ZeroCool@feddit.ch
on 23 Oct 2023 02:32
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Yep, this news actually broke a couple days ago, I remember seeing a Brave fanboy having a meltdown over it and ranting about how Mozilla is the real shady company, blah, blah, blah.
pensivepangolin@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 02:45
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Oh dear lord. What did they say in support of their “Mozilla is shady” argument?
russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net
on 23 Oct 2023 04:23
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Yeah if it’s the comment chain that I think they’re referring to, I believe it came down to Mozilla “being in bed with Google” because Google is the default search engine.
I’ll take the default search engine being Google over things like affiliate links being hijacked, but maybe I’m crazy for taking that position.
clearleaf@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 22:25
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Typical Brave user hating google while using chrome with preinstalled extensions. Everything about that browser is the opposite of what it should be. Same with the users.
jet@hackertalks.com
on 23 Oct 2023 03:26
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To be fair. Mozilla foundation is shady. They keep pushing things that don’t follow their core mission. That try to expand their brand.
You can use Mozilla to build solid privacy respecting systems, but Firefox out of the box not so much. They’re better than Google, but that’s a low fucking bar.
Mullvad browser, Tor browser, mull for Android - all use the core Firefox open source engine, to make privacy respecting programs that work out of the box with privacy respecting defaults.
So I would say Mozilla is a good guy in this conversation, but not a saint.
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 05:31
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Though they are transparent with the fact that they are doing it. I’m not a fan of it either, but it’s not too shady when they’re open about it IMO.
The Mozilla telemetry, pocket, Mozilla synchronization, experiments, the new tab page basically being an advertisement page. That leaves the sour taste in my mouth, so I don’t trust them because of that… Shady good guy vibes:)
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 07:32
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They’re doing what they think they need to justify their existence, and although I personally believe being just a great browser would be enough I appreciate their communication around their ventures. It’s not great, but it’s not like they’re installing malware in the background.
jet@hackertalks.com
on 23 Oct 2023 07:39
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They get pretty close sometimes. I respect their mojo, but I don’t install vanilla Firefox anymore. On anything. For any reason. I don’t trust them anymore.
I wish them the best, if I could donate directly to Firefox development I would, but it’s impossible with them. So I don’t. I donate to mullvad, I donate to the Tor project, and I donate to servo. That’s what I can do to make sure we maintain an open and free web
This is an old issue, I was just linking to it to reference why I have friendly relations with Firefox but I doubt they’re intentions, or at least I consider them an ally but one that needs to be double checked.
The date on that post is clearly wrong. Maybe they got some weird content management system that’s updating the date and correctly or they made an edit or something
doublejay1999@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 11:54
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Mullvad are a for profit company . Why do u donate to them ?
And may I point out that just being a great browser hasn’t worked out so well for Firefox so far. Unfortunately in today’s day and age you have to promote yourself to stand out. Chrome is an abject piece of crap that actively spies on you and yet Google’s PR has managed to convince the vast majority to use it.
QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 17:49
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It’s also worth noting that Chrome’s security model is much more robust than Firefox’s. Acting like Firefox is superior in every regard only serves to undercut Mozilla’s pleas for more contributors and funding.
I dont get why everyone bitches about Pocket, tbh. Ive been a Pocket user for years and Mozilla’s purchase of them has made them better if anything.
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 20:14
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I’ve always liked the idea of pocket and have tried to get into using it multiple times but sadly I’m a savage who hates even using bookmarks for some reason. I just keep all of it in my brain (which tends to mean I do not keep it at all).
They keep trying to make money so they don’t go under if/when Google pulls the plug on their easy money.
helenslunch@feddit.nl
on 24 Oct 2023 15:58
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The problem is Mozilla advertises themselves as this last bastion of privacy but a cursory glance at their own privacy policy makes it very clear that they’re blowing smoke up your ass.
Yes, you can change some settings and add extensions to make it private but out of the box it is anything but.
The sad truth is that, despite being a basic necessity, there are no “good” browsers. It’s very difficult to have a monetization model that is privacy-respecting.
Yes you can use something like Mullvad that is totally privacy-respecting out of the box, but it’s so far down the scale that it will break a lot of sites.
Brave is just the flavor of shit that I choose to eat.
For what it’s worth mullvad browser works for all of my use cases, I haven’t found anything it doesn’t work for.
helenslunch@feddit.nl
on 24 Oct 2023 16:05
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It’s mainly NoScript that breaks sites for me, and there’s no way to disable it.
Actually currently my Mullvad browser is not working at all. I have no idea why. My other 4 browsers continue unfettered but Mullvad won’t load a single webpage.
Plus not being unable to be set as the the default browser means I often forget it’s even there.
You can open up the no script options and click on disable globally.
Sorry to hear mullvad’s not loading anything. Seems like a weird bug
Setting the default browser, is a problem on Windows, there is a workaround I could dig up for you if you want. But basically you have to make a script and then modify the registry to point to that script as the default browser. It’s a pain in the butt but it works. Thankfully on Linux, and Mac OS it just works as the default browser
helenslunch@feddit.nl
on 24 Oct 2023 16:17
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I follow Ghacks, a tech site, as well and boy there is a Brave shill on there who attacks everyone there for daring to say anything against it. He knows stuff, judging from his comments, yet is so anti Mozilla and pro Brave that I can’t understand. Almost thinks anyone not using Brave is inferior.
dustyData@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 12:47
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It’s not good to stereotype people. But, I would bet money that they have any three of these: bought NFCs NFTs unironically, supports OpenAI unconditionally, propose blockchain on everything, bought a pizza with bitcoin years ago that would be millions of dollars today and are still salty about it, have a Starlink receiver, drive a beaten down Tesla they can’t afford to repair because they spent their money paying for FSD early access, and would definitely be first in line to fly Starship to Mars if they were allowed to, they posts to imageai regularly.
Yes, that pizza for Bitcoin story is quite popular, though it happened in very early days of the currency. Also, I assume you meant NFTs instead of NFCs :p. For a second, I was wondering what did near field communication had to do with this.
cley_faye@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 08:36
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The Mozilla foundation is super shady, and some Firefox devs does have it in them to change stuff to piss off people. It doesn’t excuse Brave though.
pensivepangolin@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 12:08
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Please cite an actual source for that claim.
cley_faye@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 16:58
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Their public reports were a fair share of the money goes to its administration, were the dev funds are lower each years, were some funded orgs does not seem to exist, with the addition of actual user contribution being a drop in the ocean of money influx, is the source for the “shady” part.
Me (and many other) having long debates on their bugzilla about changes they made that ignore user settings, against all common practices, with no chance of reverting them because they knew better, until some big service (say, gmail) is impacted at which point all their arguments are forgotten and the changes are reverted, for the pissing of people part.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 18:38
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don’t you just love projection?
cant accept the facts, so deflect the criticism to something else that is in no way a valid target for them.
sneezymrmilo@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 17:10
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I’ve actually been attacked on several occasions by brave fan boys when I casually mentioned that I switched to Firefox and loved it. Idk what their deal is but I find it hilarious that all this stuff is coming out about brave recently 🤣
willis936@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 16:53
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They’re literally on the payroll. It’s a pyramid scheme.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 02:11
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Please Brave: cutout the bullshit defaults game. Everybody’s getting smarter and companies are getting stupider
Edit: said this b4, don’t fuck with your own competitive advantage where you haven’t had a joint and duly qualified computer science lawyer who explains how easy it is to lose trust and commercial viabillity for a sketchy, underhanded product (see LastPass). Also FUCK LastPass, may this Pass be their Last
LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 02:20
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Ok. Chrome sucks. Brave sucks. What’s good. Firefox?
