FOSSDLE PieFedYou need to stop using Brave
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.
I always use and recommend hardened Firefox + Ublock. As a search engine, I use Qwant, which is based in the EU and uses its own search engine whenever possible rather than Google, Bing, etc.
And there is another reason not to recommend using Brave. Among its investors is Peter Thiel, the most controversial figure in the investment world. Search for Peter Thiel's controversial statements in your favourite search engine and you will see for yourself.
Consider a SearXNG instance. It can use Quant as a source, but balance across other engines to get the best results based on overlap (you choose the engines).
searxng is awesome.
Only thing is that instances go down from time and it gets frustrating. I am not geeky enough to host an instance myself. So I just keep hoping one instance to another which is also not very convenient. How do I make most of searx?
Yea, running your own is definately the way to go. If you have Docker installed, you can run it on your local machine?
That would run at http://localhost:8080/ and store all data and config persistent, and download the latest version (if needed) every time.
And if you're concerned about the way Mozilla is headed, there are multiple open source versions like waterfox that should work with all extensions.
I am pretty set with Firefox in Android and desktop to be honest.
I cringe a little when users praise Brave as being the best ad-less YouTube solution (especially android users since we have revanced here!), no bro, there is no way using the web version of YT is better than revanced, or any other apps on mobile.
Their shields AdBlock is very good though, it's done in ram in a memory safe way, arguably doing it through an extension like ublock is not great. I can't wait until a project facelifts shields and puts it on top of an unbloated security focused chromium (or Firefox grows some balls and builds it in). Vanadium pls 🥺
been using firefox since before it was called firefox, and netscape before that. while i do use 'other' browsers, too, their use is limited to testing and a few select sites or purposes only (for instance, i use a 'portable' opera for mail, and only mail).
And now Morphe too, continuation of the revanced project, and it's acually really good i have to say
... This is how I found out about the Revanced situation... Oh boy I swear the open source community is one of the biggest ones that carries some drama 😂 (not saying this is bad, the switch is something totally justified).
I just saw a random post about it here and i switched since revanced isn't really getting updated, although i still use the revanced reddit bc it blocks ads, bit buggy but it works and i also have their pirated lightroom xd.
I see, I still main Sync for Reddit thanks to revanced do you know if Morphe has parches for it? As far as I can tell it only has parches for YT stuff...
Only yt so far sadly......
On iOS it might be though, because there's no revanced and browsers can't have plugins so the only way to adblock is to use a browser that bakes it in.
This means (afaik) Brave, DuckDuckGo or Opera. IME adblocking for youtube specifically is patchy with Opera, can't speak for DuckDuckGo.
Or just don't use iOS. I don't much but we have an iPad for occasional use
Orion on iOS has support for both Chrome and Firefox extensions. So you can use uBlock Origins directly. It’s made by the same developers as the search engine Kagi.
Only downside is that it doesn’t sync with Firefox, if you use that on your desktop.
I didn't know that about Orion...
Man that's rough.
When I used iOS setting FF to strict navigation or whatever its name is it did wonders, compared to the closed environment I was ofc.
Firefox is becoming a shitty ai browser now. Consider waterfox or librewolf
For my needs I'm currently fine with it, also my mindset is... All those are FF forks, the enshitification of FF will eventually splash them, not to the same degree, but yeah, it can happen.
I am too lazy to switch my CSS theme in ALL the OS I use too, for some reason this crap isn't synced automatically with FF Sync (just as some add-ons settings) I hate starting over, that is why I always bash on current backup/restore solution Android has (compared to iCloud) every time I get the chance lol.
Or even Firedragon which is a fork of both librewolf and floorp, best browser i have ever used! I recommend trying it out.
Brave is the browser version of Honey. It blocks 3rd party ads and inserts its own, taking the money. Either block the ads or don’t but this is shitty.
Honestly what do people have against Firefox that can't be fixed with plugins? It's the only decent browser that isn't chrome based, and I think that deserves support. And with plugins and sync it's a great experience.
Firefox is great. Mozilla, however, is making some weird moves every now and then. A lot of people don't quite trust Mozilla to have their interests at heart anymore.
The obvious solution is to use a Firefox fork. I have no idea whether there's a meaningful difference between the various Firefox forks, and would welcome a summary.
I switched to LibreWolf, which is a Firefox fork that prioritizes anonymity and privacy. I like it, but there are definite quirks:
it will tell every website your time zone is UTC+0, which breaks some stuff. Proton Calendar works if you tell it your actual timezone.
no password saving and cookies delete every session, so you have to log in to every website every time you restart. This is intentional but I don't understand the rationale. You can install a password manager though and self-host it if you want.
because your device fingerprint is generic, a lot of websites incorrectly assume you are a not. I have to use FF for GrubHub, for instance, as they won't play nice with LibreWolf due to restrictions on the HTML5 Canvas element, for instance.
All of this should be configurable per site. Lots of sites do not need to know my timezone, location, cookies or fingerprint, but some do. I want to give sites I like, those where I've intentionally created an account, usually, permission to these things while denying it to every random article I happen to click on.
You can set exceptions for cookies on per site basis. I know because I also thought this for long time before finding it.
Settings - Privacy & Security - Cookies and Site Data - Manage exceptions
One item off the annoyance list. :)
You can turn off the fingerprint protection in the Librewolf tab of the settings page.
Mozilla changed their privacy policy and terms of use about a year ago in ways that show they cannot be trusted. I think Librewolf offers more privacy/security features than Firefox can with plugins (disabling some canvas features that are used for fingerprinting for example). I think Firefox has some advertising/tracking crap enabled by default too (PPA API?). IDK, I just don't trust them anymore with their policy changes. Mullvad Browser is even more "hardened," but less convenient than Librewolf.
For me it’s a combination of Mozilla making strange business decisions (removing of the “we never sell your data” policy) and the fact that a lot of websites take forever to load on Firefox.
I’ve tried forks, LibreWolf pisses me off. Too many settings to change just to still have a broken browsing experience in the sake of privacy. If I need that level of privacy, I’ll use I2P/Tor.
I hate the fact that chromium has won, but it’s getting difficult to avoid the fact that web developers don’t give a rats ass if the website doesn’t work well on Firefox.
Brave was my primary for a while, but I switched to Vivaldi after reading about some of the BAT bait and switch.
My main browsers are FF or Zen (a fork of FF), but I think a lot of sites aren't able to work with just a plug-in due to how deeply they are coded for Chromium. Some of them being Amazon sites like Luna, Amazon Music, and Audible (pretty sure their other media sites/services also refuse to work if any hint of non-Chromium browsers are detected. I have run into non-Amazon sites with media or similar tell me to "update your browser" or "use a supported browser" (which is at least more honest than telling me that my FF is "out of date").
