If you are keen on personal privacy, you might have come across Brave Browser. Brave is a Chromium-based browser that promises to deliver privacy with built-in ad-blocking and content-blocking protection. It also offers several quality-of-life features and services, like a VPN and Tor access. I mean, it’s even listed on the reputable PrivacyTools website. Why am I telling you to steer clear of this browser, then?
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I just installed Brave on my Ubuntu OS on my laptop to replace Chrome. It is running better than chrome was so far. Is there a way to setup Brave to safeguard against some of things mentioned or should I go with something like DuckDuckGo instead?
Thank goodness that we can post things in here without Braves astroturfed PR community galavanting to save face like what happened when any story against brave posted on the other site
Which other site? Twitter?
I’m almost certain they mean Reddit, but there are a lot of sites that aren’t lemmy.dbzer0.com … like lemm.ee and infosec.pub … even some sites that aren’t Lemmy instances like infosec.exchance or hachyderm.io.
You would be right with your first guess
What about infosec.pub? Been my home instance ever since .world blocked piracy discussions, and I never had any issues there.
anyone believing brave is good for privacy is quite naive
It’s good for privacy from the websites you visit, from itself is up for debate though lol
It’s good for playing youtube without ads and Netflix which doesnt work with my firefox setup for some reason. That’s all I use it for.
Weird, youtube with ublock origin is all I need to enjoy no ads. Are you using some additional scripts that modify youtube in some way?
I dont really have problems with YT in Firefox. Just use brave because it’s on my “watching stuff” monitor. Brave did seem to work better during that period where they were being more aggressive about ad blockers but I haven’t seen that for a while.
Ublock Origin on Firefox can also play YT without ads…
Netflix Idk
you should be able to play all the netflix content you need on pretty much any system. here’s a community for troubleshooting that.
it will not, however, get you a second season of anything worth watching. nothing can do that.
I’ve still not forgiven them for prematurely cancelling BoJack Horseman.
it felt, like, complete, but im genuinely shocked it got as many seasons as it did, not being dog shit. feels like that or ‘stranger things’ was the last thing to slip through.
but I can only take ‘stranger things’ on others’ word; never got into it myself.
Yea, I dont really have problems with YT in Firefox. Just use brave because it’s on my “watching stuff” monitor. Brave did seem to work better during that period where they were being more aggressive about ad blockers but I haven’t seen that for a while.
far better than chrome, edge or Firefox without modification
Why is everyone downvoting this? I haven’t used Brave as a daily driver for 3 years since I’ve been with LibreWolf, but my impression has always been the same, that it’s far better than stock Firefox, purely based on privacy (completely ignoring any ethical reasoning for not wanting to support Brave). Chrome and Edge being worse is obvious.
Brave has great anti-fingerprinting measures I just wish I could get that without installing crypto malware on my pc
Mullvad Browser comes with fingerprint blocking mechanisms of Tor Browser, without connecting to tor. I recommend it.
Use Firefox with the Chameleon addon, works on Fennec as well (Android fork with Mozilla telemetry removed).
You only need uBlock basically, beware of other extensions. They’re mostly snake oil and Firefox has anti-fingerprinting features per default.
Firefox has by default as well.
All the crypto stuff is opt-in.
the crypto and the asshole ceo aside, nobody should trust a browser that claims to respect privacy that’s based on chromium.
What’s wrong with ungoogled-chromium? Or Vivaldi?
Vivaldi sends an unstoppable user counter signal to their main server, promised to change the system and now they’re ignoring any requests for updates on the issue.
That rustles my Jimmies, dings my bell and waves my red flags.
ultimately they’re still chromium and they still contribute to chrome’s dominance.
Okay, but that’s not a privacy reason.
It is still a privacy reason. You are still contributing to googles plans to dominate and control the internet by using a chromium product its a privacy threat, and an everything else threat too.