Grant_M@lemmy.ca
on 23 Oct 2023 02:30
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EuroNutellaMan@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 08:13
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he uses this post as the sole way to access the internet. He is forever trapped here with no way out. He weeps for there are no memes to him but his condition, as he slowly falls into the pit of insanity. He is forever condemned to read about Brave browser quietly slippin VPN services, and the occasional comment. But eventually the activity will die, and he will be condemned to a lifetime of loneliness until bit-rot will consume the thread or death will free him of his pain.
TheCuriosity@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 09:34
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It’s like his personal version of when the sun dies for an immortal.
original_reader@lemm.ee
on 23 Oct 2023 05:44
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Unless browser fingerprinting is your concern, in which case the most generic, unmodified browser is best (e.g. Tor).
But that is a huge topic for another thread.
finn_der_mensch@discuss.tchncs.de
on 23 Oct 2023 09:36
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Overall you‘re right but in which world is tor generic and unmodified 😂
WallEx@feddit.de
on 23 Oct 2023 10:47
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It’s not possible to identify you if you use the tor browser without changing the window size or any other settings, because the fingerprint is literally the same amongst everyone that uses it this way. So you kind of blend in with the masses, it’s neither generic nor unmodified, I give you that :D
netchami@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 15:06
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The Tor browser is a modified version of Firefox, but you are not meant to modify the Tor Browser, in order for everyone using the Tor Browser to look the same and blend in. This is done for maximum privacy and anonymity.
original_reader@lemm.ee
on 24 Oct 2023 05:44
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Simply the OS already makes that difficult, true. Nonetheless, it’s one of your best bets.
For those who truly want to stay private, installing plugins on the Tor browser is obviously a no go. Changing any setting or even the window size should not be done. Seriously.
And I’d venture that Tor on phones might be the most homogenous, though that still isn’t saying a lot, sadly. Plus, smartphones are a privacy nightmare regardless (tip of the iceberg).
fatalError@lemmy.sdf.org
on 23 Oct 2023 07:11
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This is the way
KonalaKoala@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 04:06
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And the only thing greater than Firefox is Librewolf.
EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
on 23 Oct 2023 06:48
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Or hardened Firefox, which is pretty much the same thing (I use Librewolf myself for convenience).
netchami@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 10:56
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And LibreWolf is better. It’s Firefox with all of the privacy settings preconfigured and uBlock Origin preinstalled. Also, crap like Sponsored sites and Pocket are removed.
SaakoPaahtaa@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 11:16
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Been very happy with Librewolf. Thought it would be another one of those softwares recommended by linux-losers but which never actually works, but it’s quite the opposite.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 12:22
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How is Librewolf different from Mullvad browser, which is supposed to be Tor browser (hardened FF) without the Tor?
netchami@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 15:04
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The Mullvad Browser is based on the Tor browser, but it doesn’t use the Tor network, whereas LibreWolf is based on Firefox + arkenfox user.js. LibreWolf is better for normal day-to-day browsing, where as Mullvad is meant to be used for high privacy/security tasks. Mullvad is kinda hard to daily drive, because it can’t be configured to save cookies, you can’t really use extensions and it lacks some other things. These features were removed in the Tor browser, because as I said, it’s meant for high thread model usage.
Edit: I like the Mullvad browser and I use it myself, but not as my daily driver.
doppelgangmember@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 22:52
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High threat*
Not trying to correct you at all, only for ppl’s understanding :)
Btw ty for mentioning Mulvad Browser. I liked it honestly but it’s still new, you feel me.
netchami@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 23:03
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Thanks, just realized that this is not !privacy@lemmy.ml and people here are probably not aware of threat modeling. But in this context just the word ‘thread’ might actually fit better as the threat model pretty much stays the same.
Grant_M@lemmy.ca
on 23 Oct 2023 13:34
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Good call
Aatube@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 13:46
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Waterfox is similar, though it doesn’t install additional extensions but comes with a bit of look and feel customization options instead. It restores those non-floating tabs from quantum by default and is pretty speedy.
netchami@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 15:01
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Waterfox is more for look and feel, whereas LibreWolf makes significant privacy improvements. You can choose for yourself. Btw: You can also customize the UI on LibreWolf, just enable userChrome.css customization under Settings -> LibreWolf -> ‘Allow userChrome.css customization’. Now, you can customize everything you want.
Well yes, Wolf is a lot more focused on privacy, but it’s also a secondary goal for Waterfox. In 6.0 they enabled DNS over Oblivious HTTP (no idea what that means but you probably do) by default and incorporated yokkoffing’s Betterfox preconfig of user.js. It’s for those who are concerned about privacy but not nearly as much as the privacy community. For me, I’d rather have cookies.
netchami@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 17:14
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they enabled DNS over Oblivious HTTP (no idea what that means but you probably do)
It’s basically the standard DNS-over-HTTPS functionality that is already present in almost every browser but routed over a special proxy server. Unfortunately though, Firefox uses Cloudflare services for this.
For me, I’d rather have cookies.
I also have LibreWolf configured to store cookies. It blocks 3rd-party cookies though.
Word. Last I had looked, they lagged a version or two behind on the base FF version. Likely just a lack of contributors or something then. Ty.
netchami@sh.itjust.works
on 24 Oct 2023 04:12
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They used to lag behind, but now they caught up, so I can recommend LibreWolf to anyone without worries from a security perspective.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 16:35
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I love Firefox, used it for years. However I eventually had to switch because of weird bugs and issues with functioning sites. In my sparing personal usage I didn’t run into many issues, but using it at work I ran into really weird issues all the time.
Overland@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 02:30
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It’s got its problem but it’s my preference
viking@infosec.pub
on 23 Oct 2023 02:32
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Firefox, or on mobile, Fennec. It’s a Firefox clone with some added functionality, maintained by the developers of the F-Droid app store themselves, so highly trusted & fully compatible to stay in sync with the desktop Firefox.
For those rare occasions where a website absolutely doesn’t work with FF, and you must use it for some reason, I’d suggest Chromium portable on Desktop, and Kiwi Browser on mobile.
Orbituary@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 02:44
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Last time I tried Mull, I could only use a handful extensions. I chose Fennec particularly because it supports all desktop extensions. Is that still the case?
Mull has the same limitation as Fennec in that you have a small curated list of available add-ons unless you sign in with a Mozilla account and make a collection or whatever.
I have Kiwi installed and like that desktop Chrome extensions can be installed on it for the odd occasion. However, IIRC, it is updated infrequently and isn’t recommended as a daily driver.
I’d never use it as a daily driver, really just for websites that absolutely don’t work with Firefox/Fennec. Happens very infrequent if at all though.
Deebster@infosec.pub
on 23 Oct 2023 02:34
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I’m team Firefox, very happy here. There’s a small amount of optional telemetry to disable to maximise your privacy, and it has the best plugins because there’s a lot of choice and they’re not purposely crippled.
I like Firefox because it allows, Atleast for now, customization via userchrome.css files. I once tried Edge and hated it’s bloated right click context menu. Meanwhile, in Firefox, I can trim down the context menu to only basic elements.
