News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Jonnax on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:09PM (#19130415)
What is the benefit of Brave?

A lot of people on the internet seem to be advocating it but reading the Wikipedia article they seem to have a business model of replacing website adverts with their own. Which doesn't seem all that ethical.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Pharmakon on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:31PM (#19130521)
The benefit would be to early investors, and they get to be in the dirty world of adtech while engaging in some ethical duck and cover. It’s nice that the default blocks ads, but we all know how easy it is to flip that switch down the line. At its core, it presents itself as a kind of profit-sharing alt-ads cum adblocker, which is supposed to be a compromise between supporing the ad model of the internet and personal privacy. In practice it seems like an ethical black hole, but one with some big names invested in it, and loads of hype.

Personally I think compromises with the ad industry only end one way, and the addition of cryptocurrency into the mix should set of alarm bells.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by atomical on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:07PM (#19130723)
A small minority of users believe that they are entitled to all the resources on the internet for free.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Pharmakon on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:13PM (#19130751)
Maybe, but that’s not even orthogonal to my point, and unrelated to my post or this topic. I’m not going to engage in a trite debate over well-worn ideological ground in which you scream “freeloaders” and I talk about the right to fast forward through ads, or turn down the volume on the radio during ads. Instead I’ll just say that a majority of users believe that their computers are their property, and have the right to control what runs on them. This is especially true when advertisers have shown contempt for user privacy and even whether or not they deliver malware.

Beyond that, I hope that you can start responding to things I’ve actually said, instead of just responding with “pithy” and tangential one-liners. I’m not interested in an intellectually bankrupt form of posturing in place of real debate.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by falcor84 on Sunday February 10, 2019 @08:59PM (#19131512)
>not even orthogonal

Sorry for nitpicking, but I just couldn't get this to leave my mind. I understand that you were going for a wordplay with "not even wrong", but I'm still trying to imagine whether there's a geometric interpretation to make sense of this.

Would this imply that the angle between the two things cannot be defined? If so, what would be a possible situation here?

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Pharmakon on Sunday February 10, 2019 @09:26PM (#19131609)
I have to admit that it was just a play on words, and except for dragonwriter’s formulation I have nothing to offer on this one. On the other hand I enjoyed your comment, and didn’t find it nitpicky at all.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by dragonwriter on Sunday February 10, 2019 @09:03PM (#19131541)
> but I'm still trying to imagine whether there's a geometric interpretation to make sense of this.

Well, I suppose there's a framework in which orthogonal could imply coplanar and so skew lines would.be “not even orthogonal”; particularly they'd have no contact at all irrespective of relative alignment.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by zenpeace on Sunday February 10, 2019 @11:31PM (#19132077)
This is actually quite possible in non-Euclidean geometries even for things that usually have angles in real world [1].

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_geometry

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Tsubasachan on Monday February 11, 2019 @03:56AM (#19132965)
People who block ads aren't freeloaders. I have seen this argument before.

We are all paying for those marketing budgets- its included in the price of everything we buy. Paying for our own brainwashing.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by chipotle_coyote on Monday February 11, 2019 @03:35PM (#19138044)
Whether people who block ads on advertiser-supported websites are "freeloaders" is a worthwhile question, but "we live in a consumer-driven society buying products from companies that use part of their revenue to advertise more products to us, ergo you should not object to me blocking ads on your website" strikes me as a bit of a shaky argument.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by atomical on Monday February 11, 2019 @10:06AM (#19134922)
> I’m not going to engage in a trite debate over well-worn ideological ground in which you scream “freeloaders”

You must have me mistaken for another commenter. I never said the word "freeloaders." Perhaps are you projecting?

Turning down the volume on the radio doesn't involve hijacking any DRM or ad tech. It's built into the hardware. To wit: The analogy is bogus.

Do you have the right to control what runs on your computer when you don't own the copyright? The answer to that is no. The copyright owner decides that. You can opt out by not visiting your favorite sites in the future. Please take a stand and do not visit them.

