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.

  • nik0@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 years ago

    I see this exact thread every week now and it’s between the same people:

    “Oh ok i stopped using it” to “Naw i’ll keep using brave”

    At this point can we stop this? Brave is trash but people are either too stubborn or just don’t care anymore (which is ironic). Either mods just pin this thread and treat this as a “brave is trash” megathread or I don’t know.

  • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
    0·
    2 years 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.

    • Engywook@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 years 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
      1·
      2 years 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.

    • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
      0·
      2 years 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·
          2 years 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·
            2 years 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).

    • Gogo Sempai@programming.dev
      0·
      2 years 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?

  • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    making (presumably) thousands of dollars off their users

    I agree with this post completely but for some reason you finishing with this makes me chuckle.

    Oh no! Thousands! They might be able to pay rent for a month or two!

    I’m just being cheeky, and while its true what they did was scummy, it also feels like a really… smallish amount of money?

    If we’re literally just talking thousands, and not tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands.

    But yeah, fuck Brave.

    Firefox gang and Hardened Firefox gang here to stay.

    Mozilla’s got its own problems but that’s a story for another day.

  • AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    2 years 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.

  • moitoi@feddit.de
    0·
    2 years 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”.

  • trailing9@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    Why are there daily posts against Brave but not against other browsers? Is Google more trustworthy than Brave?

    • seaQueue@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 years ago

      Because Brave likes to portray itself as privacy friendly. We already know Chrome, Edge and others aren’t.

  • Skimmer@lemmy.zip
    0·
    2 years 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.

  • Designate@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    Or just use Edge cause Microsoft is already syphoning your data so you might as well go the whole hog and use Edge

  • Stahlreck@feddit.ch
    0·
    2 years 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.

  • HKayn@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

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

  • PlatypusXray@feddit.de
    0·
    2 years ago

    Oh no, a shady, unknown neocities site is telling me to not trust my browser! Yes, I can use Firefox, uBlock and uMatrix, except on iOS, where I can’t do that, and that is where Brave does a good job. I am really tired of those „Brave baaad“ posts. Look guys, unless you are using Linux you might want to direct your attention at the huge, morally flexible company that does collect your data, no matter what browser you choose.

    • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      a shady, unknown neocities site is telling me to not trust my browser

      Spyware Watchdog has been a resource for checking browser’s for a very long time. It’s not longer maintained, which is why I said “in the past”.

      uMatrix

      The fact you even bring up this dead extension…

      except on iOS, where I can’t do that

      You can use AdGuard and Safari, but if you’re on iOS you’ve already given up any semblance of privacy in the first place.

      • PlatypusXray@feddit.de
        0·
        2 years ago

        Oh, yes, because Android is so trustworthy, right? Google would never turn evil, after all. But I suppose you are sharing your wisdom from the coziness of a Windows desktop.

  • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

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

  • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

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