EDIT: Appears Brave is even holding payments in escrow for parties that did not even sign up to receive payments, that’s not shady at all. Even makes me wonder what’s happening to all the funds in escrow.
Repeating out of date information _per se_ and to ascribe malice is never justified, whatever you think of ads.
However, I think the idea that telling people you were going to be collecting money on behalf of someone, not letting them know, and just keeping it isn't likely to have been some small "whoopsie." Building a system to let people know didn't happen by accident. The $100 threshold wasn't an oversight. Not including visual differentiation between verified and unverified creators wasn't a slip-up. These had to have been purposeful and thought-out decisions.
I don't think the idea was to steal as much BAT as possible from would-be donors, it felt like a growth hack: you know, make it seem like Brave works everywhere, then one day when it is, we can all forget about the fake-it-till-you-make-it bit.
Which is normally fine, but people tend to get defensive about their money.
Further, comments, tweets, etc. generally are not the best way to communicate issues as complex as this, nor do I feel it the public’s job to clean up or go out of their way. You made a mess, you clean it up.
(You appears to be serial down voting; classy.)
Hacker news does not allow you to downvote responses to your comments. (Nor for that matter, can you tell who it was that downvoted you, so that accusation is unfounded.)
When someone does shady things in one area.. they probably do them in others.
It's got some competitors in this respect though. Namely Vivaldi and Edge.
Brave has all the Google integrations removed.
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-...
Browsers today, without strong tracking protection, are passive servants of ad-tech implemented via JavaScript. Average users don't know how to block. Most users don't subscribe widely at risk of overpaying (cross-subsidizing, the publishers call it). Brave's model not only cuts out ad-tech intermediaries, leaving only the browser in the middle — we then let users opt in (with blind signature cryptography so our servers can't link ids or transactions, and via an Ethereum ERC20 token, BAT) to support creators directly yet anonymously.
We will add more over time to support creators, including things like patreon and superchats mediated in the browser (client side and user first), with privacy and pseudonymity as well as anonymity (the default).
I think I see your view as to the "why" of Brave -- how do you see building user trust at scale?
Another concern that comes to mind: Chrome, Safari are backed by companies with massive warchests, and though Mozilla is not as far as I know as liquid as GOOG, AAPL, it has proven staying power. I'm not sure what the term is in the mobile app space when a popular app gets bought up and modified, but what guarantees do I have that the Brave app won't be bought out by unscrupulous dealers down the road?
Does it actually do this? When I had Brave, I never noticed that.
Feel free to link to public documentation on Brave’s site showing the screenshots of Brave’s workflow, policies, etc.
As is, you’re comment assumes I understand a lot of things, which you say I don’t, then go on to not explain them; tip, comments, tweets, etc are a poor place to do this.
For example, what has happened before the 30th day; as in please list from start to finish everything that happens from me downloading Brave, finding myself, making a “payment” to myself, and nothing nothing. Also, if relevant, disclose any and all business policies & procedure; for example, is there a difference between a $5, $101, $1001, etc transaction.
Let’s say the have million in escrow, they invest it, don’t lose any of the funds, and 5 years later end up paying out all funds due.
Does the “all funds due” just the million, is it the million plus the returns they made on million, is it adjusted for inflation because they sat on it 5-years, etc.?
Comparable example might be the funds held in escrow by gift cards; my guess is unless Brave is being super careful what they are doing is or will be defined as illegal.
> A final update on the thread about Brave: they're now opt-in for creators! While it's still possible to tip folks who haven't opted in, the data is stored in-browser and the UI has been clarified. These are good changes, and they fix the complaints I had!
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser
> and likely having to buy their crypto to test it
I have 24 BAT and I didn't buy them. I donate some of what I earn from ads to a project maintainer on Github.
> Brave is still selling the tokens for third-parties without their knowledge
Brave doesn't sell tokens. They did raise money through a token sale but that's not relevant.
> System should be you send funds, transfer is not done until 3rd party authorization is received, 3rd party has no fee cash option instead (fees if any paid by donor) — and transaction voids after 30-days.
The transfer isn't done until the creator verifies with Brave. See my comment above.
Doing a minimum of reading (wiki, brave website, reddit) would do wonders for your comments.
What am I missing? You’re basically stealing, fencing the goods, and somehow giving away the proceeds makes that okay and I need to waste my time reading more?
