote:
| > I'm talking about getting paid in BAT coin for looking at
| ads they hijack on other peoples websites.
|
| That's not how it works though. Brave blocks ads by
| default, but it doesn't insert ads on any websites. It has
| some separate ads you can enable to get paid, but they are
| either on the browser start page or in system
| notifications.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| > I'm talking about getting paid in BAT coin for looking at
| ads they hijack on other peoples websites.
|
| You know that's not true, right?
|
| Sometimes it worries me that we form opinions from the
| opinions that aren't even ours.
|
| It's opt-in by the way, not opt-out. This isn't Chrome.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| They don't put ads on websites, they do optional system-
| notifications ads and ads on default new tab window. It's
| very unobtrusive, and you can just opt out of claiming your
| rewards or pass them onto the sites you browse.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| It's pretty sad that the only way to ship a usable browser these
| days is by fork...
| andsoitis wrote:
| There hasn't been a new browser rendering engine from scratch
| in something like 20 years. It is just too complex and resource
| intensive to create from nothing.
|
| Even Blink, the rendering engine of Chromium, is a fork of the
| WebCore component of WebKit, which was originally a fork of the
| KHTML and KJS libraries from KDE.
|
| EDIT: TIL about Ladybird, not sure how accurate its rendering
| is.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| This is what they can "achieve" when they apply a significant
| amount of their man power to getting Reddit running lol...
|
| https://awesomekling.github.io/assets/ladybird-proggit.png
|
| It's impressive, but it also shows how hard and everchanging
| this sort of task is. I don't see Youtube or Google Docs as
| always being reliable.
| tredre3 wrote:
| > This is what they can "achieve" when they apply a
| significant amount of their man power to getting Reddit
| running lol...
|
| LibWeb/Ladybird was made by a handful of people working
| part time on it over a couple of years. During that time,
| they managed to implement absolutely everything from image
| decoding to font rendering to javascript parsing and
| execution, all FROM SCRATCH.
|
| Stop trying to twist it as if they applied tons of
| resources and came up short. Before last month they had
| nobody working on it full time.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Ladybird isn't going to be anything more than a decrepit
| toy project and we both know it.
|
| They don't have anywhere near the corporate support real
| browsers do, it's just chasing cars.
|
| They don't have the HR to scale, some day they'll get
| Google Docs to work "hurray we did it, looks like it is
| possible" then they'll try to get Spotify working. Next
| thing you know Google Docs will break again. It's gonna
| be that times 100+ other apps that people use.
|
| You can call me pessimistic, hell even antagonist, I
| don't care. I'm being honest in order to outline how
| unrealistic it's become to write a browser from scratch
| for the modern web.
|
| Andreas or whatever his name will get the apps he wants
| working and maybe some more, but it will NEVER be
| something people can just jump on and expect to use as a
| functional browser. It'll be some Reddit Discord HTML4.5
| viewer.
|
| I'd say if they wanted to make something usable, they'd
| fork WebKit and bolt on SpiderMonkey, QuickJS,
| JerryScript or whatever and build up from there. But they
| care too much about their stupid pride "look what we
| did". And that "roll your own" nonsense isn't attractive
| to corporate adoption unless they're some project like
| OpenBSD that does it with a real purpose, not HN front
| page gratitude. SerenityOS is advertised, not as a
| microkernel, not architecture portability , but as a "90s
| operating system". That is some hipster bs that only
| depicts the Amish rate of development Ladybird will take
| unless they really think about the goal they want to
| achieve. Because right now, they want a usable browser
| and they want it from scratch and I can only see one of
| those happening.
|
| Linux might've initially been "Just for fun" but now they
| clearly mean business
| omeid2 wrote:
| There is always an exception, Ladybird is one.
|
| https://lunduke.substack.com/p/ladybird-a-truly-new-web-brow...
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| "usable browser"
| mcpackieh wrote:
| I think he will succeed. So far the progress trajectory has
| been great and he's getting funding to hire more developers
| to assist.
| [deleted]
| Alifatisk wrote:
| There are only a handful of browser engines available,
| implementing one from scratch is a hard task.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Browsers engines themselves use and fork underlying libraries.
| There is a lot of complexity that exists.
| rizky05 wrote:
| What do you think should be done ?
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| I'm stuck wondering what can be done. We've all seen FAANG
| companies go to court for breaches of users privacy. A
| browser engine monopoly doesn't seem to be something people
| care about. They don't know what an engine is, and can't see
| how one owner would be a problem.
|
| The problem is Google, being such a large company is far to
| powerful to compete with. Not to mention they own a lot of
| the products on the web that other engines need to be
| compatible with to be usable.
|
| What should be done is Google should be broken up so it's no
| longer one company leading this thing but I can't see that.
| soundnote wrote:
| A lot of people don't know what a browser is, or what the
| Internet is, per se. To them the Internet is the Google
| search bar on their phone.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| > To them the Internet is the Google search bar on their
| phone
|
| That's just moving around terms. I think it's widely
| known that almost everyone knows all their devices are in
| some magical way connected to each other.
| berkes wrote:
| People keep saying this, but it lacks a crucial detail. A
| usable _general_ browser is near impossible to build from
| scratch.
|
| A specialized one? Not so. You don't need to fork chromium to
| render some HTML on the screen of a specialised hardware. Nor
| do you need to fork chromium for rendering the "about.html/css"
| in your mobile app. And so on. For some reason people do this
| anyway: good chance your smart fridge is running full chromium
| to show its temp and some images. But it could use a simple
| rendering engine optimized for embedded hardware just fine.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| > A usable general browser is near impossible to build from
| scratch.
|
| Modern browsers support a lot of most definitely _not modern_
| features. I believe it would be feasible to create an
| entirely new browser from scratch if those older features
| were ignored. Take for instance Mozilla 's experimental Servo
| rendering engine and Deno for ECMAScript - these were created
| in mere years with (relatively) small teams. I would be quite
| comfortable using a web browser that supported, say, CSS
| Flexbox and Grid quite well but didn't implement every
| historical way of centering text on a page.
| userbinator wrote:
| Better to ignore the new features since that's where all
| the complexity and churn is, and most sites are fine as
| plain HTML <5 anyway.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| The thing is, HTML5 introduced the 'semantic' elements
| (<nav>, <video> etc.) which let the browser know what it
| is that it's supposed to be displaying. That means that
| an HTML5 page without any CSS or JavaScript could be
| understood by the browser and displayed exactly like a
| native application would be on the platform: the same
| visual style, the same accessibility features, the same
| behaviour for keyboard shortcuts or touch gestures.
|
| With HTML <5 (and excluding XHTML from the discussion)
| the browser has no clue what all those <div> and <table>
| elements are supposed to be, so CSS and JS are necessary
| to reproduce basic things like screenreader flow for all
| but the most basic page layouts.
|
| Ironically, the opportunity for users' browser to apply
| stylesheets on generic, semantically meaningful sites was
| one of the original concepts behind CSS (hence
| 'cascading' in the acronym - the browser takes
| precedence), which is now usually employed to overwrite
| the browsers' defaults!
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Servo is vaporware and Deno is a package manager/framework
| wrapped around Google Chrome's V8
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Good point about Deno, but it's unfair to call Servo
| that. It genuinely is a functioning layout engine,
| although of course Mozilla have mostly incorporated its
| innovations into Gecko and abandoned it as a distinct
| project.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| I didn't realize Servo was only research
| gigel82 wrote:
| I would highly recommend the Ungoogled Chromium fork instead:
| https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium
|
| Entirely volunteer maintained, there is no for-profit entity
| behind it looking to do crypto referrals or ad swapping or
| anything like that.
| yk wrote:
| How is Brave these days?
| soundnote wrote:
| Great, depending on what you want. Native-ish Chrome,
| thoroughly degoogled, independent end to end encrypted sync,
| some nice extra features. Strong privacy features.
|
| If you want tons and tons of customization, it won't be your
| thing. Would recommend Vivaldi.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Great TBH. I use FF, chrome, and brave. They're all good.
| fsflover wrote:
| > I use FF, chrome
|
| Stopped reading right here.
| [deleted]
| johnnymorgan wrote:
| I posted a reply about Brave and got shouted down about it being
| a clone but I was sure it was a fork.
|
| Thank you for the confirmation
|
| I've migrated my desktops to Brave a while ago, it's just mobile
| I've been lazy on..whelp here is the motivation haha
| PufPufPuf wrote:
| Yeah, there are many Chromium forks. Some of them without
| cryptocurrency and NFT crap, too!
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Has Brave made their own "extension store" yet, or are they still
| piggybacking off Google's? This could be the way they set
| themselves apart; neither Google nor Mozilla do a good job of
| vetting extensions in their 'stores', both are packed with all
| manner of spyware. If brave made their own extension store and
| actually vetted extensions like Debian vets packages, they'd have
| a good argument for not being thought of as merely a chrome
| derivative.
| reneberlin wrote:
| The link to the chrome extension store at the bottom of the
| extensions page is called "Find extensions and themes in
| webshop". Webshop is a hyperlink and leads to the official
| google chrome extension marketplace. I always wondered how they
| can call it a webshop and then it isn't even their own. I
| thought google would complain about that, but somehow doesn't.
| TBH i use brave or chromium with adblocker as my main browsers.
|
| On mobile i used Opera mini for years, it had a serverside
| precompression of media and overall was really the fastest
| browser i have ever used to render a webpage. I don't know why
| i ditched it and don't know if it's still the same. Back then i
| just found out they have so many different little Opera
| browsers for mobile, that i was confused a lot by that scheme.
| But the performance of that one with serverside rendering was
| brutal. Of course: a security nightmare.
| topspin wrote:
| > Has Brave made their own "extension store" yet
|
| No. And I believe Brave is missing a huge opportunity here.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| I think if they don't eventually do this, their promise to
| maintain Manifest V2 extension support may become a moot
| point.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Good to hear. I like using Brave as a secondary browser and I
| also use it on phone and tablet as Firefox is slower on Android
| and Brave with aggressive shields blocks ads just as well as
| ublock on Firefox.
|
| Brave even blocks Twitch and Youtube ads for me without addons.
|
| Yes, I did have to spend time turning off the crypto stuff in it.
| But when tweaked it is an excellent browser.
| Given_47 wrote:
| > Yes, I did have to spend time turning off the crypto stuff in
| it. But when tweaked it is an excellent browser.
