I would be happier if Brave made an "Enterprise" version of their browser without the Tor or crypto stuff. My company recently banned the use of Brave because it is a Tor client. I had been using Brave as a Chrome-adjacent browser for testing and web dev but I've had to go back to the Google-monitored version of Chrome.
Vivaldi[1] is another Chromium family browser that people seem to like (I use Brave w/o their crypto features for Google-y things like Gmail and Maps that never seem to work quite right in Firefox for me).
I wish there were more Firefox forks. I would love to have some of the features of Vivaldi, but running with Firefox's underlying engine. But that just isn't a thing, as far as I'm aware.
I'm meaning in terms of appearance, and especially customizing shortcuts. I already use Firefox customized mostly to my liking, but I don't like having the same generic (very tall) top bar that everyone gets. Tab management leaves some to be desired compared to Vivaldi. Yes, there are extensions for that, but they don't function as sleek.
Okay... I feel like an idiot: I didn't realize there was a Chromium browser -- I thought there were just Chromium-based browsers (like SRWare Iron which I haven't touched in over ten years). Will check this out but to get it close to what Brave does for my useage I will need to add adblocking and a few other privacy things first (hopefully that's all supported and works).
If they blocked a browser because it has tor built in, I assume they would also block those binaries:
"IMPORTANT: These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them. Because these binaries are not necessarily reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed. For your consideration, each download page lists the GitHub user that submitted those binaries."
Brave was most likely blocked to prevent people from using TOR to bypass their office firewall filters (e.g. on NSFW sites, etc). I'm doubtful they will be scrutinizing every single binary that happens to be on OP's workstation, though I can't say for sure what kind of office culture they have, of course.
The point of FF or Brave is to not have Google collecting telemetry info about my browser usage. I am even less inclined to let Microsoft get such info and their info gathering in Edge is supposed to be worse (probably because they don't have a clue what they need so they are over-collecting in the hopes they can query out what for whatever their needs are).
Did somebody with real practical experience switched away from Metamask to Brave Wallet? Just want to know how your experience was... does it work with all sorts of blockchains like Metamask?
There's a comparison halfway down wallet page. Seems the main benefits are:
* Browser native (obviously)
* Open license (not familiar with MetaMask license)
* Live market data via CoinGecko
* Reduced resources (seems to fold in to browser native integration)
Also quote from the FAQ:
> Q: What makes Brave Wallet better than other wallets?
> A: Most crypto wallets are browser extensions. These extensions have inherent security risks, and are much more susceptible to account spoofing and asset theft. Extensions also require extra CPU to run, creating performance issues on your device.
> Brave Wallet, by contrast, is browser native. With Brave Wallet, there’s much less risk of account spoofing, phishing, and other scams. It requires less CPU to operate, and is overall much more performant and reliable. Brave Wallet allows you to connect other self-custody or hardware wallets and other web3 DApps, see live market data, and manage your portfolio all in one place.
Ten years ago the software wallets were crude, generally for individual projects/networks and not exactly easy to use. MetaMask is so cool comparatively; you can switch between networks, testnets and mains, add your own networks, interact with sites built to use it and it's a browser app. That said I think you're right and this is pretty common in the space as a whole still but it is becoming better. Security is still a huge issue IMO and I would never use metamask as anything more than a means to an end.
iirc: originally brave embedded metamask but with their own branding, metamask then changed their license so that other companies couldn't do that without paying a license fee, so the brave version stayed on the older version without the license fee and slowly became outdated and less useful. I guess this is them updating their fork from that point and adding some features back.
First google result is on ethereum.org, which says:
"Web3, in the context of Ethereum, refers to decentralized apps that run on the blockchain"
A slightly better, less-biased answer from freeCodeCamp:
"Instead, web3 applications either run on blockchains, decentralized networks of many peer to peer nodes (servers), or a combination of the two that forms a cryptoeconomic protocol. These apps are often referred to as dapps (decentralized apps), and you will see that term used often in the web3 space."
Still screams buzzword to me, even though I think the underlying decentralization sounds interesting.
WEB3 refers to the web on Blockchain. Without extra config, Brave allows you to connect to blockchain DNS which takes you to IPFS websites. It also has a built in blockchain wallet called Metamask, which is used to interact with decentralized apps (Dapps). Some popular dapps are used for decentralized finance (DeFi), NFT's, play-to-earn games.