But neutered Chrome (aka repurposed + degoogled Chromium) isn’t the same as Google Chrome. I 100% understand what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t file this under “privacy” (at least not without some asterisks).
A neutered fascist is still a fascist.
If one forks Chromium like Firefox has been forked to hell and back, then I view it as effectively taking the power out of Google’s hands. The issue with Chrome supremacy is that Google gets to, directly or indirectly, shape how websites/the internet operates/are built/optimized (since web devs will use it to do their web dev).
So then wouldn’t a better strategy be to make a Firefox-like, Chromium browser that is truly “neutral” (like Firefox is *on paper)? Also, remember that Mozilla receives a huge chunk of funding from Google, directly, in order to “keep Chrome from being a monopoly”.
Now, that last part depends on whether you considering Chrome to be Chromium, which I don’t. Here’s my understanding/view, overall (feel free to cherrypick or challenge any of it; I welcome and respect your opinions/corrections):
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Firefox has existed for longer than Chrome, but Chrome on release was leaner and faster (I speak from personal experience). The only other option was Internet Explorer, which was “Chrome” at the time (as in, average people defaulted to the “blue e” icon)
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Chrome became the dominant browser because it was lean and fast for its time. It’s obviously different now, but you cannot retroactively fault people for choosing an objectively-better browser [for the time]
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Genuinely not defending Google here, but my opinion is that a large reason we began to transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 is because of Chrome (and any other modern browsers). This meant Chrome-optimized sites that didn’t work well with other browsers, but I view it as a no-fault situation (it’s just how tech progresses; it breaks compatibility with existing tech sometimes)
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Most people use “Google-everything” these days; I myself have had a Gmail account since it was a closed beta. This means they’re more likely to lean towards Chrome, because Google recommends it anyway
So to me, the issues are actually that people default to Google-everything, including Chrome (thus feeding Google info about their entire lives, 24/7). But I don’t see Chromium itself as evil. On its own, it’s open-source (minus Google bits obviously), which is what allows forks to be made that not only avoid the Google bits, but outright block them. I think it’s taking power back. I don’t think “EVERYONE SHOULD SWITCH TO FIREFOX OR A FIREFOX FORK IMMEDIATELY” is realistic (and I say that as someone who switched back to Firefox months ago)
I also think that web devs themselves should stop being biased towards…“Chrome-sponsored” (figure of speech) best practices. But I also think that Mozilla should [continue] making their browser more compatible with modern websites, and even maybe get more involved in establishing web design best-practices (meaning practices/technologies that work well equally regardless of browser or rendering engine). In fact, recently Mozilla highlighted their Web Compatibility reporting tool, so that people can let them know about sites that don’t render correctly in their browser
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its still furthering googles control of the internet, which is an inherent threat to privacy, regardless if you think you are participating in it or not.
Once again, that’s not privacy (the context of this discussion). Your point is that using Chromium encourages websites (as in, developers) to keep making sites that are Chromium-optimized, instead of browser-agnostic.
When you take all the “Google” out of a browser, they’re not getting any information from you because those mechanisms no longer exist. Again, I’m talking about Google and Chrome. You’re combining 3 different “issues” and slapping a “PRIVACY” label on them.
The real issue is that people default to Chrome, because for years it was the most performant browser (until it became a bloated shitfest). People need to become the change they wish to see (like me, who switched from Brave back to Firefox on all devices). That’s how you defeat a browser monopoly. This is just Internet Explorer from the 90s/2000s all over again. Remember how everyone used to default to it because it’s what they were taught? We (collectively) need to stop telling people “download chrome” as the default. It’s the equivalent of saying “google it”, instead of “look it up”.
Forks of Firefox (like the Tor browser) are still Firefox, no matter how neutered it is.
That’s my point. So then what’s the solution when there are essentially two mainstream/mainline browsers? How far do you believe one needs to take it? Is a fork that de-Mozilla’s/de-Google’s the browser enough (and changes the name)? Or is that “still bad”?
