I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.
Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.
Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.
After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL’s. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.
Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I’d say the answer is a very clear no.
One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.
Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don’t mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.
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I didn’t mention that the CEO is an asshole because 1. that’s subjective and 2. it doesn’t relate to privacy in any way. The browser actively monetizing social media creators without their consent (and by extension misleading their users) is much more privacy related (in my opinion).
I don’t hate cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency is one of, if not the, best way to pay for something completely anonymously (for example XMR). I don’t believe I actively hated on cryptocurrency anywhere in this post, I simply showed how Brave is using it for malicious purposes.
cryptocurrency is not remotely anonymous
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I’m not the biggest fan of crypto, but there are plenty of crypto coins that do not rely on mining at all. In fact, I’d argue that the only really relevant coins in the future will not be based on Proof of Work. Staking is problematic for other reasons, but it’s far more climate friendly than proof of work
Brandon Eich is anti same-sex marriage and peddles anti-vax stuff. That is a fact.
But man, tech nerds are so diverse. For every gay furry IT person wearing rainbow knee-high socks I meet, I also meet a hard-line red gun-toting “libertarian” who believes in extreme privacy because of govt laser beams owned by lizard people.
He also inflicted Javascript upon the world, when we could have had Python or Scheme in the browser instead (yes, those were the alternatives being considered). I don’t mean to downplay how bad being a bigoted anti-vaxxer is, but that may be even worse!
What’s ironic is that there wasn’t crypto hate. Though for me that’s why Brave can go diaf, along with crypto. Crypto is dogshit puffed full of birdshit, and I can’t fucking stand pro-crypto anything. I actively work against crypto, and am quite pleased that I’m given multiple opportunities to undermine and fuck over the crypto communities. Also it will not stop, until crypto is dead, so you making it seem like a bad thing to be anti-crypto is falling on deaf ears for me.
I’m for whatever is against crypto. The more damage I can personally do to the crypto scene, the better.