I see it's not an extension, but it does use a brave:// url. Are those exposed to other extensions?
I know chrome could do that if you altered the chrome://flags/#extensions-on-chrome-urls setting..."Enables running extensions on chrome:// URLs, where extensions explicitly request this permission"
I feel quite concerned about cryptocurrency wallets:
a) on desktop computers (i.e., not smartphones that have better default security with sandboxing, permissions, Secure Enclave/equivalent hardware, etc.)
b) embedded in an application like a web browser that has a large attack surface
I think the mention of hardware wallets and the recovery phrase should be stronger recommendations on this page, and not left as an optional or “if you read till the end” thing.
I didn’t see a description of how this wallet could be moved around (from one computer to another) or any plans for making that easier (other than the use of the recovery phrase). The recovery phrase does need a lot more prominence.
They just lost me as an user. Used it as primary browser for a couple of years, but adding this NFT scam stuff and crypto has forced me off of it. sigh
Agreed. I recently tried to adopt Brave on iOS. There in-app marketing messages are cringe-worthy[1] and there isn't a way to opt-out as far as I have found.
This seems unethical, as I consider these messages as unwanted advertisements for MLM crypto projects. Brave removes paid ads from the internet, but subjects me to in-app advertisements for pyramid schemes (Sorry, I mean ground floor crypto investment opportunities).
Background: I think BAT is fine and have no problem with it if it is communicated in a user centered way. Trying to fix the web's business model is an interesting experiment.
My assumption is that OP turned it on, but forgot about doing it at some point. This feature in Brave is advertised as opt-in and it was off by default for me each time I've installed this browser.
1) I'm probably dumb, but on iOS putting brave://settings/wallet into the address bar puts me into Brave search results. No leading or trailing spaces.
2) This setting will disable in-app marketing messages? I'm interested in disabling the "Brave Rewards" in app notifications.
> I'm interested in disabling the "Brave Rewards" in app notifications.
That's in settings, too... but aren't those opt-in? I could have sworn they were when I set up my profile for the first time. I'm going to re-install in a clean VM and see what their first-time user UX is like these days.
I am aware of about:kitchensink and related config from the mozilla codebase. I've used about:config on desktop many, many times.
Blaming the user isn't the best path to ADUs. Brave's settings have many options and I wasn't sure which one would disable in-app advertisements. I think it is "Brave Rewards".
Yeah, I always found that...let's say "curious." Programmer/typographer Matthew Butterick summed up my feelings relatively well with "It's just substituting one set of ads for another... for publishers, it's the same old shakedown, but run by Brave instead of Google or Facebook; for users, Brave is still going to collect data about you." That Brendan Eich himself went around crankily responding to anyone who linked to Butterick's article on Twitter added an extra layer of weird.
Yeah, I get cranky at sloppy hit pieces. Your bias is showing, as Butterick was at least as cranky, and what's more important, wrong on material facts.
What they don't tell you about BAT is that you cannot extract or trade the ERC20 without first going through their authorized 3rd-party custodial wallet service with KYC and your "earnings" don't accrue in your native Brave wallet either.
Write Congress. We cannot send a revenue share to anonymous addresses, due to FinCEN (anti-money-laundering) and OFAC (sanction list) regulations, some of which carry risk of criminal not civil charges.
Honestly I'd like to see a fork of Firefox go this way with their own token. Might be a good way to fund Firefox development and allow a system of micropayments to content providers while still allowing adblocking.
The high level points in this blog post do a pretty good job of explaining why web3 is worth paying attention to instead of dismissing as "NFT scam stuff and crypto".
I doubt that's OP's concern. Personally I also removed the browser when I couldn't de-install the wallet. I don't need crypto bloatware that I can't remove in my browser. It's fine if they like it but I don't and I have no idea why I don't get a say in that matter on my own machine. kind of defeats the purpose of promising more control for the user.
Disabling the wallet doesn't satisfy your needs there? I can't imagine it sitting idle on a modern machine would give you the same issues as 'bloatware' does. I do agree in principle though.
>Disabling the wallet doesn't satisfy your needs there?
if it was the only thing maybe. But all crypto related settings are also the only thing the browser does not sync. every time you use it on a new machine, you have all those crypto card spam on the new tab section. You attempt to use the video conference feature, suggestion to turn on Brave Rewards. I am 100% certain that is deliberate and I'm extremely allergic to these dark patterns.