Because eventually you’ll run out of [usable/daily-drivable] browsers, if you consider any fork to be “evil” by virtue of coming from Chromium/etc.
Isn’t every chromium browser going to lose manifest v2 eventually, causing the real ublock origin to stop working?
I don’t know about every Chromium-based browser, but I can tell you that I went back to Firefox and regret nothing (I was on Brave). Firefox has gotten a lot better lately, especially on desktop. For example, they added a native auto-PiP option, which is super helpful for those of us who watch YouTube/videos while flipping through tons of tabs.
I’m using Vivaldi, and ublock origin seems to be still working for me.
June 2025 is when manifest v2 is supposed to die for good. I think the issue is that it’s not really possible for Vivaldi or Microsoft or whoever to keep the code in there long term even if they wanted to.
Eh, I think that’s a stretch. Right now, Lemmy is going nuclear on Firefox. Should I also stop using Librewolf, too, because ultimately, it contributes to Firefox? Chromium is solid and I think it’s better to show what type of chromium we want instead of outright boycotting the entire open source project.
Whats going on re Lemmy & Firefox?
Wait, what’s wrong with Firefox?
I’m using brave lol. As a web developer I really need to test the work I do on a chromium based browser. Brave seems to be the best chromium based browser that still supposed ad blocking after the whole manifest v3 thing.
So let me pose this question to you. As someone that needs to use Chromium for work, what’s the best Chromium based browser that still supports ad blocking?
I get that Firefox is better. Heck Tor is even better. But realistically what is something I can actually use to get real work done?
Edit: ok I read the article. That is kinda bad. So please find me a chromium based alternative that I can use for work
This week I’m going to try out ungoogled Chromium and Vivaldi. I know Vivaldi is partially closed source, but I’m not actually in the camp that thinks all closed source is bad.
I use Vivaldi and it is great. It does send a “user count” to its servers but AFAIK that is literally just increasing a number in a database, effectively the equivalent of one of those free hit counters you’d put on your GeoCities page.
I use Apple products which are definitely more closed source. I would prefer open source but there are unfortunately more variables in play then just “is it open source”.
Unironically, Ecosia has been working on a browser that’s currently in beta with a built in adblocker. Works really well!
Chromium is much more secure than Firefox, so your privacy depends on your threat model here: https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.html
Does it support ublock origin still, or has it gone the way of Chrome?
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Don’t forget about the fact that a while back they secretly whitelisted Facebook trackers in their adblocker to “make pages run more smoothly” they got a lot of shit for it when people found out looking through the source code. When I heard that they did that it basically cemented in my mind that they were shady and untrustworthy, that’s in addition to the Crypto and rewards stuff.
Brave search allows misinformation goggles for anyone that believes 2 + 2 = 5.
Am I misunderstanding something? That’s what I would expect to see from any search engine when you search for “vaccines” and “news from the right”.
I mean Daily Mail should set off an alarm for any sentient being.
That’s crazy. Fuck them
Of course Brave would so something like this. This isn’t surprising whatsoever. It’s still horrible they’re even choosing to enable this whatsoever.
Edit: I just checked what kind of shit they pull up on Transgender issues when using those goggles. It’s as bad as I thought it would be. Fuck Brave for enabling this garbage.
Yep it’s literally half of the results. I’m astounded that this is legal. Well not that astounded.
Also don’t use Opera. They’re opera-ted by chinese mafia.
Thanks. I read an article yesterday about how it’s one of the best privacy browsers out there.
I prefer either TorBrowser or Waterfox.
TorBrowser is, hands down, the best privacy browser out there but it’s a bit slow because it operates like a decentralized VPN.
Waterfox browser is built on Mozilla’s Gecko Engine just like firefox, but it isn’t managed directly by Mozilla.
it isn’t managed directly by Mozilla
I was about to make a snarky comment about how it is, however, owned by an advertising company, but then I found this.
