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by svet_0 1119 days ago
Brave gives a very bad vibe (mostly due to the affiliate links scandal), I prefer to just use my favorite browsers (ff/edge) + uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger which give good privacy/adblock experience, are open source and customizable to my liking.
2 comments
justsee 1119 days ago
A minor autocomplete mistake from 2 years ago (quickly fixed and apologised for by the CEO [1]) is framed as a 'scandal'.

Meanwhile Mozilla is showing signs of serious, systemic internal org issues, and no problem? [2]

It's pretty clear a user / privacy-first model is central to Brave's mission, so these drive-by comments griping loudly about minor, historical issues never feel intellectually compelling.

[1] https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269317625915400192

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36077360

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mcint 1118 days ago
Brave's encroachments can be turned off. On a new install, I disable the search bar Rewards icon, extensions area Wallet, and new tab page Sponsored Images, News, and Cards. (And maybe others still). Each of these requires active engagement from a user to produce and signal for a 3rd party.

Meanwhile, they also fund novel privacy and security research [1], including preventing advanced fingerprinting. In essence, the maintain a patch set on top of Chromium (the open source base of Chrome, that Edge also builds on) which more convincingly respects user privacy, security, and choice[2][3][4]. See how much effort they put into keeping Brave Ads convincingly private [5].

Each of these is less intrusive than changes (to stay recent and relevant) include direct partnership for promotions [6].

Or to base beliefs on a series of news reports that sound bad, see a longer list [7], though it's quite noisy list.

[1]: https://brave.com/research/

[2]: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/14942

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_Learning_of_Cohorts

[4]: https://brave.com/why-brave-disables-floc/

[5]: https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026361072-Bra...

[6]: https://itsfoss.com/firefox-looking-glass-controversy/

[7]: https://chefkochblog.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/mozilla-histor...

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