While there are likely elements in some sites that actually can work with FF (I have had really random moments where I got part of a song to play on Amazon Music but then gives the "browser is out of date" message). The Chromium focused coding is IE all over again. Just a self-fulfilling cycle of making it look like FF is not as capable. And I hate that in the instances where changing the User Agent to be Chrome works, that it just keeps stats looking like Chrome and forks are what people are using (and might lead to seeming like FF is used less than it actually is).
I haven't encountered anything like that, but maybe that's because I wouldn't touch anything Amazon with a 2 metre stick
Not a bad stance. But they are a major provider of media that regular users might use. They also tend to be the people that would rather not bother with FF if they see it as "not as capable" and never leave Chrome. Which further feeds the goals of Google to be the default just like MS did with IE (but much more cleaver by providing the base for endless forks).
MS fucked up by caring that IE was the "only" option and didn't push creating such a good base to have forks to keep their versions of "standards." Google did an amazing job at pouring money into getting Chrome past the early years of lack of mature features (and while they still had good will of helping to get people away from IE).
With sideberry and second sidebar, it's literally the best browsing experience that exists currently and it's not even close
Provided I can still use about:config to clear out all the Mozilla crap then I'm happy with Firefox. The only add-on I use is ublock-origin on my phone and also NoScript on desktop.
I'm quite happy with the Mullvad browser.
Doesn't natively work under Wayland, unfortunately.
As-is, it's not suitable for a touchscreen device.
And with
MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1the window buttons are broken.? I'm running it on Wayland fine
It works fine with a mouse. I often use my 2-in-1 as a tablet. Instead of scrolling, it just does text selection, and neither does pinch to zoom work. After all, it's just controlling a mouse pointer under X11.
mullvad also has encrypted dns that anyone (don't need to be a vpn subscriber) can plug-in to their browser or (compatible) operating system--including optional domain-level blocking (adult, social, gambling, and ads). yes, you can use a basic 'pihole-like' dns without needing to actually set one up.
I never used it specifically because of it being run by Brenden Eich. I have no intention of knowingly throwing my towel in and helping to enrich someone who's thrown his money around to strip people of the right to marry who they want because he finds it icky.
I'm sure there's other bad shit from him but after that I just treat him and anything he does as pure toxin.
If that sounds harsh, well, I don't give a fuck.
Desktop = Librewolf, Mullvad and hardened firefox browsers. Strictly separating uses.
Mobile (Android) = Cromite, Brave, Firefox and Tor. Again, separating uses.
This is pretty nihilist to say, but we probably need to stop using what we're calling the internet today.
The web is not the innocent platform it once was in the 90s and early 00s. Privacy is practically nonexistent and the workarounds like disabling javascript break so much of it that what's left is hardly usable.
There's no worthwhile alternatives imo. There's no major competing internetworks or 'web browsing' alternatives outside of modern html/css/js... and there really should be.
The internet evolved towards money making and nobody really stopped and made offshoots that are just cool fun things without the endless goal of capital.
The problem with the internet is not the internet itself, but the big tech platforms.
By using sites like Mastodon and Lemmy, using a browser with uBlock Origin installed, and disabling Web & App activity, personalised ads, etc on your phone, you are taking a stand, and routing around the bad stuff exactly as intended.
It just isn't enough man. We're still dependent on a handful of sources for everything. Adblockers break for me practically every single day.
I don't have solutions. I just see privacy slipping away at scale and i'm afraid where we will end up in just a few years.
We can't opt out of the system either because too much of it is necessary. Can anyone truly say they don't need google? ever? I stick to stuff like lemmy and I use duck duck go, but I don't think ddg is permanent.
Everything just seems aligning for us to have digital IDs and fingerprints that are tracked with metadata and sold freely to any buyer with enough money. Combine that with technologies like flock and all the facial recognition tech everywhere, payment being basically completely digital today and sold/shared to anyone willing to pay... and every move we make is completely tracked and known.
We're at a point now where the tech used in The Dark Knight by batman to solve crime at the expense of everyone's privacy is here, and it's even worse. Nobody will destroy it because it's too powerful to make money and crush dissent. With how dire the political situation is and how they are literally telling us now to not believe what we see, instead believe what we say... i'm worried, like so many others are.
No one person should have as much power as even a billionaire has, and there are so many who have more than that. The only end to tyranny is our lifespans, until that is no longer a limiting factor from technology.
Yes. I switched to Qwant some years ago, and about a year back I switched to Kagi. Haven't seen the Google Search page in years at this point.
The only thing I use from Google still is YouTube. There are also alternatives, I've spent some time with PeerTube and found things I enjoy, and I don't mind supporting Nebula, which is also a nice platform. That said, I could probably just cut it all off. It frees up time to do something else.
Install uBlock Origin and disable any others then the ad blocker problem will be solved.
As for other things, look for backups. If DDG shuts down, search up alternatives. If piefed.social shuts down, find another instance, and do on.
Using Invidious or other front ends allows me to watch YT without Google tracking.
My Gmail address is only used by as backup to access my own domain and I am ready to move that away from Google.
I don't need Google.
Using a different frontend to access a Google service is still using Google ...
True, but they are not collecting my data.
If you want to experience the old internet: https://kagi.com/smallweb
A curated list of sites with specific criteria, I’ve found a bunch of good stuff from there
I'd say we don't need go go so far as to stop using the internet (there are open and free services we can use), but I'd agree that we need to reduce our overall internet usage as way to fight aginst the system. Many times, there aren't alternatives to things, and the alternative can be doing something else! Doing something with out life time that the corporations have been stealing.
And the tech industry have become the main players int he economy and in many destructive and unethical practices in the world, that by reducing our internet usage, we are working against them.
Technically, there's Gemini (protocol) and Gopher as alternatives to the usual web stack, but they're still pretty niche in usage.
We can still build small, text-based websites for free.
I have built fileshare and chat before switching to OSS solutions, which I can selfhost.
No adblocker needed, I can enjoy my part of the internet with people I care about.
Also Wikipedia.
Not the Internet, but rather the World Wide Web. The once-humble webpage has become such a complex stack of technologies that it's impossible for small dev teams to make alternatives to the established web browsers.
The 90s web isnt the same product the internet is today. Therefore you'll never get people to leave. Just like youtube and twitter. These are just new "cable." The only reason people had cable was for entertainment. We can start a new internet tomorrow but it will just be me and you and if thats what you really wanted, you'd be completely fine with thst.
An extra reason: Eich is a homophobic asshole and an anti-masker
...and? Are you going to stop using the transistor?
Man's dead.
Don't matter what he thought when he's rotting in the ground.
Does when you're still alive
I hope you never use JavaScript then. Eich created that too.
Oh I see, outrage of convenience.
No.
It's very simple: if someone is alive and holds detestable views, then giving them money gives them a chance to then use that money to lobby for their views. And in many many many many many cases, they do exactly that.
If someone is dead and holds detestable views, they're unable to do anything about it (cause they're dead)
I remember Brave was popular among MAGA-type people during Trump's first term. I suspect it's likely the same.
The logo has a striking resemblance to one I remember seeing on a big pro-Trump community. It's described here https://www.vox.com/2019/8/29/20838289/trump-fascist-lion-head-bull-testicles-video-twitter basically the logo is associated with Mussolini.
In addition if you check the Wikipedia article you'll notice this:
Moreover some right-wing type people expressed their "solidarity" with Brendan Eich for his anti LGBT stance so they used Brave.
I personally don't use or like it. But nowadays I see it installed to people's phone. Which is thousand times better than chrome.
People around me are too Brain washed to understand " install a Firefox based Browser and install Ublock origin "
There aren’t as many good options on iOS.
Which is why I use OP browser, even if it’s evil, to look at some news sites and YouTube. For other things I do not use it. I assume they do bad things to my browser and have a bad opinion of the management there
Orion is great. You can install Firefox extensions on it, and use the full desktop version of uBlock Origin if you'd like. Hell you can install Chromium extensions as well, if you for whatever reason feel the need to have those gutted useless things.
Thanks, haven’t tried it, but certainly will!
Edit:
Yeah, it’s great! Guess I’ll make this my daily driver instead of Brave now.
If it's viable for you, slightly modified Mulvad browser + Searxing for search.
Mullvad browser is a variant of the Tor browser, but rather than being used to connect to Tor, it's built on the stripped away version of Firefox that Tor builds. This means no 'phoning home' telemetry to Mozilla or Google. The only default connection Mullvad browser uses -- and this might be why I would suggest modifying it -- is the DNS gets routed through Mullvad. Nothing wrong with that, as they have some solid adblocking DNS servers. But: having a choice for that is good. The default should not be assumed.
Searxing uses a number of search indexes that have been consistently effective when compared to commercial search engines, and it's open source and deployable on, say, a home server. There used to be some public instances available. Searxing is good.
Were setting up a Searxing service for yourself somewhere not as viable, and you want to try a service that you pay for (rather than them using your data as 'payment'), I would recommend something like Kagi. They offer an interesting feature to their service, and this is why I suggest them: they have a privacy tokenized search, which valdidates but obsfucates you as a user when you make a search request. I think it is smartly engineered, and I can appreciate it for what it is.
For privacy and security purposes, alike, I would avoid Zen and Floorp. They do not get security updates as often.
It should. Typically it would be a choice between Mullvad DNS and the unencrypted whatever your ISP uses. People who care about DNS (like me) will change that right away (NextDNS in my case). People who just want something easy may not even know what DNS is, or may not care enough.
Also it's a matter of trust. If you trust mullvad you are still only trusting them by keeping the DNS unified
Helium has poor anti-fingerprinting.
Firefox derivatives don't support google meet well.
any better ideas?
Use Librewolf as your main browser with Helium for Google Meet.
Can't anyone more reputable than brave field anti-fingerprinting in a chrome derivative?
I don't have issues with Firefox and Google Meet? What issues are you having?
Video effects randomly stop working sometimes, and frequently has choppy video
Huh, not something I noticed. Maybe I wasn't paying attention.
Might depend on your graphics card setup. My work laptop has pretty underpowered integrated graphics
Ah that might be something. My PC at home is a monster.
For the Google-specific stuff, maybe just use a different browser that supports it? My current approach is multiple browsers, but minimize Google/Chromium as much as possible.
I'm librewolf for primary
using floccus for syncing so there's no accounts for anyone.
I'm using a start menu replacement so i'm not sending traffic to the browsers default choice
I tried a bunch of browsers a year ago, set them all up, and tried to use them daily.,
Vivaldi is shoving AI and VPN up my ass, has week fingerprinting and only promises to subvert manifest v3 as long as they can
Edge is bad and getting worse, plus giving data to MS isn't much better than giving it to google. also locks into manifest v3
I give Helium credit for supporting manifest V2 still. I wish they did better with fingerprint randomization. But then again, I'm not even using Brave for anything but YouTube and Meet, so maybe the anonymization isn't a big deal.
Brave is a shit company with a bad leader, but they have a fully funded dev team, and they block YouTube ads earlier in the pipeline before extensions get to them, so the manifest BS can't touch them. I turn off the VPN and BAT shit and don't use their default page.
Librewolf is doing good randomization for me, and blocks still block. I'd use it exclusively if I could share a single tab's audio in meet and the camera and mic sharing worked every time in linux without 30 second timeouts.
Last I saw Vivaldi had a very strong no AI stance
Happy long time user of librewolf so havent kept up though
ohh wierd, I def had an ai fame come up on the right, must be some other extension, thanks, i'll check on it again.
Not trying to be facetious, but "don't use Google Meet". If you have to for work I get it, but suggest something else.
Yup for work in a multi-national company. Also Zoom fucked me over bad, their client services are just horrid.
Teams vs Meet for the big boys, meet is the lesser of shitshows.
After decades of being a Google fanboy and using nothing but Chrome, my bf proudly told me he'd installed Brave after he got tired of his favorite websites being nothing but ads. I wouldn't use it personally for the reasons you mention, but I think it's a positive step for some people.
Don't forget that they used to add referral parameters to links you clicked so they got a kickback from you clicking things from anywhere even if they didn't make that link for you.
I won’t use a chromium based browser at all, especially Brave.
https://www.spacebar.news/stop-using-brave-browser/ :)
I posted this a year or two ago and got hit by a huge wave of furious Brave users lol. Occasionally to this day someone will stumble on it and post some tirade
it's a shame because there's legitimately good technology for blocking advertising in Brave, there's just so much else that is questionable/indefensible
I don't like Brave or the amount of bloat. Sadly what is missing from basically all Chromium forks is even basic browser anti-fingerprinting. The only other real example I can think of is Cromite, which is what i recommend people use instead of Brave.
To those asking “which browser other than Firefox”
https://helium.computer/
It’s fantastic. It’s Chrome, stripped of junk, with full (not lite) Ublock Origin natively supported and shipped. What more could you want?
And it can coexist alongside Firefox.
Cromite is also great, but its antifingerprinting is so hardcore it breaks some sites. That's perfect for shopping/private browsing, but a bit much for daily driving unless tracking resistance is your #1 priority.
