Brave is essentially just Chrome with an adblocker, a bunch of bloatware, and a bunch of controversies.

Brave took BAT donations in YouTuber’s names without their consent, with them keeping the money if the YouTubers didn’t claim it. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice/

Brave’s search engine crawler hides itself from websites by pretending to be Googlebot, and Meta (Facebook) buys API access from them to train their AI. https://stackdiary.com/brave-selling-copyrighted-data-for-ai-training/

The business model of Brave rewards as a whole is to block all other ad networks to replace them with their own, which is unfair as only YouTubers and websites that have joined can make money from most Brave users.

If Brave actually cared, they would create an acceptable ads style feature which was free for everyone and allowed simple contextual banners while blocking ads which track you, take up most of the page, or have NSFW content.

Their approach is monopolistic as they have full control and can strangle YouTubers and websites by dropping pay at any time.

And Brenden Eich has said on Twitter that he plans to release “Brave Origin”, which is a paid version of Brave without the bloatware. That name is ironic as he is admitting that his browser is commercialised and bloated, which is similar to when gorhill gave uBlock way to Chris Aljoudi who commercialised it, which led him to create uBlock Origin.

If you use Brave, ditch it and look at using Librewolf or Helium instead, which both include no ads nor tracking and don’t have Brave News, Rewards, Wallet, Talk etc bloatware.

  • YⓄ乙 @aussie.zoneEnglish
    324·
    1 day ago

    Brave is the best browser if you want privacy. All companies do shady stuff like google and apple have done so much but still we use it. Brave hasn’t had any single controversy from past couple of years.

    • texture@lemmy.world
      112·
      1 day ago

      ive been on lemmy for 23 days. this is easily the worst comment ive seen yet.

      “all companies do shady stuff like google and apple” is a wild thing to say in an opensource community.

    • Jako302@feddit.org
      4·
      1 day ago

      If you want privacy, then the Tor browser wins, after that is mullvad, then a lot of Firefox forks, then firefox itself, then vanadium, then ungoogled chromium and maybe after that is brave.

      Its somewhat decent I’m terms of security features in comparison to all the Firefox derivates, bit that’s simply cause its based on chromium.

      Its only real feature is the ease of use which makes it a viable alternativ for non tech savy people that aren’t comfortable with the additional settup that the Firefox forks take to be on the same level.