this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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Problems with Brave
I pasted here the post by u/foamed [https://libreddit.oxymagnesium.com/u/foamed] at https://www.reddit.com/r/FoamList/comments/q4z5js/brave_browser_controversies/ [https://www.reddit.com/r/FoamList/comments/q4z5js/brave_browser_controversies/]
Some information about the co-founder & CEO of Brave, Brandon Eich [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich].
Controversial past and opinions:
Anti-vaxxer:
Eich pushed an anti-vaxx conspiracy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1538253982845399040 [https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1538253982845399040] - If you look at the "source" it's from a nutritionist who's also a conspiracy nut. There are no verifiable and trusted sources.
Here are some controversies surrounding Brave and their browser over the past couple of years:
Privacy related:
Brave automatically redirected searches to affiliate version of URL's which Brave profits from:
Brave collected donations on content creators behalf without consent:
Brave leaked Tor/Onion service requests through DNS:
And this to some degree where they temporarily whitelisted certain Facebook and Twitter trackers without telling their users:
Sending unsolicited marketing mail to users, though Brave claim its all anonymous:
And if you want more, here's some more. https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/v44vut/brave_browser_sending_unsolicited_marketing_mail/ [https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/v44vut/brave_browser_sending_unsolicited_marketing_mail/] that links this Twitter interaction: https://nitter.net/sebmck/status/1531740563900448769 [https://nitter.net/sebmck/status/1531740563900448769]
Thankfully firefox is open source and has amazing community forks and configs like librewolf, mullvad, and arkenfox user.js. I personally don't like to support the chromium monopoly, and firefox hardened is better on desktop hands down. Brave also shills crypto so much and makes money off ads so not a great look for a privacy browser.
I do agree on many of your points and I used to use Brave before certain deal breakers. I personally have in addition mulch, cromite, and Privacy Browser for mobile so i can try different options. On desktop, gecko browser are much more comfortable, but i have the ungoogled chromium flatpak browser with ublock. Mozilla has a better track record than google for privacy and is big enough to have good security and updates, and often disallow features that would compromise privacy, that otherwise chromium accepts iirc.