On iOS and OSX, Orion (from Kagi) is sublime. It’s Safari based (which you want for Apple stuff), but heavily modified with a native blocker, and supports extensions if you really need them. There aren’t many Safari “forks” like it.
I say this because I’ve been through a gauntlet of trying a bunch. Bromite, ungoogled chromium, waterfox, pale moon, Thorium, Vivaldi, all sorts of iOS apps and Firefox/Chromium forks. And these feel like endgame to me. Helium is just about perfect (as long as its development isn’t dropped), and Orion is close aside from some UI quirks.
Thank you for the recommendation, I will try out helium
Where are we on zen browser?
Eh. Firefox is fine.
The only FF fork I've ever used for some time is Cachy Browser, as it shipped with my distro and was ostensibly amore optimized. But even they depreciated it in lieu of vanilla Firefox.
And Firefox gets faster security patches anyway.
I'm more interested in Chrome forks because it's Google spyware. And, as much as I don't like it, I find Chromium-based browsers to be faster. That doesn't matter so much on desktop, but the difference is pretty dramatic on Android.
If you used Ungoogled Chromium why did you switch and recommend Helium? Can't you achieve Helium settings and tweaks on Ungoogled Chromium? Why add an additional party to potentially delay security updates?
Ungoogled Chromium does not support full uBlock Origin. Last I checked, it wont auto-update itself on Windows without a 3rd party tool, and I remember it having some other "quirks" from the stuff it strips out. The delay for security updates seems pretty minimal, too.
And personally, I like the bangs feature, now that I'm using Orion on iOS anyway.
But its based on ungoogled-chromium, so if you prefer to use upstream, that makes a lot of sense. Helium's main pitch seems to be an "easier to install" ungoogled chromium anyway.
No mobile apps
Orion is mobile. So is Cromite.
DDG is pretty good too. I like its approach, with a UI that encourages whitelisting sites.
But they don’t sync with helium afaik
Orion syncs cross platform, DuckDuckGo does as well. And I believe you can sync with extensions.
Sadly no linux client for duck duck go otherwise I’d use that. Will look into orion tho
No Linux client for that either, though it seems to be planned.
I use Firefox/LibreWolf as my primary browser, but for things that don’t work with Gecko or for PWAs, I use Brave.
Is WebKit still a thing outside MacOS/iOS? I know it’s roots are tied to KDE but I haven’t seen much in ages
I'm waiting for Servo to able to play YouTube videos then I'll stop using Firefox (Floorp)
Use Invidious?
I can use invidious but what I mean is that if Servo can play videos on Youtube then it can render like 90% of the entire internet without any weird format issues
Has it been working lately?
I'm too ready to ladybird browser to be ready in a few years.
A few years? I thought alpha would be out this year
An alpha is hardly a replacement for a full browser though.
Lol, they said that last year
I was looking forward to ladybird until I saw social media posts from the person who runs the project, like:
source: https://nitter.net/awesomekling/status/1967178708852097278
Can you really discount and avoid a whole project because of that statement?
It reads like: "Can we keep politics out of software?"
Which I agree with for the most part.
I'm not sure I have experienced enough of life to make this statement, but it feels like in recent years a lot of people are becoming radicalized through social media, etc, which is seeing its spread into every conversation and space. Maybe he is done with politics and doesn't want to keep hearing about it in unrelelated spaces (software conferences). What's wrong with that?
I've seen the guy on a podcast where he explains ladybird, he seems like a good dude doing it out of love and to see competition in the browser space, I can't fault him for this (nothing burger).
Do you think differently?
Yeah, ladybird is dead to me. I think the assumption that you can keep politics out of anything is wrong. Everything is political and only if you are in a privileged position (because you are rich or not a suppressed minority or whatever) you can afford to be apolitical because things are already going your way. When someone demands to "keep politics out" I think it should be interpreted as "I don't want to renegotiate the status quo because I don't want to lose my privilege."
Another thing that annoys me about his comment is the victimhood complex. He is complaining that people are being mean to him but if people are "repeatedly" calling you nazi or fascist ... chances are you are saying fascist things and I don't see any self-reflection here.
I guess at the very least, we can be happy he is building a new engine that we (the community) can fork when done 💀
Also check out servo.org if you haven't already. It's another open source browser engine in development, backed by the Linux Foundation.
He is pretty much openly admitting he has right wing views and it is influencing his social media and project policy.
"Punch Nazis" is literally the only use of the phrase "punch [group]" in modern culture. Redacting specifically Nazi from the statement to make it seem like it is a general statement used, which suggests that is is note broad violent rhetoric, is a very often used dogwhistle by Nazis (and is being used daily by the extreme right wing, at this point satisfying nearly every academic hallmark of fascism, american government).
It is also relevant to note that during the project startup, someone simply suggested a 10 minute search and replace change to use more neutral language and he responded "your personal politics have no place here" even though that is not necessarily political.
Again, the only people that get that offended and snappy with something as benign as using a single different pronoun are the people who support taking basic rights away from human beings. I have never met another type person who cares at all.
The real question is, if a terrible person creates something (potentially) good and let's their own politics create arguments and stir up drama, but just use the guise of "oh it's because I want to be apolitical", is it worth giving money and support to that person. How can you trust someone to always make a "free as in freedom browser" when they literally support (hypothetically) authoritarianism, mass surveillance, and taking rights away in real life? That is the antithesis of the project's mission.
Also, life is inherently political. There is a group of people literally wanting to kidnap, torture, enslave, kill, and/or remove any rights from another large group of people. Ignoring those problems and welcoming those people with open arms gives them the chance to spread those hateful and violent views, as evidenced by their rapid growth by creating safe spaces for them on the internet.
It is a sad reality, but throughout much of human history, there has been a large groups of people don't have the luxury to "avoid talking about politics" and "making things political" because they were literally getting enslaved and/or killed by it. And that is happening today still, visibly and publically.
yes
I would recommend Ecosia as a search engine, Waterfox as a browser, and Lumo as an AI chatbot if you're fixed on using AI.
Waterfox is Firefox with all privacy settings on. Simple enough.
Ecosia is a German-based search engine company that uses profits for replanting trees and reforestation. They use several resources for search results, so understand it's not 100% based on pushing full privacy. I just figure they're doing good with their money.
Lumo is the Proton-based AI that's Mistral at the heart (French-based ai company focused on privacy) with some other tools under proton's belt too.
Combined, I think this gives everyone/anyone a potent level of security/privacy with out-of-the-box use and no special tweaks or settings required.
You could go one step further and use 9.9.9.9 for DNS either at the browser level or gateway level for the whole home!
I want to love ecosia because of their unique climate projects, but the company is kinda going to shit internally.
