1588
Please, do not use Brave. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.

Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.

Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.

After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL's. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.

Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I'd say the answer is a very clear no.

One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.

Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don't mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.

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[-] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com 89 points 1 year ago

For the comments, can anyone give me an actual reason to use Brave over Firefox (and it's forks)? I guess the cryptocurrency aspect is a reason, but I wouldn't say it's a very good one.

[-] Matomo@lemmy.ml 42 points 1 year ago

My guess is because Brave is a relatively known Chromium browser that's been degoogled. Along with built in ad and tracker blocking, and it's an easy less evil of the two.

I want to like Firefox, both as normal user and as web developer, but something about it keeps bugging me. The UI feels sluggish, sites seem to be slightly less performant, and I can't seem to get used to it.

That said, I've started using Vivaldi, and while it can be considered bloated, I really like the tab options it has, while also offering a degoogled chromium that's being kept to date.

[-] Rocha@lm.put.tf 8 points 1 year ago

I want to like Firefox, both as normal user and as web developer, but something about it keeps bugging me. The UI feels sluggish, sites seem to be slightly less performant, and I can't seem to get used to it.

I feel the exact same. I use linux with a tiling window manager and when I change format, Firefox just starts twitching like it's trying to give me an epileptic seizure while chromium browsers do it just fine.

Also, sometime ago I tried to compare Chrome (when I still used it) and Firefox side by side with the same extensions opening the same websites and Firefox always took a bit more ram.

[-] hddsx@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago

You sure that’s not a WM problem?

FWIW, Ubuntu 20.04, i3wm, no problems with Firefox

[-] Rocha@lm.put.tf 3 points 1 year ago

Idk, I use gnome with pop shell tiling and Firefox is the only program that does it.

[-] hddsx@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

Try another WM and see if you still have issues

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this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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