no i dont trust brave. i did never understand why people would choose brave over firefox+ublockorigen
Popular tech (a la pop sci or pop psych). Brave uses the right techy sounding buzzwords to appeal to the pseudo power user.
At the time I switched, the built-in blocker worked on a site I regularly used while Firefox+ublock did not (I think it would just prevent things from working or cause infinite ad-loops). If I wasn’t looking for an alternative adblocker, would probably have never bothered switching. There’s also the “get pocket change from using our browser” thing. Some may have been speculating on the value of BATs?
I switched back to Firefox, but the one issue I’m having is the gesture add-ons. They just don’t work near as well as the ones in Chrome ☹️
This is honestly the first valid drawback I’ve seen in this thread about Firefox. Personally, I have to disable most gesture-based features on my device due to my big clumsy hands and perhaps a bit of an inherited neurological problem, but I understand that most users are not like me.
I’d encourage you to share your needs with the Firefox community. I’ve seen some amazing features and add-ons born out of someone simply stepping forward and pointing out how useful a certain feature would be.
Chromium based browsers tend to have less issues. I have to use some government websites that have features that won’t work on firefox
Which government web sites don’t work? I’d like to report them on Bugzilla.
Portuguese IRS and Social Security websites. It’s been years since I tried to access them through firefox though
Your information is probably no longer accurate then. Firefox has undergone many significant updates even within the past year, and it’s very likely those tools are now fully functional, as I’d suspect at some point they’d have been reported on Bugzilla.
I have to access many US government web sites regularly, including the US IRS web site, and I never have a problem.
Back when I was studying computer engineering I was also an avid fan of firefox and I also kept hearing and parroting those lines. Eventually I gave up and stuck with chromium based browsers. (Also because of other reasons, like some extensions only being available for chrome, html games support, etc)
US and portuguese governments are in different leagues. I would assume that yours has better funding and spends more on their virtual infrastructure. I doubt they are comparable, but it is possible that they fixed those issues that I had meanwhile
It’s probably been fixed. I’m not just “parroting those lines” – I’m suggesting that if you find it’s still not functioning on Firefox, the thing to do is to report the issue. (I had previously said Bugzilla, but they get reported to Web Compat now.) I will mention that our IRS is not known for its efficiency and being up to date lol.
Which extensions are missing on Firefox?
I can see that you’re enthusiast and care about firefox, it’s thanks to people like you that these tools get better. But me, for lack of better words, can’t bring myself to care that much about any piece of software that ain’t related to my job, nevermind reporting issues. I’ll use whatever gives me less trouble in my personal time, if in the future things change for chromium, I’ll come back to firefox.
When I get home I’ll check my extensions and pass you the ones that don’t exist for firefox. Right now the only one I remember isn’t really an extension, it’s the text to speech function of Edge, that uses their AI voices.
That used to be true, and I keep Chrome and Edge installed just in case, but honestly I haven’t had to use a different browser in years.
Any web page problems that I found turned out not to be Firefox related.
But if you like Chrome, there’s nothing wrong with that either.
To be clear, I don’t like Chrome itself, I use Edge and sometimes Brave.
Depending on how the whole DRM and adblock thing goes, I might come back to firefox.
Portuguese here. Haven’t had to use anything but Firefox on the IRS and Social Security websites. What are you having trouble accessing?
From what I remember, autoridade tributaria had some buttons or links that wouldn’t do anything on firefox. I remember suspecting it was javascript, but then noticed that Chrome didn’t have issues.
Seg social and fundo ambiental had odd behaviors but I can’t remember exactly what they were.
I remember having to use Internet Explorer to do some actions on the autoridade tributária website, like simulating and submitting IRS (even had to download an external application) but that was like 10-12 years ago. More recently, I had to do some stuff with regards to opening and closing my activity (I was on recibos verdes for a while) and did it all through Firefox. Haven’t had to do much else beyond this.
As for seg. social, I just tried to log in and it said my password expired and I had to create a new one. But when I filled in the password fields and tried to click on the button to submit it, it didn’t work. In any browser. Because there was no fucking link associated with the button. So the button did nothing. I had to manually click on the “recover my password” link so I could a create a new one.
