Can we not just have the chromium builds degoogled and include the codecs and DRM libs? Woolyss builds do all that, but there's no fancy single download installer+auto updater. We need just "chromium".
What ad-supported financing removes, along with other things, is friction. You open google.com for the first time, and you can instantly use it.
Also, Google started in 1998. I don't know whether you remember, but I do: paying for stuff over the internet was pretty hard by then. Paying across national borders was harder still. I wished to pay for several pieces of software by then, but it was hard even if I agreed to walk down to a bank.
Compared to that, selling ads and receiving money from businesses was incomparably easier, for everyone involved. Unlike billing search users, it was a viable business model.
It asked me once during initial setup if I wanted to use Brave Rewards (or whatever the crypto component is called), I said "no", and it's never bothered me with anything crypto related ever again.
I've been using it for over a year now. It's a good browser and I like the new ideas they come up with. I don't know whether it's going to catch on, but at least someone is thinking outside the box.
What matters is that Google does not establish a position where it can use its browser to dictate the direction of the whole web in favor of its business.
Chromium or not, Brave was never forced to adopt the changes in the extension manifest (which would block some ad-blocking and tracking mechanisms). They also never were forced to implement FLOC, they have their own policy regarding third-party cookies, etc, etc.
Sure it would be better if we had diversity and more choices in all different layers, but if you think about it the more companies use Chromium to create browsers that take the web in a different direction from what Google wants, the more Google gets judo-ed out of its dominance.
Having MS Edge and Brave becoming too popular would be akin to getting LineageOS, /e/OS to mainstream, and it is exactly my point: no matter how much that would be against Google's interests, there is nothing they can do about it.
To do the same to chromium, all Google would need to do is make YouTube rely on some proprietary DRM that’s not in Chromium and everyone will end up switching back to chrome. Brave isn’t large enough that Google cares to swat them away, but since they control the underlying project they have ways to neuter chromium.
Not people. Companies.
Microsoft and Brave are only piggy-backing on Google's resources and manpower. It's not like they can't they do it, it's more of a "why should we try to set sail now while there is a huge transatlantic ship that can carry us?".
If Google starts neutering Chromium, it's on Microsoft, Brave and all other browsers depending on it will pick up the slack.
And if they don't, that's when it makes sense to look for a Chromium-free alternative.
If Mozilla's problems were financial or lack of capacity to get the resources to work on the browser, at least you'd have a point in saying "we need to support the alternatives now". But Mozilla's problems are not financial, they are due to bad leadership. No amount of money thrown their way is going to solve it.
> Brave isn’t large enough that Google cares
Google asked Brave to testify in Congress in their favor, to say that Google is not abusing its dominance on the web. Google can not swat them away.
I don't care for your political argument.
What happened to you, Internet? Politics is one thing, but this is starting to bleed over into "liking Apple", or "hating Apple", or any similar camp one finds themselves in with a web browser or programming language or other piece of tech. "People who feel differently from me must be faking it as part of a plot." What the hell?
But in the end I can expect both teams to deliver a tool that's built to enable me and my wants, regardless of what our opinions on things outside the browser are. After all, they're irrelevant to the browser. Within the browser space, there are politics, but both orgs' politics are of user control and less tracking and spying.
You mean like this? https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
There's automatic updates if you install it via homebrew/winget/[packagemanager of choice].