I do wish Firefox had proper PWA support, but otherwise I have been using it as the main browser on both PC and phone(since uBlock Origin is supported on it, the only Chromium browser to support it is Kiwi Browser on Android).
AzureRT@reddthat.com
on 23 Oct 2023 04:07
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There’s probably an addon for Firefox that gives some PWA support
There does exists one. But when I last tried it, the experience was worse than what a native integration would give. It wasn’t streamlined as in other browsers. It doesn’t matter much since I only use YouTube Music as a PWA, which I have a relegated to another window in another browser.
Off topic, but screw you Google, for not giving a native app. Spotify meanwhile has command line third party clients even(looks at ncspot) for Premium users.
netchami@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 10:59
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Check out this custom YouTube Music desktop client: github.com/th-ch/youtube-music.
It has neat features like an adblocker and a download feature and many more things built-in and it’s open source. It’s available for Windows, macOS and Linux.
There is Fennec available on F Droid that is basically Firefox with some blobs removed. Not as hardened as Mull but still a worthy option. There is one more browser based on Firefox called Iceraven for Android but it is not available on F Droid even. Though it supports a much wider variety of extensions than mobile Firefox does as of now. The downside is that it gets security updates usually later than Firefox, being an independent project.
hperrin@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 03:33
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Firefox is the least sucky.
zebs@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 06:25
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Vivaldi is a good Chrome replacement.
Calibree@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 07:10
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It’s really great! Been using it for nearly a year now and love the influx of privacy friendly features.
So?
There is no way for the vast majority of users to read or understand the source for something like Firefox - to the point it may as well be closed source.
Agreed of course plenty of security researchers will be examining the code which they can’t with Vivaldi - but presumably if that was a security advantage Firefox would have less vulnerabilities when compared to other browsers. (Actually would be interested to see if this is the case!)
gothicdecadence@lemm.ee
on 23 Oct 2023 08:41
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Cool, that kinda looks like vivaldi except based on firefox.
MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 16:35
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It’s the closest I’ve been able to find to vivaldi. Unfortunately no one does workspaces as good as vivaldi, but their implementation deleted all my workspaces one day, with no back up, and that was after several other total wipes of my windows/tabs.
PS: Depressing how many of you seem to consider such a drastic violation of privacy acceptable.
lemmyvore@feddit.nl
on 23 Oct 2023 09:47
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That feature was originally meant to be an image sharing platform, but had an unfortunate name and the button being called “Save” (although it did have a cloud icon on it) didn’t help either. Long story short, people mistook it for a screenshotting tool.
It was definitely a blunder, don’t get me wrong, but it was dumb rather than malicious.
Tbf, when Mozilla realized their blunder they cut out the sharing part and left it just as a screenshot tool because that’s the part that people liked.
I have a hard time seeing how anybody can be stupid enough to make such a colossal mistake by accident. Let alone how it can slip through all the layers of QA that are in place and then take so f’n long to fix it once the bug reports come pouring in. This is not a small woopsy, but goes completely against decade long establish GUI nomenclature. This was straight up from the malware dark pattern cookbook.
And even ignoring that, an upload into the cloud should always come with a big fat warning anyway. The whole process made it incredible unclear where the data is going, who has access to it, how long it is staying, how to delete it and all that.
All that from a company that has made “privacy” their main marketing feature.
Long story short, people mistook it for a screenshotting tool.
It IS a screenshooting tool.
when Mozilla realized their blunder they cut out the sharing part
The sharing part was great. The problem was never the functionality, but the malicious and misleading integration of it. Them removing that part just felt like they were trying to hide the evidence of their misdoings instead of fixing the problem.
This was straight up from the malware dark pattern cookbook.
To what end? They didn’t do anything to exploit it and deleted the sharing platform as soon as the confusion became apparent. What was Mozilla’s nefarious goal, to dig through people’s screenshots? 🙂
It IS a screenshooting tool.
It is now. Originally it was just a tool to capture pages as images and share them online. If it had been called “Share” they could have avoided the whole debacle.
The sharing part was great.
This only goes to show how conflicted the whole thing was. You can’t find two people who liked the same two aspecte of it. 😅
Trust me, you can’t get such a confusing mess on purpose. Please also remember who you’re dealing with, this is Mozilla, the inheritor of Netscape, which previously gave the world such blunders as Netscape 6.
This was a Pilot program that mixed multiple goals together and ended up as feature gore. I also wish they could have salvaged the sharing platform too but rescuing the image capture as a screenshot tool was a pretty good outcome, all things considered.
not_an_island@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 15:30
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Brave. It ain’t perfect, but I actually like that it comes with Adblock, IPFS and Tor support out of the box. Gives you a fully functioning browser out of the box without having to mess with tons of plugins.
If you want something more minimalist, Librewolf might be worth a look.
stillwater@lemm.ee
on 23 Oct 2023 16:59
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PS: Depressing how many of you seem to consider such a drastic violation of privacy acceptable.
It’s more that I had hoped we left everyone who acts like any little thing Firefox does is the worst and most egregious privacy violation in the world back in r/Firefox where they let all the Brave astroturfing take over.
Sure, you’ve got one significant issue (that was already mitigated and addressed), but you’re ignoring how unique it was while also saying there is “many, many more” without any hint of what they would be. Is “The Megabar exists” one of them?
ackzsel@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 11:14
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But you don't. Because you don't.
Nobody does. Windows is closed source and its inner working is a trade secret. This means you cannot know how to lock down windows. Of course there are best practices based on info from microsoft or people who know a thing or two about info sec but it's all guess work and/or trusting the developer by its blue eyes.
hiddengoat@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 14:01
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There's no fucking guesswork. Everything in and out of the system can be monitored. If you knew anything about Windows you'd know that, but your entire Windows knowledge comes from shit-tier memes and snarky stories from The Register.
wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
on 23 Oct 2023 16:21
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Thats something Ive never understood about closed source.
The OS, in its entirety, is on your computer. Why are you not able to open it up and root around within it? Is it just encrypted to a degree it cant be cracked? Or is the legal ramifications of unraveling it just not worth unraveling it?
You can’t harden windows to the point of an acceptable level of security. That is the inherent nature of proprietary software.
hiddengoat@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 14:36
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And yet there are people that do that every single day, and it's pretty much trivial to do.
It's fucking hilarious how many high horses Linux users ride on while knowing absolutely nothing about any other system. You just repeat shit that The Register or Slashdot told you was true.
wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
on 23 Oct 2023 16:12
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Prove to me that your windows system is actually “hardened” and that you have no backdoors or telemetry broadcasting at all. At the very least, Microsoft still knows what you are doing, you cannot trust your 3rd party firewall because windows can still sidestep it.
I don’t even know who the fuck those people are, all I can tell you is that there is a reason that any professional application that requires legitimate security, runs on foss systems, or at the very least source available. If you are too stupid to realize that, then you really don’t have any say in this matter whatsoever. It doesn’t even just include baremetal Linux either.
I don’t know who you’ve been arguing with on this, but I actually make a living working on Linux machines, I’m not even coming at you from a freetard perspective, solely work experience.
hiddengoat@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 18:15
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"Windows just ignores firewall rules" - CITATION FUCKING NEEDED
You know nothing.
EDIT
Oh, to be fucking clear you know nothing about Windows. I don't give a shit how much experience you have with Linux. You very obviously do not know how to administer Windows systems.
you very obviously do not know how to administer windows systems
ahem
Active directory, Azure, Windows Server. Those three things are on my resume. I have extensive systems administration experience, being a good systems administrator requires you to be able to administrate more than one operating system.