When I logged in, I just clicked on a few things, even simulated my retirement pension and everything worked. It’s not much of a test, I know, but it’s something.
Never entered fundo ambiental so I have no idea if it works or not.
I would have choses firefox if it had the support for tab grouping, something chromium browsers do really well and something I need for my workflow.
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why don’t you read mozilla’s privacy policy and compare it brave’s
Because chromium-based browsers are better in some regards (extensions, good folder support on android). Habit also matter 🙂
That’s in your head. I cannot think of anything Firefox won’t do for me. And if I came across something I needed chromium for, I would open it that one time. My privacy is worth that tiniest bit of effort.
As an independent computer consultant full time, I operate heavily through my browser for a good 60% of my work.
The ability to send tabs to my phone or desktop at will is enough for me. Firefox always.
For me, there are a few plugins that don’t exist on Firefox, which I need. The plugin environment isn’t nearly as robust or kept up-to-date as chromium-based browsers.
Which plugins are they?
Mainly Dragon Medical One
Fair enough. That’s a fairly niche case, but I could see myself using a chromium browser if I had to use this tool at work, but then switching back to Firefox for everything else.
I still wouldn’t use Brave, though, and it would be even better if more developers started supporting Firefox instead.
I agree. I guess I could just use Firefox on mobile and home but use Brave for work.
I’d be interested to hear which plugins you are referring to as my experience with Firefox has been much the opposite. I often find the plug-in selection lacking when required to use a Chromium based browser.
Mainly Dragon Medical One
Tabs folders on Android is a big reason to use Brave instead of Firefox. Tab management is way better. Not some habit. Straight facts. But Firefox has different benefits. F.E. multiple search engines to use in search bar.
Tab folders became such a nuisance for me on Chrome Mobile I started using Firefox. I keep only 5-6 tabs open at a time, webpages opening in the same tab group thing was just too confusing for my very lean tab management mind. Now my 5 tabs really had “9 tabs”.
Firefox tab management is way simpler. It can be good for some people. But sometimes I miss good tab management support in Firefox.
I really like Vivaldi’s tab management on Android myself. It’s more desktop like.
Yup. Good to know you are happy 😃🤘
@FarLine99 @orbituary that’s just Google Chrome tab management. You can get the same thing from Cromite, and it’s not even owned by an ad company!
Yup. Cromite is also a very good option. Good to see legacy of Bromite is not lost.
Chromium browsers could one day be forced to adopt Google Chrome’s updates to maintain their licenses. This could mean that Chrome’s war against ad-block could spread even to Brave. That gives Google too much control over the internet for any one company.
It definetly can happen. Using Firefox is very important this days. Definetly. So do I. Giving all control about WEB to Google is too bad idea. But it is reality we see.
extensions
you mean how Brave doesn’t let you install any on mobile, while Firefox does?
Firefox Android extension support is a killer feature. Use it extensively. I was talking about some extensions that are not available on desktop Firefox compared to chromium browsers.
Being able to use Ublock Origin on my Android was a game changer. I can’t see using any other browser on mobile.
Can I ask which extensions on chromium browsers that you use that aren’t on Firefox. For me, I’ve found every extension I ever needed on Firefox.
For me, everything is OK. But I heard people that needed very specific extensions for work/hobby/productivity that are not available in Firefox. So Brave will be just better on desktop then 🙂
good folder support on android
Can you expand on this? What do you mean by “folder support”? I use Firefox on Android (Fennec branch), and I guess I’m not sure what I’m missing.
Folders for browser tabs. And all in all, working with tabs is more convenient in Chromium browsers.
I’ve never had a problem on Firefox. What is the complaint people have about browser tabs in Firefox? The only complaints I’ve seen have been strictly cosmetic.
I do agree it would be nice to have more folders for my mobile bookmarks. It’s actually one thing that perplexes me. Seems like such a basic thing. It definitely would not make me switch browsers, though, especially not to Brave.