I haven’t heard of waterfox. I use TorBrowser sometimes. But mostly I use LibreWolf. Its based on Firefox also, but without Monzilla
Is waterfox compatible with all or most firefox extensions? Also, can you import a firefox profile, and share between devices? I’m fairly invested in firefox, and would hate loosing functionality
I don’t use very many extensions, but it works with all of the ones I’ve tried such as uBlock Origin.
Thanks for Waterfox. Looks awesome. :)
Chinese Mafia aside, opera GX sill benchmarks faster than any other browser, except maybe thorium
Oh boy, I shared the spacebar news article a year ago or so and was hit by a shitstorm of indignant comments.
The CEO of brave is a homophobic bigot if that helps push anyone over the edge for changing their browser. It was the last straw for me.
This post shows that it’s much worse than that.
That’s not even his worst crime. His worst crime was inventing JavaScript.
Especially when the alternative they were considering was having Scheme in the browser.
I didn’t know that, thanks for the tip : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich
God damnit.
Every browser I switched to since Firefox has been a good user experience, and then I find out some horrible bullshit.
Is there any safe browser that isn’t run by hateful assholes?
Firefox? Mozilla are just stupid, not really hateful
FF is starting to enshittify because they depend on Google for their revenue
i found one called waterfox that is a nice little firefox fork ive been using. super chill.
I’ve been loving it.
Might give this a crack. Been waiting on Ladybird to come to PC.
Edit: OK it really doesn’t work well with bitwarden on mobile. Normal FF works fine but not this one.
I was about to say something about Waterfox too! It feels like old Firefox.
I’m waiting on Ladybird to come out next year into alpha
Probably also has some right wing bias as well. That’s probably one of the reasons they included goggles in Brave search for right wing content.
That was the headliner reason for me.
The rest was just ‘Alright, it isn’t enough this guy is a piece of shit, he’s pushing a shitty product.’
This is a very well written an thorough article and I highly recommend reading it. If you don’t want to however, here is a summary of the key points:
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- Brendan Eich donated to anti-LGBT political organizations, politicians, and initiatives such as CA Prop 8 which banned same-sex marriages.
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- Brave promised to replace ads with privacy friendly ads that would actually pay publishers and even users with a volatile cryptocurrency while keeping a cut for themselves. This never actually came to life and was criticized as “blatantly illegal”.
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- Brave collected donations for popular content creators without actually involving or seeking consent from said creators. In short they accepted donations in crypto for creators, but would only pay out if it reached a minimum value of $100. When called out, Brave said refunds were impossible.
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2020 — Brave injects referral links when visiting crypto wallets
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- Brave injected their own referral links for services such as Binance without informing users or asking permission.
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- Brave turned their home screen image rotator into a place to serve ads, many of which were suspicious or crypto related.
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- Brave added a Tor feature which exposed users DNS requests
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- Brave refuses to disclose their crawler bot to websites since many websites want to block Brave Search. Brave will only chose not to crawl a website if it also blocks Google’s crawler.
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2024 - So-called “privacy browser” deprecated advanced fingerprinting protection
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- Brave removed a the Strict, Block Fingerprinting privacy feature from their browser.
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- Brave paid for targeted ads for users searching for Firefox in the Play Store and ran a campaign to “Forget the Fox”. When called out on this the VP publicly denied it and claimed it was photo-shopped.
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- The VP of Brave, Luke Mulks, frequently posts about all things crypto, from NFTs to FTX, and uses AI-gen images to promote them. He also frequently re-tweets right-wing activists.
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- Brendan Eich’s feed also frequently contains right-wing content and Republican propaganda despite his claims to be “independent”.
Edit: corrected a mistake noted below.
Prop 8 was not merely proposed, it was approved by voters and actually banned same-sex marriage for several years before it was ruled unconstitutional.
