I mean… I’ve been using Firefox since Google silo’d all log-ins together.
On the other hand, search.brave.com is freaking incredible. It’s so much better than Google, Bing or DDG at this point, it’s shocking. I switched a couple weeks ago and it’s surreal to see so many usable, useful results on the first page again.
No. Couldn’t care less what the founder did or didn’t do. We need as many non-Google browsers as possible. The problem with Brave is that it is a chromium browser.
No, I’m not. Chromium doesn’t exist in Windows unless you install a program that includes it. Chromium web engine is “native” to the chromium web browser, not to any OS (except maybe ChromeOS). As espi mentioned, Internet explorer’s mshtml is the only engine “native” to Windows. Just look at the Opera browser, they changed web engines from Presto to chromium; that’s not using “what’s native to the platform” (Opera works across all OS’s with chromium, except for iOS for the restriction I mentioned before), it’s using what the developers/company want to use to render their pages. Nothing in Windows itself provides any of the chromium engine “pieces”
Chrome has EMET disabled because it’s own memory protections conflict and it just won’t execute.
When you’re make a web view for Windows you’re either bringing a long your own rendering or using Edge because it’s included.
No one wants to secure their own rendering which is why they all use whatever is already there which is EMET which is a pita to test so they just go with Edge.
native is just jargon for “what is already there.”
EMET? The framework that was end-of-lifed in 2018? I’d bloody well hope Chrome doesn’t use something that isn’t supported anymore.
Chrome’s sandboxing is weird and prone to breaking, but at least it isn’t stuck relying entirely on a kernel framework exclusive to an OS that people are extremely hesitant to keep up-to-date.
What does this even mean. Chromium or Webkit are not "native" to an OS. OSs don't magically include browser engines, its not a critical component of an OS either.
Most OSs do come with browsers preinstalled, but they are programs just like any other. You can remove Safari from macOS (albeit its pretty hard because root is read only and signed), you can remove Edge from Windows. In my desktop with Windows 10 the only browser I have is Firefox (not even Edge), does that make Gecko the "native" browser engine?
If anything, the native browser engine for Windows would be MSHTML from Internet Explorer.
Brave works for what I need it to do. I don’t like lending credence to bigots(secret or otherwise) but if someone is gonna say “don’t use this browser” they need to list a replacement that has the same functionality. And it can’t be “just use duckduckgo” because we all fucking have that on our phones and none of us can use it as our primary browser and we all know exactly why. 😒
Do you have a source for the claim that DuckDuckGo browser is selling user data to Microsoft?
You might be referring to the time when the DuckDuckGo browser was blocking all known trackers except Microsoft trackers. After that information was made public and users complained, DuckDuckGo was able to renegotiate its agreement with Microsoft so that it can block their trackers.
Furthermore, DuckDuckGo now publish their blocklist on GitHub.
So this privacy issue has been rectified now. But even if it hadn’t, failing to block Microsoft trackers isn’t the same as collecting data and selling it to Microsoft.
But if you are aware of DDG browser selling data to Microsoft, please share a source.
For me personally, the one and only reason I don’t main Firefox is because it doesn’t work with Chromecast and I use that a LOT. I would switch to FF tomorrow if I could easily and reliably cast with it.
On Android, Firefox is still less secure than Chromium-based alternatives: Mozilla’s engine, GeckoView, has yet to support site isolation or enable isolatedProcess.
I mean, does that mean Edge is a Google browser, too?
Chromium is open-source. Even if Google adds something malicious to the source code (such as that Web Environment Integrity stuff), it can be removed by someone else creating their own browser based on Chromium. That’s the very definition of open-source.
Related side-note: Lemmy itself is open-source, too. If the creator of Lemmy added something to the software that someone running an instance didn’t agree with, they could simply fork the original software and remove the unwanted addition. Some people do disagree with that person’s views, and yet they’re still here. Many of them joined .world and other instances instead of .ml because they disagreed with the creator’s views.
While Google, the creator of Chromium, isn’t a good company for the consumer, I personally think Chromium itself isn’t a bad idea. It’s just that Google and some other companies modify it for their own means, and those means aren’t always consumer-friendly.
All that to say: while the company that originally created Chromium is bad, the software isn’t. And while some of the companies and people using that software are bad (including Brave, IMO), some of them are looking out for their users’ interests, and those forks of Chromium are generally ok. (You should still actually do research and not pick a fork because the company developing it said it’s okay, though. Take a look at what others are saying and verify it.)
I mean, does that mean Edge is a Google browser, too?
Yes.
All that to say: while the company that originally created Chromium is bad, the software isn’t.