Edit: Perhaps ironically, I just remembered the thing that made me switch from Chrome on Android once and for all was their insistence on displaying browser tabs as cards. At the time, I had heard many of the same myths and half-truths about Firefox that are being shared in this thread (slow, buggy, won’t recognize certificates). Happily, I discovered none of these things were accurate, and in fact if anything it ran faster and more efficiently on my device. It was at that point that I also started becoming more concerned about my privacy, and I subsequently learned that I was already using the best browser where privacy is concerned – I just had to adjust a few settings and switch to a different branch. Funny how “better browser tabs” is hailed as a reason to use a chromium-based browser, when I found the better browser tabs in Firefox all along!
- it works out of the box. For no tech-savy people, is all in one
Are you suggesting Firefox doesn’t work out of the box?
No, I mean thst Firefox does not have privacy enchainment tools enabled/installed out of the box. You have to do it manually.
Also a big reason to use it.
I don’t trust Brave one bit. Its whole approach reeks of a bait-and-switch (think “we won’t share or sell your data” pre-9/11 Google). Its founder is a massive homophobe and crypto-bro, and I have a massive learned distrust of homophobes and crypto-bros.
Moreover, I see no reason to use it when we already have far superior options (Firefox).
Remember when facebook was a new alternative to myspace that offered privacy and control over who sees your posts? Pepperidge farm remembers.
No
/thread
This is the way
Absolutely not. Brave is a bloated mess with feature creep and stealing advertisements. It’s ran by a right wing nut job that got fired from Mozilla after publicly stating he hated gay marriage. And the greatest sin of them all: it’s chromium.
No idea why people consider them private over Firefox. Literally just install uBlock Origin on Firefox and you’ll have a way better experience.
LibreWolf is better.
LibreFox is LibreWolf now btw
You are right 👍
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Google monopoly which is causing huge issues right now
Chromium isn’t that bad. It’s Google that’s bad
it’s involved in crypto. That’s a permanent red flag for me.
The red flag is that they quietly added crypto and made it opt-out by default. They have a history of shady things like this over the years, such as using ad referral links. Immediately after they get caught, they go on a marketing campaign and drown out the controversy with an influx of new users.
They basically act like it would only take a small sack of money to get them to sell all their users down the river.
the red flag for me is that they have anything to do with cryptocurrencies at all. Anything else is superfluous details.
I view anything to do with cryptocurrency as a scam. Which, I have found, is the safest bet to make.
It’s incredibly volatile as an investment, so yes avoiding it would be safest.
Cryptomining as a feature in software is most definitely a scam.
Yep.
Crypto is nothing but a scam that the lowest common denominators are constantly fooled into thinking its their get rich quick method, only to be shocked when they lose all their money.
Anyone involved in crypto is a scam.
anyone pushing crypto is either a scammer or a brainless moron.
Any company or group sneakily putting crypto in their shit deserves to be burned to the ground, metaphorically speaking, and the ashes pissed in .
I agree, but it’s a shame that crypto has garnered this reputation as a get rich quick scheme. It reaally had the potential to upend digital currency and end our reliance on banks.
Currency only has value when people think it has value. And at this point, the current state of bitcoin, the largest crypto, isn’t very great.
Monero is a good contender for digital currency, as it has privacy set on default and it follows the spirit of the bitcoin whitepaper than bitcoin ever did, imo. Its value is stable, and more privacy companies are accepting it as a valid currency for their services (mullvad, for example)
Crypto has garnered that reputation, because thats all it is. Since its inception. Its never been anything but… Anyone who thinks otherwise were just people who fell for the scam.
Its nothing but a MLM for idiot techies who think they are smart, but would totally pick up a USB drive in the parking lot and plug it into a critical system to find out whats on it.
I’ve heard they store your cookies on the block chain, or something.
They implement profile syncing (bookmarks, cookies, history, etc) using blockchain. AFAIK the data is encrypted with your private key which is derived from a mnemonic phrase, so it’s probably ZK.
if only I can access it anyway, why the hell does it need to be on a blockchain in the first place? I still don’t want everyone to have a copy of it even if it is encrypted. Nobody else should ever need it. I’d rather just sync that data between my own devices, and not everyone else’s
Fair enough. Are there extensions for Chromium/Firefox that do multi-device sync properly (e.g. strictly peer to peer)?
Never trust Brave. The CEO is a horrible person too
You mean the crypto-bro browser funded by billionaire Peter Thiel, who runs the corporate intelligence agency Palantir, which contracts with the Department of Defense to spy on Americans?
