Submitted 13 hours ago by Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
It gets my goat that people think it’s a good option. There are plenty of articles explaining some of the many issues with it, but a few are:
Privacy-centric? Hardly.
It’s a for profit ad company making a “privacy first browser”.
Thinking for literaly a second about that sentence should tell you all you need to know.
you can do privacy friendly ads
Go use some Firefox-derivative like Librewolf or Fennec, like a sane person.
No, go use Google Chrome like everyone else.
Yeah, this is important. Fuck Google. I will only ever use a chromium browser if I have to for work or for a misbehaving website.
I will reject the misbehaving website rather than resort to using Chromium.
I don’t know enough about browsers to really know anything about chromium. But I did see a statement from Google which I believe stated that they were removing support for adblockers from chromium based browsers. It was at that point that I decided I did want to continue having a usable browsing experience, and immediately swapped.
Librewolf’s defaults are so bad, and changing them basically entirely removes the anti fingerprinting features
Never used librewolf.
But it sounds like the conveniences you want are a compromise for fingerprinting.
Don’t let perfect stand in the way of good.
The internet has been significantly ruined by large companies.
There is a loop where companies with the resources to create and maintain frameworks/tooling/whatever are large enough to help define “features” for browsers.
Browsers don’t make money, not really. To even be considered, they have to be able to run what the big companies are pushing.
All of this makes it very easy for smaller companies to deliver better websites. Or abuse the features big companies are pushing.
It’s like: email was awesome, then spam emails happened. Websites were accessible, then SPAs happened. Search engines were useful, the scraping/AI happened.
I don’t know what I am trying to say.
Other than browsers do not get the support they deserve to actually be decent unless they are backed by a company that wants to loss-lead them… Which has resulted in the web being pretty fucked
They’re a for-profit advertising company. “Privacy-centric” my elbow.
a for-profit company partially funded by the billionaire Peter Thiel, of Palantir fame. the same Palantir spying on Americans in order to allow nazis to round up immigrants and throw them into concentration camps. the same Peter Thiel that said democracy is not compatible with freedom.
The same one who wants to create the apocalypse and believes the anti-Christ is anyone who isn’t fascistic
Brave is just a shitty browser. Did not know they were anti-freedom kind of people. Makes browser no-no.
I’d like to hear more about #3 and #4. They seem to be a software company. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they can’t also be an advertising company (see Google).
They also tried to get away with URL injection. Do not use Brave.
Basically the thing that turned the internet against Honey, but when a homophobic piece of shit does it it’s fine
It is really hard to say, I am using brave and have none of these issues on GNU/Linux. Brave is FOSS, has a built in adblocker, Tor private mode, fast, and brave shields. I prefer it over Firefox, because Firefox went down a path I did not like. I might switch to librewolf of GNU icecat someday.
Just mentioned how I didn’t like people recommending this like last week and got “ok” as a response lol. Some people are just ignorant and don’t care.
I did not know Brendan Eich was ousted from Mozilla and launched Brave because he was a homophobe who funded anti-LGBT+ campaigns 😬
He also created JavaScript, but I don’t see people getting upset and telling others to not use JavaScript.
I have been using Brave for its out of the box ad and tracker blocking. I’d been uncomfortable with the new AI features and had always been skeptical of the crypto integration, but it wasn’t until this post that I realized it was appreciably worse than Firefox on those counts, nor how bad the people running it are.
Obviously, I’m now looking for other options. I’ve seen some good recs for desktop browsers elsewhere on this post, but what I’m not seeing is a lot of good mobile browser suggestions that will have the desired features. What would the folks here suggest for an e/OS browsing experience with similar or better privacy and ad blocking options? I know there’s Firefox, but A. With all the AI it keeps pushing, I’m sure there has to be better and B. I do also have mobile Firefox but have found it substantially less usable for my habit of browsing with a zillion tabs both non-incognito and incognito, so I mostly had only been it when I couldn’t get a video to play in Brave.
I am, obviously, willing to run de-Googled Chromium, but if something else is going to actually support 100+ tabs in a performance fashion I’d be happy to totally de-Chromium too.
I’ve been using Vivaldi (chromium-based) for about three years now. It’s customizable and has been generally solid. Also has a couple of unique tab management features. Doesn’t have builtin ad blocking afaik. But for that I use adguard desktop and route all my traffic through it, which filters out ads regardless of which browser I’m in. On iOS I can recommend Orion by kagi. It’s the only other webkit browser besides Safari, runs light, and has decent builtin ad blocking
Vivaldi does have a built in adblocker but it’s not the best yet.
