TL;DR: The article claims that the Brave web browser is bad and should not be used.
The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage. Along with making the claim that Brave’s goal is not to act as an ad-blocker, but instead to build and grow their own advertisement network, and he also believes that the network has several flaws:
Brave Ads paysout in a form of cryptocurrency, called BAT (🦇).
As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatility.
BAT can not be redeemed for fiat (“actual”) money directly from within the Brave Wallet.
The author also believes that “it [the network] has largely failed” but that it “has generated a lot of revenue for Brave,” via the ICO (Initial Coin Offering; IPO for crypto).
In addition to these key points the author also:
Claims that Brave prompted FTX, before the scandal.
Cites the The Brave Marketer Podcast where ex-CMO of Crypto.com Steven Kalifowitz shares an ambitious goal of being a “‘brand like Coke and Netflix.’” The author then mentions that:
In 2023 there was a report from The Financial Times that Crypto.com traded against their customers.
In 2022 the company try to hide the severity of its layoffs.
Mentions Brave’s integration with Gemini, and how the crypto exchange is under investigation for lying about FDIC insurance.
Mentions a partnership with the the 3XP Web3 Gaming Expo where they sponsored the Esports Arena and rewarded contestants with the BAT token.
Claims that Brave added affiliate/referral codes to URLs, such as “binance.us.”
Finally, the author lists Firefox and Vivaldi as alternatives to Brave, and ends the article with “Brave Browser is irredeemable, and you should not use it under any circumstances.”
I am human, please let me know if I’ve made a mistake.
Brave is still bad. With their “incidents” they had. Brave is chromium = Google controlled in a way. Brave is a coorperation, yes a PROFIT seeking company. Mozilla does nit promote google, it uses duckduckgo as its default search engine. There are forks from Firefox too that hardens the browser and the develop/ceo is not a complete *ss. The referal link “scam” was real, they injected it in Amazon links…
Screw Brave go search for a real alternative to google.
Oh yeah i forgot i used librewolf too much XD. Brave Search creeps on you. Privacy Policy is unreadable and unreachable. Tbh. if you want a privacy protecting search engine. Use Searx(ng).
Brave is way worse using Chromium. That is the point. Its dependent on google 100%. I dont know Fitefox? What is it? Is it a rare fox? Brave injects ads (targeted ads) into your websites. Injects referal urls into their results. The CEO is a corrupt bad person. They implemented in their earlier stages a hidden crypto miner. Recommending Extensions? Are you sure that chrome doesnt do it too?
Doesn’t iOS only use webkit based browsers? I would imagine the reason you can get ad blocking through brave is some kind of deal they have with google. Which probably means they’re just giving them all the data google would collect normally.
Firefox on iOS doesn’t have ad blocking because apple took support away in webkit. The only way brave could be doing it is by being white listed by the company serving the ad to you somehow.
Both Mac and iOS have issues with VPN usage too but that’s unrelated to webkit.
Yes Apple forces everyone through webkit and won’t allow third-party blockers. Brave on iOS was forked from Firefox anyway, and iirc uses the same API to block ads as Firefox Focus. Google is most definitely not involved, particularly because both block YouTube ads (and is my primary reason for using Brave anyway).
I’m not sure what you’re referencing in regard to VPN usage; I have had zero problems with mine.
Hopefully the Digital Markets Act in EU will put an end to iOS’s browser monopoly. When that happens Firefox might be looking to port their Android browser to iOS which supports addons like uBlock but nothing is for certain right now.
I know it isn’t hope you’re looking for, but it’s the best I can do with my current knowledge.
I appreciate that but my response was more intended to chastise the guy blanket labeling people cultists and idiots for no good reason because they hate a browser someone else uses.
The system-wide AdGuard app handles most things well enough, and Brave does its thing on YouTube ads without issue.
Firefox Focus will also take care of YouTube ads (if anyone else stumbles down this rabbit hole), but it’s too heavy-handed for me because I actually stay logged into my account and use my history.