Only to the extent that websites are built for chromium compatibility, due to its monopoly on the internet. It’s great software because it’s the most popular software so all other smaller providers that serve that software have to focus their resources into ensuring compatibility. Chromium(Blink) itself is pretty mid, and definitely equal to WebKit or Gecko, not better or significantly worse.
In fact. Mozilla rely more in Google. If i wasn’t mistaken 90% of their money came from Google and they rely Google safebrowsing wherein it exposes your IP to Google
Why is it shitty? TBH my biggest problem with Brave is their push for the crypto ad tokens. Any company pushing crypto shit instantly gets put on my shit list.
Genuine question: I use brave currently. I really heavily on multiple profiles (work, side-business, personal) that are easy to switch between or have active all at the same time in separate windows.
I tried firefox, but in my experience, the method for changing “profiles” was unintuitive and cumbersome. Was I just doing it wrong, or does Firefox not have that same kind of feature?
I really wanna use Firefox, but that’s a deal-breaker.
There are a few ways! I have separate Firefox profiles for everything.
The least effort way is to visit about:profiles, then you get a list of them all and can add/remove them. I have it bookmarked or pinned as a tab in all of my different profiles.
Second, but takes more effort is you can make desktop or start menu shortcuts to the profiles. In short (on windows at least) you copy the Firefox shortcut, edit it, then add -p “Profile Name”. There might be more to it? Maybe good to Google this one for a better description. But I literally have a start menu shortcut for all like 7 of mine, then it’s just like launching a different application.
Or have a shortcut that has something like this as its target: “C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe” --ProfileManager --allow-downgrade -no-remote
This just opens the profile manager every time. The only caveat is that you have to click “launch” every time as there’s no timeout. But I also do have an autohotkey script that does the timeout for me, pressing “enter” after 30s.
I’ve read the article and I don’t understand the issue.
The founder is a homophobe
I don’t care. He represents Brave just as little as he represents Mozilla or Javascript.
It didn’t do ad replacements
I don’t care. Why should that be a reason not to use the browser? It doesn’t have a feature that no other browser has either, oh no.
Setting up a system to turn BAT into money isn’t worth it for websites, since not enough people use Brave to generate relevant revenue
I don’t care. If you care about maximizing websites’ profit, you should use Chrome (with no adblock).
It’s bloated with Web3 stuff
I don’t care. Browsers are extremely bloated anyways.
They partnered with Web3 companies
I don’t care. They didn’t try to scam anyone, they just offered services/features for those interested in Web3.
They added affiliate codes to URLs
I care a little, but not much. Claiming it’s anti privacy is ridiculous. The website can see you’re using Brave no matter whether you’re using an affiliate link or not. But it’s still something a browser definitely shouldn’t do without user consent (and an option to opt out).
@whou Don't forget the time they made it possible to 'donate' to creators, but when creators weren't signed up with their program #Brave would just keep the donation. So users would think they have donated for example to Tom Scott, but in reality he never received anything. Overall just a scummy company.
I use Brave as a second browser (mainly to separate different activities) and did not have any issues with it apart from dragging tabs between monitors (it creates an additional empty tab sometimes when doing this). Turned off all unnecessary stuff right when I first launched it and that's it. No bloat, no issues, just works. Didn't know about this CEO controversy but seeing as it was a long time ago, don't think it's a valid reason to not use Brave. And both logo and name are cool.
It's a solid option which we don't really have a lot of in open source space
I mean, there's simply just Firefox. Which is apparently not the basis for Brave. It does sound like Brave collects data so it still seems shady.
Edit: could have sworn brave was built on Firefox. It's not. It's chromium. Which in my opinion counts against it as I'd rather avoid a monopoly considering how much control Google has over chromium and the inherent biases Google has.
You might have been thinking of Mullvad Browser, which is based on Firefox and came out somewhat recently. Other privacy-focused browsers based on Firefox include Librewolf and Tor browser.
What are you talking about? Firefox doesn’t need an email address for container tabs or separate profiles, and I think you can still host your own sync server if you want that capability.
I haven’t checked if Container tabs work on Torn Browser, but that’s my go-to for anonymity.
Yup, on Firefox, profiles are just directories of settings, and you can have as many as you choose. AFAIK, few people use them, since you can get most of that behavior with container tabs. For example, at work, I have one container group for work Gmail, one for personal, and if my wife uses it, she can open another group for her stuff.
I’d use profiles for a shared login on a computer, but I’d just use separate user accounts instead. I use container tabs for multiple logins for the same service on one profile. Switching then just means opening a new tab with that container group.
I’m talking about the browser user profiles, where your user data (bookmarks, passwords, extensions) is stored.
Firefox puts them into profiles so that you can change between those sets, as if you’re a different user, without changing user accounts at the OS level.
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