Firefox (and its forks) have an integrated profile manager, though it’s not always intuitive to figure out how to get to it. LibreWolf is the fork I seem to always go back to, and it has zero slop.
I use containers. Right-click on the new tab button and pick a container to open the tab in. There’s also an add-on that will do this automatically for you when you visit a specific website, so if you want every site to live in its own container, you can do that too.
Personally I just use its built-in cross-site cookie blocking, but multiple ways to do the same thing.
LibreWolf looks promising. No mobile app, but they recommend IronFox for that, so I just downloaded that to play with. Thanks!
Currently trying mobile IronFox. I’m liking the privacy options and how stuff like unlock origin is literally included in the setup process. Their dark mode is nice and they offer a lot of compatibility options.
Two biggest downsides I’m seeing so far (I’ll see about keeping this updated as I go):
It’s also a chromium browser.
It’s a really good package. Brave has great UX. I like the concept of Firefox, but when I want to use a browser, brave offers the best and the most robust experience.
I know it’s hated around lemmy, but I also know a lot of it is not based. I try alternatives every now and then, but the usage is just sub par. Just tried Firefox for a month. Had too many issues. Brave works.
Respectfully, the package also contains the hate, ads, crypto, and fraud. It’s not a good package.
Someone hasn’t ever bothered to read past headlines.
From personal experience I can say that I found no hate in the product, no ads, no fraud and unfortunately I haven’t found any crypto there…
Which complaints about Brave aren’t true?
Peter Thiel funding it should be enough for you to not use a product by itself.
Do you have a source for that? I’m interested, I hate that guy. I was using Brave a few days ago and switched baxk to Firefox because of container tabs. If that is true, I’ll never touch that shit again in my life.
Seconded. I tried Librewolf. Opening the inspector would freeze up some sites. Brave runs better on my machine for some reason. Also i use profiles.
I just got an Orion linux beta invite so i’ll try that now, and hopefully Ladybird releases soon, but I’ve been reluctantly using Brave in the meantime. Vivaldi might also be a better alternative, but still chromium
probably one of the best chromium privacy browsers, compared to the rest
Sure, it doesn’t have a really good background, but for the balance of features / convenience, it’s the best chromium browser
I couldn’t agree more, for me LibreWolf is my preferred, but with work, or syncing or compatibility brave just provides are good out of box experience. Is the crypto stuff garbage,? Yeah but breaking news, you can turn that stuff off.
Is the CEO a douche, yeah but most CEOs are.
I also find it ironic that ppl get on thier high horse, going this company said something that’s bad, which they post from thier iphone/macbook, which was built though child labour, modern slavery and worker suicides, by a company which actively has anti consumer practices. But they hit thier limit at “brave browser CEO said bad thing”.
I feel like I’m getting too old for the Internet. I still fondly remember the times where you could create a Geocities page and add it yourself to the Yahoo directory, and other netizens clicked through categories to get to your listing, instead of using a search engine.
But I digress. I’m finding myself browsing the www less over time, and I’m already limited to only a hadful of pages I visit regularly. For me personally, Vivaldi is the best choice for a desktop, and Brave is hands-down the best choice for my smartphone. But I appreciate that others may have different use cases.
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s you used to get an email address and some webspace included in your internet subscription. I remember making a small personal website on the 15 MB of web space I got. The URL was a bit cumbersome www.my.isp/www/somesuperlonguserid/home.html but it worked fine.
These times are sadly over.
Why did I click that link lol
Remember when sites had webring links at the bottom? Before Google solved it (then destroyed it completely several years later), discoverability used to be a community effort.
Now you gave me an inspiration. I’m eorking with a few other parents to create a local, walled “Internet” for the kids in our estate, and webrings would be a fun feature to resurrect.
Why don’t other browsers have ad blocking as good as Brave’s and also work on Android
Firefox + UBO?
Nowhere near. I use it at work, but Brave still outshines it. Most people haven’t tried Brave because of the icky factor of the CEO, fair enough, but then they don’t know it just works without fuss and that’s why people use it.
I don’t use chromium based browsers for daily use, but I do keep chromium installed just in case
People just want the next best easy supposedly privacy friendly solution. People who use Librewolf instead aren’t any different. Just configure Firefox how you want it to and actually get timely updates. All forks suck because updates are massively delayed.