|
| Yea that's the thing what browser _is_ excellent out of the
| box? FF has telemetry on by default and shoves pocket down ur
| throat. It's just a lame recycled take cuz like urself, no
| Brave supporter refutes the crypto bullshit
| bityard wrote:
| My web browser journey: Netscape -> Mozilla -> Phoenix -> Firefox
| -> Vivaldi
|
| After being pretty happy with Firefox for a very long time,
| eventually I just got tired of them shuffling around the UI for
| no good reason, removing useful features, and doing absolutely
| nothing about letting users be in control of their privacy and
| security as they browse. I have a feeling that all of the
| motivated developers left Mozilla a long time ago and the ones
| that are left now are limping along in maintenance mode and just
| copying whatever Chrome does. Firefox lost its mojo years ago.
|
| Vivaldi is Chrome, of course, but about a million times more
| flexible and it actually comes with a bunch of privacy-preserving
| settings right out of the box. The only thing it lacks is an open
| code base, but the team behind Vivaldi seem to have enough
| respect for their users that it doesn't bother me as much as it
| might otherwise.
| soundnote wrote:
| Vivaldi's configurability is amazing. Definitely recommended if
| you like toggles and checkboxes for damn near everything.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _The only thing it lacks is an open code base, but the team
| behind Vivaldi seem to have enough respect for their users_
|
| If it doesn't have an open codebase, how would you know?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > the ones that are left now are limping along in maintenance
| mode and just copying whatever Chrome does.
|
| I think they're just padding out their resumes for the next
| job. If you aped a part of chrome into firefox, that probably
| gets you a leg up for working at google, or some company that
| has chrome integration.
| AwaAwa wrote:
| I'm depressed at how quickly I mentally agreed that this was
| just good sense on a Mozilla programmers part.
| ncphil wrote:
| Totally personal preference, but not a fan of the Brave UI. At
| least from my perspective they (like Vivaldi and Edge) are trying
| too hard to distinguish themselves from the outward look and feel
| of Chromium. It's their right as a fork, and that of whoever
| finds it works for them. I'm not even bothered by (or much
| notice) the built-in crypto-based gamification. I just wish
| someone would do a minimalist fork of Chromium, maybe with a
| rudimentary sync service.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| I can just configure away the stuff I don't want on Brave? They
| have options for all the stuff, I turned these off/changed:
|
| - Sponsored images
|
| - Cards
|
| - VPN button
|
| - Wallet button
|
| - Set shields to aggressive
|
| - Brave rewards program and button in UI
|
| - Turn off Autoplay
|
| - Turn ON Snowflake
|
| So it looks pretty clean but it is a lot of digging in menus.
| But I would rather have more settings than less.
| scrum-treats wrote:
| It's pretty great. I really like Brave.
| Given_47 wrote:
| Actually did not kno about snowflake yet, so thanks for
| mentioning
| darklycan51 wrote:
| My only real issues with Brave is 1)that when you have too many
| tabs open it starts stacking them elsewhere... and two, when I
| open settings they are terrible and I have to search Password
| manually to find saved passwords, but the way their UI works it
| first loads the password module and when I go to click it it
| loads something else and moves it around, it is annoying.
|
| But the tab thing is the most breaking to me.
| soundnote wrote:
| Chromium has a flag to enable Firefox-style tab scrolling.
| Very useful if you're a chronic tab hoarded like moi.
|
| Brave also has vertical tabs which are scrollable OOTB.
| bragr wrote:
| The gamification is a pretty out of date hot take now. They
| still have that crypto stuff, but they pivoted about a year ago
| to try to sell the built in VPN and get more value out of their
| search engine to raise revenue instead.
| baal80spam wrote:
| The best part is that right click is all it takes to hide the
| VPN and other stuff from the UI. I usually do it first thing
| after I install Brave and never see it again.
| jacooper wrote:
| And their search engine is actually pretty good
| LegitShady wrote:
| Honestly Firefox is way worse than brave in terms of
| intrusive stuff.
|
| When Firefox updates I get full screen ads for their VPN and
| whatnot. Brave has never done anything like that to me. Hide
| the features you don't want once, never see them again.
| Given_47 wrote:
| Yea I found there were a lot more FF config settings to
| disable as well.
|
| These threads always unfold the same way tho. Brave gets
| lambasted by some, the people that enjoy using Brave end up
| being "well actually" guys etc etc.
|
| And I use both Brave and FF in addition to occasional
| librewolf they're all useful
| soundnote wrote:
| You crashed?
|
| https://i.imgur.com/LriOYog.png
| evasb wrote:
| Most Chromium reskins are limited forks, they are always
| dependent on Google decisions and will always comply (Mv3).
|
| Brave and Vivaldi are exactly that, at least they could use
| Ungloogled Chromium codebase instead of repatching things.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| I think Braves tweet just showed how they are not reskins and
| limited fork?
| freedomben wrote:
| If you're going to reject OP's arguments for why they are a
| fork and not a reskin, you at least need to address _some_ of
| their arguments.
| thangngoc89 wrote:
| Initially, I held the opinion that Apple's mandate regarding
| browsers on iOS/iPadOS, wherein they function as mere skins atop
| the Safari web viewer, constituted an anti-competitive measure.
| However, presently, it has emerged as one of the few non-Chromium
| browsers with a substantial user base, necessitating web
| developers to accommodate its requirements. As a fellow web
| developer, I find myself utilizing Safari for personal browsing
| while resorting to Chrome for development purposes due to far
| superior developer tools.
| syncbehind wrote:
| I'm shocked at folks' willingness to use a browser that has a
| history of tampering with a user's URL input (among other
| shenanigans). See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027&p=2 for more.
|
| That's the bare minimum a browser is expected to do. Not touch my
| URLs.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027&p=2 for
| more.
|
| Did you read the comments?
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| A few things:
|
| - It was a URL auto-suggestion bug.
|
| - It was fixed in a day after release.
|
| - The PR is on GitHub, this isn't a closed source browser.
|
| - The bug appeared when Brave was like a few months old.
|
| - The URLs that were being overwritten were only a few crypto
| exchange websites that partnered with Brave. The affiliate URL
| was supposed to be a suggestion but the bug made it overwrite
| the URL.
|
| - The affiliate program was shutdown right after the PR was
| merged.
|
| - Nothing of that sort happened again.
|
| - Even the CEO apologized for an issue that was blown way out
| of proportions.
| halJordan wrote:
| Thats the joke, they changed the browser to harm the user and
| help the business. You and them have the gumption to act like
| wei isnt the same thing they've been shipping.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| [flagged]
| kylec wrote:
| Glad it won't include Google's WEI, but it's not like it doesn't
| have it's own weird junk like BAT, so I guess pick your poison.
| scrum-treats wrote:
| The ignorance so stale. Learn more about Crypto. Learn more
| about BAT, and its integration into Brave. Your argument is so
| 2018. We're in 2023 now. Update your knowledge.
| [deleted]
| mattl wrote:
| This is why I'll keep using Vivaldi. They don't want WEI but
| also don't add stuff like BAT or VPN to the browser.
| garbageoverflow wrote:
| I don't think Vivaldi is open source. But if Brave's features
| are so bad that you're willing to switch to an closed source
| browser, why not switch to Firefox?
| mattl wrote:
| So when I'm using OpenBSD, I use Firefox exclusively. On my
| Mac, I use Safari 99% of the time, but I do have Firefox
| installed and use it for some things, but when I need a
| Chromium-based browser, I use Vivaldi, instead of Chrome or
| Brave.
|
| EDIT: It looks some of Vivaldi's source is available FWIW,
| https://vivaldi.com/source/
| sharps1 wrote:
| The UI is closed source.
|
| https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Vivaldi is even worse for privacy (and it's not even fully
| open source). You're better off just using Chrome.
|
| https://privacytests.org/
| iza wrote:
| These tests just show the default settings. If you enable
| the ad blocker and disable third party cookies it would
| score a lot better.
| smsm42 wrote:
| If you don't use BAT, it doesn't bother you in any way.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| > but it's not like it doesn't have it's own weird junk like
| BAT
|
| Turned off by default.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| You can use Brave and never even enable its crypto wallet. It's
| an opt-in setting iirc.
| gochi wrote:
| Opt in setting doesn't mean much here. While it's technically
| true the crypto stuff isn't "enabled", it's constantly pushed
| to you with no option to remove all of that during
| installation.
|
| I'll walk you through it:
|
| Upon loading the browser on a fresh install, you are greeted
| with a new tab page pushing Brave Rewards. With manipulative
| UX, there is no button to disagree or remove the feature,
| only a button for "start using rewards". You can hide it by
| clicking the 3 dots, which for most users they're never going
| to do unfortunately.
|
| Looking at the address bar, there's a triangle up there with
| a badge. Hiding the new tab Rewards card doesn't hide this
| triangle. Clicking on this does not show a remove feature
| option. Beside that, there's a sidebar button and a wallet
| icon again with a badge. Clicking on this only shows a learn
| more button. I can right click both of these, and finally see
| a hide option.
|
| Finally all of that is hidden. Maybe I browse a page or so,
| and then open a new tab. I'm shown an ad on the new tab
| screen. Right clicking it shows no hide button. So I'll try
| the customize button. Here's where you have to scroll down
| and disable the "show sponsored images" option.
|
| All done, right? Ok let's browse Reddit for a bit. There's
| where you see the "tip" button under every post. Right
| clicking shows nothing about hiding it. So into the settings
| you have to go to finally remove the last bit of the feature
| and be prompted to relaunch the browser.
| Supermancho wrote:
| I've found Brave to be more than tolerable. In relation to
| your annoyance with the customize HTML:
|
| Hamburger menu -> Settings -> Brave Rewards -> Uncheck the
| boxes (Reddit, Github, Twitter)
|
| ---
|
| ...or the baroque but useful to know:
|
| Hamburger menu -> Settings -> Shields -> Content Filtering
| -> Create Custom Filters -> reddit.com## .action-brave-tip
|
| (which you can get to quicker with a right click context
| menu)
| lostmsu wrote:
| > Ok let's browse Reddit for a bit. There's where you see
| the "tip" button under every post.
|
| Wait, that actually sounds like a great feature! Is there a
| way to get it for other browsers?
| halJordan wrote:
| Yeah it'll be built off of web environment integrity the
| same way this is built off of brave's ad ecosystem.
