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.

  • AlexWIWA@lemmy.mlEnglish
    92·
    9 months ago

    Brave is literally a grift. Too many people are falling for it.

    • deweydecibel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      9 months ago

      Too many people only care about the openweb or shitty companies in the comments. They have no fucking willpower, no patience, and no follow through. Their complaints are utterly meaningless because they utterly refuse to stick to their guns.

      There’s one and literally only one browser that actually stands for all the things the most vocal people around here claim to care about.

      Yet, they use Brave.

      • Amju Wolf@pawb.socialEnglish
        4·
        9 months ago

        Ehh there is only so much a single person can care about. If you have a life and aren’t effectively an activist/lobbyis by profession you can’t care about politics both local and global, preserving nature and ecolody, world hunger & disease, and a million other things like which software company is less evil all at once and follow through 100%, supporting all of the causes meaningfully.

        Not to mention we have to make compromises, too.

        There’s one and literally only one browser that actually stands for all the things the most vocal people around here claim to care about.

        Hard disagree. Firefox had its fair share of controversies, it’s still technically funded by Google (while not accepting donations), and Mozilla Foundation as a nonprofit is pretty questionable too.

        The leadership of Mozilla Corporation is shit too like any other corp; they lay off engineers and give themselves huge bonuses.

        It takes them years to even acknowledge simple bugs, let alone actually getting to fix them.

        A huge part of why Firefox lost the “browser wars” is also that they failed to make it easy to build into other apps so it could work more like Electron, while also pissing off users with surface changes that break their workflow.

        Overall it’s better than Chrome especially if you care about privacy, but it’s not a huge win.

          • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
            3·
            9 months ago

            As I stated in a previous post, if you are using an iPhone you’ve basically given up on having privacy. For ad blockers you could use AdGuard and Safari, it’s better than nothing. You could also use something like Mullvad VPN, it has DNS ad blocking.

            • fatbeer@reddthat.com
              02·
              9 months ago

              As I stated in a previous post, I am using AdGuard on safari. And since I’ve basically given up on privacy, I also use Brave at times.

            • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              04·
              9 months ago

              That’s the most ridiculous statement I’ve seen today. iOS has infinitely better privacy than Android lawl

              • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
                3·
                9 months ago

                An iPhone is a give-up on privacy because you don’t get alternatives. If you don’t like your stock OS on an Android phone you can just switch OS (for example GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, ect.). If you don’t like the normal YouTube app you can just sideload a different one. You don’t get this kind of freedom with an iPhone. A prime example of this is when, during the Hong Kong Riots where Apple pulled an app that assisted protesters.

            • deweydecibel@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              Not on iOS. Every browser on iOS is effectively just a skin for safari. There is no true Firefox for iPhone, or chrome for that matter.

              If you’re using an iPhone, you willingly surrendered your freedom of choice. This is what you paid for.

  • Skimmer@lemmy.zip
    61·
    9 months ago

    Brave is not spyware. That website you linked is horrible and full of misinformation. They also claim that Firefox, and even Tor Browser, are spyware. They act as if any and all connections a browser makes are automatically bad and used for spying/tracking.

    I won’t disagree with the other criticisms of Brave that you made, but just wanted to point that out. That website is just highly unreliable and makes verifiably false claims about the browsers it reviews.

  • AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    3·
    9 months ago

    Let’s not forget one of the biggest investors is a right-wing billionaire who runs a corporate intelligence agency that contracts with the DoD. And the only proof we have that he doesn’t collect data on Brave’s users is the questionable word of the devs.

    • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      11·
      9 months ago

      I would appreciate if we don’t bring politics into the conversation. They are completely subjective and only serve to stray away from the original point.

      Edit:

      Yes, I’m aware I’m in the wrong here.

      • xantoxis@lemmy.world
        1·
        9 months ago

        If you know you’re in the wrong, delete the comment, or at least strikethrough everything you have changed your mind about.

        The people who downvoted you have already moved on, they don’t need or care about an apology and won’t see it.

        • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
          01·
          9 months ago

          I won’t delete the comment as that also deletes (not really but hides) the replies. As for strikethrough, I don’t really think it matters that much.

          • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
            01·
            9 months ago

            Easy. You put your personal shit on the internet then after you get into an argument with a groyped up nazi, they look up your information which is easily accessible and know more about you than a close friend would. You’re starting to get a little harassment but you’re quick to block, but it just keeps coming and coming and coming. Eventually they find out that you’re like 0.00001% jewish then lie about your family history as justification to take things to the next level. You get constant death threats until one faithful day one of them shows up at your doorstep to lynch you. They shoot you dead and the cops let them off the hook because of course they do. All because you freely posted all your personal information on the internet for any freak to see.

            Think that’s an extreme example? It literally happens all the time. The only reason I’m still around is because I keep that shit private so it never gets past the first step, but there’s been plenty of others who weren’t so lucky when it came to that sort of thing.

      • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
        01·
        9 months ago

        You are aware that “Don’t bring politics into this” is code for “I don’t agree with what you’re saying” right? It’s never a good look.

  • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
    2·
    9 months ago

    Just disable the ads, crypto and telemetry and suddenly none of those things are a problem anymore, just like Firefox.

  • HKayn@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    How about we just let users use what they want? I don’t use Brave, but it has some legitimate anti-fingerprinting tech.

  • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    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.

    • Engywuck@lemm.ee
      1·
      9 months ago

      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.

    • Matomo@lemmy.ml
      11·
      9 months ago

      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.

    • Gogo Sempai@programming.dev
      0·
      9 months ago

      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?

    • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
      0·
      9 months ago

      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.

        • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
          1·
          9 months ago

          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.

          • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
            0·
            9 months ago

            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).

    • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      02·
      9 months ago

      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.

  • moitoi@feddit.de
    1·
    9 months ago

    The issue is wider than Brave. Nowadays, companies build uncritical communities around their products.

    If you try to be critical, you loose the community in which you’re involved on one side. And, if you are critical from the outside, “you don’t understand” like in the “you’re not the choose one”.

  • Izzy@lemmy.ml
    0·
    9 months ago

    I don’t see why making money needs to be at all a part of using a piece of software. The only transaction that potentially needs to take place is paying for the software up front.

    Same with social media sites like whatever BlueSky or Posts is doing. Why is money involved?

    • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      02·
      9 months ago

      Money is involved because people want to make a living off of their project. Also, every major browser has been backed with huge amounts of funding because supporting a browser is very difficult.

      That said, that doesn’t mean every browser project is good, either. Just that it’s reasonable to see why people would want to get income from their work.

      PS the Brave CEO sucks so I’m not sympathizing with him here.

      • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        This person was talking about the making money aspect (the rewards program) in the browser, not the browser itself making money off their users. At least that’s what I believe they were talking about.

  • Stahlreck@feddit.ch
    11·
    9 months ago

    Does this all matter though? Afaik the browser if fully open source, even the crypto stuff so all the shady stuff would be detected (and has as in your examples). Like all of the issues you linked at this point are years in the past. I don’t use Brave personally but it being completely FOSS is a huge plus even if the company itself might be weird. On the other hand you have something like Vivaldi that looks like “the good guys” but you’ll always have to trust them as well because they’re not fully open source.

    I use FF but you just cannot deny that using a Chromium based browser has many security advantages over Gecko, especially on mobile. I takes Mozilla seemingly years and years to implement security features like Chromium. They don’t put the necessary priority behind this.

  • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
    01·
    9 months ago

    All you need to know is the Brave guy is a pedophile who is 100% using your ad revenue to buy csam.

              • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
                0·
                9 months ago

                You accused him of being a pedophile and then said “he’s the type of guy to do that thing”. From my point of view that’s what you were implying.

                • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
                  01·
                  9 months ago

                  The fact you’re losing so much sleep over “pedophile allegations” is really making me question your intentions here and to be honest I really don’t care to find out why you’re being so weird about it.