damn... Brave is just crushing it. I've been using brave search and its amazing for development... the code samples are front and center
This is not the case. The most common claims are "Brave accepted donations for others", "Brave replaces ads across the Web", "Brave injected/modified referral links"—each of these claims are unequivocally false.
You are right that Brave is an "ad based company," however. But that needs to be explained a bit, since Brave is unlike any other ad-based company you've likely encountered on the Web.
When people think of "ad-based company," they often picture something like Google. A company that has its hands in most of what you do on the Web, existing as a third-party resource in most of your traffic.
But compare Brave with Google for a moment. Brave's ad-model is consent based, while Google's is not. Brave's model follows the user's configuration for determining how often/whether ads should be shown, while Google does not. Brave's model pays the user 70% of the associated revenue, while Google does not. Brave collects [no user data], while Google does the opposite. The Brave model is built on consent, equity, and privacy. Google's model is the opposite, in every regard.
How so? For example the case "Brave injected/modified referral links" https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/master/components/o...
The "problem" of open-source is, that you can see what is happening.
They have attempted many kinds of new business models. VPN partnership with Mullavad is really promising one, and maybe they finally get new source for income.
As long as they have Google's money and have them as the default search engine, their stance on privacy is a joke. In fact, they knew about the joke about 'Mozilla living without Google' since 2007 [0] and 14 years later they once begged to Google to renew that contract and now they continue to bite the same hand that kept them alive.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu...
Receiving money is not making someone automatically bad. You become bad when you do other things than originally agreed for receiving the money, in benefit of money provider.
> As long as they have Google's money and have them as the default search engine, their stance on privacy is a joke.
Also to my knowledge, you can change search engine anytime you want.
When you install Firefox, and fire up that first session, your keystrokes in the address bar are sent to Google. There is no warning, or permission prompt. The same would happen if you accidentally pasted-in your social security number, or some other sensitive information—it gets sent right off to Google. It was this type of behavior, in part, that led independent researchers at Trinity College to grade Firefox lower than Brave in terms of out-of-the-box privacy: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf. In fact, Brave was found to be in its own class as the most private browser tested.
That probably explains why their brand is declining.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/study...
Your not liking a company that is giving them money and Brave's actual record of being endlessly slimy and untrustworthy.
Mozilla undermines Google at every chance so clearly the only result of Google money is what you see in Firefox and that is easily changable.
The internet is not made "good" by by browser manufacturers. This is something we fought about when Chrome assumed dominance, and it holds true today. The thing that makes the internet good is content: a perfect browser does literally nothing except format content properly into an open window. That's why power-users will still reach for Firefox, Chrome, or god forbid Safari before they consider trying "the cryptocurrency browser by a guy nobody trusts". Hell, I'd probably install the stupid Opera Gaming Browser before I'd be caught using Brave. That only leaves you the market of people who would like to earn pennies on the dollar browsing the web, but also pay for their DSL access every month. In all fairness, it's a market you've capitalized on very well, which is why it so closely resembles abuse. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck... I won't believe you when you're telling me it's actually a lion.
In fact Google did Chrome because it learned from Firefox that browsers are high-value user agents, and if they camouflage as passive/blind agents, then the big tech network superpower can have its way with the user, both through top sites such as Google search tied into default omnibus search engine setting, and over time via Google's browser tying (an antitrust term) other Google products, Google's accounts and analytics systems, and even full ad-exchange user-tracking, into its browser.
As for user feedback falling on deaf ears, you are simply making stuff up. Chrome ignores user complaints, Firefox too (roasted endlessly over killing XUL add-ons, Proton UX, etc.). Brave is all over Twitter and Reddit and we do live customer support there. I spend a good chunk of every day on it.
As Chesterton put it, one can always be blind to a thing so long as it is big enough. That seems to be the case with you and your "format content properly" statement here. If you are a Chrome user, I hope you disable account-based tracking in your Google account(s). If you use Firefox, ditto, and beware tracking pixels they whitelist on Google's SERP.
The time for a new engine may come, and I saw a clean room one go by on HN the other day. It's very hard to get to webcompat. Gecko loses compatibility as Firefox loses market share. For now, the more important fight is a level up: tracker blocking, users dealt into the economics, intermediaries and big tech dealt out.
Huh? Trust is what it all comes down to! You are trusting them with your data and access to your devices.
Brave is the last browser company I would trust (based on their record) and to me that it the key.
This line alone makes Brace insecure. It relies on the upstream project. Whenever the upstream project gets a security patch, it will be exploited on the downstream and there is X time for the update, unless you have the userbase of Edge or something.
But everybody has opinions to prioritize and we can discuss about them forever.