Do you have a link? I didn't hear about that scandal! 😨 Do you recommend another browser? I use Mozilla for like a year, but I find a lot of bugs lately.
Personally, I use different browsers for different purposes. For example, I'll do most online shopping one way, general interest browsing another way, and work-related internet usage yet a different way. It takes a few extra minutes to set up the additional browsers and profiles, and takes a bit of discipline to build the habit of separating between them, but I find it worthwhile to keep going.
As long as I separate the usages and keep my various privacy settings in mind, adding Brave into the mix is acceptable to me. In other words, I just keep in mind that -- when using Brave -- I'm selling my attention and a limited view of my browsing behaviors for the benefit of Brave and for some BAT to myself.
On that note, I generally avoid Google Chrome because of the proprietary built-in spyware. I also don't want to enable or support the anti-competitive behaviors that they engage in. Being that Google builds web-based services and a browser, they're in a position to want to control the audience. Most other browser-software companies are not also building web-based services (like YouTube/Gmail/etc).
Anyway, here are a couple examples of the way Google doesn't compete in good faith:
I'm avoiding Google Chrome for the same reasons. A couple of months ago, I decided to switch to DuckDuckGo as my default search engine too.
I'm also aware that Brave is paying for my attention, and it's ok because they are transparent about that, and I can opt-out.
I tried Firefox for years, but during 2020 started performing poorly, so I decided to try another browser (of course not Chrome), and then I found Brave.
Not sure what you mean by "paying for your attention". The problem is that they're changing the urls you're accessing with their affiliate codes to cash in for your clicks and they're not transparent about it.
@jae
- Yes, it was unwise of Brave to collect BAT for creators that did not opt-in to the Brave Rewards system. Even more so to include images from their profiles. That's a pretty poor decision and something to keep in mind when evaluating Brave.
@andreidascalu
- The behavior that I see today is that Brave shows ads to users who opt-in, and then those users are given a small amount of cryptocurrency as a "reward". In other words, Brave pays cryptocurrency to users in exchange for agreeing to see Brave's ads. That's "paying for your attention".
With regards to the claim that Brave was changing the URLs that users are accessing, I believe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Take a look at this video that demonstrates the behavior and this other one that demonstrates the same behavior when using Google as the address-bar search engine. I can agree that Brave was auto-completing to a URL likely beyond what the user intended, but nobody forced anybody to take the full auto-completion. In other words, it wasn't surreptitiously changing the URL; instead, it was suggesting a URL and the enter-key -- like with most auto-complete UIs -- indicated that the user agreed to the suggestion. It also seems to have been limited in scope to exclusively "binance.us" (no www) and "binance.com" (also no www): I see no indication or reporting that the referral link scandal hit any other website beyond Binance. So yes, it's inconvenient. And yes, I disagree with it. That said, let's agree to aim for accuracy when we describe this.
Do you have a link? I didn't hear about that scandal! 😨 Do you recommend another browser? I use Mozilla for like a year, but I find a lot of bugs lately.
A quick web search found this: coindesk.com/brave-browsers-affili...
Personally, I use different browsers for different purposes. For example, I'll do most online shopping one way, general interest browsing another way, and work-related internet usage yet a different way. It takes a few extra minutes to set up the additional browsers and profiles, and takes a bit of discipline to build the habit of separating between them, but I find it worthwhile to keep going.
As long as I separate the usages and keep my various privacy settings in mind, adding Brave into the mix is acceptable to me. In other words, I just keep in mind that -- when using Brave -- I'm selling my attention and a limited view of my browsing behaviors for the benefit of Brave and for some BAT to myself.
On that note, I generally avoid Google Chrome because of the proprietary built-in spyware. I also don't want to enable or support the anti-competitive behaviors that they engage in. Being that Google builds web-based services and a browser, they're in a position to want to control the audience. Most other browser-software companies are not also building web-based services (like YouTube/Gmail/etc).
Anyway, here are a couple examples of the way Google doesn't compete in good faith:
I'm avoiding Google Chrome for the same reasons. A couple of months ago, I decided to switch to DuckDuckGo as my default search engine too.
I'm also aware that Brave is paying for my attention, and it's ok because they are transparent about that, and I can opt-out.
I tried Firefox for years, but during 2020 started performing poorly, so I decided to try another browser (of course not Chrome), and then I found Brave.
Not sure what you mean by "paying for your attention". The problem is that they're changing the urls you're accessing with their affiliate codes to cash in for your clicks and they're not transparent about it.
It should also be noted that brave started to collect donations using content creator's images (without rewarding them of course) as well as having a really sketchy CEO.
@jae - Yes, it was unwise of Brave to collect BAT for creators that did not opt-in to the Brave Rewards system. Even more so to include images from their profiles. That's a pretty poor decision and something to keep in mind when evaluating Brave.
@andreidascalu - The behavior that I see today is that Brave shows ads to users who opt-in, and then those users are given a small amount of cryptocurrency as a "reward". In other words, Brave pays cryptocurrency to users in exchange for agreeing to see Brave's ads. That's "paying for your attention".
With regards to the claim that Brave was changing the URLs that users are accessing, I believe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Take a look at this video that demonstrates the behavior and this other one that demonstrates the same behavior when using Google as the address-bar search engine. I can agree that Brave was auto-completing to a URL likely beyond what the user intended, but nobody forced anybody to take the full auto-completion. In other words, it wasn't surreptitiously changing the URL; instead, it was suggesting a URL and the enter-key -- like with most auto-complete UIs -- indicated that the user agreed to the suggestion. It also seems to have been limited in scope to exclusively "binance.us" (no www) and "binance.com" (also no www): I see no indication or reporting that the referral link scandal hit any other website beyond Binance. So yes, it's inconvenient. And yes, I disagree with it. That said, let's agree to aim for accuracy when we describe this.
Been in lots of news.
theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/bra...
It's been a while but between this and a rumoured deal to ignore some FB tracking in some cases, I sort of felt it's not really worth the hassle.
I do prefer Opera, more from the perspective that I know its downsides (particularly with respect to privacy) so I know how to make up for them.
I also like Vivaldi, which is more lightweight and more privacy focused. This is my main browser for personal navigation.
I also use Duck duck go extension on Opera and Chrome for privacy settings.