Do you have more info on the company going to shit? I quickly googled it and maybe I'm searching wrong but the couple of pages with search results I checked had no relevant information lol
I hate recommending reddit, but take a look at the last threads on their subreddit. Also, check their employee reviews on Glassdoor and Kununu (German version of Glassdoor).
I agree. Plus it's not available in many languages
Do I need waterfox if I just go through firefox setting and turn things on/off?
Waterfox pleged to not have any AI features that Firefox might have if you care about that
Librewolf is your answer. They don't use ai nor allow ai generated code in their source. Waterfox if basically a web browser version of a Firefox skin.
Why Lumo and not Lechat directly?
Idk, primarily bc Lumo was a part of Proton, which I use, and I liked the ability to do offline searches and searches that delete ASAP after closing the tab. Plus honestly I've not specifically checked out lechat, so maybe I will!
You say "all the privacy settings on", but what does that mean. I assume FFP but probably not RFP. I also assume it keeps JS JIT enabled which is a massive attack surface. I am not going to get into more detail but if people are looking for a more security/privacy focused Firefox fork, use Librewolf. If all you are looking for is Firefox with the privacy settings on, just use Firefox. Even with Librewolf, you can (mostly) replicate the experience by using Phoenix or Arkenfox with vanilla Firefox. I recommend everyone reconsider using a fork that is amounts to a few preinstalled extensions and just some (good) default settings. Using a fork just introduces a new party into the mix, which at best slows down how fast you get (security) updates from upstream, and at worst leads to supply chain attacks.
That being said, I keep seeing people talk about how much they like Waterfox. I tried it and figured it wasn't for me. That isn't me saying that it isn't the right choice for others. I would love to better understand what people enjoy about Waterfox over/instead of Firefox/Librewolf/Zen/etc., pros/cons and the like.
It's a solid mix of having a lot of the privacy settings enabled, but without fully disabling all services that a majority of people might like or use (having a Firefox acct to sync favorites might be one). There are auto updates and patching that're pretty quick to get released too.
I found a reddit post from the dev commenting on it a while back. Seemed like a sensible balance. https://www.reddit.com/r/waterfox/comments/14seevh/comment/jqwuan8/
Either way, Librewolf and Waterfox seem like they can accomplish the same things, but just have a few default settings that differ. LW eliminates all possible Firefox account sync and services, but the fact I don't use them, they're not enabled. WF unfortunately leaves the default search to Google instead of startpage or Ecosia, but that's a simple click at the top or change in settings. LW has Duckduckgo. LW has strict cookie settings enabled by default which might break some sites that require it for full functionality. Some people might not like that or want to whereas WF didn't mess with settings. I'm more so talking about the masses or someone just starting out getting into privacy stuff that might prefer these things, but by no means are th either bad or worse than Firefox or Chrome.
Librewolf offers a setting to re-enable FF Sync. There are similar toggles for other things.
I'm just glad people are finally starting to mention LibreWolf as the first go-to.
Do people realize that if Firefox dies (in the many ways that could be interpreted), all of these downstream forks will also die right?
Like, the work to in essence remove unwanted parts of a code base is admirable but its an utterly miniscule fraction of the work that goes into maintaining a modern browser, keeping up with standards, sending people to be voices at conventions, etc.
The beauty of open source projects is that if they are abandoned, other people can pick them back up. Sure it may be difficult, but if it wasn't FOSS it wouldn't even be possible.
For all my folks on android a really good chromium browser would be Cromite which is a fork of Bromite a really good privacy browser. I use it with Kagi as my search engine and it works so well for me.
For FF, I used IronFox for a bit. But it had issues with using alternative search engines as defaults. But it's still a solid browser.
I recommend using the TOR browser as a heavy security measure and for privacy if you need it the most. Remember to change the defaults to the strictest security measures for the best privacy and protection from Malware (ads) and the works.
Waterfox is an option too
i recently installed cromite to find its adblock completely non-functional, anyone knows if it's just me?
(i mean the obvious ones like google ads were shown..)
just disable the in built blocker and use ublock instead
sir there's no extension support in cromite...
Adblock was purchased by Google years ago and now allows "non-intrusive" (is Google) ads by default. Use uBlock if you can.
lol ik, i'm not talking about adblock(tm) but instead i mean the ad blocking feature integrated in the cromite browser. afaik it uses ABP engine/filters tho
I dislike any browser which blocks content (such as ads) by default. It may sound silly, but Imo, that's not what a browser should be doing. It's job is to act as an HTTP client, render HTML and do caching, storage and all the management which goes with it and offer any tools to tinker with it.
The meaning of the content displayed should be of no concern to the browser as it is subjective.
I will install an addon to deal with unwanted content as I see fit. Firefox is getting kinda bloated with all the things which come with it (pocket, accounts, default bookmarks...), but I can live with that.
What if we start from the premise of a browser being judged by its most popular use case?
I’m happy to change some default settings to customize for my use case, knowing that most users that don’t know/care about such things are getting ads blocked by default (let’s be honest, I like crawling through settings each time I install new software regardless :P )
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Thanks for the info
Zen and Qwant
If you’re a browser with an ad company, you are the problem and can fuck right off.
Anyone with opinions about the duckduckgo brower?
That's all I use on my phone and I think it's great.
The search is kinda average and never returns results that matter when I'm searching businesses since I don't allow location access but I still like it.
I use brave on my pc but might need to change now
DuckDuckGo just proxies Bing search results, FWIW. It doesn’t run its own crawlers/indexers. So if you’re getting bad results, it’s just because Bing fucking sucks.
it did not take long for the Brave browser to go from hero to villain-status.
It was born as a villain from the very beginning.
Yeah. I never knew why anyone started using it. Brendan Eich was a well-known shithead when he left Mozilla.
Forced out of Mozilla more like
It’s been a villain for years. You just hear more from the “stop using Firefox because it isn’t perfect” paid accounts around here.
I mean....Firefox has gone from open source to source available. Other alternatives exist for Firefox that still hold the user as the customer and not as the product.
I personally use Waterfox.
It has?
Yes, they are using a similar model to Microsoft and open sourcing Firefox code under the MPL while distributing the executable under a new Terms of Service.
Firefox (the executable) is no longer considered FOSS since they can revoke your license at anytime. I posted a comment that details my personal view of this change.
TL;DR: they would have only done this if they planned on farming user data. And last month announced that they intend to do just that.
Ah
Agree except that having your web crawler hiding itself by pretending to be Googlebot is bad. Preferable to Google search monopoly. For search, Brave is not actually a terrible option (but I won't touch the browser with a 3 metre pole)
I use Vivaldi and Zen
I already use librewolf on desktop which is a great experience. But Firefox on mobile is just so horribly laggy and has a dated UI, the only offering it has is ublock origin and reader mode. Brave is the only real mobile browser choice I have since it has pretty good tracker blocking and I can disable nearly all of the problems you've mentioned here.
