Put it in your twitter bio. Just "working @brave". If I'm reading your opinion on software its helpful to know I'm reading the opinion of someone employed by a competitor without needing to dig through other parts of your twitter account.
Here's a screenshot of both accounts side-by-side, compare and contrast:
* https://twitter.com/Mcnst/status/1166520716826763264
Obviously, if this original review were to come from Brave or a Brave-employee directly, it probably would have been taken differently than coming from a "grass-roots" individual, hence the intentional deception on his part.
Twitter explicitly allows one to have multiple accounts as long as you use them for different purposes; in this instance, it's very difficult to see what purpose this Brave-less account has (other than intentionally misleading the public by hiding the Brave affiliation whilst still talking about browsers).
Side question: I use Brave on Android and have noticed that scrolling through the comments here on HN can be a bit finicky.
The first swipe tends to sometimes scroll the contents of a comment (not the page) up or down by a couple of pixels, then the next swipe with finger starting in same comment will let me scroll the page.
Just thought I'd mention it as I love Brave and am hoping this can be improved. Haven't noticed it on other mobile browsers. Cheers!
(Samsung S10 5G international version.)
I was not able to quickly confirm your affiliation (bio was first place I looked). Not disclosing this more prominently felt icky.
(Disclosure: I am a user & fan of Brave)
The threads aren't hit pieces; they were the curious musing of a software engineer and browser builder. And it's worth noting that I spend time yesterday working with Mozilla on their telemetry bugs; so I'm not her to throw mud. Somebody else posted my thread here, and caused it to blow up. Don't lay that on me
Given that this did end up reaching a broader audience than your twitter following (it is a public forum), my feedback would be that it was too hard to tell that you were directly affiliated with Brave, and that it would feel much classier to disclose this clearly in your bio (just "eng @brave" or something, or even a top-level reply to your primary thread if you don't want to modify your bio).
Perhaps I'm less eagle-eyed or adept than most twitter users, but I actively suspected you were affiliated, looked for clues that you were, and could not find them. Given that it wasn't your intent to hide anything, but can accidentally give an impression that you are, it might go over better to be more proactive in disclosure.
Again, the thread itself was successful in achieving the tone of "just the curious musings of a software engineer", was great content, and IMO still reads well with knowledge of your horse in the race.
What is the status of reproducible builds for the Brave browser?
In other words, being able to verify that the source code that is included in the build of Brave that Brave distributes, is the same as the source code we can view publicly.
If you're not familiar what reproducible builds are, I suggest you examine the following article:
* https://brendaneich.com/2014/01/trust-but-verify/
Mozilla, however, is different, in that all builds are posted to ftp.mozilla.org, in a versioned manner, and kept there for a while, which, at least in theory, makes it easier to verify or analyse the builds.
What is the situation with Brave? Can I download a version released a few months ago? As it is, the browser is not only not really versioned (at least in the binary form), but there's not even a way to disable it from automatically updating itself. Self-modifying code, where the user has no control over the channel under which the modifications are pushed, is inherently insecure from the reproducibility's perspective.
May I ask what you mean by "if you're capable of running the Tor browser" and "if you're smart enough to use the later (sic)"? Is it about the person knowing that it even exists? I use Tor Browser sometimes, and it's no different from using any other browser (except for some differences in network speed and the fact that it isolates every tab). I don't see what specific capability or smartness is required to use it.
I'm confused about this? Tor browser installation isn't any different from any other major browser, presumably including Brave. There's no skill required to operate it that you don't need for Chrome.
To your question, Brave couldn't get away with modifying extensions on the fly. This would cause integrity checks on the client to fail. Not to mention, the code to do this would have to land in our public repos on GitHub, where we would quickly be tarred and feathered.
If you're capable of running the Tor browser, we encourage you to do so. Brave isn't as good as the Tor browser if you're smart enough to use the later. That said, if you need a browser that can also make non-Tor connections, etc., then Brave is probably more ideal.