Yes, windows will ignore your firewalls rules if you try to block certain applications from broadcasting telemetry. I don’t need a citation because you can very easily test this for yourself. The fact that you need a citation tells me you don’t know shit about what you are talking about because it is incredibly easy to reproduce.
You can rip these components out at the expense of usability, to the point where you could potentially have a secure windows system that is so useless, that you might as well just run desktop Linux or BSD. You will never see patches to potential backdoors, you will never see any bugfixes, hell to even begin the process of hardening windows, windows update is the very first thing you have to disable. Even windows AME’s team says that their spin of windows is not as secure as the average Linux distro for these very reasons.
hiddengoat@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 23:21
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So you don't know how to use a firewall is what I'm seeing here. Weird flex but shut the fuck up.
So you don’t have basic reading English comprehension is what I’m seeing here. Weird flex but shut the fuck up.
BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 06:00
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It's good users are now aware that Brave includes redundant features that you have to pay extra for to activate. Users browser will update everytime the browser or the VPN software needs an update.
For example Firefox VPN from Mozilla is separate software. They don't force millions of users to download it even if they don't want it.
This is yet another example why people should not be using Brave and should be skeptical of its intentions.
hiddengoat@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 06:19
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Brave is shit but calling this a reason to be skeptical is fucking stupid. Almost every piece of software includes features that some subset of users will never touch. That isn't a reason not to include it.
"Oh no, Firefox includes a bookmark toolbar! I don't use bookmarks so they need to get rid of this!"
brave is basically installing a future minefield with system-wide access waiting to be triggered by them, or an exploitable bug by others, on all brave users' pcs and not just those who sub to their vpn service.
hiddengoat@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 14:09
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They don’t force millions of users to download it even if they don’t want it.
Mozilla has been forcing Pocket on Firefox users for years, as well as Mr Robot ads and numerous other things. They don’t exact have the moral high ground here.
wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
on 23 Oct 2023 15:53
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Whats pocket? And why is it bad that its on the browser?
Pocket is Mozilla’s bookmark/sync pay-cloud-service. Comes with Firefox by default and can’t be easily removed. From a company that claims to care about privacy I would expect a self-hosted local-first approach for such problems, not a cloud service.
wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
on 23 Oct 2023 16:24
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But its not active unless you turn it on right? Just preinstalled so if you decide to use it its already there?
Cause that does sound like a little bloatware but if thats the only bloat they have and thats its only issue Im not sure Im bothered by it.
that’s exactly what people are complaining in this thread, just about different browser
Virkkunen@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 06:09
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Because it's Brave and people like to jump on bandwagons. This is like the 6th time I've seen this article posted in lemmybin also.
And since we have the reddit-minded folk here, no, I do not support Brave and never will and I would much rather they disappear from the internet, but using ragebait to complain about the browser installing the necessary files to have one of their advertised services working, like pretty much every other software does, is not the way to move forward.
waitmarks@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 11:27
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Yea i don’t get the hate boner for brave. I get it’s sketchy and don’t use it myself, but they aren’t sneakily installing some VPN to redirect all your web traffic without you knowing. They tell you about it right up front because it’s a service they want to sell.
If you don’t like the browser, don’t use it. There isn’t a need to go on some crusade to smear them with bullshit.
USSEthernet@startrek.website
on 24 Oct 2023 15:42
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It’s a bunch of people upset with the company’s CEO or whatever over personal views. The browser itself wasn’t that bad after you disabled the ad and crypto stuff, which they heavily pushed on you.
I had switched to it from Chrome last year but ended up not caring for it, so I went to Firefox and Librewolf. People can use whatever the hell they want, idgaf. But for those who will eventually end up complaining about YouTube ads and continue to use Chrome, I have no sympathy for if you can’t take the few minutes to download and install a new browser and move your favorites over.
AustralianSimon@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 19:12
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This community has some of the worst biased tech readers.
SoonaPaana@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 04:00
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Why is installing a VPN considered bad? Is it because it is done without user consent? I don’t understand if there is any malicious intent.
can@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Oct 2023 04:05
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Brave browser has been automatically installing VPN services on Windows computers without user consent, but it remains inactive unless the user subscribes.
They’re installing extra software that’s useless unless you give them money. Plus you really want to be aware of your VPN since all your traffic will be going through it.
It doesn’t auto enable and chromium also gives you a lot of unnecessary features. While I think Brave is bloat I don’t see how this is any more than the usual.
admin@lemmy.my-box.dev
on 23 Oct 2023 04:15
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Because a vpn can monitor all the websites that you visit. Not directly what you’re looking at, but definitely where you’re looking. Just line your provider can, if you’re not using a vpn. But at least with your provider, you have a contract with them - you pay them to transport your data and nothing more. Some very scummy providers aside, that’s where it stops.
A free vpn, however, needs to pay for transporting your data somehow. And if you’re not paying for it with money, then who/what is?
dustyData@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 12:54
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It’s not even free, the service itself is a payed subscription. But it’s there and it could be working and funneling data without the user knowing it if they wanted to.
admin@lemmy.my-box.dev
on 24 Oct 2023 16:02
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I’m interested to hear what you think a vpn will protect you against. Or what you think the flaws in Toms arguments are.
Edit: I don’t know about you, but I trust my own, GDPR-backed isp far, far more than I trust whichever foreign based vpn company. Especially if they for it for free or cheap.
admin@lemmy.my-box.dev
on 25 Oct 2023 15:37
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The only thing you’re “protecting” yourself from by using a vpn to surf the Internet, is your own provider. It won’t stop any spying software on your phone, or any nefarious scripts on the websites you visit.
Tom’s argument was more nuanced than that, which is why I linked it. I suggest you watch it and explain where he’s wrong if you want to give your argument to ignore him any weight. Ad hominems and “imagined” arguments alone won’t get you very far, I’m afraid.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 16:41
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I actually work in cyber security and I was really happy Tom Scott released that video. VPN companies are some of the scummiest companies out there, and their rampant sponsorships on YouTube were shameless misinformation and fear mongering in order to scare you into giving all your internet traffic to them. Seeing so many sellout tech YouTubers take their sponsorships despite knowing better COUGH NetworkChuck, was one of my biggest pet peeves.
There are seemingly legit VPN companies out there, and there are some legitimate use cases for them, but what Tom is addressing are the shady ones that lie to you about what they’re for and how they help you for their own monetary and in some cases data mining benefit. In most cases you do not need a VPN, and it doesn’t do anything to protect you from “internet criminals”, or provide extra “security” and it only “protects” your privacy by shifting the for-profit company that gets to see all the websites you visit.
I too would like to know why you think a VPN is needed “on today’s web”, I would bet money it came directly out of one of theirs ads scripts.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world
on 25 Oct 2023 17:04
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When I’m away from home, I use my own Wireguard VPN back into my private network, where all of my traffic is filtered.
That’s your own VPN, not a commercial VPN service and you’re using that for what I would assume is DNS filtering. Thats entirely unrelated to what a commercial VPN service does and what Tom Scott’s video is about. And that’s not even a benefit of your VPN, your VPN is just a tool you’re using for remote access to your DNS filter/server which is what’s actually providing you that service. I could do the same exact thing with a recursive DNS server and Pihole using DOH without a VPN at all.