| lelanthran wrote:
| And all of that is still less scummy than Google.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Is it less scummy than firefox? More importantly, is it
| less scummy than continuing to give Google control over
| the internet through the blink browser engine?
|
| The only actual counterbalance to google's power in web
| is the firefox browser and it's basically dead because
| "wah wah they bought pocket wah wah there are two tiles
| on the new tab page that show popular websites wah wah"
| so alright I guess we will just do the whole IE6 debacle
| again this time with less willingness from regulators to
| fix our bullshit.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| The crypto related settings are also literally the only
| settings that don't sync across devices, and you have to
| manually turn it off on every new installation, I wonder
| why that is.
| soundnote wrote:
| I disabled all the nonsense for a new profile just now,
| didn't take much. I know what bits annoy me, though. But
| one pass right clicking annoying UI elements, one pass
| through new tab page's Customize menu, one pass through
| Appearance in settings and you're done.
|
| Leaves you with this:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/LriOYog.png
| doyouevensunbro wrote:
| I don't see any of that. Its all disabled in my Brave
| browser.
| [deleted]
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| I don't recall any of that but it's been a long time since
| I set up Brave. Anytime I install a new browser the first
| thing I do is go through all the settings and configure it,
| so I probably turned all that off on day 1.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| My feeling on the matter that nothing is free and every time
| a team like this spends their resources on some extra bauble,
| they are drifting from the core goal. Like Mozilla.
| yankput wrote:
| I was fan of their IPFS bundling, then I turned it on and it
| keeps chugging CPU and RAM, doing... something.
|
| It seems it's a go app and it's not the best optimised thing in
| the world. So I turned it off again.
|
| I'm still a fan of Brave. The only browser with actual
| integration of vertical tabs besides Edge (no the firefox
| extensions don't count)
| marcellus23 wrote:
| If you're on a Mac, Safari has had virtual tabs for a bit
| now.
| hxii wrote:
| I believe Vivaldi[0] also offers vertical tabs, as does
| Arc[1] (albeit MacOS only at this point).
|
| [0]: https://vivaldi.com/desktop/
|
| [1]: https://arc.net/
| tapoxi wrote:
| Vivaldi is an excellent browser, but it sometimes seems
| like it has too many options. For example, tab groups and
| tab workspaces are almost the exact same idea.
|
| Arc is basically someone looking at Vivaldi and hitting it
| with the "design stick". I didn't anticipate I'd love it as
| much as I do. Since it's Mac-only I only use it on my work
| machine, but that's 80% of my browsing anyway and I have no
| desire to sync my work shit anywhere else.
| themitigating wrote:
| Vertical tabs make so much sense since monitors are wider
| than they are tall. It's better to reduce width than height
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Yes. There is a difference between a browser for
| professionals, and a browser for laptop users.
|
| Tree style tabs has kept me on FF for a decade.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Only if you open full screen. When you tile the window to a
| side it is no longer the case.
|
| YMMV applies.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I know I'll probably get used to it, but I don't like how
| it shifts my content off-center. But I'm one of those weird
| one-maximized-window-at-a-time types.
| ptdn wrote:
| Is this a weird behavior? I've always been this way.
| tetrep wrote:
| I don't know if I'd say it's weird, but I'm not sure I
| get the appeal other than for trying to hyperfocus (and
| with similar downsides that implies, e.g. very expensive
| context switching).
|
| I like the desktop metaphor that computers adopted, and
| one way to use it is to think of different application
| windows as different paper documents on your meatspace
| desktop. You could have a rule that only 1 piece of paper
| is on your desktop at any time, but I find it much easier
| and more efficient to work with, as needed, two or more
| pieces of paper on my desktop. When multiple pieces of
| paper are on my desktop, I can arrange them such that I
| can easily focus on different papers by only moving my
| eyes, or, if the papers are relatively far apart, by
| moving my head and/or the rest of my body a little too.
|
| I personally like the desk organization rule of "1
| project/task per desk", i.e. you clear your desk when
| switching tasks to ensure only relevant things are on
| your desk / within your visual domain. I use computers to
| similar effect with different desktops/workspaces.
| Sujeto wrote:
| Yes I enjoy grasshopper https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/grasshopper-u...
| jszymborski wrote:
| I hate BAT too but comparing it to WEI is a crime.
| pawelduda wrote:
| You can turn these off as I have years ago and haven't seen
| since
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I'm still surprised they did not just fork Firefox. Did they ever
| do a write up as to why they went with a Chromium codebase?
| soundnote wrote:
| They actually started with something like a Gecko-based take on
| Electron, but abandoned it for being too unwieldy. Not sure why
| they didn't use the Firefox codebase more directly, but it is
| apparently more unwieldy to work with than Chromium.
| err4nt wrote:
| For disclosure, for my work I must use the stock version of all
| current browsers so I'm not a fanboy of any one particular
| browser, and I can't really use forks or ad-blockers.
|
| I would bet any money that the reason why they chose Chromium,
| and did not choose Gecko, was performance-related. Blink is
| technologically superior to all the others. And between Blink,
| Webkit, and Gecko: Gecko is the worst-performing choice. I
| imagine if they did not fork Chromium, they would likely have
| forked Webkit instead.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| That's a self-fulfilling issue, though. If no one is using
| Gecko why does Gecko have reason to improve performance. In
| theory one of the reasons to fork a browser is to add more
| eyeballs to its codebase. More eyeballs in theory mean more
| upstream delivered performance patches. If they had good
| performance engineers it wouldn't matter if they picked the
| "worst performing", because they could work to improve it and
| prove they had good performance engineers.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Gecko is harder to work with and slower.
|
| "just fork Firefox" lol
|
| Why did Opera, Microsoft, Vivaldi and Brave all base off
| Chromium if Gecko was so good?
|
| *I do use Firefox
| [deleted]
| Pannoniae wrote:
| On Firefox I can at least disable most of the isolated
| processes. I know it's not too secure but at the same time, I
| enjoy cutting memory usage by 3x, putting an end to the
| endless RAM consumption of my browser. (I have 32GB before
| someone says "just get more RAM" or "why do you use the
| internet with 4GB in 2023". But it still bothers me.)
|
| On Chromium I can't do that.
| croes wrote:
| Because Chrome is the new IE and websites are mostly tested
| against Chromium only.
|
| And MS uses Chromium because Google tampered with YouTube to
| hinder Edge. MS just gave up.
| slig wrote:
| Do you know the founder's history? I'd that guess going with
| Chromium was a big F-you, besides the engine being faster and
| more modern, of course.
| soundnote wrote:
| They did start on Gecko, actually. The initial rendering tech
| was a Gecko-based take on Electron.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| It's a bigger F-you to the browser marketshare keeping
| Chromium at way too much marketshare in the grand scheme of
| things. I have heard of his history, I would have invested in
| making a better Firefox fork had I been him.
| readingnews wrote:
| Huh, well I hate the twitter splash screen now, but at the same
| time, I too fall into the camp of "I do not use it as it is a
| Chrome reskin". Well, I mean, I do not like Chrome.
|
| I wonder if there is a list, not on twitter, about what precisely
| was removed instead of just a twitter blurb. Ops!
| <esc>:%s/twitter/x/g
| madeofpalk wrote:
| The post links to https://github.com/brave/brave-
| browser/wiki/Deviations-from-...
| dave_walko wrote:
| lol, yea, first thing I saw and even after 2 years I am
| impressed. Brave has been my goto on my mac forever it seems.
| I have tried everything but Arc. I want to like safari but
| lack of extensions (that I use) kill it for me.
| navanchauhan wrote:
| Try Orion Browser, it uses the same WebKit engine as Safari
| but lets you install extensions from the Chrome Web Store
| (yes, uBlock Origin works)
|
| Orion also has an iOS version, and afaik they are also
| working on making a Windows version as well
| miki123211 wrote:
| Like all other third-party browsers, Orion has no
| Keychain support, no auto-filling of 2FA codes, no
| support for Hide my Email / Private Relay, and no
| synchronization of Bookmarks/History with Launchbar and
| iCloud. Thanks but no thanks, I like my Safari.
| frizlab wrote:
| As much as I'd _love_ to see a windows version of Orion,
| I'm afraid we're still far from it
| https://orionfeedback.org/d/2895-can-we-pleas-get-this-
| app-o...
| dopidopHN wrote:
| What's wrong with Firefox ?
| troyvit wrote:
| It's too fast (https://treeherder.mozilla.org/perfherder/
| graphs?timerange=3...).
| frizlab wrote:
| Nothing, I just like Orion.
| insanitybit wrote:
| Unless the tweet is adding more context, I'd request the
| github link be used instead. I don't have Twitter and the
| user experience is extremely limited when you aren't logged
| in.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I'd be ok with twitter links if the tweet being linked to
| was also quoted in the description. That would make it
| useful to those of us who don't go to twitter.
| hooverd wrote:
| https://nitter.net/BrendanEich/status/1684561924191842304
| troyvit wrote:
| I can't tell you what was removed, but one recent addition is
| the word "Chrome" in the user agent string.[1]
|
| [1]
| https://explore.whatismybrowser.com/useragents/explore/softw...
| dev_daftly wrote:
| User agent strings are all fake and should just be removed.
| Browsers modify them to game what servers send them,
| Microsoft had a great blog post about it when they released
| edge showing the difference in what it received based on user
| agent string changes.
| dharmab wrote:
| There are good privacy reasons to use a Chrome-like user
| agent: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-
| dev/c/-2JIR...
| mythrwy wrote:
| I use Firefox, Chromium, Google Chrome and occasionally Brave on
| the same machine.
|
| Each has a special purpose. I stay logged into Google on Google
| Chrome and that is for Google auth and personal gmail. I don't
| search for anything outside the norm there.
|
| I develop using Chromium and use it for general purpose browsing,
| logged in to some sites.
|
| And I use Firefox for casual browsing, youtube, and never log in
| to much.
|
| Brave I mostly use on phone, occasionally Chrome.
|
| Is this unusual? I keep seeing people talking about "switching
| browsers" but I haven't seen the need to discard one to take up
| another.
