TL;DR: The article claims that the Brave web browser is bad and should not be used.

The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage. Along with making the claim that Brave's goal is not to act as an ad-blocker, but instead to build and grow their own advertisement network, and he also believes that the network has several flaws:

• Brave Ads paysout in a form of cryptocurrency, called BAT (🦇).
• As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatility.
• BAT can not be redeemed for fiat ("actual") money directly from within the Brave Wallet.
• The author also believes that "it [the network] has largely failed" but that it "has generated a lot of revenue for Brave," via the ICO (Initial Coin Offering; IPO for crypto).

In addition to these key points the author also:

• Claims that Brave prompted FTX, before the scandal.
• Cites the The Brave Marketer Podcast where ex-CMO of Crypto.com Steven Kalifowitz shares an ambitious goal of being a "'brand like Coke and Netflix.'" The author then mentions that:
  • In 2023 there was a report from The Financial Times that Crypto.com traded against their customers.
  • In 2022 the company try to hide the severity of its layoffs.
• Mentions Brave's integration with Gemini, and how the crypto exchange is under investigation for lying about FDIC insurance.
• Mentions a partnership with the the 3XP Web3 Gaming Expo where they sponsored the Esports Arena and rewarded contestants with the BAT token.
• Claims that Brave added affiliate/referral codes to URLs, such as "binance.us."

Finally, the author lists Firefox and Vivaldi as alternatives to Brave, and ends the article with "Brave Browser is irredeemable, and you should not use it under any circumstances."

I am human, please let me know if I've made a mistake.

Edit: Fixed bat emoji and typo.

Good, I believe that SteamOS has the ability to bring Linux to the masses, but we don’t need a repeat of last time.

“I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to D**kipedia.”

This is what we’re working with. A small child.

My brain autocorrected this for me, and I was confused why you were posting it at first.

This reminds me, there is a thing that the human mind can read horribly spelled words — as long as the general idea of it is the same (most of the time the end and beginning). I would try to find an example, but it’s late and my ability to form proper search queries os diminished.

How many times has Windows tried to kill off the start menu!? I can think of at least three:

• Windows 8
• Windows 10's funky live tiles thing (by default).
• This strange Windows 12 AI junk

So, it's an app for Ubuntu Pro. Just what I needed.

Oh shoot! I forgot about Bitwarden, I feel like I use it so much that it just fades into the background now!

Worldcoin, founded by US tech entrepreneur Sam Altman, offers free crypto tokens to people who agree to have their eyeballs scanned.

What a perfect sentence to sum up 2023 with.

I have been a long-time Notion user and really love Skiff. But, my trust in Notion has really been shaken after they added AI. I’m not sure what to do right now. :\

I'll go first, I'm on Firefox btw:

dom.webnotifications.enabled (in about:config): If you disable it it will get rid of those annoying notification pop-ups.

It looks very slick and clean, and I like that, but please tone down on the gradients and transparency, or at the very least provide a high contrast option without them.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=U0YW7x9U5TQ

Honestly all of Technology Connections' videos on brake lights, but this is the newest. Also, I would give y'all a Piped link but you should have an auto redirect setup anyway (and there is that lovely bot).

Sleep procrastination.

It's Florida how do you expect to be able to force them to do anything?

You’re getting downvoted a lot, but honestly you’re right. The fact that corporations are arguing over who gets to use technology that could help people with, or could have, medical conditions is really depressing. I get that an Apple Match isn’t going to be that accurate, but it could still be a sign that something is off.

Technology could help people, but I guess this is why we can’t have nice things.

So, this could be a dumb question, but will IPAs have this region-locking?

Like, can I use something like AltStore to use the EU version of Firefox?

Snapstore has proprietary software too....

Gosh, I've really messed up. Fixing immediately, thank you for bring this to my attention -- and I apologize to all y'all.

Could someone fill me in on why we’re panicking about it being sold? Epic never seemed to do anything to it and it seems Songtradr is keeping it’s the same, does Songtradr have a bad track record or something?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I just feel out of the loop.

Kagi

Prices seem high... Features, seem nice (but not crazy):

• "Boosting" and blocking domains: basically permanent filters.
• "Lenses" - Similar to SearXNG's different tabs, but more like a profile style system.
• Bangs are the same as in SearXNG, and I think you can do the same, or similar, thing in Firefox.
• Custom CSS is cool and all but you can get that with a browser add-on (like Stylus).
• Their "Comprehensive result filtering" seems that same as every other browser
• They have Vim-ish keybinds, which SearXNG and DDG have.
• "Widgets" - Seems like Google's quick answers, user created ones are cool I guess.
• The "crystal orb" - Allows you to determine the "quality" of sites, and also open them in the Wayback Machine or adjust that boosting/blocking level.