I'm kind of surprised to hear you say that. I've been quite happy with Firefox mobile. I haven't experienced any of the lag or whatever you mentioned. The ability to use extensions far outweighs any updated visuals in the UI department for me. It does everything I need a browser to do.
What is it that you need that isn't already there? (genuinely asking)
If Firefox used a more modern Material UI and fixed some of the gestures (the expanding website menu makes no sense, it doesn't follow your finger) it would be much more appealing. As it stands now chromium based browsers naturally use standard material components and feel a lot nicer to use on my phone.
When I scroll in Firefox, there's quite a lot of stutter and it struggles to maintain 120 fps.
If any 1 of these 2 issues were fixed I'd switch to Firefox in a heartbeat, ublock origin is great
Fair. Thanks for answering.
Tab grouping is the killer feature for me. Chromium lets me group tabs into boxes, color code and name those boxes, easily switch between tabs in that boxed group with icons on the bottom, close all the tabs in the group, and reorder the groups. Here's a video showing this awesome, intuitive, actually valuable feature that many people have begged Mozilla for for years only to be ignored: https://youtu.be/P6mcduJFSsM
It allows me to keep lots of tabs open, social things, shopping things, travel research, etc etc. Without needing to bookmark everything (a lot of stuff you only need for a few weeks, and bookmarks are kinda supposed to be forever).
If you haven't used that feature on mobile, it's hard to see how life changing it is. Like actually life changing in the sense that it allows me to keep an eye on much more things, remember about them, follow up on them, and easily get rid of them when their usefulness is over. If I'm looking for information on some event I can have a group for that and with just one tap access any of like 10 tabs and quickly cross reference them. If I'm shopping I can have products in different tabs, groups for the different things I'm shopping for.
There are no Firefox extensions that provide this functionality, which, to me should be an absolute baseline feature for any web browser now that's been awhile since its been introduced. Especially for mobile browsers where screen real estate is so limited, and where we use our browsers for all sorts of sudden brief things that are ephemeral enough not to bookmark but also longevitous or time-consuming enough that I want to have them open for more than a few minutes.
Compare this with firefox, where all I get is this clumsy two column list of tabs which quickly becomes navigable, and the worse-than-useless "old tabs" feature or whatever they call it that automatically hides tabs I've had open too long. On Chromium I will literally have hundreds of tabs on there at times, and it's great because I can quickly access a "workspace" of things depending on what I'm doing right now. On Firefox the best I can do is roughly reorder them, and even then it takes two taps instead of one to switch to one of my choice, in addition to scrolling if it's more than 4 away. It's such trash that it makes me mad every time I use it and every time I think of it, because I KNOW the Firefox team could replicate the Chromium feature, but instead they fuck around adding AI doodads, while ignoring this silver bullet feature that single handedly keeps me from switching to them as my only browser. Keep in mind this functionality has existed in Chromium browsers 5 years ago, albeit slightly less usable than it is now. It has been this great for probably 4 years. I just can't go back, for certain things.
That was informative. I stopped using Chrome/chromium browsers on mobile specifically because I was attempting to lighten my google-load. I'll have to give the grouping a try sometime. FF has it on desktop, I use it a lot now that it's on there. I think that was somewhat recent. I never even thought about it being on the mobile version, yeah, that would be handy.
Vivaldi is the best alternative for someone who wants Chromium, at least on Android it complies, except for its adblocker, it is basic compared to UBlock, in that case I would go for Librewolf and IronFox on Android
They are a bit untransparent to me with how direct match (inserts affiliate links) and whitelisting of "partner sites" are enabled by default without consent.
I agree! It might not be the most open one out there, but it's still a damn fine piece of software. Basically Opera if Opera hadn't gone the wrong way.
Am I the only person who uses mobile tab grouping and sees it as a must-have? Its ridiculous that Firefox is over 5 years behind on this incredible QoL feature. To me it's almost as bad as if a browser didn't support bookmarks. It's just ridiculous at this point.
What is this feature?
I posted an insane rant with a video here :
https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52552668/23191122
Ah yes let me use Helium
Whoop it uses google's browser monopoly
Firefox then
Whoo it is chained by googles search engine deal
Use LibreWolf, it's probably the best option these days.
There's literally a million forks of Firefox, use one of them
Librewolf or iceraven
This is some serious self eating idealist talk here.
In life you must realize there are many situations where you think about the context and consequences of your choices, and you choose the closest to viable option.
Firefox is that.
It sucks that there is that google deal, but ultimately the world effects of firefox dying are wide reaching despite its diminishing numbers and so much greater than so many casually Mozilla doomer takes realize.
IMO, we should all move back to Lynx and phpBB forums.
Fast, secure, lightweight, search & archivable. I'm only half joking.
Ehh perhaps Gopher
https://youtu.be/-mzjYC5aWkk
It sounds like Pale Moon is your best option.
But brave still has the best fingerprint resistance of any browser. Except for tor which is too slow for me. If mullvad browser ever gets on android I will use that, for now I will use brave.
I use Orion on my phone and it passed EFF’s Cover Your Tracks tool. It randomizes fingerprinting, like Brave.
At least Brave is open source, in contrast to Orion.
True. I still think Brave is a shitty company but that’s an absolutely fair criticism. It would be better if it was Open Source.
I dont use ios so it doesnt work for me.
My bad I thought it was on android too.
Name a solution for a mobile phone webbrowser without ads including youtube ads that allows playing youtube while the screen is turned off and I am ready to switch.
Morphe takes the official YouTube app and modifies it to remove ads and add background play morphe.software
Firefox... I mean, regular old from the app store Firefox... Not even Waterfox or anything, just Firefox.
How did you end up at Brave without knowing Firefox could do all that?
Dude, just use NewPipe or PipePipe from Fdroid. They are much better than using the Youtube mobile website.
Or Grayjay, I found NewPipe / other frontends had their fair share of issues while I was using them. Their desktop app however I've not used as it was failing to build on my NixOS machines.
or libretube
Do they work for you?
Yes, watched a few videos yesterday with PipePipe
Just use Gflghtdhh instead.
Have you tried Squootle? Just use Squootle with a pLib plugin, bro. All you have to do is load the community block list made by asianasspounder72 into your Squootle's cld/000x24b3/v folder and update the file in notepad to edit line 124 to call pLib v2.4 instead of v1.6. Make sure you're using the beta release of pLib, but not the latest one.
Why aren't you using Squootle?