> Beyond that, I hope that you can start responding to things I’ve actually said, instead of just responding with “pithy” and tangential one-liners. I’m not interested in an intellectually bankrupt form of posturing in place of real debate.

I continue to do that sir.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Pharmakon on Monday February 11, 2019 @12:09PM (#19136010)
Do you have the right to control what runs on your computer when you don't own the copyright? The answer to that is no.

This is factually incorrect, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread. You can do whatever you like with what’s runs on your computer, assuming that you legally acquired it. Feel free to levy a moral objection if you like, but don’t pretend that your personal hangups are reflected in law. Your right to play with something on your computer is the same as your right to remix music you own; it only ends if you try to distribute it.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by axaxs on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:50PM (#19130929)
I think this may be a little dismissive. I use adblockers, but it has nothing to do with revenue streams or philosophical reasons. Ad companies have time and again shown they cannot be trusted with my machine. Whether it's sticking me in a redirect loops, telling me I have a virus, redirecting and disabling the back button, vibrating my phone, making loud noises, etc etc. I'm done giving them chances until I know these problems have been solved. I understand this may harm the good actors, which is why I'm surprised these issues still exist.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by flumberbug on Sunday February 10, 2019 @08:49PM (#19131474)
> redirecting and disabling the back button

I haven't heard of this before. How does it work? Do you know of any examples?

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by rubyn00bie on Sunday February 10, 2019 @09:19PM (#19131583)
You perform like fifty redirects in a row, and when you try to go ”back” it just redirects you forward to where you were. Eventually the browser hangs as you mash the back button, and the redirect chain fires off again. It’s a fucking shitty practice.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by baldomo on Sunday February 10, 2019 @09:19PM (#19131585)
tl;dr: you can insert whatever page into the browser's history so when you click the back button the browser navigates to that specific page. Google is working on preventing it in Chromium [1]

[1] https://fossbytes.com/google-chrome-is-working-to-prevent-ba...

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by AlexandrB on Sunday February 10, 2019 @07:03PM (#19131012)
The vast majority of internet advertising firms believe they are entitled to all my personal information without sufficient notice or consent.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by krapp on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:21PM (#19130800)
Internet users are entitled to all resources returned to their user agent by a request.

I know businesses want to pretend the web works like television, or radio, or newspapers, but it doesn't.

Whatever a site sends me as a response to a request is mine. It's mine. The transaction is completed, the response belongs to me and I can do whatever I want with it. I can not run the javascript. I can run my own javascript. I can mess with the HTML and CSS. I can choose not to view the ads. Hell, Brave is based on and works on this premise, it injects its own ads. They can do that. I can do that. I have no reason to do that, but I could.

That's the way the web works, has always worked, and will always work. And it's the reason ads on the internet were doomed from the start. The only reason they worked, at all, to begin with is that the public wasn't aware that ad blocking was possible, and browsers weren't capable of it, but the underlying capability was always there, it was always implicit to the way the request/response model of the web worked.

The only group acting entitled are businesses. They feel entitled to more control over the end user's experience than they have. If they want that kind of control, they can put up a paywall. Or go back to old media. Or accept the true nature of the field they're playing on, that they cannot have complete control over the end state of their content on the web. They cannot force the end user to endure their advertising if they don't want to.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by fouric on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:46PM (#19130911)
> Internet users are entitled to all resources returned to their user agent by a request.

This is legally false. If a digital artist creates a painting and puts it up on their website, and you go view it, it does not become yours. The artist retains the copyright to the work, and not only is it illegal for you to then sell prints of it, but a violation of ethics, to boot.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by krapp on Sunday February 10, 2019 @07:02PM (#19131009)
>If a digital artist creates a painting and puts it up on their website, and you go view it, it does not become yours.

Of course the image is mine, just as an image of the painting in a newspaper or brochure would be mine, it's a copy freely distributed by the copyright owner. I'm perfectly within my legal rights to do whatever I want with it, within the confines of the browser.

