> awesome ad block built in and by default, no need for extensions
I'd much rather keep my choice of adblocker and browser separate.
> free of the political WTF-tier decisions of the organization backing Firefox
Instead you get a bunch of crypto stuff, silently adding affiliate codes to typed urls and similar shady shit. Neither brave or mozilla is free from controversy but from what I've seen I'd rather have mozillas than braves.
Another reason to keep firefox around is to make sure we keep a somewhat independent browser engine vendor.
There was also a while back when they added a new "opt-out" setting for their new tab page ads, defaulting it to accepting the ads without looking at past similar settings.
Seems to me like an honest mistake that was quickly corrected, and Eich taking full responsability and showing face is worth a lot for me.
Regarding your last article, is just a shallow sensationalist piece, take a look at the "whitelisted" domains the mention, they are places where Facebook and Twitter store their content (photos, videos, etc...) if you block that you cripple those sites, so they decided to let them go through. They even acknowledge at the end that Firefox is doing a similar thing. It makes sense to me, honestly.
Sorry dude, your hand-waving arguments are futile against people who actually reason things out.
But in this case there is a significant technical and speed advantage to their ad blocker. So conversely, you can choose the best ad blocker (brave) and then happen to also get a chromium instance with it.
I used to use Brave on Android, until the day they placed an ad on the home screen (new tab page? it's been a long time), and I looked in settings and couldn't disable it, so I uninstalled it, left an honest review, and never looked back.
Same, tried it, hated their crypto push and ads, uninstalled and never looked back. I'll never use Brave because of their stupid default decisions like putting a "tip" button under each Tweet or random news articles. Such a shame too because otherwise it's a decent browser.
That said, Firefox Quantum is vastly superior in my opinion without all the crypto bullshit.
I think crypto enabled by default is too bold, there isn't anything particularly bullshitty about their crypto stuff imo but people legitimately feel icky about it.
I was super annoyed by that too, but now it’s a distant memory as I must’ve found out how to disable it. I just see a fresh blank page when I open the browser. I don’t think they bother me with anything anymore. I don’t know what list of other things are wrong with Brave, but whatever they are I don’t notice them.
Bromite seems to me to be what Brave should have been. I install Bromite browser on all my Android devices, and if they are rooted I also install Bromite WebView using Magisk. If only Bromite had the development resources of Brave...
> -awesome ad block built in and by default, no need for extensions
You make it sound like the "need for extensions" is something bad while having the choice and control over what Ublock blocks is something far more superior than some build in ad-blocker provided by an ad-company.
> free of the political WTF-tier decisions of the organization backing Firefox.
I don't see how exchanging it to the shady business practices (yes...they fixed and excused for that...after it came out) of the Brave ad-company is better. But I guess this is actually some political statement you make here.
And yet, one of the main features to benefit publishers is dead on arrival - for example I get paid by Google AdSense about 300 times more than Brave's Basic Attention Token on a monthly basis. They do a great job at blocking ads. They do a good job at pushing their own crypto ads but their Brave Rewards idea of rewarding publishers based on a monthly contribution from the community never quite worked because, really people want to block ads and are not interested in paying for the content via a wallet that requires you to exchange hard cash for tokens that you can't withdraw and can't control where it goes.
Actually moved from being a long time Google Chrome user to Edge Chromium.
What's the DAU of all browsers combined? I'd guess something like 2 billion. Given the stats from the OP, Brave should account for <1% of usage. Them managing to pay out .33% especially given how immature their business model is sounds incredibly good.
> really people want to block ads and are not interested in paying for the content via a wallet that requires you to exchange hard cash for tokens that you can't withdraw and can't control where it goes.
I earn BAT and give it away. No KYC required. There are some greedy users. But those would block AdSense regardless of Brave and you would get nothing anyway.
I think Brave is a GREAT option for this scenario:
Typical Chrome user decides they want to start moving away from Google. They rely on a ton of Chrome extensions so don't want to switch to Firefox or Safari or some other walled garden.
Brave is a good drop in replacement for Chrome as it's compatible with the app store and runs on Chromium.
Add uBlock Origin and EFF Privacy Badger, they're in great ad-blocking shape.
The ads are opt-out, Brave Rewards is also opt-out and you can even turn off the button for it in the app tray. You can stop the "new tab" ads and also turn off the "cards" for their crypto stuff.
I heard allegations of including their own affiliate links in typed URLs. I don't care one iota. If it doesn't raise my price then that's between Brave and whatever company.
I don't care if they are destroying the internet ad industry. There are more important things to worry about like not letting my personal or professional life become the subject of nation state spy campaigns and Big Tech overlordship.
I used Firefox for 19 years. Just left for Edge in August 2021. They just kept cutting features. I'm not someone that thinks alternate rendering engines are relevant... userbases are, that's where power comes from. I also wanted to move to my native browser, get the benefits of the billion dollars pumped into Chromium, and move to a major vendor for longterm support and advanced features.
That said, in my quest to find a new home, Brave came in a close 2nd. It's the only non-niche browser other than FF that's open source. Open source transparency with a focus on privacy? Everyone should be signing up by default. And the only one of those two built on Chromium, which fighting ~70% of the web on that has become pretty ridiculous. Brave is the only place if you want the best of every world.
I am firmly in the Edge camp, because other things matter to me as well that I won't go on at length here, but Brave is the only other browser I'll be keeping tabs on.
Edit: No really...its the issue of trust to start with:
"On 6 June 2020, a Twitter user pointed out that Brave inserts affiliate referral codes when users type a URL of Binance into the address bar, which earns Brave money. Further research revealed that Brave redirects the URLs of other cryptocurrency exchange websites, too. In response to the backlash from the users, Brave's CEO apologized and called it a "mistake" and said "we're correcting..."
How? Browsers need to die. Move all Js to apps and have browsers just display images/video/text in the way that we have found applies to 99% of modern use cases. The only reason Js existed was to afford more flexibility in the time that we didn’t know yet how the web would be used. Move all the code into apps where sandboxing/reputation can handle the security issues more effectively than Js.
As someone who used Firefox continuously from when it used to be called “Mozilla” until early 2020 Brave is vastly superior.
-better UI/UX
-awesome ad block built in and by default, no need for extensions
-noticeably faster
-free of the political WTF-tier decisions of the organization backing Firefox.
Edit: since when do I need to Reddit space here? Maybe I don’t post lists enough and it was always this way?
Edit2: Can anyone explain why more and more comment sections require double-spacing to nest properly? Seems like a HN-relevant question.