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.

  • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Brave is literally a grift. Too many people are falling for it.

    • deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Too many people only care about the openweb or shitty companies in the comments. They have no fucking willpower, no patience, and no follow through. Their complaints are utterly meaningless because they utterly refuse to stick to their guns.

      There’s one and literally only one browser that actually stands for all the things the most vocal people around here claim to care about.

      Yet, they use Brave.

      • Amju Wolf@pawb.social
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        1 year ago

        Ehh there is only so much a single person can care about. If you have a life and aren’t effectively an activist/lobbyis by profession you can’t care about politics both local and global, preserving nature and ecolody, world hunger & disease, and a million other things like which software company is less evil all at once and follow through 100%, supporting all of the causes meaningfully.

        Not to mention we have to make compromises, too.

        There’s one and literally only one browser that actually stands for all the things the most vocal people around here claim to care about.

        Hard disagree. Firefox had its fair share of controversies, it’s still technically funded by Google (while not accepting donations), and Mozilla Foundation as a nonprofit is pretty questionable too.

        The leadership of Mozilla Corporation is shit too like any other corp; they lay off engineers and give themselves huge bonuses.

        It takes them years to even acknowledge simple bugs, let alone actually getting to fix them.

        A huge part of why Firefox lost the “browser wars” is also that they failed to make it easy to build into other apps so it could work more like Electron, while also pissing off users with surface changes that break their workflow.

        Overall it’s better than Chrome especially if you care about privacy, but it’s not a huge win.

          • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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            1 year ago

            As I stated in a previous post, if you are using an iPhone you’ve basically given up on having privacy. For ad blockers you could use AdGuard and Safari, it’s better than nothing. You could also use something like Mullvad VPN, it has DNS ad blocking.

            • fatbeer@reddthat.com
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              1 year ago

              As I stated in a previous post, I am using AdGuard on safari. And since I’ve basically given up on privacy, I also use Brave at times.

            • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              That’s the most ridiculous statement I’ve seen today. iOS has infinitely better privacy than Android lawl

              • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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                1 year ago

                An iPhone is a give-up on privacy because you don’t get alternatives. If you don’t like your stock OS on an Android phone you can just switch OS (for example GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, ect.). If you don’t like the normal YouTube app you can just sideload a different one. You don’t get this kind of freedom with an iPhone. A prime example of this is when, during the Hong Kong Riots where Apple pulled an app that assisted protesters.

              • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Stock for stock, yes.

                The difference is iOS is iOS, and there is only one. Whereas Android is open source and comes in thousands of flavors. You cannot install another OS on your Apple devices. You get what Apple gives you, and nothing more or different because that’s the way they like it. They want control over your devices.

                Some flavors of Android are Graphene or Calyx OS which are not only better and more usable than iOS but also 10x more secure and private.

            • deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Not on iOS. Every browser on iOS is effectively just a skin for safari. There is no true Firefox for iPhone, or chrome for that matter.

              If you’re using an iPhone, you willingly surrendered your freedom of choice. This is what you paid for.

              • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 year ago

                Firefox focus blocks ads on YouTube.

                Safari with Wipr does not.

                I know because I have them both. I use them for different things.

              • EeeDawg101@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Something unique about the Brave browser is that it allows me to use filter lists to block ads. I can insert my own custom lists too which is cool.

                I haven’t found another browser that allows this on iOS (other than safari with extensions).

                • break1146@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  1 year ago

                  Doesn’t Firefox support extensions on iOS? I’m on Android and I’m currently using uBlock Origin and Dark Reader. I also use Lemmy through it, seems to work quite well.

            • fatbeer@reddthat.com
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              1 year ago

              Firefox focus doesn’t seem to save open windows, it’s a purely incognito browser. & you can only have one page open at a time.

              • Zoop@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                You’re right about the first part; it’s an incognito, tracker & ad blocking browser that clears your history and everything every time you close it… but if you long press on a link, you can open it in a new tab. Multiple, even. There’s just no option I’ve found to open a blank new tab and navigate to a website that way. So I totally understand why you’d think that!

                (I hope this doesn’t come off as pedantic or rude or anything. That’s definitely not my intention here - I just want people to be able to make informed decisions with correct information, ya feel?)

            • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              Focus does indeed block YT ads!

              Even safari with Wipr does not. Though it is amazing for everything else.

          • CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s not something the average person can or will do, but if you’re so inclined you can run Pi-Hole or AdGuard Home and have all your iOS devices go through it.

            I even set up a VPN for when I’m away from home that I can connect to and get routed through my home internet connection which gives me ad blocking on the go.

            Or if you want a simpler answer, look into using the AdGuard app on your iOS device.

          • Panda@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            I haven’t tried it but there’s also Kagi’s Orion browser which looks interesting.

            • dragonrules@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              This browser is helpful on iOS because it can run Firefox or chrome extensions. Ublock origin works great. I don’t see any ads.

              • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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                1 year ago

                uBlock Origin actually doesn’t work at all on Orion, it’s just that the browsers built-in ad blocker is very good.

            • fatbeer@reddthat.com
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              1 year ago

              Thanks I didn’t know about that one and I thought I went through all the alternatives. Currently I’m primarily watching YouTube vids through invidious in safari but will use brave when I watch my saved playlists.

          • lastrogue@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            This is why I use Brave on iOS devices. It is the best option I found. Others mention Adguard home and pihole. They just don’t work as well at blocking ads.

          • deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Don’t use iOS.

            I mean, that’s it. That’s your only option. On iOS, Safari is the only real choice you have.

            • fatbeer@reddthat.com
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              1 year ago

              I chose an iPhone because I didn’t want to use googles play store. Now I know there are options around that but most users (including myself at least for now) are not willing to learn how to do that and set it up.

              • Scratch@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                FYI to you or anyone who doesn’t know: If you are browsing the internet on an iOS or iPadOS device you are forced to use the Webkit rendering engine. Chrome, Safari, Brave, Firefox. All of them use Webkit to display web pages because you won’t get an app on the App store if you use anything else. The EU is forcing Apple to allow other browsing tech through the app submission process, so we will see alternatives in the future.

                • seang96@spgrn.com
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                  1 year ago

                  I read a couple months back Mozilla got some internal builds with their engine for iOS. This is the #1 reason why I don’t have an iPhone. I’d probably get one next time I am looking if this happens. That or maybe Ubuntu touch or something gets more mature.