I'm not claiming i have the right to sell it or anything, but I absolutely do have the right to decide whether or not it shows up.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by 51lver on Sunday February 10, 2019 @08:28PM (#19131405)
Actually you have a lot more rights than that. Your rights stop when you want to distribute unmodified or derivative works without authorization. Nothing is stopping you from remixing ANYTHING* if you have no intent to distribute it.

*if it was legally acquired. Remixing illegal stuff would still be possession of illegal stuff.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by krageon on Monday February 11, 2019 @03:32AM (#19132866)
Please stop abusing "ethics" to force your own moral framework on other people. This isn't what it is, and on top of that (given that it's different for everyone) if you need to say it the reader already knows you are wrong.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by krapp on Monday February 11, 2019 @05:20AM (#19133335)
When did I mention "ethics" or any moral framework?

It's simply a matter of common sense, legal precedent and the way HTTP works.

To claim otherwise would mean companies have the right to force me not to alter the content of their responses in my browser, in order to guarantee their ads are viewed. If this were true, all browsers and many plugins would already be illegal, as would ad blockers, whose legality has been confirmed in multiple court cases.

Ethics and morality don't enter into the discussion. If I want to support a site by viewing their ads, I can. If I don't, I don't have to. The choice is mine to make. Sites depending on ad revenue, meanwhile, can try as hard as they want to convince me to choose to view their ads, but they have no legal right, nor technical ability to make me, as long as we're talking about content that can be filtered out of an HTTP response by a browser I control.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by krageon on Monday February 11, 2019 @05:54AM (#19133513)
I think you mistook the ancestry of my comment.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by krapp on Monday February 11, 2019 @06:00AM (#19133541)
looks like you're right - my mistake.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by p1necone on Sunday February 10, 2019 @09:17PM (#19131577)
I don't believe I'm entitled to anything for free, I believe that I'm entitled to companies not using hostile, dishonest revenue gathering methods.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by ngold on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @02:16AM (#19141670)
Information is free. The person using it has the obligation to be a good steward of humanity and it's use. We're getting better at it, but throwing up walled gardens is not the answer.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by gnicholas on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:39PM (#19130565)
For me, it offers a faster browsing experience than Chrome, and privacy at least as good as Firefox.

I used to use both of these popular browsers, and now I'm all-in on Brave. Chrome is fast but has well-documented privacy issues. But even running various tracker blockers and a Pi-Hole, Chrome wasn't nearly as fast as Brave (without additional blockers or the Pi-Hole).

I like to support Mozilla/Firefox, and Firefox has been my daily driver for most of the last two decades. But it just isn't as fast as Chrome (let alone Brave). It has better privacy than Chrome, and the inimitable Tree Style Tabs, but it takes noticeably longer to open new tabs and load pages.

I moved over to Brave once they started supporting Chrome extensions. I have found that my MBP's fan kicks on much less often than before on Chrome/Firefox, and the battery lasts longer as well. While I miss the TST that I enjoyed on FF, I'm getting by with Sidewise. The inconvenience of having the tabs loaded in a separate window is massively outweighed by the speed/privacy benefits of Brave.