As for doing more reading, sounds like a personal attack, if so, combined with your “Robin Hood” life style, maybe you’re the one that needs to spend more time.
Yes, if you opt-in to the system, they will take a cut, which is entirely reasonable if the model ends up being better for users and creators.
Time will tell if that's the case, but it's an interesting experiment.
It is well-known that Firefox and Chrome do their own tracking. no extension, ublock or otherwise, can change that.
Huh? Firefox has telemetry but the ways to turn it off are well documented.
1. Research the latest settings I need to change in about:config to ensure telemetry & tracking are disabled, and privacy settings are optimized (and hope I got them all).
2. Install ublock origin and possibly other privacy-related extensions (e.g. to block finger printing)
3. Do this on every device which I use... I don’t know about you but I have dozens of devices between myself and my family
4. every time i re-install Firefox or create a new Firefox profile, repeat step #1 and #2.
5. Read the release notes for every Firefox update to ensure there aren’t new or changed about:config settings I should change.
When I can just use Brave instead?
You seriously do all 5 of those steps religiously? Because if don’t, you’re a step or 3 behind Brave’s our-of-the-box defaults.
They rewrote ublock origin in rust, and its native to the product, not tacked on. Shady business model aside, they are making technical contributions to the world.
It also auto-closes tabs I might have browsed in anonymous mode. Safari doesn't, and it's quite a nightmare to fatfinger into anonymous mode and see whatever you had opened anon mode for.
They intended to gimp the API. Not sure if the changes are in effect already though.
>Even if Google were to disallow it and other powerful adblockers, the alternative (similar to content blockers on MobileSafari) is not a serious problem, at least for me. I have Ka-Block! on my iPhone, which blocks ads just fine, despite having a much less powerful interface than uBO.
Good for you. It's not enough for me. I even write my own rules for the sites I visit often.
Content Blockers in Safari submit a list of rules to Safari and Safari blocks the requests. No third party has access to your browser history.
Not that I don't believe you but I can't find any information
Sounds like you compiled a statement like "give me the factors of 26, but you can't use 1, 2, or 13." If you don't opt into it, you definitely aren't using it.
As for why someone would opt into it: some people don't mind being tracked but they care about who's doing the tracking and how their data gets integrated. If Brave shuts down everyone else's tracking but then Brave is building a profile on a user, that's fine for some.
Parent comment said that the business model of Brave is opt in, implying that they’re recommending you use brave but not opt in to the crypto/ad business model. I think it’s perfectly fair to ask what is the value prop of Brave if you don’t use their crypto/ad system.
The fact that so many people get bent out of shape about Brave blocking ads by default is probably also seen as a positive signal by many people who hate ads. If Brave pisses off people who run ad-supported websites, that's a fantastic endorsement.
I’ve never seen anyone angry about Brave blocking ads; what I’ve seen are people angry at Brave blocking ads and adding their own, which is a drastically different complaint.
https://brave.com/improved-ad-blocker-performance/
https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust
Using Chrome+uBO+uMatrix and Brave side by side, Brave just works better. Less knobs to fiddle with, sane defaults. Sure I love the power of uMatrix, but it comes with its own time sink managing it. Brave, out of the box, performs correctly in most situations, and switching from default to blocking all cookies, javascript, and fingerprinting is only a click each (and thats the advanced mode.)
Theyve somewhat gone back to the juno/netzero/kmartbluelight internet model. If you did want to be subjected to ads, at least they are in a consistent place in the user interface, and not all over random pages breaking performance and scroll.
If I were forced to choose between two ads types, id pick Braves before the modern webs. Their product is like ad supported shareware. (The rest of the tipping and bat economy notwithstanding.)
> I’ve never seen anyone angry about Brave blocking ads; what I’ve seen are people angry at Brave blocking ads and adding their own, which is a drastically different complaint.
I think for many people who hate ads, this distinction isn't really relevant. They like that Brave pisses off people who run websites with ads. Perhaps disliking website operators enough to cut off their nose to spite their face.
I guess I get people wanting to piss off those who run ads, but that applies to ad blockers as a whole. That’s not an argument for Brave specifically.
For website and ad network operators, it could be worse. Automated 'clickfraud' extensions could have gained traction. Maybe Brave will do that in the future too.
That's one part of the appeal — that this stuff stays local.
Why do people use it? I can understand blocking ads with e.g. ublock, but I cannot understand wanting a browser that shows you desktop ads for internet points.