I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.
Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.
Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.
After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL’s. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.
Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I’d say the answer is a very clear no.
One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.
Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don’t mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.
For the comments, can anyone give me an actual reason to use Brave over Firefox (and it’s forks)? I guess the cryptocurrency aspect is a reason, but I wouldn’t say it’s a very good one.
That’s actually one of the reasons I do not use Brave.
My guess is because Brave is a relatively known Chromium browser that’s been degoogled. Along with built in ad and tracker blocking, and it’s an easy less evil of the two.
I want to like Firefox, both as normal user and as web developer, but something about it keeps bugging me. The UI feels sluggish, sites seem to be slightly less performant, and I can’t seem to get used to it.
That said, I’ve started using Vivaldi, and while it can be considered bloated, I really like the tab options it has, while also offering a degoogled chromium that’s being kept to date.
Because all the web devs optimize for chrome because they dominate the market. If more people use Firefox then devs will start to care about performance in it
(You’re a dev so I assume you know this. This comment is mainly for other people)
I’m not sure what it is. I suppose this is the case for the heavier web-applications, but the average website (which is where my expertise is, not actual applications) also feels slightly worse on FF. And as far as I know, I don’t use any chrome-specific tricks or optimizations.
I feel the exact same. I use linux with a tiling window manager and when I change format, Firefox just starts twitching like it’s trying to give me an epileptic seizure while chromium browsers do it just fine.
Also, sometime ago I tried to compare Chrome (when I still used it) and Firefox side by side with the same extensions opening the same websites and Firefox always took a bit more ram.
You sure that’s not a WM problem?
FWIW, Ubuntu 20.04, i3wm, no problems with Firefox
Idk, I use gnome with pop shell tiling and Firefox is the only program that does it.
Try another WM and see if you still have issues
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Try basic Chromium, it’s Chrome without the Google.
You’re not wrong about Firefox, many sites are specifically optimized for Chrome and perform worse in FF. This is especially true for anything Google.
My machines are generally fast enough that FF is fine so I prefer it but I fall back to Chromium occasionally or Chrome and Edge for specific uses.
There’s nothing in particular wrong with Vivaldi, IIRC I didn’t like some features or UI bits when I used it last so it didn’t have anything to recommend itself to me over basic Chromium. I’d prefer it over Edge which, IMO, is bloated with a bunch of garbage but Edge has very good streaming site support so 🤷♂️
For me, Vivaldi had had the best performance next to Safari. FF and Chrome are easily smoked by Vivaldi when benchmarking. Idk if it’s related to M-series chipset or what, but my buddy who doesn’t have one has much worse performance on his laptop. Also, web and software dev, the saved workspaces that you can pin is killer.
Vivaldi tab management is pretty great. Vivaldi is designed for power users that always have a ton of tabs open. There are a bunch of other features as well that I use regularly, but I could see that it might be a bit of a learning curve for those that just want to install a browser and immediately know where everything is. There has been more than a few times that I discovered yet another efficiency using Vivaldi and felt like I was getting more from it. Definitely a browser for someone willing to spend time configuring it for their use case. Keyboard shortcuts ftw!
Vivaldi definitely has a learning curve. It’s great once you have it set up how you like (which, granted, is way too time consuming for the average user). But the tab stacking and tiling is so immensely useful for me, I can’t use other browsers without missing those features now.
Brave has been hyped as a privacy browser despite having several major privacy failures baked into it repeatedly. It’s 100% hype. You get the same level of privacy on paper by installing Chromium with an ad blocker and tweaking a couple settings. Firefox has better privacy defaults and is better with an ad blocker installed. Chromium has a slight edge on security (FF needs to really push tab isolation harder) but if privacy is your main concern I would always recommend FF.
The
thisisunsafebypass - although I’m pretty sure it’s a Chromium feature and not specific to Brave. One of our servers has a completely fucked-up SSL cert, which I can’t fix for reasons outside my control. Firefox won’t allow me to connect, butthisisunsafeon Brave works.It works in Chromium too.
I have no problem using firefox with my self signed cert. Just add the cert.
