Which privacy browser?

When people post this guy as a reference for anything, I am sad for them.

I mean, maybe he’s stopped spouting nonsense in the last 1.5 years since I stopped watching his videos, but he’s over 40 years old, so that is highly unlikely.

The number of Windows or macOS users who could’ve switched to Linux or even open source had they not watched one of his videos as their first Linux/alternative apps video.

That being said, most Linux YouTubers fail at talking about Linux and open source, so he isn’t unique in this regard. I’ve received far better info from this forum and others than I’ve received from most YouTubers.

One MASSIVE exception is Erik Dubois/Arco Linux. BUT he doesn’t really talk about open source. He just demonstrates how to troubleshoot, how to customise installations, etc.

1 Like

Apart from the easy-to-disable crypto-related feature in Brave browser, why is that? What did he do? What has he been doing?

Real question as I use Brave browser for work and as a backup to Firefox, and I use Brave search as my main search engine.

He has been mired in a lot of controversy over the years. He left Mozilla over political controversy.

Some of the things that were done in the early days of Brave and the way he responded to those issues was…questionable.

5 Likes

I think it’s an important question of perspective. In a “privacy browser” topic, the context is which browsers are going to offer someone the highest level of privacy?

Brave cops a lot of flack, but it rarely has anything to do with the actual browser and the privacy it offers.

the-castle-the-vibe

(a quote from peak Aussie cinema)

I’m not dismissing those views, but I’d find it really useful in conversations like this if we could have real discussions about the technological merits of options, without said options being vaguely dismissed for non-technological reasons.

1 Like

Yeah, regarding Brave’s privacy, people don’t usually give any “hard evidence” or compelling reasons to say it cannot be used for privacy. However, shifty behaviour from devs and/or companies does make it hard to trust the apps they provide.

I guess an important thing to always remember is that a browser, whether it is privacy-oriented or not, is only a piece of the privacy puzzle. The rest, and sometimes more critical, are your OS, extensions, services you’ve signed up for, etc.


EDIT: Just used Brave search AI to look up what people don’t like about him. I’m sad for the future of this inter-connected-better-not-have-a-personal-opinion-or-core-values world people are creating.

Anyway, let me :zipper_mouth_face:. The self-censorship is real.

His behavior when leaving Mozilla was highly questionable. But the real deal was the crypto-thingy. If you say you are fighting for privacy you MUST be transparent with such things BEFOREHAND. He was not fully transparent about it, even after the backlash, and only then it became opt-in. This is shady as it’s get.
The real problem is deeper: Whenever there is a traded corporation which says it’s goal is it’s users privacy that is a lie. The main goal of every corp is to make money for it’s shareholders. Brave is an incorporation, located in California, United States of America. This alone makes them non-trustworthy due to the federal laws in the US. - speaking of letters that you get of which you can’t even talk about.
These two facts combined leads to “DO NOT TRUST” for me.

6 Likes

Well, the important thing here is that all of us in this thread agree that Internet Explorer is the best browser and Chrome is the one that respects privacy the most.

7 Likes

I have mixed feeling on this.

On the one hand, I agree that we shouldn’t be dismissing solutions based solely on internet perception or someone’s past or current political beliefs.

On the other, when I am considering a product that is involved in protecting my privacy or security, trust and the organizations past track record do matter to me. When an organization has a proven documented track record of unethical and/or anti-privacy behavior and being mostly non-apologetic about it, I certainly factor that into my decision making. Likewise, I don’t think there is harm in ensuring others are aware of such information as many may not know the history.

The biggest problem, is that there isn’t a lot of objective, unbiased information available to make decisions on in the first place.

4 Likes

If you’re as big a fan of The Castle as I am, you will know that the solicitor guy was eventually proven correct. Sometimes “the vibe” speaks to a deeper truth which we are unable to articulate, and sometimes it’s way off base. In this case, I segregate my internet traffic between Brave and LibreWolf.

2 Likes

I’ve just read that too and wanted to post it here :rofl:
You were quicker :rocketa:

4 Likes

I don’t know if browsers have to fight for features anymore. Just about any mainstream browser has the feature set to work. Privacy related features on the other hand, maybe.

Does it matter which of the two is more shady? Both Firefox and Brave proof my opinion on them very solidly in this “Argument”. One is talking bullshit about the other and both are hillarious with it. What a shitshow that is…

You need money to maintain development. Sorry.

If you need money to maintain development (I highly doubt that statement, btw) then earn it without shady behaviour. Countless FLOSS projects show that this can be done.

I am no Brave fan but that post from Firefox is pretty inappropriate and mostly made up of silly points.

On the Brave side, you will notice they didn’t respond to the claims about passwords and local data protection…

3 Likes

What the hell do you mean, bro!? That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on this forum.

That I agree with, if just about everybody donated to these projects something.

The Browser Wars have been rekindled yet again! :laughing:

BW III

This is pretty sad.

Even if you don’t like / trust / use Brave, the majority of the “facts” listed there are debunkable within 1 minute of comparing the settings between the 2 browsers … (password store encryption excluded).

2 Likes

Jesus man… cringe.