(Source)

Additionally, it seems that they don't have seem to have any external audits or releasing of code (correct me if I'm wrong). Additional they have a web browser, that's only for Apple's ecosystem. Overall, you pay for no-ads, I feel like for this feature set you could just use DuckDuckGo with advertisements off, or the HTML version (which doesn't include JavaScript either). I'm kinda skeptical about it, but if it ends up taking off I'll be happy there will be another alternative to Google.

Kopia

This actually looks very cool, so many new backup solutions to try after this thread. 🥲

Best answer here.

own

I think the real problem is that OP doesn't own Windows, "the software is licensed, not sold."

Thank you, I fixed it!

The iTunes of eBooks.

I also wouldn't sacrifice an SD card slot....

Links: NewPipe, GitHub, F-Droid. The vibe I'm getting is that it's a more lightweight, Google-less frontend for services like YouTube and Bandcamp, correct me if I'm wrong though, never used it -- but I've seen it a few times.

a “mostly Seattle-based transit-loving” Mastodon

I think one of the greatest powers of the federation is that you can join a niche community and still get the rest of the content. It’s pretty amazing.

Let me start by saying that if Beehaw would be missed for all of us, but I doubt people would move with it if it left ActivePub. That being said I’d recommend sticking with Lemmy, sure it doesn’t have all the features yet — but it’s still young (and is still growing).

Assembly.

My laptop also matches it:

My problem is with annoying advertisements within a productivity suite for something I don’t want.

I would’ve been fine if all they did was add AI, but there seemed to be a new one every time I logged in.

Edit: it is also kind a privacy thing.

I think it’s more that there really isn’t a need for this. If I’m not sure what a tab is I can always click on it. Chromium got this a while back and (even with minimal exposure to Chromium) I didn’t like it, it weirdly felt annoying and unnecessary.

Good. Now search results will actually be usable again.

I absolutely hate having my phone. Most people will tell me things in person, or at the very least to check my phone. Plus, I have an amazing music library, which is fantastic but raises the question of how does one properly keep track of so many files. The answer to both of these questions is my trusty iPod, it does the one thing I bought it to do: play music (and sometimes podcasts). I no longer need to worry about my family group chat while out on a walk, and it has a headphone jack (which is the only way that the thing is gonna play music, I do get rather worried that I’m gonna play something embarrassing when I’m using Bluetooth headphones on my phone).

TL;DR: I love my iPod.

Let me preface this with the fact that I don’t like Apple, or any major corporation for that matter.

So, my family (including myself) have been long-time Apple users, heck, we still have our iPad 1 and a few iPods lying around (and they still work great).

But, we’re all starting to loose trust in them. Most recently there was a problem with a screen that simply seemed to have lost touch sensitivity, it still would move ever so slightly but taps weren’t recognized and slides no longer worked, and Apple really only helped by guiding us to a new phone. Before that, a MacBook Pro’s (and yes, I know it’s not an iPhone) battery flat out died, after being replaced a year or two ago for the the same problem _by Apple_.

Also, I’m even not tech illiterate, I know I can replace the battery and likely get it working again after some calibration and tinkering — but it’s just not worth it. The family enjoys them for their simplicity and how they “just work” but mine (and the person with the MacBook’s) confidence is swayed.

One of the biggest problems for me is that error messages are rarely useful. If a message fails to send or iMessages it doesn’t tell you details or even a Microsoft BSOD error message that we’d make fun of for their lack of usability many moons ago, it’s just failed to send and you’re supposed to accept that it simply doesn’t work.

So yeah, I see where you’re coming from.

Edit: I’d like to say I’m on an iPhone 8 (stuck on iOS 16) and haven’t had too many problems personally. I think most of the issues are in iOS 17 or the newer firmware versions, but I do feel that the quality has gone downhill recently.

Although the controls on the second and third gen Apple TV are absolute hell I’ve always liked the fact that Netflix had a native look and feel on them. It actually makes be fairly annoyed when an app has a separate non-native UI.

Organic Maps

Looks like it has supper detailed maps, has OpenStreetMap really gotten that good!?

I'm assuming it doesn't work with Jellyfin or Subsonic, does it?

This entire thing is super confusing… and, I might have missed a lot of things, but it kinda seems to be the board was right? They seemed inexperienced, but they still seemed to be capable of working in the best interest of the company’s vision (and doing so).

Anyway, please fill me in if I’ve missed something crucial.

So, I’ve seen this question quite a bit within the fediverse. By the looks of it, there isn’t really a good answer as to how it should work. Although, there is this GitHub issue on the topic of multi-instance communities, that will hopefully lead to some implementation soon.