The ceo is a bigoted asshole, Brave is chromium, it was initially funded by Peter Thiel and they’re literally just trying to make their own adsense network.
The self-proclaimed privacy focused browser is tracking your browsing and want to serve you personalized ads, and I think they want to use that tracking data for AI training as well, meaning other people can potentially access it.
And lets not forget about their crypto currency that you can earn by turning on special ads. Which they seemingly unironically called it “Basic Attent Tokens”…
TL;DR: The company is basically a sham company trying to usher in a dystopia. Where you’ll get paid for staring at ads, while having all your data stolen and sold back to you.
I see no reason to use any other browser than Firefox and maybe Librewolf.
So Mull browser, right?
Yeah top 4 browser are Firefox, librewolf, tor, and mullvad for sure.
mull and mullvad are at least two different things
Autocorrect so strong it turns your browser into a VPN
There is a Mullvad Browser.
Firefox on desktop is awesome. Firefox on mobile is painful.
Android firefox is ok now. Moreover now it supports add ons too and there are some good add ons there.
It’s a very small number of add-ons, but one of them is uBlock Origin, and that’s all I really want.
You can just change the list of supported add-ons to whatever you like.
Only if you tie your browser with an account at Mozilla. No way to do it without an account.
Only if you need your list. Otherwise you can just switch the list I’d to one including your extensions
Where can I change this list?
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In the settings under “custom add-on list”. You might need to enter dev mode, which you do by tapping the Firefox logo in the about menu 5 times (you get a toast with your progress).
After that you enter the userID ND the collection name in the popup and confirm.
Details:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/extended-add-support
And a reddit comment with a list you can use:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/j1ta1s/comment/g720d72/
If firefox gets more popular then maybe more add ons can appear…
at least they support add ons like CHROME
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What’s wrong with Firefox on iOS? I realise it’s WebKit with a Firefox skin, but it seems to work well enough.
User interface is poor. Cannot customise the gui at all so I feel like it’s a downgrade over Samsung browser that also supports ad blocks.
It works pretty well for me, but I use Firefox nightly.
I am forced to use Chromium on my work laptop because MS Teams doesn’t work (all the features) on Firefox.
Edit: I should elaborate this a bit. There are 2 reasons why I use Chromium on my machine.
- If I face a problem, company tech team only knows Chrome and they start crying when I open Firefox.
- On Linux, the official way to use Teams is through a web-app and Firefox doesn’t support PWAs.
All other MS services function fine on Firefox.
Which features I’ve never had an issue
Same. I use furefox for everything* at work, despite everything being heavily integrated with teams, sharepoint, et.al.
*: The only thing that doesn’t work with firefox is this inhouse web service that hasn’t been updated since 2017. It’s about to be replaced anyway, so nobody bothered to fix/update it.
The custom background effects don’t work on Firefox
Simple one-to-one calling is disabled saying it’s only available on Chrome. I’m pretty sure it’s recent since I had calls a few months back on Firefox. I’m also sure that it’s not some group policy since I’m on Ubuntu without any sort of ActiveDirectory so it’s a pure browser issue. Also, they force the old UI in Firefox due to some reason. Typical BS from Microsoft.
Does changing user agent mitigate some of those issues?
In a just world, the fact of changing the user agent fixing the issues would make for a slam-dunk anti-trust case.
It really should, no doubt, but this is not a perfect world
If you confront Microsoft with this, then they will say they don’t have enough resources to test “thousands” of browsers which is why they have restricted their efforts to Chromium only, while making billions of dollars in profits each year.
I’ve tried it today and yeah, 1-to-1 calls magically/unsurprisingly start working. In fact, the whole UI gets a facelift and lots of new features.
If I had to guess, I’d say Microsoft keeps around a version of their UI, which hasn’t been maintained in over a year, and serves that to anyone initiating communication with a user-agent string they don’t like.
If that’s true, that’s a massive security vulnerability. Admittedly, also unsurprising for Microsoft. @xavier666@lemm.ee
Thanks a lot for this…time to get an extension.
Wow, that’s egregious on so many levels!
This kind of browser apartheid should be illegal
I use Firefox as my primary browser and run the teams app.
they start crying when I open Firefox.
Good. Use it anyway, and bathe in their tears!
I am using Brave on iOS mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
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They claim to be decent, but it’s closed source so who knows…
The fact that their founder wants to ban gay marriage is enough reason for me to avoid it like the plague.
I dont know why anyone would leave chrome and land on something like brave.
If youre ditching chrome, which you should, go to an actual different browser and use Firefox.
Personal anecdote:
When I initially decided to drop Chrome, I moved to Brave because - as a chromium-based browser - it supported the same set of extensions I’d grown accustomed to.
