- cross-posted to:
- firefox@lemmy.ml
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- firefox@lemmy.ml
- technology@lemmy.world
You must log in or register to comment.
Very strongly worded, but yes.
Brave have had a history of controversy since their inception. Every time something happens, the CEO went on a marketing campaign across social media and drummed up enough new users to drown it out. However the attitude of the business is clear: it would take a very small sack of money for Brave to sell out its users.
If you’re going to use a Chromium web browser, there are non-commercial open source projects that don’t have a history of shady shit. However Firefox forks are better.
Which forks do you suggest?
Mullvad , LibreWolf and Tor.
Other people have given desktop examples. For Android, I use Mull, which also has a companion Android System Webview implementation (Chromium) called Mulch. These are baked into the DivestOS ROM, which itself is a fork of LineageOS.
Not the OP, but here are some alternatives anyway.
Firefox:
Chrome:
Ok, but why? What’s wrong with Firefox and how do the forks address those points?
I use fennec from F-droid on mobile
Also Mull and Iceraven from F-Droid
Absoutely. I mostly use Firefox because I’m so familiar with it by now but the privacy is generally much better and it doesn’t have a massive monopoly on the web. I’m just a lot more comfortable with it.
When I have to, I use ungoogled-chromium on desktop and Bromite on mobile. I recommend those to anyone familiar with Chrome.
Unfortunately Bromite has been abandoned, however someone has made a fork called Cromite.
I don’t trust homophobes or cryptobros, especially not those with a history of selling users out like Brendan Eich
Especially when there is Firefox and Firefox-based, privacy-focused alternative with great add-blocking and privacy extensions.
I don’t trust anyone who invented Javascript.
To anyone reading this article, only the first quarter of it is about the beliefs and political stance of the developers. The rest of the article after that goes into more technical reasons.
All I needed to read was in the first paragraph.
Brave Software, the company behind the browser of the same name, was founded by Brendan Eich. He’s best known as the creator of JavaScript from his days at Netscape Communications
I mean, JS is his baby that’s all there needs to be said about the person’s motivations.
“JS is his baby that’s all there needs to be said about the person’s motivations.”
“During these formative years of the Web, web pages could only be static, lacking the capability for dynamic behavior after the page was loaded in the browser. There was a desire in the flourishing web development scene to remove this limitation, so in 1995, Netscape decided to add a scripting language to Navigator. They pursued two routes to achieve this: collaborating with Sun Microsystems to embed the Java programming language, while also hiring Brendan Eich to embed the Scheme language.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
I think you’re confusing the reasons behind the initial intent of JS versus what it has evolved into almost 30 years later.
Imagine a world where Java integrated into the web was just as standard as JavaScript is now.
deleted by creator
we were really close… I remember lots of placeholders for where Java applets were meant to be
The moment my cryptofan buddy started talking up brave, I knew it was time to uninstall.
People that use Brave always remind of the people pushing crypto.
deleted by creator
Crossover? Crypto is built-in! https://brave.com/brave-rewards/
deleted by creator
I use firefox as my main but have brave as my chromium/PWA browser because I don’t really fancy using edge or chrome
What other browsers out there support PWAs that are less spyware-ey than the big names
Chromium is pretty safe to use. There are also builds of “de-googled Chromium” available.
Firefox supports them
Firefox does not support PWAs on desktop, but there is an extension to enable them which works well.
Out of curiosity, why would you use PWA on desktop?
test my own PWA of websites I’m developing
changing browsers or keeping both open breaks the workflow and sucks. and it’s pretty damn slow for me too
There’s sometimes desktop functionality like saving music on yt music
Also having them in their own window/their own shortcut is pretty handy and firefox doesn’t support shortcuts either nowqdays
Why was appointing Eich as CEO so controversial? It’s because he donated $1,000 in support of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, which was a proposed amendment to California’s state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Which is all the reason I need.
If he had changed his tune since then and done something to offset that, I might be willing to cut him some slack.
But, instead, he seems to have doubled down…
They had me at invented JavaScript
I don’t use Brave, won’t use Brave, and have my reasons for it.
- Brave is Chromium based; a project which is slave to the whim of Google.
- Brave integrates an unnecessary cryptocurrency.
I hate shitcoins
I don’t trust small crypto projects, and I doubly do not want this to be integrated into my browser. It’s a good way to lose your stable crypto-holdings if you have them. (I don’t; but I’ve seen lots of anecdotes about catching malware that subsequently stole their crypto wallets, including any BAT tokens they owned)
- Brave does not block ads! It does not ‘enhance’ your privacy. It just absorbs some ads, replaces some, and blatantly lets first-party advertisements through the filter. That’s not ad-blocking
- Brave does not protect your privacy. As per my previous point; it does not block ads, it injects it’s own right into browser chrome! That’s worse than plain Chrome! Your privacy is automatically violated when you watch/view even a single ad.
- Brave does not have many benefits above “Ungoogled Chromium” or other competing projects. It just doesn’t. Unless you like marketing fluff.
- Brave is NOT BETTER THAN Firefox. It’s worse; because it’s Chromium; which is enslaved to Google whims. Don’t believe me? Try to contribute something to Chromium that goes contrary to Google’s stated goals and watch how fast you get shot down.