This is a depressing handwave away of what is a pretty thoughtfully written post on the subject from someone who started from your position of skepticism.
Some are and they are overfitting those cases to an entire technology. It's understandable to see that nuance get lost on Twitter, but disappointing to see on a tech forum. It's like discounting email because it enables nigerian prince scams.
But good news! You can also get your star registered on the blockchain now. Whether that's any better than the ISR's legacy offering (a certificate and an entry in their own ledger) is up to you.
Really, both products are just selling a story- a physical ledger in a vault in Geneva in the first instance, now updated to be an entry on a distributed ledger. These blockchain NFTs just make it easier for people who don't have the infrastructure of a company like the ISR to share one big ledger and dump whatever they want on there and call it an NFT.
The equivalent of email here is the blockchain ledger technology, the equivalent of Nigerian email scams are NFTs.
I suppose there might be some genuinely useful or interesting non-fungible blockchain tokens, but entries on a ledger that say you own a jpeg or whatever are not any more interesting than entries in ISR's Genevan vault.
I view NFT as a technology that might one day find its particular true-niche use-case years from now...especially NFT's whose data are encoded into the blockchain itself.
[edit]
It might be the case, like with deep learning, that something that doesn't seem useful becomes so when it can be applied at scale. If on-chain NFT's can practically start containing large sized data buckets without resorting to external links,
Sure, they can be, but they aren't. "NFT" has become synonymous with "selling a jpeg", and that's what the big NFT marketplaces are doing. That's where all the money is. Nobody would care about NFTs if all they were being used for was as "an authorization scheme in dapps".
Like, imagine if JWTs were 99% part of an MLM scheme and 1% used for authentication. People would be skeptical!
By "nobody" I meant "nobody not deeply invested in the technical guts of how Uniswap works". In the same way nobody really cares about JWTs, people care about the stuff they enable. Solving problems inside the crypto ecosystem isn't per se useful or important unless the actual thing it's enabling (in this case Uniswap) is important. Which, okay, maybe it is. But NFTs are a technical detail.
It's when people started hyping up NFTs as their own thing that stuff got weird and stupid. Like, phone numbers are useful, but vanity phone numbers definitely aren't solving any problems other than proving you have one:
NFTs are a technical detail, but they're exciting. I'm also excited about webrtc and webauthn. These technologies enable new businesses to exist, like Uniswap.
> phone numbers are useful, but vanity phone numbers definitely aren't solving any problems other than proving you have one
Vanity phone numbers aren't a terrible comparison to the current NFT art craze.
But also, vanity phone numbers have been popular for as long as I can remember, in every location around the world. This has been true since the invention of the telephone.
It used to be that having a 212 area code number was very prestigious. That was true because it created the appearance of doing business in NYC, which meant you must be important. After all, your business exists in NYC!
Also every possible analog of vanity phone numbers that I can think of has been wildly successful. Squatting domain names comes to mind, but also registering your nickname first on whatever the next hot tech service is. If your Twitter username is <4 characters, you're probably somewhat important, because at the very least it means you were early to Twitter.
The article you linked about phone numbers is exactly the reason why art NFTs are working and will continue to grow.
> “This number gives the impression that I am distinguished, which helps me get business, especially among officials in the state ministries who I am dealing with,” he said. “If I call them from a regular number, they wouldn’t answer my call, but when they see this number, they can’t ignore it because they know a VIP is calling them.”
> “It helps me with marketing the company,” he said. “After getting one for $100, it’s helped my business grow.”
> “He cherishes it,” Mohsen said. “Just like wine, the older it gets the more valuable it becomes.”
This all seems like very normal human stuff to me.
Recently heard Tim Ferriss/Naval discussing NFTs on a podcast and while I'm open minded to its potential, I haven't seen any useful ones yet. That said I don't think they're any worse than trading for video game skins or MMORPG collectibles. For whatever reason humans can invent a scarcity free environment in video games/metaverses but feel compelled to create scarcity anyway.
> For whatever reason humans can invent a scarcity free environment in video games/metaverses but feel compelled to create scarcity anyway.
I would encourage you to try turning on no clip or “god mode” for a game and see how much fun you have and for how long.
It was my experience that it’s fun at first but then gets boring real quick. There is value in constraints as it gives you something you can work at and achieve.