| saurik wrote:
| Brave is, at the end of the day, in the same boat as Google: they
| make money on ads. They also happen to be an ad blocker, so, of
| course, they won't implement WEI... but, as they also themselves
| present ads and need to make sure people don't block their ads
| while claiming to have seen them--which is trivial to do
| currently, btw--their product managers _and even Brendan Eich
| himself_ had often laid out a roadmap that involves trusted
| computing technology with the same ad fraud justification Google
| is using, whether for their SDK or the browser itself.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/bw6sek/
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/b7rwbx/
|
| > 1/ native C++/Rust code, no JS tags on page that have zero
| integrity. That means ability to use SGX/TrustZone to check
| integrity and develop private user score from all sensor inputs
| in the enclave; ...
|
| > We already have to deal w/ fraud. That is inherent in any
| system with users and revenue shares or grants. We do it better
| via C++ and (under way) SGX or TrustZone integrity checking + OS
| sensor APIs, vs today's antifraud scripts that are routinely
| fooled.
|
| > What Brave offers that's far better than today's joke of an
| antifraud system for ads is as follows: 1/ integrity-checked open
| source native code, which cannot be fooled by other JS on page;
| ... (1) requires SGX or ARM equivalent, widespread on mobile.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/9yys6b/
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/97trex/comment/...
|
| > Part of the roadmap (details in update) is a BAT SDK. Obviously
| it would be open source, but more: we would require Secure Remote
| Attestation (Intel SGX broken but ARM TrustZone as used by
| Trustonic may be ok) to prove integrity of the SDK code in app.
| freediver wrote:
| > Brave is, at the end of the day, in the same boat as Google:
| they make money on ads.
|
| And that should be the main distinction between browsers today
| - relience on ads for monetization has profound impact on
| incentives.
|
| There are browsers that are directly (or indirectly) ad-
| supported, and those which are not. The second group is very
| small though - how many browsers you can buy today?
| timeon wrote:
| > how many browsers you can buy today?
|
| Does buying the whole device counts?
| soundnote wrote:
| Safari is ad-funded to the tune of $15 billion.
| soundnote wrote:
| At first I went "not that ma... ooohhh, of course". Bravo,
| sir, you got me. Take your upvote XD
| kzhe wrote:
| I don't get it, what does it mean?
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| I'm really grateful to Brave and Brave search for the
| alternatives they provide. Firefox is still my main browser, but
| Brave is an easy, reliable option when I come across a
| (thankfully increasingly rarer) website that refuses to work on
| Firefox (and happens to be an essential website in some way).
|
| I would use it a lot more if it was better about coping with low
| memory (4 GB) systems. This is possibly something they inherited
| from Chromium, but Brave is very memory hungry compared to
| Firefox, and is much quicker to slow down when there's 10+ tabs -
| Firefox on the same computer is able to cope much more easily
| with multiples of that. It's like using an old school Windows
| system, Brave has to be restarted periodically or it slows down
| dramatically, and starts responding erratically to UI
| interactions. I can have multiple Firefox profiles open, and a
| Librefox instance on the side too, and they all work fine; as
| soon as Brave is open, there's a tangible difference in the
| performance, of both the browser itself and the system as a
| whole.
| WascallyWallaby wrote:
| [flagged]
| pcdoodle wrote:
| Brave is fantastic.
|
| Good on battery laptop too, there's a cool little feature to
| disable fancy stuff like smooth scrolling / fluid motion on
| battery or even a certain battery percentage.
| insanitybit wrote:
| Brave is really the browser to bet on and I wish people would
| give them more credit. Brave's position is that the web is broken
| - advertising is bad for the web as a single form of
| monetization. I really agree with that. They then ask the
| important question "so how do we envision the future of
| monetization?" and I guess that rubs people the wrong way but...
| it's a critical question, we can't just say "sorry, websites
| can't fund themselves", we need an alternative.
|
| I am about as anti-blockchain as they come, but the reality is
| that blockchain has one very specific use case - hostile,
| unauthenticated users, who need to prove that work has been done.
| That's the model of a website serving customers - you have no
| idea who they are, they could be trying to lie to you, etc. It's
| at least _not a bad fit_ for the technology.
|
| At minimum they're trying something new and I think that's
| extremely worthwhile - it's not like their coin is their only
| asset, they are trying to actually sell value to customers. I
| believe Brave is far more mission aligned and practical than
| Mozilla is. They've already done a far better job around things
| like their VPN, TOR mode, etc.
| tucnak wrote:
| No idea why this is getting downvoted, Firefox users care to
| explain?
| pessimizer wrote:
| How can you have no idea and assume it's Firefox users at the
| same time? Is that the joke?
| tucnak wrote:
| Welcome to the Internet!
| troyvit wrote:
| I disagree that Brave is the browser to bet on but also wonder
| why you're being downvoted. Mozilla is selling ad tiles, Brave
| is trying a different model. All these players need to
| diversify their income streams if they can hope to compete with
| Alphabet.
| elforce002 wrote:
| 100% agreed. I've been using it since 2021 and I can't
| complain. I switched to their search too and the experience is
| ok too. Shebangs and their integration with stackoverflow is
| getting better.
| schnable wrote:
| I felt this way until I switched to Arc which completely
| changed how I work, for the better.
| chomp wrote:
| "browser to bet on" is a broken way of looking at the web, and
| puts us right back where we are now. We need browser diversity,
| not a single point of failure. Brave, Mozilla, Safari, and the
| other non-Chromium based browsers are all fine picks in our
| current situation.
| insanitybit wrote:
| I think Brave has the best opportunity to compete against
| Chrome, which turns the world from a 'one browser monopoly'
| to at least a world with two browsers. That is not "right
| back where we are now" at all.
|
| I don't really care at all about webkit or v8 being used
| everywhere nearly as much as I care about web standards and
| an organization having the power to push back or contribute
| to them. I don't think the benefits of having competing JS
| engines really warrant much effort relative to what I'm
| advocating for.
| manchmalscott wrote:
| As long as it uses blink, it's harmful to the open web.
| npteljes wrote:
| Technically they are a fork, and I believe that they have some
| manpower to sustain it for a time. I don't believe that they
| have, or will ever have, the manpower or the know-how to for
| example rewrite critical parts of it. And so, they completely
| depend on Google open-sourcing the Chromium project. Should that
| project be abandoned AND the internet diverge from the current
| standards, they and other Chromium based projects would struggle
| to keep up, if even.
|
| So yes, the Brave project is much more than a reskin, or rebrand.
| They put way too much effort in for that. But the intent of the
| communication, that Brave absolutely depends on Google, is valid
| nevertheless.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| I switched to Brave last year after 22 years of
| Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox.
|
| This was purely for Chromium performance reasons (although it
| seems Firefox has made some major improvements recently). I
| didn't like leaving behind a unique browser engine, which needs
| to remain a significant player.
|
| I don't understand a lot of the hate for Brave. If you don't like
| the crypto integration, the ads, etc you can just disable them. I
| feel the original intent, to be able to contribute directly back
| to page authors, was a noble one. It may not have played out as
| intended, but it wasn't a scam.
|
| One year in, I've had no issues I can think of. And now they have
| their own search engine, another net plus to the ecosystem.
| Outside of things like Tor Browser, the privacy is about as good
| as you're going to get from a client. In fact, you can open a new
| window using Tor directly in the browser. I don't use their VPN
| but that's available also (Mullvad?).
|
| I spend enough daily time in it that I would notice UI/UX/perf.
| problems ... I really haven't seen any.
|
| YMMV
| soundnote wrote:
| A lot of people are leery about crypto and have read a FUD
| article or two about the browser and put it in the hate bucket.
| Next to none of the common complaints are modern missteps. One
| of the most common complaints was a bug that got fixed within a
| day of being reported, in a feature that Firefox is doing TODAY
| yet people aren't demanding Firefox devs' heads on a plate.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >read a FUD article
|
| Really? It's FUD that the Brave browser and team worked with
| and on a crypto project to integrate crypto into the browser?
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I don't understand a lot of the hate for Brave.
|
| I certainly don't hate Brave. I use it. I also don't like
| Brave, I put up with it. It's just that there aren't any great
| browsers out there, and Brave sucks less than most.
| meesles wrote:
| I agree with you, but it sometimes feels like a 'great
| browser' is supposed to be free, bleeding-edge while also
| backwards compatible, tracking-free, ad-free, and somehow
| altruistic and for the good of the open web.
|
| Where are we getting these absolutely unattainable ideals
| from? Who can possibly support and fund such a project
| besides an enterprise?
| jollyllama wrote:
| Can I get a decent bookmark manager and more than X months
| of history? What's so unattainable about that?
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| You should check out History Trends Unlimited! I also
| wanted an unlimited history and since no browser supports
| it, someone made an extension. It even automatically
| backs up your history for you in a neat litte zip file!
| markstos wrote:
| I like Pinboard as a bookmark manager. Browser and
| platform independent!
| mattl wrote:
| Raindrop.io seems to be better these days, plus Pinboard
| posts stuff like this...
| https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1628462667559239680
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Who can possibly support and fund such a project besides
| an enterprise?
|
| KHTML was doing fine before Microsoft, Google and Apple
| forked their codebase.
| markstos wrote:
| The definition of "what is a browser" was much simpler
| then.
| superhumanuser wrote:
| What don't you like about it?
| guestbest wrote:
| Personally, I don't like the inability to turn off the
| update mechanism, which is annoying on my macos 10.13
| computer that has a warning bar every time I run the brave
| browser application. I suppose this means there is
| telemetry built in that can't be removed
| JohnFen wrote:
| Yeah, that's actually been irritating me a lot lately.
| Brave has taken to constantly nagging me about not being
| able to update itself. I know! That's on purpose! Stop
| bugging me.
| bsdetector wrote:
| The text input spelling checker is really terrible; late
| 80s spell checks were better.
|
| Forgot which, but had a 12 letter word that I misspelled
| _one_ letter of, Brave underlined it in red with no
| replacements in right-click menu, I fixed it by googling
| the spelling and underline went away.
|
| In often happens that it has no or even very wrong
| suggestions.
| JohnFen wrote:
| The UI, mostly. But the point isn't that I'm not in love
| with Brave. The point is that I use it because it's the
| least bad option, and I wish there were an option that I
| would actively like.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| >I don't understand a lot of the hate for Brave. If you don't
| like the crypto integration, the ads, etc...
|
| ...and the redirection of the URLs of other cryptocurrency
| exchange websites...and the time it inserted affiliate referral
| codes when users navigate to Binance. Yes, you can turn off the
| crypto BS, and they stopped doing the redirects. But I can't
| trust a browser company that _may_ do such shenanigans again in
| the future. They "fixed" or removed that stuff, but that
| doesn't mean they won't do it again. I just don't trust them,
| at all. That right there is enough to not use the browser. Not
| to mention Brendan Eich and his views.
