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Anyone using the BRAVE web browser? Thoughts? Experiences?
I was reading about it here:
https://www.cnet.com/news/brave-browser-matures-with-move-to-chromium-foundation/
First I heard of it and was curious if anyone has tried it. I love the idea of blocking ads and trackers by default.
I think we should all avoid using Blink/WebKit browsers to promote browser diversity and stopping google from controlling everything.
Yeah it's an open source project. It allows diversity but still giving a common base for displaying a website. Better then multiple different browser where developers need to write a page for each browser.
You weren't around for the IE6 days, were you?
I hate BATs as it continues the problem of the proliferation of cryptocurrencies and at the end of the day, it's just Chrome so it doesn't do anything for browser diversity either. This is the first I've hear of Brendan Eich being a bad person, so I'd love for someone to enlighten me.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/brendan-eich-has-the-right-to-fight-gay-rights-but-not-to-be-mozillas-ceo
I downloaded it and tried it out for a few weeks. It worked well enough and I absolutely love its privacy focus and the concept of the Basic Attention Tokens (BATs), especially as an alternative to the conventional advertising model that websites generally rely on these days, but I honestly just can't get over my intense dislike for Brendan Eich (the CEO) enough to fully get behind Brave. He is just too vile and I genuinely worry about where the money he makes with Brave will go in the future (e.g. towards more anti-LGBT+ political campaigns). With him behind the helm I just can't endorse it no matter how great the idea of Brave seems. :/
p.s. Related ~tildes.official topic from a month ago:
Tildes can now receive Basic Attention Tokens (from the Brave browser or BATify extension)
Oh yuck, I wasn't aware of any of that. I won't even bother with it then.
Prop 8 was ten years ago. Is there any indication that Eich still harbors these views?
Separate from what @cfabbro brought up, I'll also say that Prop 8 stung a lot more than other measures of its type, which I think makes its memory more raw and persistent. At the time, it was (sadly) common for states to put up ballot measures that defined marriage as a man and a woman. These attempted to prevent something that wasn't already happening. They were staving off same-sex marriage at the pass and dealing with what was an abstract "threat."
What made Prop 8 different is that it was the first of its kind to reverse a previous granting of same-sex marriage rights. The title of the proposition spelled it out in no uncertain terms: "Eliminates Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry [emphasis mine]." Prop 8 felt much more personal and combative than anything else out there. They were taking away a right not from my indeterminate future but a right that I already clung to with my own hands. It's one thing to never win, but it's another entirely to win and then have that stripped from you. And it stung. It stung hard.
I tried out Brave, and I actually like it a lot. I like that they're forward-thinking and privacy-focused. I think the new tab screen where they give you statistics about the number of ads and trackers blocked is brilliant. It does double duty of making you aware of just how much is tracking you out there while creating the feel-good sense of a high score that you achieve just by browsing. I like their revamped options interface on Linux. I don't have any particular affinity for BAT, but I do like that they're trying to find a different way to monetize the web.
Nevertheless, I think I'm going to stick to Firefox because it's hard for me to separate Brave from Eich right now. Regardless of where he now stands, I still remember how people like him made me feel 10 years ago: hurt, damaged, powerless, and, more than anything else, small.
Part of me feels like I'm being petty and judgmental, because I don't know the personal beliefs of the creators of nearly any other product I use. That makes me feel like I'm holding Brave to a higher standard than anything else in my life. On the other hand, Eich has raised his public profile enough that his news has found its way to me, and I don't want to ignore what I've already been made aware of.
Good comment. Thank you for sharing.
Given the fact he still regularly rants about how he was really the one on the "right" side of Prop 8 and claims everyone who supported his ousting at Mozilla are the "real bigots", "trolls" and "lying" every chance he gets on HN and reddit... yeah, I think it's fair to assume he still unapologetically holds his abhorrent views. If you want to go down a "man with a martyr complex" rabbit hole, feel free:
https://www.reddit.com/user/BrendanEichBrave/comments/
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=BrendanEich
You can get the two killer features of Brave in Firefox by installing an ad-blocker and the Batify extension.
Or adblocker and Flattr, if you think using a cryptocurrency is an unnecessary hassle.
There have been a few other topics recently related to Brave that had a decent amount of discussion: https://tildes.net/search?q=brave
I used it for the last few months but it being on chromium freaked me out a bit too much. Just switched to Firefox this week.
So it runs well and love the privacy focus, but I just don't want to use a chromium browser.
I used to use it on my phone, but ever since Firefox for Android improved its scrolling to the point where it doesn't suck (currently in Beta), I moved to it full time. I had no idea how much I was missing history syncing between my desktop and phone!
One of my friends uses it. I find that I'm fine (better off, even) using Firefox + µblock origin + Privacy Badger. That combo protects my privacy and lets me use a "mainstream" (albeit less mainstream than Chrome) browser.
It was the only browser besides Windows Edge that I downloaded for my new rig a few weeks back. So far its been working good for me. Just know I mainly use this PC as a gaming/media PC and have not needed anything else from it. That being said a few things don't work and there is no word on it being able to work in the near future. For example Spotify web player is not supported, I also could not get Hulu.com to run on it (haven't tried Netflix).
All in all I'm satisfied using it casually.
I use it for work, need a browser that can debug android remote devices and chrome itself kept getting stuck on some strange DNS error. For me, it's just a lighter shade of chrome, another tool that works for what I need it to. For general personal browsing, I use Firefox. For some specific contexts, like having to be logged in with a Google account, I use Canary Chrome. I also use Edge for my Microsoft account. Basically, using multiple browsers is a good way to keep things separated and ready to go. Why do people only use one? And, if you're going to do that, why not Firefox?
I was using it on desktop at home (Linux) and at work (Mac) and it's pretty decent but I always go back to my usual browsers (Firefox on Linux, Chrome and Firefox on Mac).
However, I use Brave all the time on my phone. I can't remember if BAT Basic Attention Tokens are available in the mobile browser version yet, but it's been solid for ad-blocking and it's fast.
If you haven't already checked it out, you might also be interested in Firefox Focus, which is a special mobile version that has some ad/tracker blocking by default and regularly wipes out your history/cookies/etc.
I use it for all my "casual" mobile browsing (reading random articles and such when I don't need to be logged in) and really like it.
the browser provides a decent ad-free, crap-blocking experience. some sites don't work properly though, so i keep chrome installed. no issues using it as my daily driver.
edit: nvm