My Pi-hole install also handles all but YouTube if I’m at home, so there’s that.
With how much revenue comes from those deals, we might say it’s practically financed by Google. FF is more Google than Chromium-based Brave if you follow the money.
The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage.
My impression was Brave got started after he got hoofed out of Mozilla or left on his own accord after the backlash for showing his ass to be a homophobe. Redditor types were of course very angry about this blatant disregard for frozen peaches and jumped onto his new venture in droves
If he’s bad, shouldn’t everything he touches be bad? Why web site that uses JavaScript should be just as bad. Any browser based on Mozilla should be bad. Why is it just Brave that’s bad for what he did in 2008?
It’s really hard for the creator of Javascript to make money off of javascript, and it’s unlikely he has any financial interest in the Mozilla corporation anymore since they’re a nonprofit and thus don’t have share holders. However, he directly profits off of Brave.
You shouldn’t use Brave simply because it’s heavily infected with crypto shit and tries to monitorize your web browsing time by default. Not everything you do has to be a side hustle.
Sure you can “switch it off” but then why not use something else in the first place that’s focus isn’t trying to make money out of you. If Brave ever gained any decent market share the web would be an even shitter place than what Google is suggesting at the moment.
you seek the crypto miner in the brackground running and want ads injected even you have adblocker on? Use librewolf its a more privacy focused firefox
Have librewolf screwed users over? with replace ads, claiming referal links, ceo = sshle, secret cryptominer. And why would you NOT use the tor browser as it would reduce the possibility of that *ss ceo spying on u to 0.
You should always have three browsers, imho. I use Firefox, Tor, and Brave as my three. Firefox’s addon ecosystem is great, and I can use it easily on all the computers I touch. Brave helps me when I need “Chrome” for something to work, but the browser is fairly slick imho, plus exists as a financially independent competitor to Chrome, unlike Firefox. Lastly, Tor is for when using Tor through Brave or using it through transparent proxy isn’t enough, and I am worrying about fingerprinting as well.
Bottom line is it is a good browser and faster than most if not all the others I have tried. Certainly faster than Firefox and Mullvad. If you don’t like the add’s turn them off. If you dont like the wallet and other stuff, dont use them. It is easy to ignore that stuff. Nothing in that article makes me want to stop using it.
Your idea of ethical is overwriting affiliate links from small journalism sites that clearly state they’re affiliate links and instead quietly replacing them with links that benefit a corporation that raised money off of crypto?
The “precise and specific actions” called for in that article, specifically for the purpose of combating speech that encourages violence, like homophobia or white supremacy:
Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted.
Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact.
Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation.
Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things.
Why can’t a browser company just be opinionated about making the best browser? Why does it have to have a shitty controversial opinion about social media? I don’t know why, but my trust in the org and therefore the browser itself is gone.
I don’t think being anti white supremacy and homophobia is shitty or controversial. Why would an Internet company write an article about something that affects the biggest sector of the Internet, social media? 🤔
“No they should stay in their lane and only talk about, I don’t know, CSS or something.” I don’t buy it.
Who said anything about white supremacy or homophobia?
Regardless, yes, they should refrain from controversial subjects that are not related to their business. And if they decide to make social media censorship their business in a direct way, also fuck em.
…the article you linked me? The topic of this discussion?
It shouldn’t be controversial to anyone. The suggestions given there are pretty mild. Regardless, justice is not the absence of conflict. Sorry the article made you upset but that doesn’t make it wrong.
I don’t give a damn about the article. I only stated my reasons why Firefox and Chrome are total deal breakers for me. Maybe there’s a better browser than all of them, but for now I’m happy with Brave.
And your opinion is your opinion, it isn’t universal. Stop thinking that it is.