I don't get it, because of course the company running the MMO has total control over who gets to wear what hats, there's no decentralization introduced by NFTs beyond perhaps making it easier for people to use it for a bit of money laundering.
I’m not the parent but I have some thoughts on this.
I’m of the opinion that tokens when applied to digital art typically aren’t providing much value, aside from say bragging rights / social status since digital art can be copied and viewed without owning the token. One might argue that these tokens help pay artists but 1) if that’s all one cares about then donating to them directly will give them more money since transaction fees are cheaper and 2), I haven’t looked into this directly, but it would seem token resale fees given to artists are not enforceable since they could be worked around by having a holding contract that gets traded instead. It just doesn’t seem like digital art tokens are providing much value. Now if they start to be used in some enforceable way such as in a DRMd display then this would be a form of underlying value but why not use a non DRMd display? If it’s anything like movies and music then the answer probably revolves around convenience and risk.
Then there is the more general trend of treating tokens like these as investments where the value gets driven up and, appears to me, detached from any sense of underlying value. So the only way for the sale value of these tokens to hold is to have some one else willing to buy it. But if there is no underlying value then it’s not clear to me how this can continue indefinitely.
But if a token is providing some underlying value like when it is exchangeable for a service or currency and the token’s value is close to it’s underlying value then I don’t think they are scams or at least less likely to be so.
What are your thoughts on this yrral?
For context: I was initially quite interested in the whole distributed ledger stuff from a technical perspective but stopped keeping up with it for the past couple of years or so.
This is a pretty high resolution copy of the Mona Lisa. If I went to see it at the Louvre in person, I wouldn't be able to see this level of detail.
I've never even seen the thing with my own eyes, but I know it's a pretty big flex by the French that they own it.
The most common reaction I've heard from people that have seen it is that it's surprisingly small.
It was insured in 2021 for $870M.
> 1) if that’s all one cares about then donating to them directly will give them more money since transaction fees are cheaper
It's not about donating to the artist directly, exactly. It's about putting a value on their work, which is likely more valuable to the artist than a direction donation.
> 2), I haven’t looked into this directly, but it would seem token resale fees given to artists are not enforceable since they could be worked around by having a holding contract that gets traded instead.
Maybe, but if you ever need to "really" own the piece for some reason, you'd have to reconcile to mainnet anyway, and the artist would get paid then. Everything else is just a promise.
For example, even today, you may need a previous NFT by an artist to get in on a new drop from that artist.
> Now if they start to be used in some enforceable way such as in a DRMd display then this would be a form of underlying value but why not use a non DRMd display?
Actually, most artists want their work to be widely seen. This creates a virtuous cycle. You buy an artist's work, which increases the value of that work, which increase the artist's exposure, which increase the artist's perceived value, which increases the value of the work you purchased, which leads to more sales for the artist, etc.
Instead of a one-time donation, the fan becomes quite literally invested in the artist.
It's the same reason a musician might want to trend on TikTok by giving away 60 seconds of their song "for free" in the hopes to make it up on streaming, merch, ticket sales, and influence later.
> Then there is the more general trend of treating tokens like these as investments where the value gets driven up and, appears to me, detached from any sense of underlying value. So the only way for the sale value of these tokens to hold is to have some one else willing to buy it. But if there is no underlying value then it’s not clear to me how this can continue indefinitely.
I remember being much younger and seeing people buy toys, instruments, and curiosities "as an investment". Most of these didn't work out, but occasionally I see something from my childhood on ebay and think "oh, well, obviously that was going to be important, i should have bought a couple of those and put it away".
Time causes some things to crystalize and other things to fade into obscurity. I suspect the same will happen with these "original" era NFTs.
Hey just wanted to first say thanks for taking the time to write a detailed response.
> I've never even seen the thing with my own eyes, but I know it's a pretty big flex by the French that they own it.
> It was insured in 2021 for $870M.
That's fair but I would argue that physical ownership of it is different than digital ownership in that physical ownership inherently has some fundamental copy protections built in (at least to a point).
Also I do think that the art market in general is a bit special in that it's kind of hard to assign an underlying value to the asset given that art is so subjective from both a personal and cultural perspective.
Some in this HN discussion have made the comparison to star registries and that seems apt as theoretically anyone can start their own star registry and naming a star in there largely has no effect outside of that [1][2][3][4]. If you want to pay a few bucks to "name" a star in some one's personal record of account then fair enough; I can see how that could make a fun gift, especially for a child. But if now you were to spend a couple thousand or millions of dollars then I'd really start to question the intent of the registry.
