this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023

1580 points (91.6% liked)

Privacy

39986 readers

115 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

1580

Please, do not use Brave. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

613 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

(page 8) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Brave is better than chrome ans I'm glad we have alternatives.

load more comments (8 replies)

[–] Mago@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (10 children)

So whats a good browser for my android? Already changed to duckduckgo browser on my PC.

load more comments (10 replies)

[–] Hailstorm8440@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago (5 children)

What is the best browser for iOS?

load more comments (5 replies)

[–] mirror_slap@lemmy.film 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Well, 1st, your sources are are weak here. However, it is a fact Brave is also run by con artists and swindlers.

The issue many users have is compatibility. Firefox zealots ignore the fact IT folks must work with Chromium. I cannot get the tools I need to work reliably on Firefox (or LibreWolf, Mullvad, etc.).

So, within the Chromium limitation, , I work on 7 systems regularly, I must have bookmark replication, MacOS/Linux/Windows/Android support:

Ungoogled Chromium = rough, no bookmark replication Vivaldi = worse than Brave, because no full source code Opera = Chinese Iridium = Indian Brave = source code available, privacy focused Edge = lol Chrome = lol

Winner? Brave. I use it with Pi-hole DNS on my home network, forced to use it with work DNS on their networks. I do also use LibreWolf (aka Firefox) with the Mullvad extension. I use it along with Brave, and hopefully at some point I can switch. I've tried 3 times in recent years, but too many web interfaces have Firefox issues, since it's blatantly not being used to QA websites anymore.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] nekothegamer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

if you want the best privacy but you still want to use chrome just use ungoogled chromium, you get both privacy and you're still able to use chrome, just minus the sync capability

~~if you want something like it for mobile on android there's bromite~~

if you want something like it for ios... you're fucked

[–] canyouck@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Bromite has been abandoned. https://github.com/bromite/bromite/issues/2641

Ungoogled chromium binaries are built by anyone so don't get them from there. https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium#third-party-binaries

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments