Brave Open-Source Browser Caught Adding Referral Codes to Typed-In URLs | Hacker News Reader

Brave Open-Source Browser Caught Adding Referral Codes to Typed-In URLs

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23 pointsBerislavLopac16 comments

I was always wondering why that browser is in Arch. That finding merits a good look what else is in Arch Linux repositories that has stealth behavior or is otherwise against users interests.

That browser is not in Arch Linux repositories. It's in the AUR and I maintain the main binary package.

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027 (586 points, 352 comments)

Are there any de-Braved forks of Brave Browser? Some of its features seem useful, but I wouldn't want any of the BAT nonsense or this.

The article says it is being fixed. They admitted to making a mistake here. I would cut them some slack rather then running for the hills looking for a fork. Projects make mistakes, they are run by humans after all.

As far as BAT goes, that was what they came up with as an alternative to the ads and to help fund the project. Calling it nonsense is a bit of a stretch when we still are able to see threads about the browser on front page of HN every now and then. The browser is clearly still relevant in some way.

What would you propose as a solution to fund such a project?

>They admitted to making a mistake here

That's NOT a mistake, but a shady thing to do, loosing trust for a project where you have plenty of alternatives is the most stupidest thing you can do.

What else is in that browser we don't know of?

> What would you propose as a solution to fund such a project?

Not my problem, just like it's not Brave's problem to fund Chromium development. BAT and the infrastructure within Brave Browser to support it provide no benefit to me as a user, so it is reasonable for me to want to remove it.

The BAT generated from Brave's advertising system goes to your personal crypto wallet. It does benefit users. You literally get paid for simply browsing the web.

In all honesty, you don't get paid very much. It's not going to replace your day job. Yet it's a non-zero amount of income for doing something you would normally be doing anyway.

There are many other services that will pay me more to look at ads. If I don't use those, I certainly don't want to look at Brave's ads. The only people who have the possibility of getting any meaningful amount of money out of those systems are the people who get paid for the ads that all users view, like Brave Software Inc.

Someone started fork called Braver

https://github.com/braver-browser

Isn't that just .. Chromium?

Chromium doesn't have Brave's faster adblocking, and it isn't already de-Googled. I just want to remove the parts of Brave that are only there to enrich Brave Corp.

>whenever someone manually types binance.us in the address bar, Brave browser auto-completes the URL with a referral code.

>referral codes are being added not only when Binance, but also other websites like Ledger, Trezor, and Coinbase.

>Brave CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich has already responded on Twitter, explaining that this is something that’s being resolved as we speak, with all referral codes to be removed in the next update. “We partner with Binance as an affiliate. That code identifies us, not you,” Eich explained.

How is this different from declaring the user agent from the browser? Brave don't do this anywhere (they say they are Chrome). I fail to see how this is different in any meaningful way. Can somebody enlighten me??

They make money from it. Those are referall codes, the kind you give to your friend so you get a $10 discount on whatever the service is for convincing people to sign up. Furthermore, its messing with the actual URL you type out. This isn't declaring a user agent I. The background. This is intercepting and changing what you type to further their profit goals, which is unacceptable behavior from the browser.

So where is the problem? It isn't costing you anything - even in the most liberal sense - ie privacy/time etc.

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