> Brave scrubs sites of ads and ad tracking, then replaces those ads with its own advertisements, which are not individually targeted but instead aimed at an anonymous aggregate of the browser's user base.
Separate point: calling Google an "advertising company" is way off the mark. Google runs the biggest online ad exchange in the world, requiring lots of advertisers to buy keywords and other ways of addressing customers, and publishers to partner with Google for a (small) cut of the gross revenue Google makes matching bids to asks.
Brave doesn't do any of this cloud surveillance based ad-tech. We leave ads off by default, but when a user opts in, all the ad matching is local to the browser against a catalog that's the same for a large cohort by region and human language. Ad impressions are confirmed by a Privacy Pass variant protocol. Users get 70% of the gross.
There isn't a great category for what Google is, it already won its own "google it" verb. But among many other things, it is a huge ad-tech player. Brave is small, user-first, privacy-by-default, and ads are opt in. See the difference?
That's completely false. We've been unable to get Gregg to correct his story, but we never replaced ads in pages.
We don't aggregate anything into Federated Learning, all opt in (off by default) machine learning is local to the browser. Chaum blind signature protocol (Privacy Pass standardized this) to confirm.
I know it's fun to repeat misinformation on hacker news out of ill will, but many people have verified our claims from open source audits, network audits, and more. Comments like yours just look sloppy or even malicious, even on HN.
Eich is divisive, sure, but Brave is not a secure browser any more than Firefox is, with a lot of phoning home and crypto widget, that like them or not, are out of place in a browser you want to trust.
Ideally my browser and all the software I use do not connect and fetch data unless I tell them to. A browser should not be "bundled" with extra widgets for convenience.
I don't care about Brendan Eich quite as much as I care about the Google / Chrome monopoly, and Brave just makes this monopoly stronger by depending on Chrome. By being Chrome, actually.
I want the web to be built around something else than ad-/tracking-supported software and Brave is being very self-contradictory with this.
Don't use Brave if you care about the global picture / tracking around the globe.
We started on Gecko. By many measures, big spreadsheet, Chromium won. We would be dead on that short hill you want us to charge up and take with spears against Maxim guns. I share your dislike of monoculture or evolutionary kernels that win by market power more than merit, but having us die for no benefit isn't the way to overcome Google.
Brave rewards is opt-in, off by default. If you dislike ads, don't enable it.
I suggest you consider that your big-picture thinking is short sighted. Instead of spears vs. Maxim guns, the better trope and line of attack is judo: use Google's weight against it, by differentiating a level up in a way that puts users first and if they opt in, pays them 70% of the gross.
(I'm assuming you are educated on how our private ad system works. If not read my comments in the past year or so, easy to find from my profile.)
Brave is a separate fork and completely unreliant on Chrome. It also is the most privacy-focused browser so it's the opposite of "tracking-supported software".
If Chrome disappears, Brave ceases to exist. Brave totally relies on Google developers working on Chrome and do the vast majority of what it takes to build the browser. Brave only does superficial work in comparison. Brave may itself be privacy-focused but only exists thanks to Google's business model which is mostly tracking the world.
So, yes, Brave is mostly funded by tracking since it is mostly Chrome with some lightweight work on top of it.
Correct, completely forked from Chromium (not Chrome) and in separate development. Brave continues to roll out superior features while the rest of the Chromium world lags.
It does not matter that Brave lives in its own, separate source repository. This code is regularly rebased on Chromium.
Your cookies rely on the flour you use to make them even if they have chunks of chocolate that the flour doesn't have. No flour, no cookies. (Except in this case it's even worse, the cookies is already done, you just add some colors...).
I too can take chromium and put it in my own git repository and change some minor stuff. It will be "forked" and "separately" developed but it would not mean a thing.
We rebase and look at all the changes, neutralizing not only on-by-default tracking Google puts in Chromium for its own benefit, but many other experiments and flagged features. We carry forked files too.
Of course, we can't maintain all of the upstream ourselves, although we wish Google had fewer typists adding bad or marginal things; but neither can Samsung, Opera, or even Microsoft. But if Google stopped maintaining, the remaining Chromium browsers would carry on.
Your comments suggest a lack of familiarity with our GitHub.