It’s not self-signed. I think we used to have a proper internal CA, but it’s gone along with its certs. And we can’t replace it because that particular server is held together by our desperate friday night prayers.
I have installed Brave on my grandparents’ computer, because:
Personally I use firefox.
I don’t use brave, but I use Vivaldi.
The main reason for me is native mouse gestures. They are so much better than addon mouse gestures.
And speed dials. Addon ones are okayish, but I prefer the Vivaldi implementation.
If Firefox would ever ass native mouse gestures, I would swap in an instant. Until then, no can do :(
Personally I can’t say anything about Vivaldi, but it’s proprietary and owned by people who used to work for Opera.
Proprietary, yes, from a Foss pov it’s not good I guess
Owned by ex opera ppl: that’s a good thing tbh. Old opera was fantastic. New opera is more fishy after they were acquired by a Chinese group.
There is a lot of browser love in Vivaldi tbh. They are very open and transparent. Haven’t found a single red flag about Vivaldi (aside from not being FOSS, which for me isn’t a red flag per se)
They even run their own Mastodon servers for their community ;)
I love the Vivaldi community. It might not be AS open as the Firefox community but the devs seem quite nice and are very responsive to feedback
Proprietary software is generally frowned upon in this community, however I personally don’t mind that much.
On iOS, unlike Android, Firefox doesn’t come with extensions. No ads are blocked. Even if I use Safari and Adguard extension, it doesn’t block YouTube ads. Brave works like a charm in this regard. I’ve opted out of all telemetry stuff that I could find, and btw even Firefox opts into everything by default. Any other open source browser you can suggest that blocks ads including YouTube on iOS?
On iOS use Orion Browser by Kagi. As for blocking ads in YouTube, you can use AltStore to sideload a YouTube app with sponsorblock and ad block built in.
(Orion might block YouTube ads, I haven’t tested it)
I can confirm Orion blocks Youtube ads (might need to tweak options). As for youtube app, no need to sideload anything, Yattee is on the app store and on testflight for betas (https://github.com/yattee/yattee/wiki/Installation-Instructions)
Defaults. Install Brave and you’re done. Site doesn’t work? Report non-working site. Wanna support creators? Top up your Brave Wallet or turn on Brave ads.
I’ve a limited budget and limited time to tip websites. I ain’t gonna tip manually every other rando on the internet. Brave takes care of that. Small amounts, yes, but better than just ad-blocking [yes, website owners have to opt-in to it].
Completely uninformed take follows: Also, Mozilla seems to be trying to ramp up their ads department – search for Mozilla Ads. And no-one gonna convert because they already have Google Adsense.
TL;DR: Firefox is faster but using recommended tools like uBlock Origin leaves websites without income.
You can always use something like AdNauseam to give website owners ad revenue and still block ads.
Being chromium based it
Don’t get me wrong, I am using Firefox, but your entire post is pretty disingenuous. Criticizing Brave over privacy concerns and then suggesting Firefox instead requires disingenuity or a special kind of ignorance and/or stupidity. Firefox has had 10 times as many privacy “mishaps” as Brave with all the “experiments” of corporate affiliates they shipped to users unannounced. There’s a reason there are so many forks of Firefox.
Pretty much everything you criticize about Brave is entirely optional.
Then you title a link as Brave “getting ousted as spyware”, and the linked to page does not oust Brave as spyware at all. You would do good to adopt some of the more neutral/factual tone of that page.
And in parts that page is pretty ridiculous, too: complaining about what is set as the default search engine (the same as Firefox, btw). Who the fuck cares what search engine is set by default? Just change it. Opt out of everything you do not like. If there’s stuff you cannot opt out of which is bad, we can talk about that. But arguing about optional features is ridiculous.
Edit: little add-on: Brave factually has better out of the box (no plugins) privacy protection than Firefox: https://privacytests.org/
I stated “and it’s forks” in the comment, and I did not mention Firefox (or any other browser) in the actual main post itself. Firefox can be easily de-spyware’d with something like arkenfox’s user.js (as I mentioned in another comment). There are also plenty of privacy-centric Chromium based browsers such as Ungoogled Chromium and Vivaldi.
