Firefox

TL;DR: The article claims that the Brave web browser is bad and should not be used.

The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage. Along with making the claim that Brave's goal is not to act as an ad-blocker, but instead to build and grow their own advertisement network, and he also believes that the network has several flaws:

• Brave Ads paysout in a form of cryptocurrency, called BAT (:bat:).
• As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatilability (I don't know if I spelled that right :/ ).
• BAT can not be redeemed for fiat ("actual") money directly from within the Brave Wallet.
• The author also believes that "it [the network] has largely failed" but that it "has generated a lot of revenue for Brave," via the ICO (Initial Coin Offering; IPO for crypto).

In addition to these key points the author also:

• Claims that Brave prompted FTX, before the scandal.
• Cites the The Brave Marketer Podcast where ex-CMO of Crypto.com Steven Kalifowitz shares an ambitious goal of being a "'brand like Coke and Netflix.'" The author then mentions that:
  • In 2023 there was a report from The Financial Times that Crypto.com traded against their customers.
  • In 2022 the company try to hide the severity of its layoffs.
• Mentions Brave's integration with Gemini, and how the crypto exchange is under investigation for lying about FDIC insurance.
• Mentions a partnership with the the 3XP Web3 Gaming Expo where they sponsored the Esports Arena and rewarded contestants with the BAT token.
• Claims that Brave added affiliate/referral codes to URLs, such as "binance.us."

Finally, the author lists Firefox and Vivaldi as alternatives to Brave, and ends the article with "Brave Browser is irredeemable, and you should not use it under any circumstances."

I am human, please let me know if I've made a mistake.

Brave Software, the company behind the browser of the same name, was founded by Brendan Eich. He's best known as the creator of JavaScript from his days at Netscape Communications

Say no more fam.

No. Couldn't care less what the founder did or didn't do. We need as many non-Google browsers as possible. The problem with Brave is that it is a chromium browser.

The fact is i don't care about these things. All it matters is that Brave uses Chromium, therefore I'll never touch it.

@whou Don't forget the time they made it possible to 'donate' to creators, but when creators weren't signed up with their program #Brave would just keep the donation. So users would think they have donated for example to Tom Scott, but in reality he never received anything. Overall just a scummy company.

I don’t use it because the UI and logo are ugly

[Eich] donated $1,000 in support of California's Proposition 8 in 2008, which was a proposed amendment to California's state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Even though I do not agree at all with the donation and support - out of the things that influence me into choosing a browser, 15 year-old private donations of appointed CEOs is pretty low on that list.

And the whole BAT thing is opt-in and they're very transparent about it. I don't get why people get so triggered when the C word - crypto - is involved.

I mean… I've been using Firefox since Google silo'd all log-ins together.

On the other hand, search.brave.com is freaking incredible. It's so much better than Google, Bing or DDG at this point, it's shocking.

Please stop reposting this crap every fucking day. What's up with you and this exact article in particular anyway? Are you getting paid or something?

As if people really using a browser with a built-in advertising network.

Brave is terrible. But while not entirely relevant, so is DuckDuckGo. These mfs have enough money to appear in superbowl commercials lol. How can anyone trust their privacy claims when their shit is in the US and I don’t believe they’ve been audited. I suppose it’s good to find alternative results, but for privacy? Come on

To be honest the best chromium based browser I've used (when I'm forced to use a chromium based browser) is the Samsung internet one. It has a dark mode that actually works and protects my vampire eyes lol.

Never used brave because I heard all of the scammy ad network and crypto stuff years ago, immediately put me off it. Now learning that the creator probably hates me, it's just another reason not to touch it.

Fine, but, like, don't recommend Vivaldi. Also, if you disable the Brave ads, you're not really supporting them, while still getting the benefits.

— Sent from Librewolf

did not know about the founder’s past, cheers for this. whenever i’m forced to open a chromium browser for something from now on, i’ll be using vivaldi.

You shouldn't use Brave simply because it's heavily infected with crypto shit and tries to monitorize your web browsing time by default. Not everything you do has to be a side hustle.

Sure you can "switch it off" but then why not use something else in the first place that's focus isn't trying to make money out of you. If Brave ever gained any decent market share the web would be an even shitter place than what Google is suggesting at the moment.

Fuck chromium and fuck Google

I made the switch last month from Brave for years, back to firefox. Brave is easy more effective at blocking tablets and ads, even with ublock/adblock. You can install it and just start using a cleaner web, and it's really easy to customize gow much of an effect the sanitization is. I defended a lot of what Brave did in the early days, because what I was hearing from developers is that they were trying to monetize it in anyway possible that maintained the privacy of the user, and I understand that ethos.

It's the years and years of missteps that finally got to me. I started to feel like I had to keep up on what they were doing to make sure nothing slipped through, and that's not trust.

I still think they have the best ad blocking tech, it beats my pihole, it beats Firefox with extensions. It's fast, and it displays websites reliably.

But, we do need to consider the roads we pave and the tools we use. Brenden Eich has not apologized for his donation, but at the time he did write a blog post about supporting LGBT initiatives at Mozilla and he had support from people that he worked with. He resigned because at the time there was nothing you could do to assuage an internet hate mob but resign. There is information around stating that three board members left because of his appointment, but only one actually said that,

I don't use it because if I had to pause to laugh at the self-seriousness every time I opened a browser, I would get even less work done than I do now