I use a VPN for my job as well, and it isn’t to protect company products (we don’t make a product). It’s to keep prying eyes out.
That is again an entirely different use case and product than what a commercial VPN service is offering. That’s not even for privacy, it’s for secure remote access to your company network.
I’m sorry, but when my wife and kid’s phones are showing them ads for things we talked about 5 minutes ago, they appear horrified by it. Then they move along like nothing happened. That’s the typical user.
That’s not a problem a VPN service solves.
I will continue to not be spied on 24/7 by corporations and my government.
With a VPN service like ProtonVPN, all you’re doing is changing the corporation that can see which sites you visit from your ISP, to Proton. It isn’t inherently any more private or secure, you’re just choosing which corporation you allow the ability to spy on you.
I don’t remember if I saw that video from Tom Scott or not, but I imagine his argument was along the lines of, “if you aren’t doing anything nefarious or you don’t live in a nation state that censors you, then you have nothing to worry about”.
No, his argument was that outside of spoofing your location, and hiding which sites you visit from your ISP specifically, VPN services don’t provide the average consumer with any additional benefit over what you get for free by default due to the wonderful inventions of TLS, and HSTS. The point is that VPN service companies use scare tactics to get you to purchase a product you don’t need to solve problems you don’t have. NetworkChuck made a whole sponsored video about how somebody can man-in-the-middle you at a coffee shop to steal your credit card information to demonstrate the effectiveness of a VPN service and the attack he demonstrated was literally impossible. He created a fake, non-real world scenario straight out of 2003 to deceive the less tech literate public in order to shill a VPN service.
Tom Scott provided a fantastic public service by educating people on what a VPN actually DOES and what it DOESN’T DO. So people can actually make a decision as to whether they need one due to the facts, not misinformation and false advertisement. You on the other hand still can’t seem to articulate what exactly you think a VPN services does for you and how it does it. You have a lot of buzzwords and vague statements about “being spied on”, and never actually said why you think commercial VPN products should be used by the average user “On todays web”.
jet@hackertalks.com
on 23 Oct 2023 06:03
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I agree with what other people said. And here’s a new twist.
Any software that messes with the networking stack, can cause really difficult to debug errors. And it may induce errors in other programs. The more complicated your computer’s networking, the more fragile it is.
So introducing, silently, unasked for, network drivers and VPN hooks into the operating system is harming the compute stability of their user base.
At the very least, it should be opt-in! There should be a dialogue asking hey we have this new awesome feature, click okay to install it, something like that. Informed consent
ackzsel@kbin.social
on 23 Oct 2023 10:11
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It's "all your mail is now redirected to a third party that makes money by mining it for data without you knowing" level of nastiness. Absolutely deplorable and a reason to never touch anything made by the people behind Brave even with a ten foot pole. Brave is a scam and why people pretend its not is beyond me.
that's what the new outlook 'app' (replacing win 10/11's mail 'app') does with gmail accounts. routes all your mail from gmail through microsoft servers before delivering to the app on your pc.
Thanks for pointing me to LibreWolf. I like to use separate browsers as information silos and have been using Brave as my secondary. Been looking forward to switching it out for a long time, LibreWolf sounds like just the ticket.
Paired with the Foxytab plugin to automatically open websites in specific containers or restrict containers to a list of websites. Firefox also has profiles, and a simple extension (with a tiny thing to install in your PC) makes them as easy to use as they’re on Chrome
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
on 23 Oct 2023 09:36
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Independed browser from Google when?
HKayn@dormi.zone
on 23 Oct 2023 11:23
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Opera does this too and nobody bats an eye (anymore).
For some reason people like to clown on Brave specifically.
Asudox@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 12:20
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Probably because nobody cares about Opera doing that since the ones pointing this out are at least privacy aware people that won’t use Opera. It is also a problem when Brave does it because it is a “privacy focused” browser. They sure have the balls to do this.
Opera was also 100% up front about it and sold it as a feature. They didn’t sneak it into installers and crap. IMO that’s the issue, the lack of communication.
kautau@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 21:21
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It’s crazy to me that people ever thought brave was “privacy focused” when it was clear that they were trying to jump on the crypto bandwagon with their own in-network crypto and ad network. It was always just a reskinned chrome with ublock built in and then their ad network tacked on top
And those devs working at Opera that objected to the sale of Opera started Vivaldi, literally “one of the kings of opera” as a competitive browser. It uses chromium under the hood but they’ve made strides in a power user browser. No crypto, built in ad blocking. The only revenue they get in the actual default browser install is that there are like 20 bookmarks to commonly used sites to start, and they have affiliate tags if you keep those bookmarks and use them. Other than that, they’ve turned off chromium’s new DRM features
Dozzi92@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 18:33
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Camscanner hurt. I used it constantly. Then boom, absolute 180. I guess that’s the goal. Make a legit app that people love. Then sell it to someone who will exploit your loyalty customers. Cool!
At this point that seems to be the case everywhere. The future looks bleak, and so for most, trying to get what they can out of life before the climate wars, or WW3, or whatever happens seems to be the case. I don’t criticize it. I think there’s a high probability that the reason that we see little extraterrestrial life is that they did the same shit we are doing. The universe has a fractal nature. There are likely many species that also had planets that could support intelligent life. However since the competition for resources is baked into existence, they probably did what we are doing and are themselves no longer alive because they ended themselves before they could really end their stupid arguments about their gods, or work for the collective good more than the individual good
TheLobotomist@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 18:34
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It’s a Chinese app that lets people “scan” a document using the camera on their phone. It was “free” for a long time, turns out it was dropping injected adware on people’s phones.
To be honest, Microsoft lens has had the same features for a long time, but didn’t have “scanner” in the name and most app searches are piss poor so people just literally searched “camera scanner” and got the adware result. Microsoft has their own long and shady history, but dropping an adware payload wasnt part of that.
Dultas@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 21:33
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I’m not so sure that’s true anymore with Windows 11.
Showing in app ads is one thing. Installing a Trojan specifically meant to circumvent App Store ad requirements is another. Windows 11, and most MS products at this point are ad delivery platforms, but they still follow the rules of app stores with the basic requirement of “shows in app ads” and “won’t try to inject a Trojan that beats your phone’s app sandboxing”
TheLobotomist@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 10:12
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Thank you!
Tom_bishop@lemmy.world
on 12 Nov 2023 06:55
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I use it a lot during my study. But when CamScanner started serving ads, intrusive ads, “cloud backup”…i tried searching for alternatives and use microsoft lens. TBH, microsoft lens is shit compared to camscanner. The detection is slow, janky, cant do multiple pages scan and a lot more troublesome to use. CamScanner detection algorithm was way better at that time. So i bite the lbullet and just use it until end of my study.
Some of the OG devs who made Opera have made Vivaldi. It’s chromium under the hood, but with googles tracking and telemetry turned off. It’s not perfect, but it adds a significant number of power user features, includes its own (limited) ad and tracking blocking. I alternate between that and Firefox dev edition as my daily driver
Emerald@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 14:59
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You have to be very brave to download that browser
I have Orion (macOS only for the time being) and it’s sooo good.
The amazing part is that it even works as a daily driver if you’re a not-so-techie person/normal user… but then on top there are all these little extra features and optimizations that make it like Safari if Safari was actually good.