As for the ethics of ad-replacement, this is a bigger question. If the baseline were "everyone has ads everywhere", this could be seen as an unethical alternative. But the baseline is "many people (and presumably nearly everyone who is savvy enough to install Brave) use adblockers". So it's not like they're going from seeing ads to not seeing ads. They're going from blocking them with one system to blocking and replacing them with another system. And they can send the revenue from the replacement ads to the websites they spend time on.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by zachwood on Sunday February 10, 2019 @08:21PM (#19131379)
Brave is just chromium with some baked-in extensions now.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by brandnewlow on Sunday February 10, 2019 @11:25PM (#19132056)
And minus the stuff that talks to Google.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by zulrah on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @10:51AM (#19144469)
The problem isn't Firefox. The problem is chrome. Since it has a biggest market share and most of the web developers use it. Websites tend to be more optimized for Chromium engine than Firefox. I moved to Firefox and Gmail and other google apps work terribly slow. I'm trying to find a new email provider now . Does anyone have recommendations?
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by ericol on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:04PM (#19130704)
So, they finally have extensions working? I tested Brave couple of months ago, and my reason for not fully switching was no extension support.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by phalangion on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:46PM (#19130913)
You can install extensions from the chrome web store. All the ones I have tried have worked.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by gnicholas on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:19PM (#19130783)
Yeah supports all of the Chrome extensions I use, including Sidewise, Hacker News Enhancement Suite, and BeeLine Reader. I think some extensions may not work yet, but I’ve not come across any problems so far.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by mthoms on Sunday February 10, 2019 @07:08PM (#19131041)
>What is the benefit of Brave?

One interesting aspect is that they intend to integrate the ad matching & serving engine right into the browser. Thus (at least in theory) the browser can still serve "relevant" ads without exposing your clickstream to anyone. According to their materials, you'd have full control over what's collected and how it's used. It's opt-in.

IMHO The model hits the sweet spot for those who don't mind ads in principle but don't trust the ad industry.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by keithtom on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:41PM (#19130893)
I think you are missing some key elements.

It adds a new potential way monetize the web. Currently, the prevailing model is to offer a “free” product, where user data is being collected and sold to whoever is willing to pay.

Brave introduces the ability to pay per use and if you want to, you can opt-in to ads that are targeted based on anonymized data for targeting and you can earn BAT for doing so.

It basically changes the incentive model the ad industry and arguably a lot of the internet.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by krn on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:41PM (#19130890)
> What is the benefit of Brave?

I don't like Brave's business model, but I like the browser itself. Firefox Mobile just didn't cut it to me. All I wanted was Chromium without Google, and all the privacy features[1] built-in. I'm glad such a browser exists.

[1] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/vghNt_aflzbGItBHthEGnAvtRt...

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by h4waii on Sunday February 10, 2019 @07:41PM (#19131200)
I've switched from Brave to Bromite [0]. All of the same features, but no "business" involvement behind it -- just a clean Chromium with sane patches for privacy and security.

[0] https://www.bromite.org/

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by creato on Sunday February 10, 2019 @10:30PM (#19131844)
> but reading the Wikipedia article they seem to have a business model of replacing website adverts with their own. Which doesn't seem all that ethical.

https://twitter.com/galkowski_t/status/1074703403274698763

It seems blindingly obvious that Brave/BAT is in seriously dangerous legal territory. I would be that very close to 0% of the money transferred by BATs has made it to the "rightful" owners, where rightful is "where people paying BATs thought they were going".

If this scheme ever gets any serious attention, positive or negative, it's going to be a spectacular implosion.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by mikkom on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:44PM (#19130588)
> What is the benefit of Brave?

It is to have a chrome with adblocker on android. For all my desktop browsing I use firefox but on android some sites just don't work.

I haven't seen any Brave ads but if they start to appear, then I'm back on Firefox on android as well..

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by kop316 on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:51PM (#19130628)
I'm curious, what sites don't work? Firefox on android has been fine for me.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by ndnxhs on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:57PM (#19130667)
Twitter on Firefox android keeps giving me an error saying I have been rate limited and other Firefox users have reported the same. With how horrible twitter is I assume this is a problem on their side.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Jonnax on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:12PM (#19130746)
That's actually Twitter's intentional behaviour to force users to log in.