That being said, the crypto stuff weirded me out enough that, once I’d weaned myself off the extensions, I switched to Firefox.
What extensions does chrome have which are useful that Firefox doesn’t?
My only recurring issue with Firefox, which may have been fixed I dunno, is it for some reason it “isn’t officially supported” or whatever exact wording to use hardware security keys (like yubikey, which I use on every account that allows it). It’s only certain websites that don’t want to work though. Like google, Microsoft and many others were fine but I think paypal didn’t want to work properly but it does work on Edge, Chrome, probably Brave. Overall annoying as fuck at times but I deal with it to be out of Google’s-world
Shrug, it’s been a while and I don’t remember which affected my decision at the time.
You can probably get around your paypal problems by telling them your Firefox is Chrome.
https://github.com/ray-lothian/UserAgent-SwitcherOnly one I missed was PushBullet, it was the easiest way to text from browser and get articles from phone/computer. Nothing I’ve tried on Firefox has worked as well
at the time; the great suspender (although that’s dead on chrome now too)
project naptha is the only one that has stuck with me since i left chrome, and has no firefox alternative to my knowledge
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Streaming services seem to lower bitrate when I’m using Firefox vs Brave, so Brave is my go to for streaming.
I use Firefox for everything else.
I use it as my hardened Firefox doesn’t play well with some government and bank sites
Chromium has metric shit tons of work done that seems to perform great. What I would love to see is for Mozilla to fork Chromium, staff it with enough people to maintain it, add/remove the features they feel are appropriate/inappropriate, and thus reuse the tons of free work Google and others have already done. As a software engineer, I don’t buy the argument that it’s easier to correctly implement every new web feature anew than maintaining a fork. Every large org that ships anything based on Android for example maintains a fork of an even bigger codebase. It’s not as complicated as people make it out to be. It’s not a new problem and there are strategies to manage it. If Mozilla does this, they’ll be able to play an active role in steering by far the biggest rendering engine’s direction, instead of playing opposition with no stake in it. Now downvote away! 😄
The more market share chrome based browsers have, the easier it is for google to inflict their agenda for the internet on everyone. If firefox didnt exist, every web developer would be optimizing their sites only for chrome, and responding quickly to any change google wants to make.
It really doesn’t matter what Firefox’es codebase is though. To a web developer it’s a black box. It may as well be a bowl of COBOL spaghetti. So long as enough people use it and it behaves differently to a web developer than Google’s Chromium or Chrome, the goal you mentioned is achieved. This is why I don’t buy this argument. If Firefox’es black box is as compatible, as fast or faster and as good or better than Chrome’s, more users will use it than if it isn’t.
I was using Chrome as a secondary because unfortunately “designed for Chrome” is a thing now, and got sick of Google’s bullshit and thought I was doing better by going to Brave. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that Brave has its own large ethical holes.
When I need a Chromium browser I use Vivaldi. I quite like it!
Ungoogled Chromium is a great option for a back up. It’s lightweight and works well
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That’s gonna be quite difficult, unfortunately
What if the apps aren’t for online use?
I am using Brave mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
I’ve tried Firefox several times but always end up back on chromium due to compatibility; a lot of sites don’t play well with anything but chrome anymore and this is very much something intentionally caused by Google, who have basically taken a page out of Microsoft’s playbook but with a much more mature product that is going to be substantially harder to replace then IE was
Brave is the only browser I know that can play youtube videos in the background on mobile. Please tell me another browser that can do that. The UX is just really good.
Why not use NewPipe?
Vivaldi can do that, there is an option in settings. Firefox mobile does that with an addon.
Firefox and gecko are just not as smooth. I don’t know how you don’t notice this, especially on Android.
I have absolutely no idea how Brave got the reputation it has. It’s business model is disgusting and extortionate, it’s like paying for warez. Been clear as day since day one.
Brave is a marching band of red flags. It claims privacy while injecting ads, affiliate codes and crypto into the browser. It’s kind of sad to see someone like Brendan Eich who should know better turn to the dark side and pretend this is all fine. It isn’t.
Best advice I could give for anyone who wants privacy is use Firefox or a branch of it. Firefox is out of the box the most privacy conscious mainstream browser and add-ons make it more so. If you want absolute privacy you could even use a derivative like Tor Browser.
At one point they were scummy enough to automatically add their referral codes to any Amazon link you see. Lots of people today still mindlessly recommend Brave, and that’s what’s wrong in general with the “but the UX is so nice” mentality.
Lots of people today still mindlessly recommend Brave
It starts to feel astroturfed at a certain point. The last week or so has been crazy.