I would at this point a) not be able to go back to either Safari or Firefox as well as b) immediately trust an Orion user on most of what they have to say about a “tech” related opinion :D
DJDarren@thelemmy.club
on 24 Oct 2023 07:18
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Based on your comment, I’ve just downloaded Orion to give it a shake. Very much enjoyed the OS X-esque intro video. Took me right back to installing Snow Leopard for the first time.
MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works
on 24 Oct 2023 15:09
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Sounds interesting. I’d thought I’d heard of all the browsers that exist lol. Gonna give it a spin .
Wow, Orion is pretty slick! And Orion+ doesn’t offer any actual features aside from early access and input on the roadmap. So far so good. Custom buttons is really cool, built in tree style tabs is slick. Also!! orion has workspaces that are as good if not better than vivaldi’s! This is really slick, thanks for sharing
Brodie Robertson is an excellent source of information ☹️
MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works
on 24 Oct 2023 17:27
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Except in terms of browser choice apparently. Either they’re ignorant or being paid. Either way it’s not a good sign.
thefloweracidic@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 17:44
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I don’t like brave because Brandon Eich (CEO, formerly with Mozilla) doesn’t support gay marriage and was pushing anti-vax stuff on twitter. I don’t look for this shit to titillate my tits like some folks, but when it hits me in the face I can’t ignore it.
When fact checking myself I found even more controversies, but I’m not wasting time reading articles that feed a confirmation bias.
I don’t like Brave because they’ve done dodgy things like this time and time again over the years, and each time Brandon Eich went on a marketing campaign across social media to drum up new users and drown the story out.
kautau@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 21:49
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It’s crazy to me that people ever thought brave was “privacy focused” when it was clear that they were trying to jump on the crypto bandwagon with their own in-network crypto and ad network. It was always just a reskinned chrome with ublock built in and then their crypto and ad network tacked on top
ComradeWeebelo@lemm.ee
on 24 Oct 2023 15:38
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He’s also the creator of JavaScript if that irks you any more.
Clbull@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 22:29
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Brave to me is like an online advertising racket. They push ad-blocking software by default in their browser, then extort companies into using their own ad network to advertise to their users. Brave Ads are of course opt-in and the main incentive of enabling them is to earn BAT (Basic Attention Token) which is their cryptocurrency. In terms of their intrusiveness, they’re like push notifications you get up to six times an hour, and from my experience using the browser, it was all mainly crypto marketplaces and VPN’s advertising.
Compared to 2020, when you could earn hundreds of dollars in a year from frequently being served Brave Ads, BAT isn’t really worth shit anymore thanks to the crypto crash, so the main financial incentive to use Brave is gone.
If you want privacy, Firefox is that way. Or if you absolutely need to use something based on Chromium, everyone and their fucking mother has forked that browser.
winky88@startrek.website
on 24 Oct 2023 09:03
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Generally speaking, any service or organization that has to pay youtubers or twitch streamers to drive traffic is…a racket. Avoid like the plague.
Blame YouTube for screwing over legitimate content creators and forcing them to be paid shills for shitty VPN and mobile game companies to pay the bills.
Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 23:38
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Anyone who claims “We’re the best most privacy conscious, secure, and safe product” is already extremely suspicious.
Brave has already been caught Red handed doing anti-privacy and crypto shilling before, yet people decided to forgive them. You don’t forgive these things EVER.
joklhops@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 23:09
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I don’t trust Brave, there’s too much money tied up in it for it to be good for users.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
on 23 Oct 2023 23:49
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So what?
Are people upset about this? I honestly don’t understand.
Anon819450514@lemmy.ca
on 24 Oct 2023 00:25
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I honestly don’t understand someone that would accept anything from a stranger.
You member U2 and the forced album through iTunes?
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 00:40
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No, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
But I still don’t understand why people would make a big deal about a piece of software that installs multiple software packages…
I mean have you ever installed Microsoft office? Did you ask it to install Microsoft access? What does Microsoft access even do?
Or have you ever installed nvidia drivers? Did you ask for the whole “GeForce experience”? Wtf does that even mean?
Installing extra software packages is definitely par for the course, bit in the brave example, at least the extra shit isn’t required for the main app to work, in fact it’s disabled by default, that’s great!
femrap@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 24 Oct 2023 11:41
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To answer your original question: yes I do think people are genuinely upset with this.
If you take your office installation example, you’re installing a suite of applications. You’re not just installing excel, you’re installing the office suite so you’re bound to get all the applications in the suite.
Meanwhile, this would be like installing the office suite and getting a service installed along with it, that can monitor outgoing network traffic without them saying anything about it.
The main two reasons I’d be upset with this if I used brave was: They installed it without saying anything and It’s something that’s inherently a privacy and security risk. Even if brave themselves don’t do anything malicious with it, doesn’t mean that someone who’s found a potential exploit in the VPN service won’t.
Also just as an aside, I also absolutely despise “GeForce Experience” and there are ways to fetch the drivers as standalone packages without getting the telemetry spyware installed alongside them.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 12:50
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It’s something that’s inherently a privacy and security risk. Even if brave themselves don’t do anything malicious with it, doesn’t mean that someone who’s found a potential exploit in the VPN service won’t.
Ok, well a vpn is a potential security improvement if anything… But regardless, it’s off, it’s disabled, unusable unless you’re paying for it. I mean just for perspective, any browser is much more of an inherent security risk than a VPN app sitting dormant and inactive.
But you’re right that users never asked for it, so I get that part.
graveyardchickenhunt@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 15:30
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A VPN is only as much of a security improvement as the service behind it. If it gets installed in a shady way, how much trust can you put into the service?
femrap@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 24 Oct 2023 19:49
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This was my point exactly. A VPN may just as well be used to spy on your traffic rather than secure it. And that’s why I’d be upset, personally: because I don’t trust brave or the company behind it.
But I think the main thing people are up in arms about is the fact that they didn’t ask for it. :)
Google is paying Mozilla to keep their search engine the default in Firefox. Period. There is no Google spyware (or any spyware in general) in Firefox. Just because Google is the default search engine in Firefox doesn’t mean Firefox is Google-controlled spyware.
Also Librewolf’s privacy is in some ways selfish on their part. It strips out Firefox’s troubleshooting data collection so Mozilla loses a good chunk of clues on how well the browser works. Lack of any data would lead to lower browser quality, ends up as a worse Firefox release, and Librewolf gets to be affected directly as a downstream of Firefox. By removing troubleshooting or usage data (which practically doesn’t affect privacy in any way), Librewolf is just hurting itself in the long run. If they’re really aggressive against directly contributing data back to Mozilla, then they should just run their own collection server and contribute the final data back to Mozilla.
erev@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 18:24
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telemetry and troubleshooting information can be used for fingerprinting. This isn’t an issue for most people but I can understand why some wouldn’t like it. Tor browser strips a lot of that as well for similar reasons.
