this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Privacy

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Please, do not use Brave. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
 

I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.

Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.

Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.

After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL's. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.

Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I'd say the answer is a very clear no.

One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.

Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don't mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.

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[–] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com 84 points 1 year ago (91 children)

For the comments, can anyone give me an actual reason to use Brave over Firefox (and it's forks)? I guess the cryptocurrency aspect is a reason, but I wouldn't say it's a very good one.

[–] Overboard8171@startrek.website 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Defaults. Install Brave and you're done. Site doesn't work? Report non-working site. Wanna support creators? Top up your Brave Wallet or turn on Brave ads.

I've a limited budget and limited time to tip websites. I ain't gonna tip manually every other rando on the internet. Brave takes care of that. Small amounts, yes, but better than just ad-blocking [yes, website owners have to opt-in to it].

Completely uninformed take follows: Also, Mozilla seems to be trying to ramp up their ads department -- search for Mozilla Ads. And no-one gonna convert because they already have Google Adsense.

TL;DR: Firefox is faster but using recommended tools like uBlock Origin leaves websites without income.

[–] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 year ago

You can always use something like AdNauseam to give website owners ad revenue and still block ads.

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