Uh, no.
According to Brave’s CEO, that’s not really true though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25840586
Can you provide contradictory evidence? I tried to no avail. I would stop using Brave if it turns out that Thiel is having a bigger stake in Brave than I knew so far.
Its entire business model is a protection racket wrapped in a crypto scam, so no, I don’t trust it!
It also doesn’t help that that it’s run by the incompetent dipshit who inflicted JavaScript on the world and who later got kicked out of Mozilla for being a bad person. Furthermore, being based on Chromium instead of Firefox is an unforgivable sin by itself. Really, from my perspective there’s basically nothing in its favor at all.
Never trust a web browser sold to you with crypto incentives.
Firefox is foss, transparent and it has more than enough add-ons to make brave pointless.
but RAM and page loading speed
Oh no!
(no one cares)
Exactly this.
Plus, Brave’s CEO is a piece of shit
and firefox has manifest v2 so you can controll what network loads.
Never trust anything sold to you with crypto incentives honestly.
Games, software, no matter what.
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and they tried to add a cryptominer to the browser.
Firefox is the only browser I trust.
And I don’t trust them, but from all other options they seem the ones that I will accept.
Honest question: what do you have against Mozilla/firefox?
They’re a company, and a company is a collection of people driven by financial motives. You shouldn’t trust any company implicitly.
Mozilla has made a lot of bad decisions recently(laying off 50% of staff a couple years ago), they gave up on their XR browser, and numerous performance issues on Mac. I love what Mozilla stands for, but the management has degraded quite a bit in the last 10 years. The only thing I use these days from Mozilla is Thunderbird but even that is showing its age.
.
Lesser of two evils
That approach gets you evil solutions.
I welcome any alternatives to the current situation, but unfortunately that’s where we are right now.
The only solution would be a massive effort that requires decades of engineering hours and a few million dollars.
CEO is a massive bigot. no way
👌🙂
I just switched to Librewolf from Brave because fuck Chromium and fuck Google.
Did I trust brave as a Browser? Yes, at least enough to use it as my daily driver. Because the worst thing they’ve done that I’m aware of is add affiliate links. When somebody noticed they didn’t bullshit their way out of it, they apologised and fixed it:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-affiliate-links-crypto-privacy-ceo-apology
There is a lot of hand wringing about various aspects of their browser and the personality of their CEO but the browser is open source and the code is watched by a lot of eyeballs. If they went truly bad somebody is going to notice quickly.
They are a company and have to find a way to make money but they never once forced anything on me. It was always relatively simple to disable anything they added that I didn’t want and they never added anything surreptitiously. Unlike Firefox: https://medium.com/@neothefox/firefox-installs-add-ons-into-your-browser-without-consent-again-d3e2c8e08587 and https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/15/mozillas-mr-robot-promo-backfires-after-it-installs-firefox-extension-without-permission/
I know it’s not going to be popular to criticise Firefox and I understand it’s importance as the last true alternative to chromium but my point is that none of the options are whiter than white. And in so far as the available options, Brave and Firefox stand head and shoulders above the rest.
I imagine product managers at Google and Microsoft would be very happy to see us shitting on one of the few open source browsers to gain any kind of traction, instead of focusing our outrage towards their behaviour.
This comment is way underrated. Thanks for this.
I use Brave on my work machine. Tried Firefox, but it just collided with too many internal web tools I need to use. I also heavily use tab grouping, and last I checked, it was a no-go on FF.
People are desperately looking for a hero browser. In the end, you just may wanna roll with the browser that ticks the most boxes…
Yup. Brave and Firefox are basically the best options out there. Big tech is very happy when privacy people are shitting about choice.
The best options for me is either Librewolf or ungoogled chromium when it comes to privacy.
No.
I’d prefer them over Chrome, jus slightly, but thank the gods for Firefox.
God bless Firefox. Definitely. I use Brave as a second browser sometimes. But my main browser is Firefox (Fennec) with uBlock Origin and Skip Redirect.
Anything that promotes crypto usually reeks of a scam.
Not always 😃
Probably why they said “usually.”
Yes always actually
Always