Maybe I misunderstood your point though.
> It's not about donating to the artist directly, exactly. It's about putting a value on their work, which is likely more valuable to the artist than a direction donation.
Also a fair point.
> Maybe, but if you ever need to "really" own the piece for some reason, you'd have to reconcile to mainnet anyway, and the artist would get paid then.
If the royalty fee is percentage of the resale value, which I believe is common [5], then ownership can still be had without paying the fee by any party by selling the token to the contract for free, trading the contract for some amount, and then triggering the sale from the contract to the contract holder for free. Since the amount the token is ever sold for in this scenario is 0 then no fees are ever owed.
Now if a fixed amount royalty fee were used then one party would have to pay the fee to put the token in the holding contract and then the final party would have to pay a fee to take it out but in between the contract could be traded fee free.
> Actually, most artists want their work to be widely seen. This creates a virtuous cycle. You buy an artist's work, which increases the value of that work, which increase the artist's exposure, which increase the artist's perceived value, which increases the value of the work you purchased, which leads to more sales for the artist, etc.
So artists want their work to be widely seen to increase its popularity and desire and narrowly owned so that value can be assigned and transferred.
I'm not sure how NFTs on their own accomplish this for digital assets. It seems to me the inherent fungibility of the digital art sets it apart from physical art or objects. Just because the token is non fungible doesn't make the asset it intends to represent non fungible. One would need some way to enforceably and meaningfully bind the two fully or partially (say with a limited view count per individual, restricted use, etc) to accomplish this. Without any restrictions on the digital art then all you have left is social perception as an enforcement mechanism.
Now that I think about it I think that's the crux of the argument.
This kind of comment strikes me as nonproductive. HN seems majority anti-crypto and anti-NFT, and that’s fine, but when every crypto adjacent thread winds up littered with these kinds of comments (not addressing the feature specifically, but instead expressing non-pointed distaste for the ecosystem) it seriously degrades the quality of discussion possible.
Is there a proper forum for HN metadiscussion? My beef isn't with this comment specifically, but rather the low quality discussion that regularly occurs in crypto threads.
In the best possible light, yes, it could be interpreted as criticism for the devs. As I read it, it seems like "I don't like crypto or NFTs so I'm leaving." Which again: perfectly reasonable sentiment. That's fine if it's how you feel.
However, I feel a more meaningful comment would have included what specifically about this feature was over the line and why (especially given the presence of BAT).
Maybe it's not low-quality discussion in crypto threads, but rather a lack of high-quality discussion. Despite it's popularity, there are only a handful of people who are intimately familiar with how the blockchain works, the rest is mostly hype and Twitter campaigns for buying Bored Apes.
Depending on your OS, Vivaldi, Microsoft Edge, and other Chromium based browsers, as well as Safari and a few other weirdos using WebKit, all still exist. Beyond that, calling Firefox "much worse" is obviously subjective; there haven't been any credible allegations I'm aware of that Opera is "weird Chinese spy" (sic), and even though they're owned by a Chinese company now they're still headquartered in Norway and have to comply with Norwegian privacy laws; and calling Google Chrome a "botnet" is, uh, frankly weird. It's not very privacy-sensitive and that may be reason enough to avoid it, but it is not a "botnet" by any definition of the term I'm aware of.
There is Vivaldi. I used for my work daily driver and it been working well for me. One thing I like about it that it didn't have the bloat from Chrome and Brave.
Brave Wallet supports that use case. Only use your Ledger and connect it to Brave. That will delegate signing of transactions to the hardware wallet. The private key does not leave the hardware wallet.
It's all about being a Dapp browser. The use case is getting access to Dapps.
You need something that's integrated into the browser to use web apps that integrate with cryptocurrencies. Like if you want to use uniswap you need metamask or something else that integrates with the webpage.
I 'm thinking about switching to brave because of these built-in crypto (and thus identity) features, but the thing is , i don't want to block ads because i run ads on some of my own websites. To me, the crypto features of brave are more important than their adblocking , they are the future.
If you don’t block ads, Brave doesn’t give you much over using any other browser with MetaMask installed (and MetaMask is far more stable). The only additions are native Tor integration and ENS domain resolution, but you can get that through plugins to other browsers as well.