I would bet my left nut they astroturf
They’re cryptocurrency scammers; do you expect them not to hustle?
At one point they were scummy enough to automatically add their referral codes to any Amazon link you see.
To be clear, that means Brave is ① invading their users’ privacy, and ② stealing money from web publishers.
The point of referral codes is to reward web publishers for referring users to a product; leading to the user buying a product that they otherwise wouldn’t.
Your browser isn’t introducing you to a product. For it to insert referral codes for the browser vendor’s benefit is stealing money.
Its almost like UX is one of the most important things for a user of any given program. 🥴
Same when Brave used to add special links to each Reddit link in the list of stories. I don’t know if they still do this, but the fact that it was opt-out and hidden deep in the settings was scummy.
If you really dig into the whole ordeal it was a software error, not some malicious idea to steal links from creators.
How exactly does one accidentally insert affiliate data on links? At some point someone wrote that code, which is malicious in itself, even if the activation was accidental.
It’s also strange that it happened twice, first with amazon links, then they started injecting affiliate data for crypto platforms instead.
It’s possible they had ads with referrals but accidentally modified all amazon links
What’s so bad about that?
It’s without your consent.
Most of the stuff that happens on the backend of any software goes on “without your consent”.
You clicked on a webpage.
You were brought to that webpage.
You weren’t tracked, logged, or had your data exploited or anything. All that happened was Brave got an affiliate bonus.
Now if the companies in question were angry at Brave for doing that, I could understand. But why should we, the users, give a shit?
You weren’t tracked, logged, or had your data exploited or anything. All that happened was Brave got an affiliate bonus.
You seem to not know how affiliate links work. The products shopped are tracked & logged per user, and can be analyzed by the affiliate partner as to what their users were buying, i.e. data can be exploited.
I don’t know a lot, so maybe you know more than me. The tracking and logging is via cookies, right?
The same cookies that brave automatically blocks?
Again, maybe they do some tracking via some other method that I don’t know about; I’m not an expert. But it seems to me that Brave was essentially scamming those companies by using their referral codes but denying them any useful data. Great for brave, sucks for the companies, shouldn’t matter to us.
Not necessarily via cookies. The referral links can be unique to a specific user.
Why the fuck should your browser get a share from your amazon shopping? It’s doubly galling since they pretend to care about user privacy.
Yeah, fuck this guy.
First, I have been online for almost 30 years. I’ve led an open source project for 14 years. I speak regularly at conferences around the world, and socialize with members of the Mozilla, JavaScript, and other web developer communities. I challenge anyone to cite an incident where I displayed hatred, or ever treated someone less than respectfully because of group affinity or individual identity.
So I hid my hatred from everyone for 30 years successfully. Now that everyone finds out that I donated to a cause to strip them of rights everyone wants to say I’m hateful? Give me one example where I displayed hatred…how about the time you donated to strip people of their rights? That might be a big one for me.
The fact that its main 2 gimmicks are a shitty ad blocker and integrated cryptocurrency should be enough of a red flag, honestly. Just use Firefox, people!
Firefox is king 👑
So the CEO is a raging alt-righter. Glad I never used his product then.
the hateful browser
Holy shit man imagine if we judged every huge project by one asshole at the top. There wouldn’t be a single thing to enjoy in this world.
Edit:
I am going to add more perspective to this, because holy shit people are so into eating nothing burgers.
Reddit/Twitter was a database and API that everyone was centralized onto, there was no choice. Brave you can literally fork because its open source. Aside from that this was literally the CEO’s personal donation of $1000…in like 2014. Almost 10 yrs ago.
Elon, as CEO and on the X/Twitter brand:
- “brainwashed” https://www.news18.com/buzz/elon-musk-causes-uproar-with-anti-lgbtq-anti-vax-meme-insults-random-twitter-user-6714733.html
- https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-twitter-makes-millions-off-anti-lgbt-groomer-tweets-report
- https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musks-new-twitter-pronoun-rule-invites-bullying-lgbtq-groups-say-rcna87336
- https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/21/elon-musk-triples-down-on-making-twitter-terrible-for-trans-people/
Meanwhile Brendan:
- Literally stepped down as CEO https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/brendan-eich-resigns-as-mozilla-corporation-ceo/
- https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/
- made personal blog post about inclusivity shortly after https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/
- invented and worked on/for javascript, brave, firefox
Gnubyte
Vivaldi? Trusting a closed sourced application for privacy? What?
Not even defending brave here, just weird that the author say that.
Today I learned that people take it VERY PERSONALLY when you criticize their chosen browser. 😂
Long time Brave user here. This made me uninstall Brave and move to Firefox. Thank you !