I certainly don't hate Brave. I use it. I also don't like Brave, I put up with it. It's just that there aren't any great browsers out there, and Brave sucks less than most.
Where are we getting these absolutely unattainable ideals from? Who can possibly support and fund such a project besides an enterprise?
KHTML was doing fine before Microsoft, Google and Apple forked their codebase.
Forgot which, but had a 12 letter word that I misspelled one letter of, Brave underlined it in red with no replacements in right-click menu, I fixed it by googling the spelling and underline went away.
In often happens that it has no or even very wrong suggestions.
Unless you literally are same-sex marriage?
Had the shoe been on the other foot and we were funding a proposition to limit the recognition of Christian marriage, Christians would call it an opposition to their existence too. And rightfully so! The backlash makes sense on a logical, emotional and authoritative level. I don't see how you could possibly interpret it otherwise.
Your two options to oppose gay marriage then are either believing the United States should base it's tax and property laws on specifically christian religions (plenty others have no problem with gay marriage), or that gay couples should not be "valid" in the eyes of the law.
No, it isn't. For some it's strictly a legal matter, for others it's both a legal matter and a religious matter. That's why you can legally marry in 5 minutes by placing a signature, and separately marry "for church".
"The ceremony that many churches do that they call marriage has no legal standing"
That's not the point of the ritual.
Plus, even if this was a strictly religious belief, that doesn't protect him from the criticism of peers. That's the cost of picking people to make your enemy. Eich resigned after the reaction.
If my colleagues, "moslim" or otherwise, were in this position, I would only say 'tough luck'
You cannot participate in (or plainly accept..."tough luck") the criticism on Brendan if you're not also willing to apply the same criticism to pretty much every muslim worldwide.
So, do you measure by one standard, or two?
> You cannot participate in (or plainly accept..."tough luck")
I disagree.
I absolutely do not give a fuck about what someone PRIVATELY believes. The problem is not religious people believing in something, the problem is religious people FORCING their beliefs into law.
When muslim people do that, it's called Sharia law and I am against that, same as I am against laws based on christian beliefs.
And I certainly don't use it as a programmer.
Making something illegal doesn't mean that the population wants to gencide the people who do that thing.
FCOL, shoplifting is illegal and yet no one is under the impression that the population wants to genocide all shoplifters.
Trying to stop something from happening is not the same as wanting to genocide all the practitioners.
Wanting to take away someone's right[1] is not even close to wanting them to stop existing.
[1] I'm not so sure that marriage is a right anyway. It's a state-recognised institution.
Trying to take away someone's civil rights is fundamentally different from outlawing a crime. Wanting someone to be a literal second-class citizen is, in fact, a negation of the validity of their identity. Revoking same-sex marriage is absolutely an effort to push the LGBTQ+ community back into the shadows; it is transparently the tip of the spear of a movement that seeks to roll back some of the biggest civil rights gains of the last few decades. That is what OP means when they say "don't want me to exist".
I dislike Eich for the exact same reasons. But I would say something more like "I don't hate Brave, just can't use a product by someone that thinks people should be deprived of fundamental human rights just because of their sexuality or gender identity."
Which, as we all know, are peaceful affairs where people's freaking lives definitely aren't a political matter.
Somehow the mods of the place are ok with that but if I dissented from their politics I'd be considered less than human pretty much then and there.
Which cannot be done without explicitly preventing gay people from having certain basic rights. It flies directly in the face of equality for all. "These two consenting adults are not allowed to do what nearly all consenting adults are allowed to do" is expressly treating them as second class citizens. You can't get around that.
No one in this thread argued that two consensual adults should be prevented from getting married, so who exactly are you directing this comment at?
No one here expressed support for preventing gay people from getting married. Why are you hung up on that argument, and not the one that is being made?
Too much of a mouthful. It's enough to say "I can't use a product built by people who hate me". Just as true, just as impactful...
What evidence do you have that Eich hates you? He made one political contribution and now that's hate? Gosh we are really devaluing the word "hate"
Are you seriously disputing that it is rational to hold the view "Gay Marriage Should Be Legal" and "People Objecting to Gay Marriage Are Not Calling For The Cessation Of Existence Of Gays"?
Because it sure looks, to the average reader, that you are incapable of understanding that many people can hold two non-conflicting thoughts in their head at the same time.
Aren't you able to hold two thoughts at the same time without having a neural meltdown? Why do you think others can't?
Nitpick; anything that is outlawed is a crime. This is why I chose a crime as my example.
> Wanting someone to be a literal second-class citizen is, in fact, a negation of the validity of their identity. Revoking same-sex marriage is absolutely an effort to push the LGBTQ+ community back into the shadows; it is transparently the tip of the spear of a movement that seeks to roll back some of the biggest civil rights gains of the last few decades.
