Brave removes Google as its default search engine

https://twitter.com/brave/status/1450507268907102210

2 Likes

I see the Brave marketing machine is still in full force.

It is somewhat amusing how the are spinning ā€œBrave is now pushing their own search engine in a further effort to monetize their platformā€ to ā€œBrave is removing google to protect our usersā€

10 Likes

Not sure what youā€™re saying here. Why not both? Brave is a company and needs to make money. And although I canā€™t proof it, I trust their search engine to be much less intrusive than Google. DDG also has ads BTW.

I am not going to rehash it all again but Brave is company that has abused itā€™s userā€™s trust time and time again. In my opinion, they have demonstrated pretty clearly that they care not at all for their users or their privacy. I canā€™t imagine why anyone would trust them at all at this point.

If you want more details their are many forum posts on it.

9 Likes

While browsers removing Goolag as the default search engine is always good news, coming from Brave, itā€™s not particularly meaningful.

Now, itā€™s your turn, Mozilla. :rofl:

2 Likes

Woah woah buddy! :fox_face:
This can be classified as call for violence (suicide) :rofl:

1 Like

Havenā€™t they been doing this spinning of intentions from early days :laughing:

4 Likes

OK, I got it, you donā€™t like Brave and you donā€™t trust 'em.
May I ask, which Browser you use?

Whenever there is something objectively wrong with some software there is always someone trying to make it seem like itā€™s just some subjective opinion of some guy on the internet.

ā€œI get it, you donā€™t like Windows.ā€
ā€œI get it, you donā€™t like Apple.ā€
ā€œI get it, you donā€™t like Snaps.ā€
ā€œI get it, you donā€™t like Etcher.ā€
ā€œI get it, you donā€™t like Brave.ā€
ā€¦

The list is as endless as the list of things that are bad. :roll_eyes:

Hm, OK, just wanted to discuss things 'cause Iā€™m a very privacy focused user and Iā€™m interrested in this topic. But somehow the mood in this thread feels a bit strange, so Iā€™m outta here.

If you are very privacy focused, you shouldnā€™t be using Brave. Brave is advertised as privacy-focused, but on more than one occasion this was proven to be false.

Of course, you are free to use whatever you want, I am merely pointing out, with good will, the fact that if privacy is your goal, using Brave is not very conducive towards it. @dalto did that earlier, too, but your reply was ā€œOK, I got it, you donā€™t like Braveā€. :man_shrugging:t3:

5 Likes

There is nothing wrong with this thread. Everybody was polite. The only issue I see is that you got a reaction about the brave browser / company which you did not expect. And that is probably feeling a ā€œbit strangeā€ for you.

3 Likes

Primarily Firefox.

Brave may have good default setup out of the box but a properly configured Firefox or something like Librefox will give you more privacy features.

As a side note, we have an entire topic of people discussing Privacy-based browsers which you may find interesting:

3 Likes

Some people like https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/install/

https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/

1 Like

I use Firefox and Sea Monkey

Tor with VPN if I want to feel like Snowden. Cause hackers use Tor

3 Likes

How much confidence do you guys have in the Electronic Frontiers Foundation browser privacy checker at: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

Opinionsā€“even biased/subjective onesā€“are welcome. I use the EFF checker only because I donā€™t have a better plan for evaluating browser privacy.

2 Likes

I would use Brave if it werenā€™t for the rewards stuff built in. Sure you can turn it off but again i donā€™t trust them anymore than google. Iā€™ll stick with Firefox.

1 Like

Over the years, for me Brave has become a controversial browser that I have zero intention of ever using because of all itā€™s shenanigans (thereā€™s too many to list here, Iā€™ll link a few at the end and itā€™s been discussed here before). As other users have pointed out, they arenā€™t as pro-user friendly/privacy as their marketing leads them to be. If you need a decent privacy focused Chromium browser, Vivaldi is my go to browser, with Firefox being my backup. Thereā€™s also vanilla Chromium in the Arch repos or ungoogled-Chromium in the AUR to test out if they fit your use case. I choose Vivaldi because their track record is consistent and their dev team is exceptional and friendly. Iā€™ve personally had a few issues fixed with the help of the dev team and their forums and within their bug tracker system. But since they arenā€™t 100% open-source, people in the Linux world donā€™t give them as much of a chance as I think they deserve.

But be that as it may, that last bit is just my own personal feelings, in the end use any browser(s) you like. If youā€™re not looking for a Chromium based browser specifically, then you honestly canā€™t go wrong with Firefox and a handful of extensions i.e. uBlock Origin is a must.

For further reading on specifically ā€˜Why Not To Use Braveā€™ please read any of the following, just be aware not all these issues are deal breakers for everyone:

https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/r6k6d/is_brave_browser_really_that_bad/
https://community.brave.com/t/why-i-stopped-using-brave-browser/132626
https://www.kevinmuldoon.com/do-not-use-brave-browser/
https://ethr.medium.com/stop-using-brave-browser-now-1d8b6afcb609
https://www.zdnet.com/article/brave-browser-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
http://www.aspenuwu.me/blog/dont-use-brave/

2 Likes