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
on 25 Oct 2023 09:11
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My understanding is that google primarily funds Firefox because if chrome becomes a monopoly then google would have to face antitrust laws. Getting broken up would be more expensive to them than keeping Firefox viable with a minority of people using it as their browser.
badaboomxx@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 10:26
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I tried ff yesterday… it slowed my laptop like crazy. It was a clean install, not sure what was rhe issue, it was eunnin from an ssd
danielfgom@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 11:31
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Very odd. It’s not supposed to effect the os at all
badaboomxx@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 15:23
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I know, that is why it is so strange. Maybe I need to see if there are addons in the background.
lyam23@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 13:37
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I’m running FF on a 10 year old Linux laptop with no issues.
badaboomxx@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 15:25
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Maybe I need to change to Linux, this one is Windows 10 and I am tired of getting errors because of things that Windows change. Last week I had the search bar activated with thr last update. Thanks for the tip
lyam23@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 18:41
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I would strongly recommend looking into it. There’s not much you can’t do with Linux these days and it’s easier than ever to adopt. Check out Linux Mint for a good distro for those new to Linux.
badaboomxx@lemmy.world
on 25 Oct 2023 09:50
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I will do that, I mean there is something wrong with windows, it was slowing ff for some reason. And not only that, other apps. I mean I have 16gb of ram, and only running that and whatsapp
Goodman@discuss.tchncs.de
on 24 Oct 2023 21:32
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Did it a little over a year ago. Has been fun thus far, my computer really feels like my device now which it didn’t really do before. Its like when a meal tastes better because you make it yourself. Still have issues once and again ofc but I had that on windows too tbf.
Not an OS advisor, not OS advice
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
on 25 Oct 2023 08:54
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That would have been around the same time that I did too. High five Linux twin!
Goodman@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Oct 2023 20:03
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Eyyyyy high five. Any good or bad stories or something to recommend? I will start. I am now the go too person on work for people who have issues with their usb drives. Not matter what, on linux I can always read the filesystem or make their flash drives work again. And people are always super thankful :)
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
on 05 Nov 2023 10:54
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Haha that’s really cool! I had something similar at work - when the adobe suite stopped working properly with the computers there I was able to get GIMP and and Libreoffice working for everyone instead. I most recommend the application “cherrytree” and avoiding flatpak. Also, if you’re thinking about self-hosting check out YUNOhost. How about you?
badaboomxx@lemmy.world
on 25 Oct 2023 09:51
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I will try it, i am really angry at ms, it is not normal that it was running ff slow, with 16gb if ram and onky running WhatsApp in the backgroud. Thanks for the recommendation
Goodman@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Oct 2023 19:59
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I think angry is good, that helps you pull through. Godspeed!
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
on 25 Oct 2023 09:00
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I did just over a year ago and haven’t looked back.
badaboomxx@lemmy.world
on 25 Oct 2023 09:53
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I will do that. Just need to backup my bookmarks and some files and format both drives clean.
I have issues with FireFox running YouTube on windows 10 - it gets super laggy - the issue is nonexistent if I used the Piped frontend. I think it depends a lot on what website you are using - some don’t play well with FireFox.
That being said, I did not have issues with FireFox on Mac when I used that, or on Linux, though I don’t use my Linux laptop a lot for web heavy stuff
erev@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 18:22
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It’s believed to be that Google will serve different websites to non-Chrome (maybe non-Chromium) browsers, or they specifically use features that only they implement to ensure that it performs worse on other browsers. And I don’t mean they add a new feature and it’s only them, but that <img alt="they use deprecated features that only they have" src="https://www.techradar.com/news/mozilla-claims-google-has-made-youtube-perform-worse-on-edge-and-firefox">. Honestly, fuck Google.
twoshoes@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 19:15
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I do have lag issues with YouTube on FF as well, but only the video not the audio. I just assumed it was a codec issue, or just RAM management, since it only occurs when I’ve been running FF plus a game like wow all day
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
on 25 Oct 2023 09:04
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Check out the Freetube application for watching youtube videos. You can import all your subscriptions from youtube, make playlists, download video/audio etc.
fne8w2ah@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 10:51
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The Brave team are basically a bunch of dodgy wankers at this point.
helenslunch@feddit.nl
on 24 Oct 2023 15:50
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Question: why would they do that? If you don’t even know it’s there, what good is it doing for them?
twoshoes@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 19:09
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It’s also enabled by default.
Edit: Apparently it’s not enabled by default. I tried brave some time ago and remembered that it was enabled, which promoted me to uninstall it immediately. Maybe it was enabled by default then, maybe I misremembered.
Having a VPN basically just means sending your traffic (albeit encrypted) to someone else’s server, before sending it to the wider internet.
That means if you don’t specifically disable it, everything you do in the brave browser could theoretically be logged, processed and analyzed by the owners of brave.
Even if the traffic itself is still encrypted, like with online banking, just knowing how many people in a certain city use which bank for example, could be very interesting to advertisers.
Depending on how evil they are, they could also log extensive amounts of user data, just waiting for the day it becomes legal to sift through it (just like a lot of governments do).
Or maybe they just log and sell your data even though it’s illegal. Like a lot of companies do all the time (see Cambridge Analytical scandal etc.).
Or maybe they don’t. But if I was a browser company I’d sure enjoy having all my users route all their traffic through servers I control.
helenslunch@feddit.nl
on 24 Oct 2023 19:12
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Holy fuck, well that is a whole other issue…
bus_go_fast@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 23:00
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Thanks for explaining for an idiot like me. I was having trouble understanding what the problem was.
Pazuzu@midwest.social
on 25 Oct 2023 01:29
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the toggle shows up by default, but without a paid subscription the vpn is unusable. even then you need to enable it. you can disable it completely in brave://flags and set “enable experimental brave VPN” to disabled. it’s shitty that they include it by default, but it’s disingenuous to say they’re rerouting traffic of all brave users through their own vpn servers.
twoshoes@lemmy.world
on 25 Oct 2023 07:07
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Alright, thanks for the correction.
RGB3x3@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 17:05
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I don’t understand when and why Brave became such a household name. It seems so many people use it and swear by it, but its reputation is “suspicious” at best.
Just use Firefox. It’s been around way, way longer and it doesn’t use the Chromium engine. Google doesn’t need more of a monopoly on the internet.
Resol@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 17:07
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But what’s wrong with non Chrome Chromium based browsers?
(Just give me downvotes, I don’t care if my question is stupid)
Chromium is still controlled by Google, so having an overwhelming market share of Chromium-based browsers reduces competition and increases Google’s control of the market’s position and future. Using Firefox (and Safari, if it were not locked to a single ecosystem) reduces that threat.
Resol@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 18:10
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K
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
on 24 Oct 2023 18:37
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It just means if they want to do something bad then they can
If Google wanted to they could ban VPNs on all Chromium browsers and all the forks downstream would have to comply
More likely they can make it so only verified websites will load and down the line charge to be verified. It kills the open internet and the ability for anyone to make a website/host it where they want
Katana314@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 18:36
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When we say “controlled”, that’s still only accounting for the primary fork, right?
As long as it’s open source, it feels like the idea is that the day Google pushes “feat(): Users now automatically have $1 sent to Google a day” commit, someone creates a “chromium-nongooglefucked” fork repository from the prior commit, and everyone uses that.
Goodman@discuss.tchncs.de
on 24 Oct 2023 17:29
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Well Chrome(ium) has almost all of the browser market share and google is trying to push something called web environment integrity which would implement a sort of certification system where web servers evaluate the authenticity of the client. If you extrapolate that idea a bit further it boils down to “we won’t serve you content if we don’t like your browser, device, OS, etc”. Which I would consider as hostile to the open but rapidly closing internet as we know it.
Edit:
I forgot to make my point lol. Firefox is a completely different browser engine from the chromium based browsers which is why you see a lot of people recommending firefox because they don’t comply with web integrity. I don’t think it’s working though because this is something only the techbros and the cybersisters care about while everyone else just goes about their day.
Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 23:32
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It’s not a stupid question, some people just don’t know.