I agree, but comparing a supporter of some legislative lobby to genocide is pure hyperbole.
You're trivialising genocide when you claim that someone wanting to stop you doing what you do is the same as ethnic cleansing.
> That is what OP means when they say "don't want me to exist".
There is no wiggle room for interpretation there; "don't want those people to exist" has always meant pure genocide.
It's said for drama and for pure emotional impact, while trivialising real "don't want those people to exist" history.
From your first response to me you have been unnecessarily rude. "Facile"? "Bad-faith"? "Stooge"?
Just because a large number of people don't believe that preventing same-sex marriage is the same as the holocaust doesn't mean we are acting in bad faith.
FWIW, I get the same response from ideologically pure believers when I nitpick their use of phrases like "stare-rape".
No, he said "Thinks people like me shouldn't exist", which is genocide.
Hitler wanted the Jews to stop existing. Now we have someone complaining that them being prevented from marriage to a partner of their choice is the same thing.
It's not. The original lobbying effort didn't make the argument that homosexual people shouldn't exist. It's an argument purely in the mind of the OP.
So, you're using guilt by association now? Are you accusing everyone who disagrees with you of violence?
Conflating a good faith policy debate with not wanting someone to exist is patently dishonest. It is a dishonorable bad faith form of political extremism, and should get you banned from HN.
Conflating a civil rights issue with a policy debate is patently bad-faith. It is a dishonorable form of political extremism, and should get you banned from HN.
I understand that you're new here and probably think this is someplace where you can make assumptions about people, like on certain other social media sites. But I am actually a gay judge advocate (military attorney) who helped write the Obama policy allowing transgender service for the first time in U.S. history.
The fact that I believe reasoned, accurate, and earnest political discussion is important does not give you, or anyone else prone to hysterics, any basis to conclude what exactly my policy positions are.
Instead, what it demonstrates is this: in my experience, respecting people who disagree with me—even when the disagreement is something I'm emotional about and affects me personally—has allowed me to win more hearts and minds. And what's more is, it's the right thing to do. Making false accusations against people you are mad at is not virtuous under any circumstances.
It's my sincere hope that you take this teachable moment and reflect on how to be a better participant, both here on HN and in our nation's policy-making machinery.
edit: I recognize and appreciate that HN has a pretty strict commenting policy. I think that this entire subthread has gotten quite far afield of the original post, which was regarding Brave. Even the topic of the comment we are replying under was rather different from where we have gotten to now. I think that I have made my position abundant clear, which is that denying someone a right based on their identity is sufficiently close to "not wanting them to be allowed to exist" that OP's comment was not a gross mischaracterization of Eich's (possibly past) beliefs. I don't think further discussion is going to change anyone else's mind about this, and at best is going to continue degrading into a "how dare you"-fest, so I'm leaving this here. I appreciate the work you did in support of trans people in the military, and I authentically hope you have a good day.
any evidence to support that claim?
I'm unclear if his views have changed either positively or negatively in the intervening decade.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/gay-f...
how exactly is that evidence that he believes "people don't have a right to exist?"
it seems like some people think people with his beliefs don't have a right to exist. maybe they are just projecting the hate in their own hearts onto their enemies/victims?
It’s more like OP just wants to use rhetoric to have you ignore and silence Brendan Eich. Which I still think is going too far, even if I disagree with his (apparent) private political views.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/21/your-money/speaking-about...
The only ones constitutionally protected are government employees since the government cannot fire someone for 1st amendment speech (but companies can because the 1st amendment does not apply to private entities)
You second lie is your supposed inability to use products by someone that would actually be homophobic. You use such products every single day, unless you completely opted out of modernity.
So it doesn't count… because he paid others a significant sum to say it for him and obscure his involvement? That's… an interesting set of ethics. I wonder what you think about people who hire hitmen.
> You second lie is your supposed inability to use products by someone that would actually be homophobic. You use such products every single day, unless you completely opted out of modernity.
The world isn't black and white, and we can't read people's minds. That also doesn't mean that people's public behaviour doesn't affect others' perception of them.
My second point was regarding hypocrisy and hollow principles. You can't use a browser out of moral principle but happily use stuff from countries where there's a death penalty for being LGBTQ+.
You should tell iPhone owners this. Certainly, they would put down their phone made by slave labor to focus on something more important than fifth wave feminism or eating vegan.
In any case no one lost their stuff, bad UX was critiqued and bad UX was fixed.
If you buy fruits from a shop that also sells scummy lottery tickets, you at least should accept that other people will bring criticism and skepticism to that shop.
That "should" shit, however, is inviting other people to make a value judgement just so you can attack them for not being libertarian or something, nobody cares. They should do what is best for their business if they want to be successful. They thought that was crypto, and who am I to second guess? As long as they're doing it, or strange advertising shell games, I'm not even their customer, so I don't get a say. I don't think they did anything remotely fraudulent...
