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Comment by zionic | Hacker News Reader

Good. Brave is a solid browser.

As someone who used Firefox continuously from when it used to be called “Mozilla” until early 2020 Brave is vastly superior.

-better UI/UX

-awesome ad block built in and by default, no need for extensions

-noticeably faster

-free of the political WTF-tier decisions of the organization backing Firefox.

Edit: since when do I need to Reddit space here? Maybe I don’t post lists enough and it was always this way?

Edit2: Can anyone explain why more and more comment sections require double-spacing to nest properly? Seems like a HN-relevant question.

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> awesome ad block built in and by default, no need for extensions

I'd much rather keep my choice of adblocker and browser separate.

> free of the political WTF-tier decisions of the organization backing Firefox

Instead you get a bunch of crypto stuff, silently adding affiliate codes to typed urls and similar shady shit. Neither brave or mozilla is free from controversy but from what I've seen I'd rather have mozillas than braves.

Another reason to keep firefox around is to make sure we keep a somewhat independent browser engine vendor.

I want an alternative engine but Mozilla seems doomed.

But in this case there is a significant technical and speed advantage to their ad blocker. So conversely, you can choose the best ad blocker (brave) and then happen to also get a chromium instance with it.

>Instead you get a bunch of crypto stuff

Not forced on you, and I mean it, it's just a single dialog when you install with a simple Yes/No answer.

>silently adding affiliate codes to typed urls and similar shady shit

Lol, that's not even remotely true.

> Not forced on you

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999

There was also a while back when they added a new "opt-out" setting for their new tab page ads, defaulting it to accepting the ads without looking at past similar settings.

> Lol, that's not even remotely true.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-aff...

And regarding general privacy, their adblocker and so on:

https://raymondtec.com/2019/02/facebook-twitter-trackers-whi...

Saying that brave is not strongly affiliated with the crypto-hype is about as truthful as saying that google is not an ad-tech company.

1st link is unclear as the owner deleted the original tweet ... (that means something for me as well, but w/e)

About the Verge's piece, this is Eich's reponse: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269317625915400192

Seems to me like an honest mistake that was quickly corrected, and Eich taking full responsability and showing face is worth a lot for me.

Regarding your last article, is just a shallow sensationalist piece, take a look at the "whitelisted" domains the mention, they are places where Facebook and Twitter store their content (photos, videos, etc...) if you block that you cripple those sites, so they decided to let them go through. They even acknowledge at the end that Firefox is doing a similar thing. It makes sense to me, honestly.

Sorry dude, your hand-waving arguments are futile against people who actually reason things out.

> awesome ad block built in and by default

I used to use Brave on Android, until the day they placed an ad on the home screen (new tab page? it's been a long time), and I looked in settings and couldn't disable it, so I uninstalled it, left an honest review, and never looked back.

On Android have you tried the similar Bromite browser?

I just went back to Firefox with uBo

Bromite seems to me to be what Brave should have been. I install Bromite browser on all my Android devices, and if they are rooted I also install Bromite WebView using Magisk. If only Bromite had the development resources of Brave...

I was super annoyed by that too, but now it’s a distant memory as I must’ve found out how to disable it. I just see a fresh blank page when I open the browser. I don’t think they bother me with anything anymore. I don’t know what list of other things are wrong with Brave, but whatever they are I don’t notice them.

Same, tried it, hated their crypto push and ads, uninstalled and never looked back. I'll never use Brave because of their stupid default decisions like putting a "tip" button under each Tweet or random news articles. Such a shame too because otherwise it's a decent browser.

That said, Firefox Quantum is vastly superior in my opinion without all the crypto bullshit.

I think crypto enabled by default is too bold, there isn't anything particularly bullshitty about their crypto stuff imo but people legitimately feel icky about it.

It's degoogled chromium with crypto propaganda attached, there's plenty of political for profit decisions being made.

This is not true, they do a lot of research around security and privacy. See their blog posts, here is one to help you:

https://brave.com/privacy-updates/13-pool-party-side-channel...

> -awesome ad block built in and by default, no need for extensions

You make it sound like the "need for extensions" is something bad while having the choice and control over what Ublock blocks is something far more superior than some build in ad-blocker provided by an ad-company.

> free of the political WTF-tier decisions of the organization backing Firefox.

I don't see how exchanging it to the shady business practices (yes...they fixed and excused for that...after it came out) of the Brave ad-company is better. But I guess this is actually some political statement you make here.

I don’t like giving questionable 3rd parties full access to my browsing data. I’d rather the browser get that right from the get go.

It’s just like AV, I want Microsoft/Apple to secure their shit and not “Norton”

Isn’t Brave the questionable 3rd party? And Safari/Edge the better option based on that reasoning.

No, Brave is the first party. They are the ones in control of what the web browser does.

>It’s just like AV, I want Microsoft/Apple to secure their shit and not “Norton”

You can replace AV with browser and Norton with Brave in this statement.

> I don’t like giving questionable 3rd parties full access to my browsing data.

Oh I get it now. You don't understand how ad-block extensions work.

You don't give anything to anybody there.

PS. Brave is your Norton.

Ad block extensions require access to the DOM, right? How is that not access to browsing data?

I use Brave as an alternative to chrome, for sites that only work right in chrome.

Its not perfect. The business model raises my eyebrows, but then again so does google’s. And I’m not thrilled with what mozilla is putting out.

I’d love to find an alternative without the ads/crypto but for now its been a solid browser.

brave does not push crypto on you, you can choose to participate if you want to tip creators

Reply on news.ycombinator.com