|
| If you still don't understand, then I don't know what to tell
| you.
| LightHugger wrote:
| I mean those standards are fine, but google does far far
| worse. So you're not using chrome right?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >but google does far far worse
|
| They absolutely do, and using the chromium code base,
| regardless of what you supposedly patch into or out of it,
| pushes forwards GOOGLE'S goals, not the open web's goals.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| Nope. I don't use any Chrome/Chromium based browsers at
| all. I stick with Firefox and on rare occasions, Safari.
| eganist wrote:
| I don't know much about the first one, but the affiliate
| codes I'm fine with.
|
| A browser company that tries to monetize in ways that doesn't
| weaponize my info against me is much preferred.
|
| That said, I can't personally separate his politics from his
| product, which is why I use Firefox.
| Rudism wrote:
| > the affiliate codes I'm fine with
|
| I would be fine with it if it were opt-in for users who
| want to support the browser in that way, but silently
| injecting them across the board is just a scummy thing to
| do and also likely a violation of any sane affiliate
| program's terms. A company that's willing to do that loses
| an unrecoverable amount of credibility and trust in my
| eyes.
| voakbasda wrote:
| I am with you. Their past actions irreversibly tainted
| their reputation, and they are no longer worthy of our
| trust.
|
| I think society has largely adopted a victim mentality
| with abusive software these days. We are so used to being
| betrayed and hurt that we now accept it as normal. It
| started off innocuously enough, but now we are
| effectively being hurt on the regular. We have learned
| helplessness, and that will not end well.
| eganist wrote:
| > We are so used to being betrayed and hurt that we now
| accept it as normal. It started off innocuously enough,
| but now we are effectively being hurt on the regular. We
| have learned helplessness, and that will not end well.
|
| That's not what a victim mentality
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_mentality) is. What
| you're describing is closer to learned helplessness
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness),
| which is different.
|
| > Their past actions irreversibly tainted their
| reputation, and they are no longer worthy of our trust.
|
| This is closer to something you might hear from someone
| with a victim mentality. I wouldn't go so far as to say
| that this is _evidence_ of such, but certainly this
| rigidity of thought around being a victim to another 's
| actions contributes to such.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's more that we are so absurdly petty, pathetic, and
| entitled that we refuse a tiny, minuscule amount of pain
| for the greater good. Maybe back in 2010 the difference
| in speed between the browsers mattered but I've used
| Firefox since version two and as long as you had an ad
| blocker the speed was NEVER an issue.
|
| So now we've given a hostile ad agency control of the
| internet to save 100ms on certain web site loads. Good
| job everyone.
| serial_dev wrote:
| What's his politics? I don't really follow his politics.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| Eich backed Prop 8 (the gay marriage ban) in California.
| soundnote wrote:
| It's funny, when Brave the organization's politics are
| pretty narrow and what you'd want out of a browser: Privacy
| and user control.
|
| Meanwhile Mozilla the organization boots people for
| politics, wants "more than deplatforming" and uses as one
| of their examples organizations deciding what I should see
| on the Internet - preferring outlets that Mozilla
| themselves like, naturally. They publish stuff with the
| gist of "did you encounter other politics on YouTube, how
| scary".
|
| Meanwhile the organization spends money on getting a
| sneaker designer to make time-limited color themes for
| their browser and writes a pile of copy about how cool it
| is that a sneaker designer painted the browser blue.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/ZmUzr0q
|
| Meanwhile, Brave releases a user-customizable filtering
| function for their search engine so you, not someone else,
| can decide from what POV you see the Internet and added
| native vertical tabs to the browser.
|
| One organization is blatantly political, the other just
| makes a good browser.
|
| But if you want people you like to decide what I see (at
| least easily) on the 'net, that's good, I guess.
|
| /rant
| ziftface wrote:
| I'm not going to defend mozilla, since I think deciding
| which organization we hate more is counterproductive. But
| I will say that as a user of a browser, I don't really
| care that much what anyone publishes or who they boot
| from their organization (sounds flippant I know but at
| the end of the day I just want a browser that works).
| Brave putting garbage in their browser like crypto mining
| and redirecting links affects _the product_, which is the
| only thing I care about. Firefox has made blunders, but
| nothing like this.
|
| Not to mention that they're based on chromium.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >user control
|
| Which is why they were silently filling in affiliate
| links without user consent right? Or why they were
| collecting tips for users with no affiliation to the
| company that runs brave.
|
| Or that using a single wallet built into your web browser
| for crypto stuff nicely ties all your transactions to
| that one wallet in a way that completely removes all
| "privacy" aspects
| jamesmudgett wrote:
| What are the tradeoffs you're putting up with given the
| alternatives? Chrome-- data collection galore...
| jacooper wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36899179
| pentagrama wrote:
| > I don't understand a lot of the hate for Brave. If you don't
| like the crypto integration, the ads, etc you can just disable
| them.
|
| If you buy fruits from a shop that also sells scummy lottery
| tickets, you at least should accept that other people will
| bring criticism and skepticism to that shop.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| Agreed, but it's more like the store is aggressively slipping
| you gambling chips for their questionable casino every time
| you buy.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I mean tons of grocery stores sell lotto tickets.....
|
| So do most gas station and random convenience stores. No one
| complains since you don't have to buy em.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| No one complains _anymore_ because in general states
| regulated that the tickets need to be behind a counter (or
| behind glass) and entirely unavailable to minors and a
| portion of sales need to go to remediation tools (addiction
| PSAs, addiction counseling services) and /or education
| funds and other taxes.
| doylio wrote:
| Do you think the shop should not sell something that some
| people want because other people don't like it? AFAIK the BAT
| token hasn't done any material harm to anyone besides maybe
| some speculators that bought at the peak
| pessimizer wrote:
| I think that the people who don't like it might not shop at
| that store, and the business should take that into account.
|
| That "should" shit, however, is inviting other people to
| make a value judgement just so you can attack them for not
| being libertarian or something, nobody cares. They _should_
| do what is best for their business if they want to be
| successful. They thought that was crypto, and who am I to
| second guess? As long as they 're doing it, or strange
| advertising shell games, I'm not even their customer, so I
| don't get a say. I don't think they did anything remotely
| fraudulent...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| How dare someone expect more from their fellow citizens
| than "shamelessly and with zero morals make as much money
| as I can through any means". What's with HNs wants so bad
| to be free from judgement for doing business that can
| hurt people.
| mattl wrote:
| > If you don't like the crypto integration, the ads, etc you
| can just disable them.
|
| You're still using Brave which can be seen as endorsement of
| those things by others, including by website operators looking
| at user agent traffic.
| skotobaza wrote:
| By using a software you don't automatically endorse every
| feature it has.
| mattl wrote:
| Sometimes that's true, but in the case of a fork especially
| when the original is still around, I think that's not
| always true.
|
| Some people use very specialized versions of Linux as a
| political choice, for example.
| skotobaza wrote:
| > Some people use very specialized versions of Linux as a
| political choice, for example
|
| My point is that if other people use other variants (non-
| specialized) it doesn't necessarily mean that they
| support opposite "political views".
| LightHugger wrote:
| Using base chrome is worse then though right? Google causes
| infinitely more damage..
| mattl wrote:
| Right, which is why I'm using Vivaldi as my Chromium-based
| browser.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Using any chromium based browser is explicitly giving
| google more power over the free and open web.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| They have a new api where they're happy to sell copyrighted
| website data (like mine) to third parties to train ai with
| (without copyright holders permission). This sort of soured me
| on the company. I was a fan until then
| matrixxxboT wrote:
| >I don't understand a lot of the hate for Brave.
|
| Let me help you understand why
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CE...
|
| That's the one and only real reason why they hate brave, all
| the other reasons are just excuses they like to tell to
| themselves and to others.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| That's not the only reason. He's also a covid conspiracy guy.
| notPlancha wrote:
| If I had a dollar for every product I use with a piece of
| shit CEOs I'd be a millionare
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > That's the one and only real reason why they hate brave
|
| Cause Mozilla did him dirty? When Obama ran in 2008 he
| opposed gay marriage. Hell proposition 8 passed. California's
| constitution still has text banning gay marriage in it.
| [deleted]
| polrb wrote:
| [dead]
| JeremyNT wrote:
| > I don't understand a lot of the hate for Brave. If you don't
| like the crypto integration, the ads, etc you can just disable
| them. I feel the original intent, to be able to contribute
| directly back to page authors, was a noble one. It may not have
| played out as intended, but it wasn't a scam.
|
| The presence of ads and/or crypto is a strong signal that
| you're working with an untrustworthy entity, whose objectives
| will not be aligned with your own.
|
| Maybe Brave the browser isn't outright a "scam," but the
| willingness of the company to dip into scam-enabling
| technologies like crypto makes the brand toxic, and anything by
| the company is immediately suspect.
|
| The same is true for Signal, for what it's worth, as it still
| supports Moxie's pet shitcoin.
|
| It's easy enough to opt out of Brave because Firefox exists,
| but there's still sadly no better alternative to Signal.
| Karunamon wrote:
| > _the willingness of the company to dip into scam-enabling
| technologies like crypto_
|
| This is a ridiculous take. Every technology you use that
| facilitates payments or communication is, objectively
| speaking, "scam-enabling".
| entrepy123 wrote:
| > ...there's still sadly no better alternative to Signal.
|
| Isn't the Matrix protocol the better alternative to Signal?
| scrum-treats wrote:
| > The presence of ads and/or crypto is a strong signal that
| you're working with an untrustworthy entity, whose objectives
| will not be aligned with your own.
|
| Decentralized wealth is crypto. Sure, there are scams, but
| the point is to pay people for viewing ads (wealth re-
| distribution in a decentralized fashion). No one else is
| paying you to view ads; they are just taking your engagement
| data, your face and eye gaze data, your mouse trajectory
| data, etc. Brave is the first to try to pay you a portion of
| its ads revenue in a way that you the end user can flip into
| whatever currency you want, including USD. I've never been
| cut a check from Google, Amazon, Facebook, or the like. But
| I've received BAT, which I can flip into ETH/BTC, and earn
| more money.