Regarding optional features, I more used them as a segue into the last three links showcasing Brave’s malicious and downright illegal activities. Personally, the fact those features are integrated into the browser at all is a deal breaker for me.
Edit: For the record, I’m aware Vivaldi is proprietary but I don’t necessarily think that makes it bad. I haven’t done enough research on it to personally recommend it, but I’ve been told that it’s good.
Funny how you do not address most of what I said … so, disingenuous it is.
ftfy
Nothing good will come of this conversation, so I’ll stop it right here. Have a nice day.
I don’t address most of what you said because it’s referring to one of the six links I have in that post, and I don’t really have anything to say regarding it.
I don’t see how it is misleading to tell people that Brave created a cryptocurrency, they then added a rewards program to the browser with that cryptocurrency, and then they inserted affiliate links into URL’s when people were browsing. All of this happened, it’s not misleading, it’s just a fact.
None of those three are true.
Some web sites are optimized for chrome.
Not remotely accurate, https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list
Not to any relevant degree. 515 VS 528 is at best a slight difference that in all likely hood is from Googlie using their position to strong arm things that benefit only them into the standards and very likely undetectable by the end user. https://html5test.com/
That website you link is literally run by a Brave employee. Sure, they might have tried very hard to be independent, but when you literally work on the codebase of one browser you’re probably going to write your tests to focus on the things you already know (plus it’s not like Brave would allow their employee to run a site that says it’s shit, would they?)
Considering how many tests Brave does not pass, I’d say that page looks pretty balanced and fair. Also it is consistent with independent studies where Brave came out on top of the list.
My impression is that most opposition against Brave is largely political. And then people try to find technical reasons after the fact, which simply isn’t justified in comparison with other browsers.
By “political” do you mean that the boss is a knob? Because that’s pretty irrelevant to the quality of the browser as you say, though all the dodgy things they do like lying about donation money and injecting affiliate links are not.
The only reason I use it over firefox is about tab grouping and how tab mutting work by default. I don’t feel like trying out a bunch of extensions to find one that does what I already get from another browser. Also don’t have to worry about installing ad blocker. Originally switched because it worked better than uorigin for a specific use-case that was relevant for me. I also have vivaldi, firefox, and librewolf install and will use them occasionally. Privacy isn’t a big concern for me though; when I tried to switch to librewolf, the privacy features ended up annoying me so I disabled a lot of them because they interfered with using the browser how I wanted.
Not recommending Brave. I agree at least in theory with using Firefox and I want more people to use Firefox. But its what I’m use to and there was reason for me to try it out at the time I switched to it (that’s probably irrelevant now).
Brave is better out of the box than Firefox
And an iPhone is better for privacy out of the box than most Android phones, but once you make some basic changes that’s no longer the case.
Not by much…
I already wrote in another comment, but since you’re asking here, I’ll add i to this thread:
You probably shouldn’t use Brave over Firefox (and it’s forks), at least not as a primary browser, but it’s a great out of the box plug and play browser for average people, most of which are probably currently using chrome with no ad block.
If the average user was decently tech literate, companies wouldn’t buy ads any more, because they wouldn’t make anything off of them, since people don’t watch; but obviously they do.
The average person doesn’t want to have to install an ad-blocker - hell, the average person probably has no real idea of what an ad-blocker even is - and they don’t want to bother configuring anything either. They just want plug and play applications that will do everything they need. And for that, Brave is probably the best. E.g. if a family member called me asking for a browser recommendation, I’d probably just tell them to install Brave. I think I’ll keep doing that until I see a better plug and play browser.
Firefox is actually NOT a private browser. I don’t know where it gets this reputation because clearly those people haven’t read their privacy policy where it plainly states that they gather and sell your info to a data mining company.
For better or worse, Chromium browsers work better because the vast majority of people use Chromium so that’s how people build their sites.
Brave has tons of privacy features and settings. Including built-in ad-blocking just like uBlock so your extensions can’t be used to fingerprint you.
If you want a private browser and insist on but using Chromium there are dozens of Firefox forks that are much better for privacy.