I really do not understand what you want to say with your comment. The user here asked for a better alternative than Brave for watching YouTube and PipePipe/NewPipe is exactly what they asked for. They are also not that complicated to install as you seem to suggest, you can simply install them with one touch from an App Store. So what do you want to say here?
That any time someone suggests a workaround, it always involves like 2-3 different obscure apps and plug-ins, and often people will recommend several variations that all do the same thing. All of these apps are also fairly new, with only a single developer or a small team with no proven track record, that are doomed to lose support or stop working at any moment. And yea, most of them are FOSS, but that only means that when they go under, a dozen differently named clones will pop up. All with their own weird flavor of drama.
"Noooo! You can't use Fweeb, that's just an offshoot of Squootle that was made after the Fweeb developer was kicked off the Squootle team for making some vaguely problematic Slack comments!"
"Yea, but Squootle is set to stop working within the next 18 months because of the upcoming YouTube 'Screw Our Users' update and the remaining Squootle team members have all fucked off to Hungary to raise free-range alpacas and aren't pushing updates anymore."
"Oh fuck, man, you're using Squootle? Squootle is just spyware. You want to make sure you're using Squootle Origin. That's a completely different program with different developers"
Anyways, have you tried QwiDer? It's really the only one you should be using, bro. Anyone not using QwiDer is behind in the times. Just get QwiDer and run it using a PLST script.
That's kind of the way the whole category works. People are playing cat and mouse with a billion dollar company and are fighting a uphill battle against Googles countermeasures, app store policies and lawsuits. So there is really no perfect app that will work for all time.
I use Floorp on PC and Firefox on my phone. Both I have uBlock installed on.
I thought Floorp was one of those joke names when you want to make something up, but apparently it's real.
Yeah it's a Firefox fork that has a focus on customization, one of my favorite artists used it so I wanted to check it out and it's become my favorite to use. Favorite function of it is the custom sidebar it has that lets you open sites on a side window which I use to quick access my emails and some social media sites.
What about Android? What's alternative?
Brave for android alternative?
Firefox for android lets you download extensions, so you can easily get uBlock Origin and be set.
Fennec is a good hardened firefox fork you can try.
I don't like it, but I just recently switched to Brave on Android coming from Firefox.
I've been using Firefox on Android for years, but the same problems kept bugging me. Tabs would instantly close after putting the browser in the background, effectively making it impossible to e.g. get the 2FA out of my Authenticator without restarting the login flow.
Also sometimes the browser would right out refuse opening websites on fresh tabs.
This were likely problems with my OEM, but I could never get it fixed. There are some threads online claiming battery optimization, but I disabled everything possible.
So on Android, I'm stuck with Brave for now.
If Brave is the only thing working, that sucks, but If its chromium and not specific to Brave, there are other chromium forks for android.
Cromite is popular: https://github.com/uazo/cromite
No, those are known issues with Firefox for Android. They've been around for years now, but are not common enough for Mozilla to actually address them. The blank tab thing is what forced me to switch. Sometimes an existing tab would break permanently, had to close and undo close, lose all the page state.
And it's slower, and it doesn't have a tablet UI... sucks but it's not an option for me.
Ok, but which browser should we use.
I am on opera
Literally Firefox.
I feel like the reasons are obvious and I am constantly amazed at people who choose offshoots that end up having problems jsut as bad or worse than Chrome.
Firefox actually uses an engine independent of Chromium
Firefox keeps developer documentation for the actual open web in a a clear fashion better than anyone else with MDN.
Firefox is responsible for all of the heavy lifting for any of the browsers downstream of it that people seem to want to switch to so that Mozilla is less supported and the browsers they are on also break (which is bizzare footgun behaviour in my opinion, and exactly why the people who are idealists inherently can't win. They shoot themselves in the foot with idealism so hard that companeis don't even have to care about their opinions).
Firefox has more resistant than the engine makers of any other browser to anti autonomy web changes like Chromes manifest 3, tvarious new tracking mechanisms and more.
Excuse a little bit of snark at hypothetical responses below, but Im just so frustrated Ill let off a little steam here:
bUt Ai.
So they have a few AI features you have to purposefully find or stumble into, and that means you are going to do everything in your power to make sure your last actual chance to avoid completely Google domination dies too?
You are basically begging for the even more intense enshitification that will come if Firefox actually dies.
bUt SoMeOnE eLsE cAn CoNtInUe DeVeLoPmEnT
Oh yeah? Someone else is going to take on this project with a massive amount of legacy code, inside knowledge and hundreds of people working on it constantly to keep it completely up to date??
You must have been confused when I mentioned above Mozilla does the heavy lifting for the browsers down stream. Just because someone makes a fork that removes features doesnt mean they are equipped to handle the level of work done in the code they are downstream of.
Anyways, the bottom line is, for now, if you actually value open source, the answer is Firefox.
Or one of Firefox forks. I like waterwolf due having a mobile app
You should try Librewolf and Helium.
Vivaldi, the only decent Chromium and from the EU (Norway), green energy server in Iceland (Geothermic energy)
Mullvad Browser is great as well.
All brave users I personally know are dumb ass racist maga garbage people.
Edit : wtf i'm telling the truth. I didn't say anything about you. Peter Thiel, did you make several accounts on Lemmy and are down-voting me?
The ones I know aren't at all, they're just uninformed.
Hi, I'm john, I use brave. I'm a socialist and I fight for lgbtq and workers rights. I fight against the fascist regime.
Now you've met somebody personally who isn't maga and racist who uses brave.
Hi John, nice to meet you! I've heard too many sketchy things about Brave. And what I said was true. I worked with a bunch of "country folk" let's call them. On the rare occasions where browser choice did come up in conversations with them (two people specifically), they'd rather pompously proclaimed that they used brave as if there is no other option to be considered. They also proceeded to denigrate my choice. Both are maga gun nuts, so... I don't know. Just smells real scammy to me. These folks are just one degree of separation away from preppers with giant five gallon mac and cheese buckets in their garage and their critical thinking skills are not visible from my perspective.
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Orion is great.
So is DuckDuckGo.
I use Ecosia's browser
Firefox
Sadly firefoy is still not really an option for android if you care about security the most.
On Mastodon Ironfox writes about the current state of fossion (Android site isolation). I'm open to any suggestions but so far brave seems to still be the best option for android if you disable that whole ad and rewards crap.
In desktop I'm all the way Firefox because there's no drawback in security.
You shouldn't have to sacrifice security for it, just my oppinion.
But don't you just kinda have to "trust" that brave has solid security, when all signs point to they don't give a shit about you?
Sure there is trust needed, but isn't that one of the big benefits of beging opensource?
Also as far as I'm aware they always are among the fastest to fix known vulns.