Brendan Eich contributed to the actual banning of same-sex marriage in California for several years.
Corrected the mistake, thanks.
Thank you!
I don’t use Brave as my main browser but I think some of the accusations are not fair.
- TOR Feature. I don’t think it was deliberately done. Similarly Firefox revealed your up address even if you used VPN while using. As long as there was no malicious intent we can’t say anything other than that they software has big bugs.
- Yes, it is questionable what they do for getting money but same can be said for most donations or schemes that FOSS use. There was long discussions about the money Mozilla receives from Google, or things Opera did (basically similar to Brave)
- Getting news from right wing is useful if you ever need to do research, I had a course in uni about anti-islam and getting really right wings news was difficult. We all knew the same 2 sites.
- The political opinion of the CEO is concerning but not important enough. In that case I’m wholly on the same boat as the developer of the Factorio, if Hitler were to make good Browsers I’d use them.
- It is also important to note most of the problems are in the past. Sure it means there are likely a lot we could not find and it is annoying to use a product where they would exploit you if they are given a chance.
That said Brave is still #1 Browser I’d recommend someone installing. If I can I’d install Firefox myself, but on the phone it is what I recommend. I don’t trust my uncle to install Firefox and install uBlock etc. on top of it. But I trust him to install Brave and use it.
Most privacy minded Browsers like Libre Wolf have restrictions, like not enabling WebRTC out of the box, meaning using Zoom, Meet etc is not possible. There are people who are forced to use such software and not able to tweak with config files. Some people think just because they can do it, everybody should be able to. I think it is a good choice to recommend to people, very good in place replacement for Chrome, you can even take your bookmarks and addons with you
privacytools is not longer reputable. privacy guides started from it a few years ago for a reason.
I wonder if anyone here is going to mention SeaMonkey-Browser for fun.<br>
It’s an entire suite of applications:
- Browser
- Email-Client
- HTML-Editor + Web-Dev Tool
- NewsGroup + Feed-Reader
- IRC-Client
I haven’t seen sea monkey mentioned in quite a few years
I really wish seamonkey still worked for modern websites. It’s so cool.
Why I recommend against pushing people away from Brave:
Most people are still trapped in an ecosystem owned by either Microsoft, Google or Apple. We’re yet to see a perfect web browser for everyone, but in the meantime we choose one, maybe two or three if we feel a bit more picky for each task, and use them to the best of our capacity. Making anyone feel guilty and ashamed for choices like this, when the best options are few, relative, and often come at a cost, is just useless.
I suggest reading the settings guides available at privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/ or checking the browser comparison at eylenburg.github.io/browser_comparison.htm to know the details that anyone who actually wants a better browsing experience cares about. Better to lend a hand than push around.
If whoever reads this still can’t get over it and needs to play a blame game with someone about why everyone should boycott Mozilla, Brave, Proton and other privacy focused FOSS companies because of what someone said, did or thought, please at least find a decent fork, toss a coin to it’s devs, share their work and help others benefit from it.
At this point there is a pretty solid list of reasons to avoid Brave and use another FOSS privacy focused option.
Personally, everything I’ve read about Brave makes me trust them even less than Microsoft, and Google.
That is the usual effect sensationalism has, but feel free to choose what best suits your needs.
I do enjoy Cromite, Librewolf, Mullvad Browser, Tor Browser and some others, but I can’t deny each (as any) has it’s own set of drawbacks. Better to have them in mind when setting up and using those browsers than to panic and run in circles searching for a perfect solution that doesn’t exist.
Even more importantly I’d celebrate that people are using any privacy focused FOSS, even if it’s not what I’d ideally use. If they feel motivated to keep on that road they’ll end learning to use more advanced options in time. On the other hand, make them feel insecure about their options and bloat their minds with sensationalist posts and they’ll just use Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge because, “personally”, why bother when everyone and everything is so evil and complicated and we’re all doomed anyway? 😮💨