So do most gas station and random convenience stores. No one complains since you don't have to buy em.
You're still using Brave which can be seen as endorsement of those things by others, including by website operators looking at user agent traffic.
Some people use very specialized versions of Linux as a political choice, for example.
My point is that if other people use other variants (non-specialized) it doesn't necessarily mean that they support opposite "political views".
...and the redirection of the URLs of other cryptocurrency exchange websites...and the time it inserted affiliate referral codes when users navigate to Binance. Yes, you can turn off the crypto BS, and they stopped doing the redirects. But I can't trust a browser company that _may_ do such shenanigans again in the future. They "fixed" or removed that stuff, but that doesn't mean they won't do it again. I just don't trust them, at all. That right there is enough to not use the browser. Not to mention Brendan Eich and his views.
If you still don't understand, then I don't know what to tell you.
A browser company that tries to monetize in ways that doesn't weaponize my info against me is much preferred.
That said, I can't personally separate his politics from his product, which is why I use Firefox.
I would be fine with it if it were opt-in for users who want to support the browser in that way, but silently injecting them across the board is just a scummy thing to do and also likely a violation of any sane affiliate program's terms. A company that's willing to do that loses an unrecoverable amount of credibility and trust in my eyes.
I think society has largely adopted a victim mentality with abusive software these days. We are so used to being betrayed and hurt that we now accept it as normal. It started off innocuously enough, but now we are effectively being hurt on the regular. We have learned helplessness, and that will not end well.
That's not what a victim mentality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_mentality) is. What you're describing is closer to learned helplessness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness), which is different.
> Their past actions irreversibly tainted their reputation, and they are no longer worthy of our trust.
This is closer to something you might hear from someone with a victim mentality. I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is evidence of such, but certainly this rigidity of thought around being a victim to another's actions contributes to such.
So now we've given a hostile ad agency control of the internet to save 100ms on certain web site loads. Good job everyone.
Meanwhile Mozilla the organization boots people for politics, wants "more than deplatforming" and uses as one of their examples organizations deciding what I should see on the Internet - preferring outlets that Mozilla themselves like, naturally. They publish stuff with the gist of "did you encounter other politics on YouTube, how scary".
Meanwhile the organization spends money on getting a sneaker designer to make time-limited color themes for their browser and writes a pile of copy about how cool it is that a sneaker designer painted the browser blue.
Meanwhile, Brave releases a user-customizable filtering function for their search engine so you, not someone else, can decide from what POV you see the Internet and added native vertical tabs to the browser.
One organization is blatantly political, the other just makes a good browser.
But if you want people you like to decide what I see (at least easily) on the 'net, that's good, I guess.
/rant
Not to mention that they're based on chromium.
Which is why they were silently filling in affiliate links without user consent right? Or why they were collecting tips for users with no affiliation to the company that runs brave.
Or that using a single wallet built into your web browser for crypto stuff nicely ties all your transactions to that one wallet in a way that completely removes all "privacy" aspects
They absolutely do, and using the chromium code base, regardless of what you supposedly patch into or out of it, pushes forwards GOOGLE'S goals, not the open web's goals.
Let me help you understand why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CE...
That's the one and only real reason why they hate brave, all the other reasons are just excuses they like to tell to themselves and to others.
Cause Mozilla did him dirty? When Obama ran in 2008 he opposed gay marriage. Hell proposition 8 passed. California's constitution still has text banning gay marriage in it.
Really? It's FUD that the Brave browser and team worked with and on a crypto project to integrate crypto into the browser?
What I mean is that year in, year out you'll see the same things about a bug in their Firefox Suggest-esque feature that got fixed within one day of being reported, the bad Rewards UI which got fixed without anyone losing their cryptocurrency in response to eg. Tom Scott's feedback being treated as a scam where Brave stole it from people and so on.
They're basically criticisms of first iterations of new things and assume maximum malice on part of the Brave team. The integrating crypto into the browser side is mostly unrelated, nobody denies it and few think it's unequivocally good.
The original intent was absolutely a scam. They wanted to hide the ads that were already on websites, replace them with their own, then give a fraction of the revenue they just effectively stole from those websites back to them (but only if they knew to ask for it).
Also they were going to take over all the third-party tracking data for their own, while branding it as “privacy” — so much hand waving about "we don't run a MiTM proxy" (while hoping we didn’t notice it’s because they don’t need to be in the middle when they control the browser itself).
Absolutely brazen, and they kept changing their story in real time whenever people started to notice hey wtf is this. Happened to be able to find this in my posting history for example; in hindsight I wish I hadn't been so cowed by the fact that I was arguing with Brendan Eich Himself, because man what a load of horsepuckey he and his guy were delivering: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14464518#14465271
The user and their browser decides what ads they see. Websites are not entitled to showing ads.
