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Comment by reflexe | Hacker News Reader

Brave is a bit shady with its hard coded ad whitelist. That does not scream "user trust".

There is no hard-coded ad whitelist. This is misreporting from years ago, based on an individuals confusion over a filename. Brave does not whitelist any third-party ads or trackers.

Sampson (Brave Team)

Correct me if I am wrong but Brave doesn't block ads in Google search results [1]. Wouldn't that be part of an ads whitelist?

[1] https://i.ibb.co/nPfpdP7/image.png

By default, Brave tends to leave first-party advertising alone. As such, Google ads on Google sites aren't usually blocked in Brave. Google Ads on non-Google sites are, since they are one of the primary means by which user-data is harvested across the Web. We believe that you should have the right to run ads on your own domain(s). That said, Brave offers an 'Aggressive' mode (via the shields) which will go even further than our default behavior, and blocking numerous ads and other elements even when they belong to the domain being visited.

> By default, Brave tends to leave first-party advertising alone.

Curious why? Do you think that ads in Google search are good for the user and not privacy-invading? Those ads account for most of Google's revenue.

Do you not have a problem with claiming this on the homepage:

"Brave blocks all creepy ads from every website by default." when this is clearly not the case?

Or Brave does not consider Google a part of the "big tech" it is "helping to ditch"?

First-party advertising is not necessarily privacy-invading since first-party ads offer no extra reach into the user's data than is already possible from the site itself.

If you're on a Google-owned site, an in-situ first-party ad isn't necessary to harvest information about you—the page itself can do this far more effectively than any ad element. Blocking first-party advertisements is largely an aesthetic decision; Brave enables this via the Aggressive Mode in Shields.

By "creepy ads," we're referring to the invasive, data-collecting remote ad scripts which siphon your data from one host to another via JavaScript, Cookies, and cross-domain requests. First party ads (e.g. a Fortnite advertisement on the Epic Games website, or Google Ads in the Google Search Results) are not examples of cross-domain data-harvesting elements.

We absolutely do think that Google itself is creepy, and that it should be avoided entirely. Consider search.brave.com instead ;)

> We absolutely do think that Google itself is creepy, and that it should be avoided entirely

Yet you chose to allow ads that feed majority of Google's revenue?

> Blocking first-party advertisements is largely an aesthetic decision

Blocking all ads is an aesthetic decision. Users would still use ad-blockers even if all the ads in the world were not mining user data.

If the user navigates to Google, the user is handing themselves to Google. If the user wishes to block first-party content on Google (which doesn't amplify their risk in any way), Brave supports that option via Aggressive Mode. Brave blocks, by default, that which is harmful. If you're willingly typing data into Google, their SERP ads aren't increasing or adding-to your risk in any way.

Brave supports the option to block all ads. By default we block the harmful ones. We offer options for blocking the non-harmful (but perhaps distracting/annoying ones) as well (via Shields and custom lists; see brave://adblock/).

If you wish not to see the first-party SERP ads on Google, I would suggest you not use Google. If you would like to use Google, know that doing so enables them to collect and harvest all sorts of data about you. But, you can hide their SERP ads (which doesn't secure any of your data) by switching Brave's shields from Strict to Aggressive.

Better to use https://search.brave.com instead ;)

> If you're willingly typing data into Google, their SERP ads aren't increasing or adding-to your risk in any way.

How are you sure? I would assume that a more likely scenario is one where clicking a first party ad on Google.com helps build a profile about the user.

> If you wish not to see the first-party SERP ads on Google, I would suggest you not use Google.

Recommending to avoid a site that has ads is not how ad-blockers are supposed to work.

I'm not suggesting you avoid Google _because it has ads_; the ads aren't the problem. The problem is Google being the first-party domain. I'm telling you not to walk into the dragon's den at all; you're wanting to discuss the cleanliness of the dragon's toe-nails :)

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