|
| > Maybe Brave the browser isn't outright a "scam," but the
| willingness of the company to dip into scam-enabling
| technologies like crypto makes the brand toxic, and anything
| by the company is immediately suspect.
|
| Do you use any resource owned/operated by Google? Amazon?
| JPMorgan Chase? Facebook? Bank of America? Wells Fargo? (to
| name a few) All of these companies "dip into scam-enabling
| technologies like crypto."
|
| Do more research.
| doylio wrote:
| I agree, it's a great browser and the BAT was at least an
| attempt to change some of the bad incentives of the modern web.
| Doesn't seem like it worked, but kudos for trying something
| new!
| NikkiA wrote:
| [flagged]
| d_theorist wrote:
| This is defamatory. We should all be a bit more careful and
| thoughtful before making unfounded accusations about people.
| chartpath wrote:
| Thank you for saying it!
| soundnote wrote:
| Thank you for blatant lies?
| joshstrange wrote:
| Yeah, even if I could stomach the crypto BS (I can't) I don't
| want anything to do with the owner/CEO/whatever his title is.
| lelanthran wrote:
| You realise that not liking something is not the same as
| wanting to genocide it, right?
|
| Making something illegal doesn't mean that the population
| wants to gencide the people who do that thing.
|
| FCOL, _shoplifting_ is illegal and yet no one is under the
| impression that the population wants to genocide all
| shoplifters.
|
| Trying to stop something from happening is not the same as
| wanting to genocide all the practitioners.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Not liking someone is not the same as wanting to take away
| their rights.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Not liking someone is not the same as wanting to take
| away their rights.
|
| Wanting to take away someone's right[1] is not even close
| to wanting them to stop existing.
|
| [1] I'm not so sure that marriage is a right anyway. It's
| a state-recognised institution.
| tech_ken wrote:
| This comparison is beyond facile, so much so that it reads
| as basically a bad faith attempt to jam up the conversation
| with nonsense tangents.
|
| Trying to take away someone's civil rights is
| _fundamentally different_ from outlawing a crime. Wanting
| someone to be a literal second-class citizen is, in fact, a
| negation of the validity of their identity. Revoking same-
| sex marriage is absolutely an effort to push the LGBTQ+
| community back into the shadows; it is transparently the
| tip of the spear of a movement that seeks to roll back some
| of the biggest civil rights gains of the last few decades.
| That is what OP means when they say "don't want me to
| exist".
| torstenvl wrote:
| No. It isn't fundamentally different. You view it as
| morally different because that is your political view.
| While you are entitled to your political views, you are
| _not_ allowed to make them "fundamental" for everyone
| else.
|
| Conflating a good faith policy debate with _not wanting
| someone to exist_ is patently dishonest. It is a
| dishonorable bad faith form of political extremism, and
| should get you banned from HN.
| tech_ken wrote:
| No. It is fundamentally different. You don't view it as
| morally different because you don't respect the civil
| rights of people who who are LGBTQ+. While you are
| entitled to your moral view, you are _not_ allowed to
| conflate it with a policy discussion.
|
| Conflating a civil rights issue with a _policy debate_ is
| patently bad-faith. It is a dishonorable form of
| political extremism, and should get you banned from HN.
| torstenvl wrote:
| > _You don 't view it as morally different because you
| don't respect the civil rights of people who who are
| LGBTQ+._
|
| I understand that you're new here and probably think this
| is someplace where you can make assumptions about people,
| like on certain other social media sites. But I am
| actually a gay judge advocate (military attorney) who
| helped write the Obama policy allowing transgender
| service for the first time in U.S. history.
|
| The fact that I believe reasoned, accurate, and earnest
| political discussion is important does not give you, or
| anyone else prone to hysterics, any basis to conclude
| _what_ exactly my policy positions are.
|
| Instead, what it demonstrates is that my experience is
| that respecting people who disagree with me -- even when
| the disagreement is something I'm emotional about and
| affects me personally -- has allowed me to win more
| hearts and minds. And what's more is, it's the right
| thing to do. Making false accusations against people you
| are mad at is not virtuous under any circumstances.
|
| It's my sincere hope that you take this teachable moment
| and reflect on how to be a better participant, both here
| on HN and in our nation's policy-making machinery.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Trying to take away someone's civil rights is
| fundamentally different from outlawing a crime.
|
| Nitpick; anything that is outlawed _is_ a crime. This is
| why I chose a crime as my example.
|
| > Wanting someone to be a literal second-class citizen
| is, in fact, a negation of the validity of their
| identity. Revoking same-sex marriage is absolutely an
| effort to push the LGBTQ+ community back into the
| shadows; it is transparently the tip of the spear of a
| movement that seeks to roll back some of the biggest
| civil rights gains of the last few decades.
|
| I agree, but comparing a supporter of some legislative
| lobby to genocide is pure hyperbole.
|
| You're trivialising genocide when you claim that someone
| wanting to stop you doing what you do is the same as
| ethnic cleansing.
|
| > That is what OP means when they say "don't want me to
| exist".
|
| There is no wiggle room for interpretation there; "don't
| want those people to exist" has always meant pure
| genocide.
|
| It's said for drama and for pure emotional impact, while
| trivialising real "don't want those people to exist"
| history.
| tech_ken wrote:
| I have no idea why all of you settled on "OP was equating
| taking their civil rights to genocide" but the reading
| seems clearly bad. "Trivialising genocide" is quite a
| take and one which I think is clearly silly. The same
| movement which would take away same-sex marriage is
| openly salivating about using legal force to commit
| violent reprisals against the LGBGTQ communities, and
| lawyering about the precise wording of a comment is
| stooge work. Have a good one
| lelanthran wrote:
| > I have no idea why all of you settled on "OP was
| equating taking their civil rights to genocide" but the
| reading seems clearly bad. "Trivialising genocide" is
| quite a take and one which I think is clearly silly. The
| same movement which would take away same-sex marriage is
| openly salivating about using legal force to commit
| violent reprisals against the LGBGTQ communities, and
| lawyering about the precise wording of a comment is
| stooge work.
|
| From your first response to me you have been
| unnecessarily rude. "Facile"? "Bad-faith"? "Stooge"?
|
| Just because a large number of people don't believe that
| preventing same-sex marriage is the same as the holocaust
| doesn't mean we are acting in bad faith.
|
| FWIW, I get the same response from ideologically pure
| believers when I nitpick their use of phrases like
| "stare-rape".
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The only one bringing genocide AND THE LITERAL HOLOCAUST
| into this discussion are you. The parent said "Doesn't
| want people like me to exist" FFS
| tech_ken wrote:
| I'm simply trying to be as accurate in my descriptions as
| possible. I apologize that you find it rude, but I don't
| want to be misunderstood. Shoehorning the holocaust into
| this is extremely derailing, and again reads as bad faith
| strawmanning.
| veidr wrote:
| The problem with that type of conversational exaggeration
| is that it leaves no more room to describe actual
| genocidal people and groups. How would you describe
| those, then? "'A person who _really actually literally_
| doesn 't want me to exist'?"
|
| I dislike Eich for the exact same reasons. But I would
| say something more like "I don't hate Brave, just can't
| use a product by someone that thinks people should be
| deprived of fundamental human rights just because of
| their sexuality or gender identity."
| lelanthran wrote:
| > I dislike Eich for the exact same reasons. But I would
| say something more like "I don't hate Brave, just can't
| use a product by someone that thinks people should be
| deprived of fundamental human rights just because of
| their sexuality or gender identity."
|
| Too much of a mouthful. It's enough to say "I can't use a
| product built by people who hate me". Just as true, just
| as impactful...
| [deleted]
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Since you're all over this thread playing word games,
| some of your own medicine:
|
| What evidence do you have that Eich hates you? He made
| one political contribution and now that's hate? Gosh we
| are really devaluing the word "hate"
| tech_ken wrote:
| That's nit-picky, contrarian drivel and this whole
| discussion is like 10^-6 in terms of actual relevance
| compared to the original topic. You are literally using
| the language one could use to distinguish between the
| two: "Eich doesn't want me to exist" versus "Eich is a
| proponent of genocide". The English language is flexible,
| playful, and inventive. There are many ways to clarify
| what someone's position is, and OP is not wrong. Eich
| wanting someone to have less rights is an expression that
| they are deserving of less, that their existence is not
| okay and they should be punished for it. Absolutely
| "doesn't want them to exist".
| soundnote wrote:
| The original wording wasn't "doesn't want me to", it was
| "shouldn't be allowed to", the first of which is the same
| as any opinion we might have - there are lots of things I
| wouldn't want to be the case. "Shouldn't be allowed to"
| implies use of force and active action against the thing.
| tech_ken wrote:
| IDK how you feel about using legal force to strip someone
| of a civil right, but that seems pretty active to me.
| It's certainly less of a stretch than characterizing OP
| as "blatant lies", but I guess your standards for
| precision of language only flow one way. Have a good one!
| soundnote wrote:
| With your standards, people are allowed to claim that
| others think "they shouldn't be allowed to exist", and
| people wanting to distinguish it from actual
| totalitarian/genocidal policy are left doing the
| linguistic precision thing. There's a simple, clear way
| to describe what he did and thought and maybe thinks
| still, which is just that gay marriage shouldn't be
| legal. Very clear, no hyperbole.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >which is just that gay marriage shouldn't be legal.
|
| Which cannot be done without explicitly preventing gay
| people from having certain basic rights. It flies
| directly in the face of equality for all. "These two
| consenting adults are not allowed to do what nearly all
| consenting adults are allowed to do" is expressly
| treating them as second class citizens. You can't get
| around that.
| soundnote wrote:
| I have acquaintances who spout stuff like "all Christians
| should be killed" (would mean at least a dozen of my
| friends getting killed :) ) and openly go like "guys,
| have you thought that if we just started killing rich
| people, the world would become a better place and we
| wouldn't even have to kill all that many people". One
| person who was both trans and a furry complained about
| how people considered their existence a political matter
| and how that was sad. Two weeks later and they were
| (completely unsurprisingly) wishing for a communist
| revolution.
|
| Which, as we all know, are peaceful affairs where
| people's freaking lives definitely aren't a political
| matter.
|
| Somehow the mods of the place are ok with that but if I
| dissented from their politics I'd be considered less than
| human pretty much then and there.
| hiatus wrote:
| You use Javascript though, right?
| NikkiA wrote:
| not willingly
|
| And I certainly don't use it as a programmer.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| He doesn't get a paycheck based on how many people use
| javascript.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Opposing same-sex marriage != opposing someone's existence
|
| Unless you _literally are_ same-sex marriage?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Marriage is a legal institution in the United States. If
| you call for discriminatory access to a legal asset, you
| should be ready for the scrutiny.
|
| Had the shoe been on the other foot and we were funding a
| proposition to limit the recognition of Christian marriage,
| Christians would call it an opposition to their existence
| too. And rightfully so! The backlash makes sense on a
| logical, emotional and authoritative level. I don't see how
| you could possibly interpret it otherwise.
| int_19h wrote:
| Of course it is bigoted and discriminatory. The point is
| that discrimination is itself a scale, and "you're not
| allowed to exist" is a very far end of that scale - much
| further than opposing same-sex marriage.
| smoldesu wrote:
| https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-
| transc...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| But how can you oppose same sex marriage unless you think
| same sex couples are not deserving of the same legal status
| as straight couples. There's no religious grounds for
| opposing it because marriage is a legal matter. The
| ceremony that many churches do that they call marriage has
| no legal standing, and is not generally recognized (on it's
| own) by the government.
|
| Your two options to oppose gay marriage then are either
| believing the United States should base it's tax and
| property laws on specifically christian religions (plenty
| others have no problem with gay marriage), or that gay
| couples should not be "valid" in the eyes of the law.
| dahwolf wrote:
| "There's no religious grounds for opposing it because
| marriage is a legal matter."
|
| No, it isn't. For some it's strictly a legal matter, for
| others it's both a legal matter and a religious matter.
| That's why you can legally marry in 5 minutes by placing
| a signature, and separately marry "for church".
|
| "The ceremony that many churches do that they call
| marriage has no legal standing"
|
| That's not the point of the ritual.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The distinction is irrelevant. Whether or not you
| consider Eich's contribution to be offensive, the
| inciting action was strictly related to the legal aspect.
|
| Plus, even if this was a strictly religious belief, that
| doesn't protect him from the criticism of peers. That's
| the cost of picking people to make your enemy. Eich
| _resigned_ after the reaction.
| metalspot wrote:
| > thinks I shouldn't be allowed to exist
|
| any evidence to support that claim?
| hwbehrens wrote:
| This must be in regards to his donating $1,000 to
| Proposition 8, which sought to ban same-sex marriage in
| California [0]. This was the genesis event that led to his
| resignation from Mozilla back in 2014.
|
| I'm unclear if his views have changed either positively or
| negatively in the intervening decade.
|
| [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2014/03/gay-f...
| [deleted]
| stilist wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_C
| E...
| metalspot wrote:
| so, he was forced out of mozilla for his private
| constitutionally protected political activity.
|
| how exactly is that evidence that he believes "people
| don't have a right to exist?"
|
| it seems like some people think people with his beliefs
| don't have a right to exist. maybe they are just
| projecting the hate in their own hearts onto their
| enemies/victims?
| delfinom wrote:
| It's actually not protected. In fact, only very few
| states even have laws that protect political activity
| from being used for workplace terminations. And even
| states like NY and California make a vague exception for
| "political activity that interferes with the functioning
| of the business."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/21/your-money/speaking-
| about...
|
| The only ones constitutionally protected are government
| employees since the government cannot fire someone for
| 1st amendment speech (but companies can because the 1st
| amendment does not apply to private entities)
| switchbak wrote:
| Now you're reacting to hyperbole with more hyperbole.
|
| It's more like OP just wants to use rhetoric to have you
| ignore and silence Brendan Eich. Which I still think is
| going too far, even if I disagree with his (apparent)
| private political views.
| [deleted]
| dahwolf wrote:
| Blatant misinformation and character assassination, as
| Brave's CEO never said such a thing. His former Mozilla
| colleagues confirmed that throughout his many years there
| he's never shared a single word that one might interpret as
| homophobic.
|
| You second lie is your supposed inability to use products by
| someone that would actually be homophobic. You use such
| products every single day, unless you completely opted out of
| modernity.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| > Blatant misinformation and character assassination, as
| Brave's CEO never said such a thing. His former Mozilla
| colleagues confirmed that throughout his many years there
| he's never shared a single word that one might interpret as
| homophobic.
|
| So it doesn't count... because he paid others a significant
| sum to say it for him and obscure his involvement?
| That's... an interesting set of ethics. I wonder what you
| think about people who hire hitmen.
|
| > You second lie is your supposed inability to use products
| by someone that would actually be homophobic. You use such
| products every single day, unless you completely opted out
| of modernity.
|
| The world isn't black and white, and we can't read people's
| minds. That also doesn't mean that people's public
| behaviour doesn't affect others' perception of them.
| guraf wrote:
| Surely you have a source for this claim? Something more than
| his donation to anti gay marriage lobby (which is a fair bit
| away from wanting genocide)?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| "Doesn't want people like me to exist" is not equivalent to
| "wanting genocide", even if it is still (possibly, we can't
| read his mind) hyperbole
| mongol wrote:
| If not equivalent, it is not far from it.
| tremon wrote:
| "Doesn't want people like me to exist" is also not
| equivalent to restricting marriage rights. Conflating
| these two is an expression of toxic victimhood, and not a
| good starting point for well-reasoned debate.
| causi wrote:
| We live in a world where hyperbole is the order of the day.
| If you don't like gay marriage you're a proponent of
| genocide. If you suggest not letting people starve to death
| in the street you're a Satan-worshipping communist.
| Personally I've found that applying a purity test to the
| makers of everything I use results in me not being able to
| use anything.
| greenthrow wrote:
| The hate for Brave is well earned. They launched with a totally
| scummy scheme of hiding ads on people's sites and collecting
| money "on their behalf" but they needed to then know to reach
| out to Brave to get it. They have done some not great stuff
| since then as well.
| soundnote wrote:
| PSA: They held the tips for a while to see if the creator
| signed up, and if not sent the crypto back to the user. If it
| even was the user's, they put up a pool of the stuff out of
| their own pocket to jumpstart the tipping service and the
| whole thing might just be over the allocation of that pool, I
| don't remember the specifics.
|
| In any case no one lost their stuff, bad UX was critiqued and
| bad UX was fixed.
| outsidetheparty wrote:
| > I feel the original intent, to be able to contribute directly
| back to page authors, was a noble one. It may not have played
| out as intended, but it wasn't a scam.
|
| The original intent was _absolutely_ a scam. They wanted to
| hide the ads that were already on websites, replace them with
| their own, then give a fraction of the revenue they just
| effectively stole from those websites back to them (but only if
| they knew to ask for it).
|
| Also they were going to take over all the third-party tracking
| data for their own, while branding it as "privacy" -- so much
| hand waving about "we don't run a MiTM proxy" (while hoping we
| didn't notice it's because they don't _need_ to be in the
| middle when they control the browser itself).
|
| Absolutely brazen, and they kept changing their story in real
| time whenever people started to notice hey wtf is this.
| Happened to be able to find this in my posting history for
| example; in hindsight I wish I hadn't been so cowed by the fact
| that I was arguing with Brendan Eich Himself, because man what
| a load of horsepuckey he and his guy were delivering:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14464518#14465271
| LightHugger wrote:
| None of that is a scam?
|
| The user and their browser decides what ads they see.
| Websites are not entitled to showing ads.
| outsidetheparty wrote:
| The parts that could most safely be described as "scam", to
| my point of view, are
|
| * lying to users about protecting their privacy, while
| gathering and reselling more information than was possible
| with existing 3rd party trackers
|
| * lying about "giving back to publishers", while actually
| coopting those publishers' revenue streams
|
| Your "Websites are not entitled to showing ads" statement
| gave me a moment of thought, I have to admit: I don't see
| anything wrong with ad _blockers_ , but I do think the
| ethics of ad _replacers_ is pretty problematic. At best it
| makes Brave a parasitic entity feeding off revenue that
| would have otherwise gone to the content creators.
|
| I'll reluctantly agree that that part on its own doesn't
| rise to the level of "scam" but I certainly don't think
| it's admirable.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I think letting an advertising company have any control
| over content distribution or display is inherently a
| problem, so Brave signalling that they want to do
| advertising is pretty clear to me that they cannot be
| trusted.
|
| Like, do Brave think google is just evil and that if
| someone else becomes the advertising behemoth things will
| be just rosy?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| > I feel the original intent, to be able to contribute directly
| back to page authors, was a noble one
|
| The intent is to circumvent how authors have _themselves chosen
| to monetize their own content_ , insert themselves as the man
| in the middle, display their own ads and "pay" people in a
| currency they print. They're actually replacing the direct
| compensation the author would receive with an indirect one.
| Traditionally this kind of scheme is known as a protection
| racket. Also of course this means that Brave is simply an
| advertisement company, like the ones they are supposed to
| protect you from.
|
| When someone visits your page through Brave the ads you would
| have been compensated for are being blocked, Brave earns actual
| money for the ads they put in their place, and then users get
| the chance to tip you in 'attention tokens', which they wisely
| pre-mined. That's not noble, it's like the mafia combined with
| a Nigerian prince currency scam.
| xnx wrote:
| A distinction without a difference. Brave changes some things and
| adds some of its own junk. Currently my trust of Google is much
| greater than my trust of Brave.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Currently my trust of Google is much greater than my trust of
| Brave.
|
| What has Brave ever done that comes even close to trying to DRM
| the entire web?
| isanjay wrote:
| Really? Or you meant the other way around ?
| croes wrote:
| And what use is this trust to you?
|
| They gave you WEI.
| K0nserv wrote:
| Fork or not, they obviously integrated almost everything from the
| upstream. Keeping a long-running fork that's increasingly
| diverging is not a simple task.
|
| Does Brave have the man-power to sustain their fork if it
| diverges sufficiently that they can no longer integrate upstream
| changes?
|
| EDIT: My broader point being, Brave's mission is less compatible
| with Google's and as such it's unfortunate they aren't basing
| Brave on Gecko.
|
| I know the whole history with Brendan Eich and Mozilla, as well
| as the problems with extending and embedding Gecko. Still, seems
| like an unfortunate outcome
| gochi wrote:
| It's far more work to do what they currently do which is
| nitpick the things they don't like to remove/disable/replace
| them.
