Stop using Brave Browser
Stop using Brave Browser
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.
Edit: Fixed bat emoji and typo.
@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.
[Eich] donated $1,000 in support of California's Proposition 8 in 2008, which was a proposed amendment to California's state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Even though I do not agree at all with the donation and support - out of the things that influence me into choosing a browser, 15 year-old private donations of appointed CEOs is pretty low on that list.
And the whole BAT thing is opt-in and they're very transparent about it. I don't get why people get so triggered when the C word - crypto - is involved.
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.
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.
To be honest the best chromium based browser I've used (when I'm forced to use a chromium based browser) is the Samsung internet one. It has a dark mode that actually works and protects my vampire eyes lol.
Never used brave because I heard all of the scammy ad network and crypto stuff years ago, immediately put me off it. Now learning that the creator probably hates me, it's just another reason not to touch it.
I don't use it because if I had to pause to laugh at the self-seriousness every time I opened a browser, I would get even less work done than I do now
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Fuck chromium and fuck Google
Never used it to begin with.
I made the switch last month from Brave for years, back to firefox. Brave is easy more effective at blocking tablets and ads, even with ublock/adblock. You can install it and just start using a cleaner web, and it's really easy to customize gow much of an effect the sanitization is. I defended a lot of what Brave did in the early days, because what I was hearing from developers is that they were trying to monetize it in anyway possible that maintained the privacy of the user, and I understand that ethos.
It's the years and years of missteps that finally got to me. I started to feel like I had to keep up on what they were doing to make sure nothing slipped through, and that's not trust.
I still think they have the best ad blocking tech, it beats my pihole, it beats Firefox with extensions. It's fast, and it displays websites reliably.
But, we do need to consider the roads we pave and the tools we use. Brenden Eich has not apologized for his donation, but at the time he did write a blog post about supporting LGBT initiatives at Mozilla and he had support from people that he worked with. He resigned because at the time there was nothing you could do to assuage an internet hate mob but resign. There is information around stating that three board members left because of his appointment, but only one actually said that,
Dude, this is a Firefox. Why tell us not use something what...95% of people here are not using in the first place?
EDIT: The crypto stuff is opt-in. You don’t have to use Brave Shields (in browser ad blocker). It can be turned off. Now you can use uBlock Origin or another ad blocker.
About the CEO, I can’t see nothing about his beliefs reflecting in his work. Looks like he kept them separated. I’m not for said beliefs.
EDIT 2: Also Brendan Eich is a co-founder of Mozilla. So if you're not going to use Brave because of him. How can you use Firefox?
These are pretty unconvincing reasons to tell people to stop using brave...
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.
I used to but it got bloated to hell and back.
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 spacequtebrowser ftw
I don't see any of this as legitimate reasons to stop using Brave.
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yes the CEO donated $1k some 10 years ago to anti-LGBT stuff, and that's bad, but kinda small fries in the totality of factors.
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ads. Firefox has ads and trackers just like Brave. You can disable them on either.
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you can also disable crypto.
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hijacking affiliate codes is unethical and should be stopped but don't actually affect me in any way.
What else ya got?
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If your going to use a chromium browser brave isn't the worst choice
Common folks you are supposed to use a Computer only to assist at your job.
https://ulaa.com/ - I do trust Zoho.
What a shitty article. Firefox should use mirror.
The author of the article has some personal issues it seems, article is more of a rant. I like brave as an alternative browser.
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.
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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.
I disagree with the article. It appears to make two points, both don't convice me.
The first one is about a political donation made by the founder 15 years ago to the tune of 1000 USD. It was against gay marriage. While I somewhat support gay marriage, I find it totally acceptable to be opposed to it. It depends on what marriage means, and people don't agree on that. For some people it just means a strong bond, stronger than a normal relationship. With this definition, gay marriage isn't an issue.
But to other people marriage is an envelope that's supposed to foster reproduction and family building. With this definition gay marriage isn't exactly straightforward. Neither should it be for people with fertility problems and women over 50 in general. Are convervatives also against that? I guess they should. Whatever. I started off thinking I could defend the stance, now i don't think i did. Either way, ditch a browser over this nonsense?
And if Tim Berners Lee spews some BS, will you stop using the Internet? Or if your country elects a stupid president, will you boycott the country and leave temporatily?
The other issue is what Brave does with ads. While I agree it is imperfect, I think in general the approach is among the better ones around.