Brave's aggressive marketing

frequency@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 333 points –

Was reading an answer to the question about fresh Amazon tablet and saw this. They used up the question as a hook to promote their browser. Pretty sure I'm avoiding Brave from now on.

Q: Does the fire max 11 have YouTube app on it. A: I have installed Google Playstore , but I skip installing Youtube app . There is better option . Brave Browser in Playstore !! That thing has AWESOME popup Blocker and it's own integrated Youtube Ads and other Nuisances blocker . My point ? You don't need youtube on Fire max , You don't need Google Maps , You don't need Facebook App . Just Use Brave .

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I really don't understand why people use and recommend brave. They've have had plenty of shady practices in the past and bundle crypto crap by default. If you want to block ads just install ublock origin on (preferably) any privacy respecting browser like firefox (or better yet librewolf), ungoogled-chromium etc

They just don't know any better. And when you tell them about Brave's history, they just don't listen

This is the first time I heard about this. Was using it in the past on iOS, but I’m now using an extension in safari to block ads. What exactly is wrong with Brave?

They were using crypto miners in Brave (now it's just opt-out optional I think), altering search result's, and also something about their CEO being a weirdo I think. And also all this dirty advertising and tactics. They're just shady all around.

There was never a miner in Brave. Their legitimate crypto related features have always been optional. They did add referal links in some urls though

There you go, and that’s why nobody should believe the commenter you replied to without him providing sources. Shame 10 people already agreed with him.

They were using crypto miners in Brave

Huh? They have a crypto service that you can easily opt out of.

altering search result's

...they have their own search engine they built from scratch. So yeah.

also something about their CEO being a weirdo I think

I love weirdos

And also all this dirty advertising and tactic

This is an incredibly generic complaint

Maybe people "don't listen" because you're full of crap.

It's more that do far I haven't seen anything wrong with the browser itself.

Can you expand at all? I don't have a dog in the fight.

There are controversies around Brave itself and also its CEO, Brendan Eich (also inventor of JavaScript and also former Mozilla CEO).

  • Brave was altering search results by adding crypto redirects to links. Source.

  • Eich was forced to resign from Mozilla CEO because he made donations against gay marriage. Also, he basically is a covid conspiracy theorist. Source

You might not care about a company's CEO behavior, as long as they do a good job. I usually do not. In this case, I can't help but feel that the whole project is kinda shady.

Regarding the covid stuff, hasn't he been proven right?

Masks have been determined to be minimally effective against covid (barring N95 I believe) and Fauci has been proven to be dishonest as shown in the leaks surrounding gain of function research in Wuhan. It's effectively been proven the U.S. knew about the research, was funding(?) the research and in essence is at least partially responsible for the outbreak under Fauci's watch. They attempted to downplay the actual origins of Covid-19 due to this association.

I reeeeeaally don't want to go into that, but no: masks have been proven to be effective, if worn correctly, even non-n95 ones. It's not a mystery that, if something is in the way of your spit, you're not going to infect as many people. As for the whole outbreak origin debate, scientists went back and forth between the "wet market" theory and the "lab escape" theory. The last research I've seen was pretty confident in the "wet market" theory. No Fauci involved there.

Disappointing that false information will propagate here, just like on Reddit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/16/cochrane-study-masks-covid-pandemic/

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

Review "the science".

It’s not a mystery that, if something is in the way of your spit, you’re not going to infect as many people.

The virus is so much smaller than whatever material you're putting over your mouth that it hardly seems to matter at all. This "seems logical" but isn't if you actually think about it.

As for the Fauci gain of function link: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/09/covid-origins-gain-of-function-research/ It's less clear cut than I had previously though. It looks suspicious, but there isn't certainty.

Yeah I tried it on mobile and it peppered me with requests/pop-ups to get their paid services.. Install didn't last long

Firefox runs really poorly for twitch and youtube videos for me in linux; mainly in CPU. Brave will use maybe 10-20% of my cpu for a single twitch stream whereas firefox uses about 80%. I use firefox for all my browsing, but for videos it just doesn't seem to work well... Perhaps a different chromium browser would be better as you say.

Sounds like your Firefox is not using hardware acceleration for displaying videos. It does support it, but whether it will be enabled on Linux depends on a bunch of factors (distro/packages installed, cpu/gpu vendor/drivers, some weird settings etc etc)

The situation on mobile is dire. Bromite and Ungoogled-Chromium are dead, and mobile Firefox is slow crap that Mozilla doesn't give two fucks about. I'm grinding my teeth using IceRaven and Mulch, but I'm not surprised those with less patience would use an all-in-one solution.

Mobile firefox on ios has been way better than almost everything else, atleast compared to like brave and chrome etc

Maybe its being neglected on android? Im on the latest version and ios 17 dev beta

On iOS, FF is using Safari core so there shouldn't be any speed difference, and maybe they can concentrate on UI stuff.

Or maybe you're not looking for stuff I want that used to be in FF but were removed - like bookmarks export/import. That's just criminal that it was axed in favor of their fIrEFoX AcCunT

Yeah which is why I didn't mention safari, just others like chrome where i could feel it at times, difference in Ui or something like that maybe? It was a long time ago though

The only thing I wish I had on Firefox is tab groups. That's it. It's totally fine otherwise.

(Don't suggest me an extension. I've tried them. They suck. This isn't a deal breaker for me. I use Firefox.)

Huh

Ive never really used tab groups so they arent really a problem for me, might try them out someday though

I have had compatibility issues with firefox

Somepages straight up dont work

Dev tools are broken on my side. Nothing displays in that panel

Honestly? Firefox on android sucks and unless you're getting a fork like Mull on f-droid, the default Firefox on on the Playstore is really bad for privacy too. Brave just covers all the bases on Android and there isn't much to complain about.

I've been using using firefox and more recently fennec and mull on android for years now and I've never had a problem with it. Why do you think it sucks? Just the fact that you can install extensions on firefox (or fennec or mull) makes it by far the best browser in my opinion. I do agree that firefox by default has some privacy issues but there's no way it's worse than chrome which almost everyone uses, and as you said you can just use a fork like mull for best privacy.