Brave is essentially just Chrome with an adblocker, a bunch of bloatware, and a bunch of controversies.

Brave took BAT donations in YouTuber’s names without their consent, with them keeping the money if the YouTubers didn’t claim it. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice/

Brave’s search engine crawler hides itself from websites by pretending to be Googlebot, and Meta (Facebook) buys API access from them to train their AI. https://stackdiary.com/brave-selling-copyrighted-data-for-ai-training/

The business model of Brave rewards as a whole is to block all other ad networks to replace them with their own, which is unfair as only YouTubers and websites that have joined can make money from most Brave users.

If Brave actually cared, they would create an acceptable ads style feature which was free for everyone and allowed simple contextual banners while blocking ads which track you, take up most of the page, or have NSFW content.

Their approach is monopolistic as they have full control and can strangle YouTubers and websites by dropping pay at any time.

And Brenden Eich has said on Twitter that he plans to release “Brave Origin”, which is a paid version of Brave without the bloatware. That name is ironic as he is admitting that his browser is commercialised and bloated, which is similar to when gorhill gave uBlock way to Chris Aljoudi who commercialised it, which led him to create uBlock Origin.

If you use Brave, ditch it and look at using Librewolf or Helium instead, which both include no ads nor tracking and don’t have Brave News, Rewards, Wallet, Talk etc bloatware.

  • typhoon@lemmy.world
    1·
    24 hours ago

    For Android, Vanadium in GOS is a better option than Brave.

    For computers, I have to say that this comment has some foundation. Why?

    For general navigation (things that don’t require login): Use Mullvad Browser

    For logins (things that don’t require total privacy and require better security: email, bank account, etc): For now use Brave (or Trivalent if you are using SecureBlue, or Ungoogled Chromium if you are techy savvy enough to keep the uBO extension working reliably)

    With this premise, of privacy and security in PC, is difficult to outcome Brave for the later in terms of convenience.

    Brave is open source, if you have a problem with something on it please bring it to us. The bloatware can be managed via settings (although very annoying and not sure when enshifitication will become unbearable).

    For those recommending Vivaldi, Vivaldi is not completely open source. So, no, I can’t trust it.