But sometimes...
Yes, Sometimes a programmer does succeed. But only sometimes; and this is usually because they have the clout, coding skills, chops and public reach to embarrass the fuck out of the Google PMs. This will never be you, unless you put an extraordinary amount of effort into becoming a very well known and respected contributor in the OSS space. If you already are a respected contributor in the OSS space, Congrats! You’re still likely to be forced to fight a long and protracted battle against the Google nerds to get “Google-Hostile” code changes approved.
Your last point is laughable.
Yes Brave cannot make commits to Chromium, but it makes changes to their own repos (well, obviously) and can also accept/reject changes Google makes to Chromium.
In my opinion, Firefox is more of a slave to Google than Brave will ever be because they rely entirely on Google giving them money for the default search engine.
Is Brave’s revenue model scammy? Maybe. But at least they aren’t Google little bitch.
I don’t know how you can follow web development and say Mozilla is a slave to Google. They go against nearly everything Google proposes. I get it that Mozilla makes money off of Google but in practice they are anything but slaves.
https://digdeeper.club/articles/mozilla.xhtml
I find nothing morally or ethically superior to Mozilla vs Google. Nothing. As for the browsers, I’ll admit I have kept Firefox and ditched Chrome, as I suspect (cannot prove) the former might be a tad less invasive than the latter. I rarely use it now that I have Waterfox. That said I do use Comodo IceDragon, Epic Privacy Browser and Brave…I assume all based on Chromium/Chrome. I’d guess Brave is the most up-to-date browser for Windows 7. It works well when various sites flip the birdie to the other browsers, so I use it.
They can do whatever they want, they only do it because Google allows it.
By that logic, Brave is also completely against Google because they block their ads and go against them.
if you useanything alphabet like chromium, then YOU are the problem.
I think it’s pretty unfair to put all of the blame on everyone who uses a chromium browser, considering that most people with a computer have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
Google Chrome is the single most popular web browser. Everyone’s work uses it, everyone’s school uses it, why would they possibly question it? And then they discover a new browser someone recommended - why would they look into “chromium” and what it all means? It’s just not reasonable to expect of nearly the entire population at this stage.
Take your anger out on the company and educate people. This is a problem of education, not selfishness (on the part of the user).
Right, but if I take your perfectly reasonable and mature position then I can’t prove to the web how edgy and superior I am!
If you’ve found your way to the technology community on a federated lemmy instance, youre techy enough to take the blame for using chromium
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I work for a large agency of the US government. We get the “choice” between chrome and edge.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Firefox ftw
Im just waiting for Firefox mobile to add back support for all add-ons.
deleted by creator
Now it makes sense why some of the Fox News-parroting, right wing people I know use Brave. I had no idea about what the author mentioned about the browser, I just know it is based on Chromium which I will not use. Thus, I am on Firefox. And for many reasons, including those the author laid out, I’m happy I chose wisely.
Isn’t this like the fourth time this has been posted? the conversation always goes around in circles with nobody changing their mind.
What do you think about Torch Browser? Falkon? Dot browser?
Torch Browser is not open source, and it still is based on chromium. It’s the worst browser combination possible.
Falkon is pretty cool! I prefer using qutebrowser if it’s gonna use QtWebEngine anyway. It is slower and less featureful than the main browsers, though. If you don’t mind it, I’d say go for it!
I didn’t know about Dot Browser, but it looks… unfinished? It’s based on Firefox, so that’s cool. But it seems someone would be better off just using something like LibreWolf (or Tor if you actually want some privacy).
I’m personally like to stop using Brave, and I will, however while LibreWolf will be what I’ll switch to on desktop, I’m not sure what I would want to switch to on my Android phone. I see that LibreWolf doesn’t have an Android version (and potentially never will; fine, developers will do whatever they want). I’ve heard about IceRaven, however, I’m not sure how good it is. Also would like an actually privacy focused search engine, but I think LibreWolf might have a good list on that front.
(Note: please do suggest in replies, not sure I made that apparent)
Check out Mull or Mulch. Mull is a more private Firefox and Mulch is a more private Chrome. They are made by the DivestOS team, they also make DivestOS which is a lot more private Android version that supports a huge number of phones. That’s how I’m also runing the latest version of Android 13 with the latest security updates on a phone from 2019. And there are much older devices supported.
Since I’ll be moving to LibreWolf and it’s based on FF, I’ll check out Mull. Unfortunately I don’t see my device on DivestOS’s site (it’s a Motorola Moto G Power 2022), but it’s also quite new so it’s understandable. I’ll switch it to Lineage or something like that whenever it gets support for it but I’m fine with a degoogled Android for now.
You look deep enough at any company and you will find a lot of shit you don’t like.
Go live off the land in the woods if you don’t want to support shitty companies.
Otherwise STFU
OK, but it’s also a pretend privacy browser that doesn’t actually protect or respect your privacy.
🙄
It should’ve been as simple as stop using any chromium-based browser, but the CEO is also super bigoted, doing ad theft, and pushing crypto scams.
