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.

    • dantheclamman@lemmy.world
      151·
      17 days ago

      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

      • jokeyrhyme@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        16 days ago

        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

  • MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
    14·
    16 days ago

    Desktop = Librewolf, Mullvad and hardened firefox browsers. Strictly separating uses. Mobile (Android) = Cromite, Brave, Firefox and Tor. Again, separating uses.

    • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      16 days ago

      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.

  • VoxAliorum@lemmy.ml
    53·
    16 days ago

    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.

    • BigPotato@lemmy.world
      9·
      16 days ago

      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?

  • Jenny@piefed.socialEnglish
    63·
    17 days ago

    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

    • FG_3479@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      17 days ago

      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.

    • mastertigurius@lemmy.world
      2·
      17 days ago

      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.

  • N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    141·
    16 days ago

    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.

  • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    52·
    16 days ago

    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.

  • LiamBox@lemmy.mlEnglish
    73·
    16 days ago

    Ah yes let me use Helium

    Whoop it uses google’s browser monopoly

    Firefox then

    Whoo it is chained by googles search engine deal

  • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
    42·
    17 days ago

    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.

    • w3dd1e@lemmy.zip
      31·
      16 days ago

      I use Orion on my phone and it passed EFF’s Cover Your Tracks tool. It randomizes fingerprinting, like Brave.

  • swelter_spark@reddthat.comEnglish
    242·
    17 days ago

    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.

  • observes_depths@aussie.zone
    532·
    16 days ago

    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.

    • d-RLY?@lemmy.ml
      51·
      15 days ago

      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).

      • observes_depths@aussie.zone
        1·
        15 days ago

        I haven’t encountered anything like that, but maybe that’s because I wouldn’t touch anything Amazon with a 2 metre stick

        • d-RLY?@lemmy.ml
          1·
          14 days ago

          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).

    • sobchak@programming.dev
      12·
      15 days ago

      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.

    • steeznson@lemmy.world
      1·
      13 days ago

      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.

    • zeb420@lemmy.world
      3·
      15 days ago

      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.

    • mcv@lemmy.zip
      11·
      15 days ago

      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.

      • pazuzuzu@leminal.space
        5·
        15 days ago

        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.

        • BrilliantBadger@piefed.caEnglish
          2·
          15 days ago

          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. :)

        • mcv@lemmy.zip
          3·
          15 days ago

          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.