I'm really not a fan of brave in any kind, I just differenciate between their shitty ad/ crypto scam and the browser that's there beyond it.
It's always weirded me that they have an open source browser with proprietary features attached. But I guess it makes sense if you know that disabling the proprietary stuff actually disables it, and I know I HAVE read that chromium itself is more secure than firefox
Have you tried Cromite?
I used Bromite before and back then I haven't noticed it being discontinued. So I was vulnerable for some months. That's one of the reasons I try to use only browser that get their security updates regularly and in time.
Cromite got the last activity on git 3 weeks ago. Are they reliable with security updates?
so it s bad bc of some opt in feature ?
tbf it work great and suit my use case i dont see any argument that will make me ditch it
It's bad because it's a Peter thiel funded MAGA browser run by someone who hates people for their sexual orientation
And ? Wont you find me ridiculous if i said i didnt want to use software coded by trans ppl ? what do i care about the opinion of the guys or what he does with his money ?
Are you serious? Of course people should care if people are using their power and influence to strip certain people of their rights.
yes i forgot the litteral genocide of trans ppl. Sorry i dont care.
That's probably because you're a piece of shit.
it s a never ending argument that s only based on vibes. We can literally make dozen of similar one with any brand or product. I mean it s a choice to place trans right uper than child labor, and you r free to do so but lecturing other on the principle you do it isnt fair.
“And ? Wont you find me ridiculous if i said i didnt want to use software coded by trans ppl ?”
Welp, i got bad news for ya fella
yeah totally aware, that s why i said i would be ridiculous
Nope, Brave is way better than FF has ever been. I will keep using it and promote it if someone asks me. I don't care about the supposed scandals of Brave or political opinions of Eich, that's not my business and he's not my friend nor an acquaintance of mines.
And no, using Librewolf still gives market share to Gecko, this to Mozilla. No way I'd touch that thing. What's more, I'd gladly donate to make Mozilla disappear, if I could. Now, feel free to downvote me to hell. I won't bother to reply to anyone. Better yet, I'll just block the annoying people that will surely feel obliged to insult me.
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.
I love vanadium but it's AdBlock is very subpar I wish they would lift shields from brave
Absolutely 0 problems. I use it everywhere.
Good to know your fascism gets expressed as a web browser choice, I guess.
"you support fascism if you use brave" ... Omg come on. This is really ridiculous. I'm a communist and active member in a socialist org. I've been in the face of proud boys, I've fought with ICE, I've marched with strikers... Telling people they support fascism through browser choice is fucking nuts. Everything you do supports the fascist system unless you live off grid in the woods.
There is no ethical consumption under a capitalist system. Do I like the guy? Fuck no. But I like brave search. I liked BAT when it was released; it was an interesting idea on supporting creators that ultimately flopped. I like the ad block. I also use firefox with ad block. I'm capable of both. I'm browsing the web for lifting videos, not planning the revolution.
All browsers suck. I've tried them all over the past 30 years. Show me a browser that doesn't suck and I'll change, I haven't seen it. This shaming of people is really getting fucking ridiculous. It's the most milquetoast lib purity test I've seen.
I didn't read this because you cannot undo op saying "I don't care what their politics are".
Give vivaldi a try, not because brave is bad, but because vivaldi is better in every way.
Vivaldi being proprietary makes it worse than Brave, even with Brave's controversies. But I would still rather use Librewolf, but there is even Ungoogled-Chromium if you really need it.
There is definitely a space for a "deBraved" browser that keeps the good parts. That would be the best chromium browser.
Its just as open source as the other chromium based browsers
https://vivaldi.com/source/
They also have very valid reasons for keeping the features that make the UI unique closed, seeing how many open source projects like ffmpeg get completely taken advantage of its a smart move.
Youll find that parts of brave arent actually open source either, such as their built in AI or the build in crypto wallet.
At some point you gotta ask if its worth having open source purity tests when even the flagship products are shoveling AI and other garbage no one wants into their browser.
Librewolf might pass that purity test for now, but without mozilla librewolf likely would not continue, vivaldi does not have this problem.
I disagree with this take. As someone who feels entitled to the four freedoms with every program I run, proprietary is a dealbreaker. Crypto and "AI" crap can be disabled or removed. If the choice were strictly between Vivaldi and Brave, Brave would be the better option. Fortunately we have better choices.
I don't use Brave, I use Librewolf (or Ungoogled-Chromium if I need Chromium). I suggested that a "debraved" browser might be the best chromium browser, but apparently Helium is close to this (I haven't heard of it until today).
I think thats a good position to have, if librewolf works for you i hope it continues to do so.
I used to be more of an open source purist but recent and not so recent events have shifted my thinking, it seems to be one of the four freedoms is regularly taken advantage of by corporations and should be reconsidered. Not that we as individuals shouldnt have those freedoms, but for-profit corps specifically have proven time and time again that they will only take and never give back.
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What are you talking about?
What valid reason? The UI closed source is a terrible move. We have no idea what they added to the UI that can be pushing trackers, or even worse (You can't verify there is no master keylogger / session stealer).
What are you talking about? Brave is generally considered fully open source at the browser client level. The entire desktop/mobile browser client (including Shields, ad-blocking, anti-fingerprinting, Brave Rewards client-side logic, Leo AI client integration, etc.) is open source
I recommend looking at Helium and Cromite as alternatives.
As for Firefox, I don't like it too, and I've wrote a similar post about it on this sub but it got downvoted by -66 points.
Nope, Brave has better isolation, better privacy and a great adblock. Period. Don't care about downvotes. Only losers care for imaginary internet points.
Literally nobody is downvoting or challenging you. Go back to Reddit if you want to attention farm.
Well, truth been told this is not literally correct. Their comment is getting a lot of downvotes.
Stop alt posting bro
I think we've found Brendan Eich's Lemmy account
I'll make you a favor and give you a bit of may attention only to make you notice how pathetic your comment is.
Goodbye.
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If you want privacy, then the Tor browser wins, after that is mullvad, then a lot of Firefox forks, then firefox itself, then vanadium, then ungoogled chromium and maybe after that is brave.
Its somewhat decent I'm terms of security features in comparison to all the Firefox derivates, bit that's simply cause its based on chromium.
Its only real feature is the ease of use which makes it a viable alternativ for non tech savy people that aren't comfortable with the additional settup that the Firefox forks take to be on the same level.
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ive been on lemmy for 23 days. this is easily the worst comment ive seen yet.
"all companies do shady stuff like google and apple" is a wild thing to say in an opensource community.
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i've been on Lemmy for 23 years and yours is the worst comment.
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i went ahead and told you what i found distasteful about your comment. and here you are just saying nonsense and calling people names. not cool.
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