* lying to users about protecting their privacy, while gathering and reselling more information than was possible with existing 3rd party trackers
* lying about "giving back to publishers", while actually coopting those publishers' revenue streams
Your "Websites are not entitled to showing ads" statement gave me a moment of thought, I have to admit: I don't see anything wrong with ad blockers, but I do think the ethics of ad replacers is pretty problematic. At best it makes Brave a parasitic entity feeding off revenue that would have otherwise gone to the content creators.
I'll reluctantly agree that that part on its own doesn't rise to the level of "scam" but I certainly don't think it's admirable.
Like, do Brave think google is just evil and that if someone else becomes the advertising behemoth things will be just rosy?
The presence of ads and/or crypto is a strong signal that you're working with an untrustworthy entity, whose objectives will not be aligned with your own.
Maybe Brave the browser isn't outright a "scam," but the willingness of the company to dip into scam-enabling technologies like crypto makes the brand toxic, and anything by the company is immediately suspect.
The same is true for Signal, for what it's worth, as it still supports Moxie's pet shitcoin.
It's easy enough to opt out of Brave because Firefox exists, but there's still sadly no better alternative to Signal.
Decentralized wealth is crypto. Sure, there are scams, but the point is to pay people for viewing ads (wealth re-distribution in a decentralized fashion). No one else is paying you to view ads; they are just taking your engagement data, your face and eye gaze data, your mouse trajectory data, etc. Brave is the first to try to pay you a portion of its ads revenue in a way that you the end user can flip into whatever currency you want, including USD. I've never been cut a check from Google, Amazon, Facebook, or the like. But I've received BAT, which I can flip into ETH/BTC, and earn more money.
> Maybe Brave the browser isn't outright a "scam," but the willingness of the company to dip into scam-enabling technologies like crypto makes the brand toxic, and anything by the company is immediately suspect.
Do you use any resource owned/operated by Google? Amazon? JPMorgan Chase? Facebook? Bank of America? Wells Fargo? (to name a few) All of these companies "dip into scam-enabling technologies like crypto."
Do more research.
Isn't the Matrix protocol quite clearly the better alternative to Signal?
There are several options--host your own (matrix server), use a free public server (matrix.org), or pay someone to host a server instance for you (e.g., element.io). The Element clients are good enough by now for all platforms (web, desktop, mobile). What's not to love?
Hopefully this can change some day, and Matrix (or something like it) will become ubiquitous. But it was a slog for Signal to gain even its small market share, despite its better usability and lower barriers to entry.
For lack of a better alternative, we "standardized" on Signal as the de-facto secure messaging system that is outside of the control of ad companies, and it will take time to rectify that.
This is a ridiculous take. Every technology you use that facilitates payments or communication is, objectively speaking, "scam-enabling".
The intent is to circumvent how authors have themselves chosen to monetize their own content, insert themselves as the man in the middle, display their own ads and "pay" people in a currency they print. They're actually replacing the direct compensation the author would receive with an indirect one. Traditionally this kind of scheme is known as a protection racket. Also of course this means that Brave is simply an advertisement company, like the ones they are supposed to protect you from.
When someone visits your page through Brave the ads you would have been compensated for are being blocked, Brave earns actual money for the ads they put in their place, and then users get the chance to tip you in 'attention tokens', which they wisely pre-mined. That's not noble, it's like the mafia combined with a Nigerian prince currency scam.
First builds were spring of 2002 and you probably didn't have those because they were still called "browser" or "m/b" back then and not made terribly discoverable. You probably mean you got with it in 2003, summer or fall, which would be 20 years ago, not 22.
Yes, I was off by a year or so, I'm not making anything up. Two decades is a long time to remember details.
All I know is I'd FTP to grab the latest and unzip it into a folder.
By this point I was running a couple major websites and had a "5-star CNET Award" for an internet-centered software product so I was on top of anything in that sphere.
Glory days.
This was purely for Chormium performance reasons (although it seems Firefox has made some major improvements recently). I didn't like leaving behind a unique browser engine, which needs to remain a significant player.
I don't understand a lot of the hate for Brave. If you don't like the crypto integration, the ads, etc you can just disable them. I feel the original intent, to be able to contribute directly back to page authors, was a noble one. It may not have played out as intended, but it wasn't a scam.
One year in, I've had no issues I can think of. And now they have their own search engine, another net plus to the ecosystem. Outside of things like Tor Browser, the privacy is about as good as you're going to get from a client. In fact, you can open a new window using Tor directly in the browser. I don't use their VPN but that's available also (Mullvad?).
I spend enough daily time in it that I would notice UI/UX/perf. problems ... I really haven't seen any.
YMMV