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Comment by johnpowell | Hacker News Reader

https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/adshero_1.png

That is a image from:

Notice the page is about the Grammys and the ad is about the Grammys. This is important.

So Brave strips the ads from my site and inserts their own as (even more annoying system notifications). And they are relevant to the page so now my visitors might think I was the dick that triggered a notification that must be dismissed.

And If I want a cut I have to sign up for some rando cryptocurrency company, the bastions of ethics and security.

Please Brave. Use a unique user agent string so I can just block people using your browser. And I don't care if people block ads, I do too. But when you get desperate and start showing ads for dildos on my site discussing cross-cut table-saw blades I'm not going to be a happy camper.

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It feels like these "debunks" aren't debunking the claims but rather explanations trying to put you at ease.

For example, "Auto-updates are not directly anti-privacy" is obvious, but some people want to disable auto-updates since they might not want new, potentially privacy-violating updates added to the browser. You can't look through the changelog (or better: the GitHub diff) before downloading an update if you can't disable auto-update. Same for "But Brave has a backdoor!", auto-update is by definition a backdoor for running code the user hasn't ran before. The only reason most people are fine with Google's auto-updates and weary of Brave's auto-updates is because Brave isn't as trustworthy or well-established in terms of "does this company have incentive to push malicious code to my machine or will they potentially be compromised or bought out".

My experience in brave ads is that I had to opt in to them. I knew how they work (I knew, you, website creator, did not create the notification). I didn't keep the ads on for long as I found them annoying, but i don't feel like brave was forcing me to use them anyway...

Not only that, but the token they use was distributed via ICO, meaning it is highly centralized and potentially will be subject to securities legislation in the future. Completely ignores the ethos crypto currencies started with.

Real original smear there - "Brave will get desperate, and start pushing NSFW, and edgy ads."

I like this fake alternate strawnan universe where actual dildos head Brave, where last ditch efforts to save a silicon valley VC funded startup is to push wherever it is you dream they'll push. Because burning everything to the ground is par-for-the-course, for both VCs and entrepreneurs in the valley?

Or - this is classic FUD-ing, backed by exactly zero evidence

I guess you're new here. Personally, after 20+ years working in SF, I think that's a perfectly plausible outcome. I mean, the whole internet ad market has been a long slide to being as awful as they can get away with. The median investor cares much, much, much more about ROI than how that return is achieved. And a common outcome for content companies that aren't stars but have nonzero revenue is to end up as zombies that do anything that juices income a bit.

Classic r/CryptoCurrency/

If you don't like it, FUD..

I guess you trust Facebook to never change the TOS and toggles.

"Use a unique user agent string ..."

Is that really the best option: blocking based on UA header

What do users think about websites that try to tell them what browser to run. There are sites like this one giving "advice" on which browser to use (https://theprivacyguide1.github.io/browsers.html), sites that display messages that tell the user to switch browsers and sites that try to block the user's choice of browser by reading User-Agent headers. Headers are trivial to add/delete/modify

All in the name of online advertising. It is a shame this is what the www (and now the "browser") has become. A medium for delivering ads.

Not the best. The best option would be Brave not existing so I didn't have to care.

I don't agree here with your premise. You claim not to care if people block ads, but that's the default behavior. "Brave Rewards" is opt in.

Additionally, as they show ads as system notifications, I've never equated them whatsoever with what I'm browsing, and I'd assume that's by design.

I use Brave because (for me) Firefox is slow, and Chrome is Google. As someone who's quite fond of you for example on HN, I'd love to not be blocked, but I'm not switching browsers for the privilege...

Does Brave push ads even if the page has none?

I used brave for awhile and don't see these notifications. Are they opt-in?

Yeah. They are.

I made a comment a while ago about how when IE6 was destroying computers (~2003) I charged a lot of money to fix people computers unless they switched to Firefox. But if they used FF I would help for free. That was the beauty of my plan. I didn't care about money I just hated fixing my families computers. And using FF solved nearly all my problems.

And then a guy said he would go as far as putting the IE icon on FF so people wouldn't have to really do anything different. Ideally they just wouldn't notice.

So now that there is a stupid token I wonder how many installs of brave are actually legit. Seems trivial to just install it on families computers and fake it as Chrome and use your account to collect the tokens.

I'm confused about their business model now. If they are opt-in, then why would anybody opt-in to them?

You get “bat” ethereum tokens for every ad displayed, which you can sell for a profit or “tip” websites as a sort of microtransaction.

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