The opinion:
“Homophobia and white supremacy are bad and should be combated”
It’s interesting that you think firefox is being “controversial” when their CEO writes a couple paragraphs about combating hate speech online, but brave isn’t when their CEO sends money to hate organizations. 🤔
If the user share of Firefox falls too low websites will stop supporting it (which is already happening), we will have given google the internet. Everything that is not Firefox is based on Chrome.
The CEO of Brave literally supports Censorship so hard that he wants to censor gay marriage out of existence - this actually affects people in real life. When you use Brave, you directly support that individual and their shitty politics.
I’ve had my firefox settings/setup with multi-account containers, etc. dialed in for years. Never had any reason to change that. Librewolf is nice for people who don’t already have existing & configured installations of firefox to have it basically configured by default.
No, this article is pretty much idealistic rant aimed at hating the ceo. The product is fine.
Edit: the ads and crypto are opt in. I’d like to see if anyone ranting here about them has actually used Brave and went so far as to opt in to things they don’t want
Can someone explain how Brave siphoning some money from Amazon specifically impacts privacy? Does the affiliate get a list of accounts that bought something? Names? Addresses? Or does some money just show up in their account?
What information does Amazon get? That the person clicking is using Brave? They already know that from the user agent.
Some OSS developers, independent review/news sites get affiliate money to stay afloat. Amazon requires them to state this clearly. Brave didn’t declare it and probably stole (replace) innocent referrals. This is level 100 spyware/malware tactic.
plus they have Google Advert ID Permission in Android. Tell me who is more creep. Crypto-things can be disabled within a few clicks, While mozilla’s trash can be disabled using a bunch of configuration in about:config
did not know about the founder’s past, cheers for this. whenever i’m forced to open a chromium browser for something from now on, i’ll be using vivaldi.
Is Vivaldi good? I’ve heard it’s like the old Opera, which I used to love (I used Opera from 2003 until around when they switched to Chromium, 2012ish)
I used to use it and I liked it quite a bit, I even replaced my gmail accounts with vivaldi.net accounts, though I may migrate to proton sometime. I use Firefox exclusively but if I needed to use a chromium-based browser, that’s the one I’d use. I’m not a power user by any stretch so my opinion probably has less weight than those of others on here, but that’s my two cents anyway.
i like vivaldi a lot :) mostly because of its UI and extremely easy in-depth customization. in my opinion it is the greatest-looking web browser (if you don’t factor in all the css fiddling you can do in a text editor with firefox, of course. but even then i don’t recall seeing any custom firefox user style that looked better than vivaldi to me).
the reason why i switched away from vivaldi and back to firefox after ~2 years of straight usage was that vivaldi had a weird performance bug for me where if i had too many tabs open for too many days in a row (laptop, no shutdown), it would randomly start freezing and i’d have to restart it. but when it was running on a fresh start, it was amazing. also the more ethical choice of using a non-chromium browser was part of the reason
it would randomly start freezing and i’d have to restart it. but when it was running on a fresh start, it was amazing
Weird, that’s the exact problem I had on my old desktop and have on my laptop with Firefox. Both were 8gigs of memory and I figured out that the freezing coincided with memory being depleted. My new desktop has, funnily enough, no problems with its 32gigs of memory. I need to purchase a new ram block for my laptop…
hijacking affiliate codes is unethical and should be stopped but don’t actually affect me in any way.
I mean, alright. But you could say “I don’t care” about any infraction of freedom and/or trust. I trust software to not modify my intent, any software that does so without asking can not be trusted in any way.
I do. In fact I use 5 different browsers on a semi-regular basis. None of them are vanilla Firefox. Most of the “more private” browsers simply don’t work on many pages.
The “anti-LGBT stuff” is enough imo. It may be “small fries”, but I’d rather not support someone (or their company) when they clearly don’t support me.
hijacking affiliate codes is unethical and should be stopped but don’t actually affect me in any way.
It does affect you because it would have meant that you couldn’t claim cashback offers from sites like TopCashback and Rakuten, as the cashback site’s affiliate code would have been replaced with Brave’s.
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