If the (supposedly) privacy preserving ads and crypto really upset you, you can simply turn them off.
This isn’t a reason to use Brave, this is just a reason to not use stock Firefox.
There’s really not a difference. At the end of the day you need a browser so a reason not to use one is not terribly different from a reason TO use another. And the one that constantly gets recommended in these communities is Firefox, which is not as bad as Chrome but still worse than just about any privacy-preserving browser out there.
Most people recommend forks of Firefox, or Firefox with modifications to make it more privacy-centric. I don’t think anyone recommends stock Firefox (it’s spyware).
Not around here they don’t.
I’ve seen countless instances in this post alone of people recommending Firefox and its forks. Are we talking about the same place?
Due to some specific hardware issue on my end affecting all firefox based browsers, I have to use a hardened and stripped down version of Flatpak Brave, which I did manually, as a backup browser. I used to use Ungoogled Chromium but it is not reliable. Other than that there is absolutely no reason to use Brave and I would immediately switch back to Firefox only if I get newer hardware.
As a plus point, firefox (gecko based browsers in general) are the only ones I have seen which provide the best theming flexibilities.
Have you tried any forks of Firefox? They might serve you better. You could also try out Mullvad’s browser, which released a few months ago.
I have tried a wide number of Firefox Forks, some niche ones as well. I generally do not prefer non-ESR releases or Forks because of the added Fingerprinting Risks. But all of them had the same issue so I concluded that there was some incompatibility with my Hardware (which is quite old now) and the Gecko Engine.
on my very old s4 mini android phone Brave works better than any other browser by far.
i do not use Brave anywhere else :)
Given that you’ve probably not had a security update on that phone for a decade then you probably shouldn’t have any personal data on it at all!
LineageOS dude, still running on it, still being updated
Fair play! I know lineage don’t really support that many devices anymore so that’s really impressive!
Built in Tor browsing… Just use Tor?
… or just use the built-in feature of my browser and don’t require running another software?
Doesn’t that kinda defeat half of Tors purpose though? Tor works best when you have a large crowd that all looks the same. Using Brave or any other browsers makes you stick out like a sore thumb because most likely not many people do this. This is the reason why the Tor people recommend only ever using the Tor browser and also not install any other extensions onto it and so on.
If you don’t care about that, that’s fine but then you don’t really need Tor either way.
Interesting take. I guess I need to check for more details if Brave hides these infos or not. Thanks for that hint!
I don’t think Brave can “hide” these infos. At most you could try to spoof them somehow to something else. If you would hide them, that inherently would make you stick out as well since the website would see that you’re hiding stuff :D
You would have to make your Brave browser look exactly like the Tor browser from a websites point of view to blend in. No clue if that is actually possible. A website can read surprisingly a lot of system information from your browser.
I use it on my phone and tablet to block YouTube ads. All the other browsers are dedicated for various other purposes, but I use Firefox as my main browser. When a site doesn’t work on FF, I have to use Safari. Brave is just another tool in my toolbox.
My number one reason would be we need to stop using solely chromium browsers before we end up in another monoculture IE era where websites only bother coding for chromium support. FWIW Firefox is pretty great these days anyway so it’s not like it’s even a painful decision.
I mean that’s a reason not to use Brave. It’s a Chromium based browser.
Yeah I reread your question after I posted and realized you were asking something different. Tried to delete it before anyone read it but oops… 😬
Chromium exensions
This falls under “not a good reason” because 90% of Chromium extensions have Firefox alternatives.
I don’t want to support Mozilla, for a lot of reason I don’t have the time or the will to discuss here. Is that enough for you? It is for me.
You either support Google or support Mozilla. Supporting Mozilla leads to a safer internet for all.
It’s cute how people sincerely believe Mozilla PR.
I don’t believe Mozilla PR, I believe that solely using Chromium is bad for everyone.
Ok. Nice. I’ll keep using Brave anyway. Have a good day.
My man joins the conversation and then acts like they’re a hostage to it.
Stupid conversations, stemming from stupid premises, are not going anywhere.