This! I never understand people who recommend Librewolf or other forks over Firefox just because some default settings are better.
Could someone please recommend an alternative? 😓 I used DuckDuckGo for a while but I NEED something that supports extensions…
I currently use Waterfox which is a fork of Firefox
Firefox forks like Librewolf (or Ironfox for mobile) are good.
Also Vivaldi if you don’t mind proprietary.
I’m a pretty happy Vivaldi user. They have a No AI policy, it is infinitely customizable (you can put tabs any fucking where), has native ad and tracking blockers, you can use extensions, has a notes function w/markdown capability (which I find handy for having quick copypasta ready to go), a built-in mail client and RSS reader, synchs across devices…
You know…stuff.
I’ve been using vanilla Firefox
Please try Zen browser. I can’t go back to any other browser since I switched
I tried Zen, didn’t really like it, the UI was too unfamiliar and felt a smidge too opinionated for my taste.
How does Zen handle blocking adds? I peeked at them but didn’t see anything like uBlock in the mod list. No proton mods there either, which is a tough sell for me.
Usability looks awesome though. I’m tempted for that alone.
Zen’s not great on a multi-monitor setup, but I like it otherwise. Video playback has been improved a ton since I last tried it.
Me too. Ironically I don’t like its default UI (supposedly its main feature), but after a few setting changes it is great.
Vivaldi is Chromium based but with a team that works towards reducing the privacy and usability impact of running something Chromium based. Retains support for adblockers etc, after Google severely limiting that functionality in Chrome itself. Supports Chrome extensions like usual - better than Chrome itself, now.
There is an inherent cost to internet freedom from using chromium browsers. It gives Google, which controls the back-end, leverage to redefine how the internet works. It’s not as though they haven’t already done it on multiple occasions.
People will say things like “some websites run better on Chrome” as though that’s a selling point and not a red flag.
I’m not saying no one should use it or develop on it, but you have to be okay with the real cost.
Especially with their mobile browser! They do a good job of actually keeping up with user feature requests and error reports.
Currently using Fennec on mine and I gotta say, it’s what firefox could’ve been if they actually cared. Smooth, quick, loaded with extensions, and easy.
If you want something privacy focused, then LibreWolf is a Firefox fork widely acclaimed for their work. Otherwise Waterfox is a very popular and high quality fork.
Waterfox with uBlock origin
The Mullvad browser is a good choice. It’s built on the TOR browser, which is built on firefox.
I’ve yet to find a browser on iOS that blocks ads as effectively. I’d like to use Firefox but they don’t seem interested in adding Adblock on their iOS app. I don’t want to use Brave but browsing the internet with ads is an absolute non-starter.
Does Adblock Plus not work on iOS?
Firefox on iOS does not support adding.
Not on iOS (which is Safari in disguise and with Mozilla sync)
I don’t disagree with you. It is funny to point out though that Brendan Eich, the founder of the Brave Browser, is also the cofounder of The Mozilla Foundation, and the creator of the JavaScript Programming language.
So if you really want to boycott the homophobe, boycott Brave, Firefox, all Firefox forks, and JavaScript.
One is a for profit ad company controlled by a homophobe. The other is a non-profit foundation that isn’t… there’s a pretty big difference here.
Fuck Brendan Eich, but he’s not been involved with Mozilla for 12 years, and JavaScript is open-source. There’s no reason to boycott either because of Eich.
If you had to pick a chromium variant, which is the least horrible?
“Privacy-centric” my elbow.
I will be adding this turn of phrase to my vocabulary, thank you.
What if I just want to go on movies pirate streaming sites so bad I need ublock origin and the brave “shield” on 24/7? Is this Firefox, Vivaldi or xelemental-compatible ? I’m on brave but you make me regret it
I think you are probably assuming most people are as informed about such things, even tech literate people. As someone who tends to stick his head in the sand on anything that isn’t specific tech news I care about organically it would be pretty easy to miss all of the scummy things Brave has done over the years. Let alone the sketchy history of Eich himself.
It blocks ads on YouTube by default and streaming services worked on it when they wouldn’t on Firefox(probably due to my addons). That’s all I’ve ever used it for and it’s good at that.
Firefox is my main.
Could someone explain number 3?
Its got electrolytes or crypto or something though.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 hour ago
They added referrals to links you clicked. If there is one thing a browser should do its go to the link you click without modification.