|
| Increasing divergence is a benefit for them here, but the main
| concern with chromium forks isn't the effort required it's the
| lack of coherent vision. Except for maybe Arc, but that's
| closed source, the rest of them feel like chrome but dirtier.
| Giant bing buttons, crypto wallets, new tab ads, it's absurd
| how much of them are willing to sacrifice the user experience.
| To the point where I can understand why a user would just stick
| with chrome despite what they're doing.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Can they implement some new web standard in a shifted away
| codebase? Or fix a zero day?
|
| You seem to vastly underestimate the complexity of a browser
| engine. Just letting it stay afloat is a huge task in itself
| -- remember, Microsoft itself decided against doing so. They
| can maintain a soft fork, but from a much smaller company, it
| is not a trivial feat at all.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| I believe the cofounder and former CEO of Mozilla and creator
| of the world's most popular web language can maintain a web
| browser.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Also the creator of JavaScript
| berkes wrote:
| > creator of the world's most popular web language
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Maybe "Also the creator of JavaScript" is a tongue-in-
| cheek contention with assuming that JavaScript and "the
| world's most popular language" are one and the same.
|
| Popular itself is a squirrelly word here. Popular can
| simply refer to as "most used" (by this metric, Xi and
| Modi would be the world's most popular leaders, since
| they lead the world's biggest populations), or it could
| be "most liked" by some other measure (I have no
| analogous leader to nominate here).
| justincredible wrote:
| [dead]
| runjake wrote:
| Technically, HTML would be the world's most popular web
| language and I presume TedDoesntTalk was making a quip.
| kaba0 wrote:
| The strongest man on Earth can build the Great Wall of China.
|
| That sentence has the same fallacy as yours.
| knewter wrote:
| A better analogy would be "man who invented much about
| modern walls, invented JavaMortar, and has built
| infrastructure around maintaining the open source wall in
| question, can maintain wall he's been maintaining."
|
| Really rolls off the tongue
| fsflover wrote:
| Alone?
| kube-system wrote:
| No. https://brave.com/careers/
| augusto-moura wrote:
| Most of the divergences are already compile flags or command
| line flags on upstream. They are just disabling it by default.
| Is not a Brave-only thing, but different browsers have
| different settings disabled, the community that compiles the
| browser from source also pushes those features to be
| conditionally added. Eg. Debian, Arch or other distros, could
| have WEI disabled on their chromium distribution, forks like
| Edge and Vivaldi could disable GAIA, etc.
|
| Just give a look at the divergence issues and the PRs solving
| them [1], most of them are just single file or small changes to
| compilation/default flags
|
| [1]: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-
| from-...
| polski-g wrote:
| > Cookies are given a maximum lifetime of 7 days for cookies
| set through Javascript and 6 months for cookies set through
| HTTP
|
| This might explain why my Steam account is always logged out.
| fabrice_d wrote:
| They have much more changes than just compile flags. Here's
| the repo where they maintain their patch set:
| https://github.com/brave/brave-core/tree/master/patches
| ziftface wrote:
| Interesting that the few that I randomly clicked on were
| css changes. Not a reskin indeed.
| augusto-moura wrote:
| If you open the patches and see their content, a good part
| of them are just one liners, or small file changes
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Can you link some _substantial_ changes? I've clicked on
| random on 10 of the files and haven't seen more than 2 line
| change.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| What'd be the point of basing it on Gecko. Firefox exists.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| What's the point of basing it on Chromium when Chrome exists?
|
| Brave seems intent on actively trying to sabotage the Google
| ad distribution business model and inject their own ad
| distribution system. It's kind of weird to base their browser
| on the browser maintained by an entity with objectives that
| are at such odds with their own.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| Because it selectively merges only patches which don't
| affect privacy, security, questionable standards, and adds
| new features.
|
| Honestly I don't know why you're even asking this. It's
| literally the whole thread is about this: it's not a
| reskin, it's a fork.
|
| Is it "kind of weird" that it's at odds with Chrome's
| goals? No. Because if it wasn't at odds, it wouldn't exist,
| these people would be just Chrome/Chromium contributors.
|
| Chromium is open-source because they forked WebKit, and
| WebKit forked KHTML. Google were at odds with Apple when
| they forked WebKit to Blink, but the FOSS license allowed
| it. And lo and behold it has allowed it again. What's
| surprising here?
| jefftk wrote:
| _> Because it selectively merges only patches which..._
|
| This is probably pedantic, but I think the way they
| actually work is that they integrate all upstream
| changes, and then disable any behavior they don't want to
| support? Which means they can minimize their overall
| divergence, which is what you want for maintainability.
| [deleted]
| pkaye wrote:
| > Because it selectively merges only patches which don't
| affect privacy, security, questionable standards, and
| adds new features.
|
| If they used Gecko then these issues wouldn't exist and
| they would just have to add new features.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| The point is to have Blink without the burden of Google's
| commercial interests. Firefox is already Gecko without
| the burden of Google's commercial interests (well,
| almost).
|
| Not sure why is everyone trying to sell Gecko here. Isn't
| Mozilla a good custodian to Gecko? Clearly if I take your
| opinion at face value, no. But why? Google is clearly not
| a good custodian for the most popular browser, their
| private interests are all over it. But the core engine is
| good.
| K0nserv wrote:
| Your's is an interesting angle that I hadn't thought of.
| I think the counter to it would be: Brave inadvertently
| helps Google, by improving Chromium, and it would be
| better if they inadvertently helped Mozilla, by improving
| Gecko. Building a browser engine is a big undertaking and
| I think most people would agree that more time and energy
| being invested in Gecko would be a good thing.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Brave also inadvertently helps Google by contributing to
| the overall stats of Blink users and decreasing Firefox's
| visible marketshare. Firefox's shrinking marketshare
| marks it for "death" in a lot of little papercut ways.
| More users using Gecko would send more messages to web
| developers investing in which markets to pursue.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| But what would be the point? For me Brave is essentially
| Firefox-level privacy with Chrome-level compatibility,
| performance and reliability. A Gecko-based Brave would be
| just Firefox with a few UI changes and maybe somewhat
| fewer compatibility issues until Google gets around to
| creating harder ones.
| dahwolf wrote:
| "Just" have to add new features? Do you have any idea how
| vast the web platform is these days?
| jwells89 wrote:
| There's both privacy and user experience improvements that a
| fork could enable. If I had any hope that I could keep it up
| to speed with mainline Firefox, I'd fork Firefox myself if
| only to roll the numerous userchrome changes I make to my
| installs into the browser itself, as well as to make some
| changes that aren't possible with userchrome customization
| alone.
| smsm42 wrote:
| That's how it should work. Almost everything, except for the
| bad parts.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| This is already a solved issue.
|
| They don't maintain changes that take too much manpower to
| maintain.
|
| You have to pick your battles.
| [deleted]
| soupbowl wrote:
| They've been handling it fine so far.
| sdesol wrote:
| They seem to be throwing decent resources at this as well. If
| you you click on "+500 code churn" in the contributors chart
| at https://devboard.gitsense.com/brave?repos=brave-
| browser,brav... for brave-browser and brave-core, you can see
| there is a decent number of contributors. I would say there
| are probably 30+ full time employees working on this. And if
| you look at the merged pull requests, at https://reviews.gits
| ense.com/insights/github?q=merged%3Atrue... you can see many
| contributors are 1 year+ contributors (look at the gift icon
| for this information)
|
| Full Disclosure: This is my tool
| evasb wrote:
| They are handling "fine" because they only do low complexity
| changes.
|
| I remember that people asked, some years ago, to Brave team
| add add-ons in their Android reskin and they, after some
| time, rejected because they said that what Kiwi Browser were
| doing was too complex for them because it required too many
| patches.
|
| They were not even able to modify Mv3, they just said that
| they already added an adblock.
|
| Brave and Vivaldi are mere reskins, and they don't do
| anything more than Ungoogled Chromium do, but adding their
| own bloat.
| soundnote wrote:
| > Brave and Vivaldi are mere reskins, and they don't do
| anything more than Ungoogled Chromium do, but adding their
| own bloat.
|
| At minimum both add an encrypted, independent sync service
| in lieu of Google's one. And of course a ton of useful new
| UI customizations, built in adblockers and other mere
| reskin stuff. I, too, hear "built-in adblocker written in
| Rust" and think "reskin".
| kaba0 wrote:
| Reskin, with default installed plugins.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| > but adding their own bloat.
|
| Brave runs faster and consumes less memory for me. Perhaps
| their additions aren't bloat at all?
| joshmanders wrote:
| > Brave and Vivaldi are mere reskins
|
| I can tell by this line that you're biased against Brave
| because you wouldn't have said this if you had you know,
| even read the title of this discussion, let alone clicked
| the link and read the tweet.
|
| > They are handling "fine" because they only do low
| complexity changes.
|
| You realize the author of the tweet, who is the CEO of
| Brave is Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript and one of
| the main developers for Netscape Browser (arguably one of
| the reasons we have the web today), co-founder and former
| CEO of Mozilla... I'm sure maintaining a fork of Chromium
| is not a massive undertaking for them.
| Knee_Pain wrote:
| What is this appeal to authority about?
|
| He is a guy. He cannot maintain Chromium with too little
| of a team
| aydyn wrote:
| Yet, you criticize this post instead of the GP who made a
| claim completely without evidence.
| antonok wrote:
| What exactly do you mean by "modify Mv3"? Brave committed
| to continuing support for Mv2 [1]. Adding native adblocking
| capabilities is also definitely a more complex change than
| just bundling an adblocking extension.
|
| Brave maintains patches in a very specific way [2] to
| ensure maintainability. My impression is that Kiwi's
| patches are structured in a way that technically works but
| isn't easy to keep rebasing on top of upstream changes.
| Kiwi's been chronically outdated compared to upstream
| Chromium whereas Brave generally gets updated within a day
| of a corresponding Chromium release.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/brave/status/1574822799700541446
| [2] https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Patching-
| Chromiu...
| lostmsu wrote:
| This should be the top comment. Following Mv3 changes and
| being unable to do by the user is a clear indicator they
| are just a reskin.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| >Brave and Vivaldi are mere reskins, and they don't do
| anything more than Ungoogled Chromium do, but adding their
| own bloat.
|
| Brave has an excellent adblocker with Brave Shields built
| in and now just added vertical tabs native.
|
| Vivaldi has the best tab and window management in a browser
| by far, and even has an internal command line/launcher in
| pressing F2.
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