Somehow you're no longer rate limited after signing in

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by snazz on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:00PM (#19130684)
The “rate limited” error occurs for me on MobileSafari on iOS, so it’s not Firefox related. Reloading the page works fine. It seems to have to do with which referrer took you to Twitter.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Ayesh on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:20PM (#19130788)
Firefox blocks third party trackers by default. In some rate limiting implementation, this often signals a bot that don't often retain tracker cookies.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by snazz on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:46PM (#19130910)
Oh, so it could be my DNS-based adblocking setup or the “Prevent Cross-site Tracking” option in Safari settings. That makes sense.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by edoceo on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:13PM (#19130756)
I get this error in chrome/Android and rarely visit twitter.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by kop316 on Monday February 11, 2019 @11:24AM (#19135581)
Does that happen on chrome? I wonder what would happen if you swap out the user agent and have that issue.

Edit: It's working now just fine, even if I am not signed in. Like they suggest below, it seems like that is Twitter being actively malicious to web users, and not Firefox.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by brandnewlow on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:55PM (#19130964)
I work at Brave. Thank you for using our product. Any ad products we ship will be opt-in only. If you don’t opt-in you’ll never see them.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by mirimir on Sunday February 10, 2019 @07:36PM (#19131176)
Thanks for clarifying that.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by atomical on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:48PM (#19130610)
The Brave ads are opt-in.

If you don't want to pay for content in some way then that is your problem and has nothing to do with Brave, Chrome, or FireFox.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Pharmakon on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:52PM (#19130634)
For now. If the rise of Google has taught us anything it’s to analyze a business in terms of its likely future, not its present spin and PR. If all it takes to make more money is to flip a switch, then it’s reasonable to worry that such a flip is just a matter of wider adoption and time.
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by jammygit on Sunday February 10, 2019 @07:56PM (#19131278)
This is a thoughtful idea. What is the Brave endgame after they win a new browser war? Their model would encourage users to donate to spread BATs to creators, but it would be a small portion who did it. They could try to add a premium subscription, but again a minority of users would pay. Probably, it ends up with pressure to turn ads back on like the Adblock extension did, or to pay users to watch ads in a gamified way?

The alternative seems to be either ads/tracking (chrome), or directing people towards search engines owned by competitors (Firefox).

Then again, their whole tech stack is built on a competitors work too. All browsers depend so much on Google now its crazy

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by isoskeles on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:56PM (#19130656)
What's your point? They might become evil in the future so we should treat them like they're evil now?
Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by Pharmakon on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:06PM (#19130714)
I’d prefer you responded to what I actually wrote, rather than a straw man I didn’t write. I can only really refer you back to my original comment, which answers the question, “What’s your point” without the unreasonable framing of my answer.

To reiterate If the rise of Google has taught us anything it’s to analyze a business in terms of its likely future, not its present spin and PR. If all it takes to make more money is to flip a switch, then it’s reasonable to worry that such a flip is just a matter of wider adoption and time.

Brave is a combination of adtech undermining other adtech, cryptocurrency, and a lot of verbiage. I feel that’s a reason to be concerned when the line between said verbiage and future profits (assuming widespread adoption rather than withering away) is the flip of a single option from “opt-in” to “opt-out”.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by isoskeles on Sunday February 10, 2019 @06:19PM (#19130782)
It may not simply take flipping a switch to make more money. As far as we all know, Google's value proposition for throwing as many ads as possible in front of us is that they have tons of personal data about their users.

Brave does not offer such value to advertisers (unless they start having people "Sign Up", which would be an effort significantly more difficult than flipping a switch), so where do you suppose the value in throwing as many ads as possible to as many people possible comes in? What value is there in showing me a browser-based ad for something completely irrelevant to me?

That aside, I responded directly to your comment, which basically says that if Organization X does something undesirable, related Organization Y would likely do it as well. On one level, I get it, it's almost agreeable. On another, it seems like you want to hold Brave accountable for the sins of Google, which is almost absurd to me. But hey, that's your right. Can you go ahead and copy/paste the comment again if you continue to disagree? I like being condescended to.

Re:Brave browser can inject headers in HTTP requests by bobajeff on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:53PM (#19130642)
I use both Brave and Kiwi on my phone because they are Chromium based and work as well as Google's Chrome for Android but give me more privacy.

However Firefox on Android is really super slowly almost stepping up on Android.