It's not perfect (since its funding is mostly Google) but Firefox is my current browser of choice. It notably has very good support for blocking tracking and unwanted stuff thanks to uBlock Origin, which works best on Firefox according to its main developer [0]. And while it is funded with Google's money (which is a huge caveat), I still hope this changes in the future. Firefox could be funded differently. [By the way] maybe Mullvad browser is an interesting choice for this exact reason?
Other (independent) initiatives like NetSurf [1] and Ladybird [2] are on my radar. NetSurf has been around for a while; Ladybird seems impressive, achieving some great progress and result with little resources. I should actually try Ladybird more seriously when I get the chance, and maybe contribute if I find the time :-)
Wut? Citation needed. I’m sure you don’t mean his support of Proposition 8 in 2008, because Barack Obama professed the same belief in 2008… making him, in this formulation, a homophobe.
I don't think we need an umpteenth discussion about this here, it has already been discussed to hell. This is getting old. Just search Brendan Each on HN [1], this discussion happens any time he is mentioned here.
Or just read the summary on Wikipedia [2].
There's a lot of material on this topic, it's easy to make up one's opinion on this if you are genuinely interested.
But if these details are to play a factor in browser selection, one should reflect on the myriad of undesirable associations involved in going about daily life.
Just typing this reply involves an entire supply chain associated with individuals and organizations of questionable character.
To apply this same level of sensitivity to daily life would be to mostly unhook oneself from modern society.
I care deeply about the safety and freedom of the LGBTQ+ community, and find little value in allowing someone else’s lack of acceptance of me dictate my life. Doing so is a form of “doing something” that does nothing but widen the gap to actual change, which can only ever happen via open dialogue.
I think there are plenty of reasons not to choose Brave based on the actual technical merits of the product.
Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you and this is actually an interesting philosophical topic to discuss (I mean it, I'm genuinely interested in this and have been wondering where to put limits on this kind of stuff).
But wondering whether is Eich homophobic? Meh. Bored of these discussions. I have set my opinion on this. It's been discussed enough.
I tend to avoid fast food in general, but I try not to orient my life around actions (or avoiding actions) that are unlikely to have any impact, especially if they involve spending more of my own energy.
Avoiding Chik-Fil-A at all costs: primarily affects me.
Being willing to frequent a Chik-Fil-A because a friend somewhere else on the political spectrum enjoys it: potentially opens an opportunity to talk.
Most of my family and their circles fit that latter description, so this is not a hypothetical. Any chance of influencing them is actively harmed by choosing/avoiding fast food based on tribal allegiance.
None of this should be construed to mean that I find their leadership team and public stances acceptable.
It has everything to do with your comment? I'm inviting anybody interested on the topic to go read about it themselves instead of rehashing the same subject again and again, since I believe everything about this has already been said already?
> You libeled someone without providing any proof at all.
On the contrary, please notice how I carefully and deliberately stated nothing about Eich, not given my opinion on this and not taken sides here.
It would not be smart, it would invite people who have opinions on this to further push this discussion.
Barack Obama opposed prop 8 in 2008, and certainly never donated money to the campaign like Eich did. There are dozens of articles about it.
But he also opposed gay marriage, so to some extent he was homophobic, at least for political reasons. He later changed his mind on it, likely also for political reasons.
But shame on you for using such disingenuous bullshit tactics to make your homophobic point: “If you call Eich a homophobe, then you also have to call <insert beloved liberal figure> a homophobe!”. For one, it ignores the fact that people’s minds can change over time, whereas Eich has never changed his stance on gay marriage and has never disavowed the money he spent trying to stop it. And two, it’s just a red herring argument and attempted hypocrisy trap.
And worse, it’s a fucking terrible hypocrisy trap. There are millions of people who support gay marriage but never supported Barack Obama, and millions more who supported Obama precisely because they didn’t want gay marriage and thought they could trust him to not change his mind on it. Obama may be beloved by some liberals, but he is a hypocrite to many on a multitude of reasons, ranging from his gay marriage flip flop, to his support of the patriot act, to the promotion of indefinite detention and torture to federal law, to the fact that he continued the pointless Iraq war for his entire term.
There is no opt-out to not use a VPN. There's... the Mullvad logo, which seems pretty reasonable. Certainly more reasonable than injecting their own ad network into your pages and pushing your home-rolled cryptocoin.
I have been using brave for a long time, and the only places where crypto is mentioned is in the new tab window. You have to opt in to add replacement.