Mainly it’s because:
Chromium holds too much market share which is bad for the health of the Web.
Chromium is controlled by Google which is concerning because they have been known to plant trackers even in software that shouldn’t have them.
Chromium is inherently less secure, it contains features that might seem nice but are extremely risk to give access to websites i.e. letting websites access Bluetooth.
There are probably plenty more reasons but these are the big ones, and of coarse this is a simplification, in reality things are always a bit more complicated.
thirstyhyena@lemmy.world
on 25 Oct 2023 00:36
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Web dev here. Regardless of my opinion, I need to make sure my web projects work on chrome because of market share.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com
on 24 Oct 2023 17:38
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I use it as my YouTube/spotify browser because the ad block just works. Firefox is janky because I have other extensions running that screw up playback on some sites (this has gotten a lot better but I still just use brave out of habit)
Lemminary@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 18:38
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The only real problem I ever had with Firefox was this privacy option that would disable auto playback on sites like Twitch and TikTok but that was a setting I wasn’t even aware of. Other than that, I rarely ever have an issue with FF outside of web dev when it doesn’t yet support some cutting-edge web API feature.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com
on 24 Oct 2023 18:43
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Yea, it was something with various extensions I had going. I’m not blaming Firefox at all. I love Firefox. Just easier to use the other browser on the occasions when my configuration causes issues than try to troubleshoot it.
I’ve had issues with add-ons on some sites too. For those times I just use a different Firefox profile (each has its own set of add-ons and settings :D)
lightnsfw@reddthat.com
on 25 Oct 2023 10:06
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I think if Firefox can find a way to have full parity with chrome extensions, that might be a big shift. I’ve talked to more than one person that has a specific extension they rely on that they can’t duplicate with Firefox options. They have many of the big names, but also some holes
CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 20:34
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Genuinely curious. What extensions are stopping people from moving to Firefox?
Not OP, (and Firefox is still my main), but I keep Chromium-based browsers around for Ichigo, an addon which automatically translates raw manga - which is a godsend for avid manga readers like myself who frequently run out of existing translated manga to read. There’s also Scan Translator which works in a similar way, but sadly Firefox has nothing like them.
Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 23:27
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In my opinion best bet is ungoogled chromium for any extensions or applications that utilize chromium.
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
on 25 Oct 2023 00:38
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I just spent awhile trying to switch from Vivaldi to Floorp before going back. It just doesn’t work as smoothly, things like tabs wouldn’t save properly between sessions, pinning tabs doesn’t prevent you from closing them, UI elements would disappear, etc.
Contend6248@feddit.de
on 24 Oct 2023 20:56
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It’s the other way around in my experience
MiikCheque@lemmy.world
on 24 Oct 2023 21:51
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Firefox over everything. use Vivaldi if you insists on rendering blink
threaded - newest
BuT bRaVE isN’t ThaT bAd 🤡
Yep, this news actually broke a couple days ago, I remember seeing a Brave fanboy having a meltdown over it and ranting about how Mozilla is the real shady company, blah, blah, blah.
Oh dear lord. What did they say in support of their “Mozilla is shady” argument?
Probably something about Google.
Yeah if it’s the comment chain that I think they’re referring to, I believe it came down to Mozilla “being in bed with Google” because Google is the default search engine.
I’ll take the default search engine being Google over things like affiliate links being hijacked, but maybe I’m crazy for taking that position.
Typical Brave user hating google while using chrome with preinstalled extensions. Everything about that browser is the opposite of what it should be. Same with the users.
To be fair. Mozilla foundation is shady. They keep pushing things that don’t follow their core mission. That try to expand their brand.
You can use Mozilla to build solid privacy respecting systems, but Firefox out of the box not so much. They’re better than Google, but that’s a low fucking bar.
Mullvad browser, Tor browser, mull for Android - all use the core Firefox open source engine, to make privacy respecting programs that work out of the box with privacy respecting defaults.
So I would say Mozilla is a good guy in this conversation, but not a saint.
Though they are transparent with the fact that they are doing it. I’m not a fan of it either, but it’s not too shady when they’re open about it IMO.
Fair enough, they aren’t evil to be sure.
The Mozilla telemetry, pocket, Mozilla synchronization, experiments, the new tab page basically being an advertisement page. That leaves the sour taste in my mouth, so I don’t trust them because of that… Shady good guy vibes:)
They’re doing what they think they need to justify their existence, and although I personally believe being just a great browser would be enough I appreciate their communication around their ventures. It’s not great, but it’s not like they’re installing malware in the background.
itsfoss.com/firefox-looking-glass-controversy/
They get pretty close sometimes. I respect their mojo, but I don’t install vanilla Firefox anymore. On anything. For any reason. I don’t trust them anymore.
I wish them the best, if I could donate directly to Firefox development I would, but it’s impossible with them. So I don’t. I donate to mullvad, I donate to the Tor project, and I donate to servo. That’s what I can do to make sure we maintain an open and free web
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This is an old issue, I was just linking to it to reference why I have friendly relations with Firefox but I doubt they’re intentions, or at least I consider them an ally but one that needs to be double checked.
The date on that post is clearly wrong. Maybe they got some weird content management system that’s updating the date and correctly or they made an edit or something
Mullvad are a for profit company . Why do u donate to them ?
That’s a great point. I totally thought they were non-profit. They’re just so on brand with my personal ethos I just assumed.
But yeah checking they’re not. Totally wrong about that. Thanks for pointing it out
And may I point out that just being a great browser hasn’t worked out so well for Firefox so far. Unfortunately in today’s day and age you have to promote yourself to stand out. Chrome is an abject piece of crap that actively spies on you and yet Google’s PR has managed to convince the vast majority to use it.
It’s also worth noting that Chrome’s security model is much more robust than Firefox’s. Acting like Firefox is superior in every regard only serves to undercut Mozilla’s pleas for more contributors and funding.
I dont get why everyone bitches about Pocket, tbh. Ive been a Pocket user for years and Mozilla’s purchase of them has made them better if anything.
I’ve always liked the idea of pocket and have tried to get into using it multiple times but sadly I’m a savage who hates even using bookmarks for some reason. I just keep all of it in my brain (which tends to mean I do not keep it at all).
It took me a long time to get used to pocket, not gonna lie. But once I did, I can’t live without it.
They keep trying to make money so they don’t go under if/when Google pulls the plug on their easy money.
The problem is Mozilla advertises themselves as this last bastion of privacy but a cursory glance at their own privacy policy makes it very clear that they’re blowing smoke up your ass.
Yes, you can change some settings and add extensions to make it private but out of the box it is anything but.
The sad truth is that, despite being a basic necessity, there are no “good” browsers. It’s very difficult to have a monetization model that is privacy-respecting.
Yes you can use something like Mullvad that is totally privacy-respecting out of the box, but it’s so far down the scale that it will break a lot of sites.
Brave is just the flavor of shit that I choose to eat.
Fair enough. I’m glad it works for you.
For what it’s worth mullvad browser works for all of my use cases, I haven’t found anything it doesn’t work for.
It’s mainly NoScript that breaks sites for me, and there’s no way to disable it.
Actually currently my Mullvad browser is not working at all. I have no idea why. My other 4 browsers continue unfettered but Mullvad won’t load a single webpage.
Plus not being unable to be set as the the default browser means I often forget it’s even there.
You can open up the no script options and click on disable globally.
Sorry to hear mullvad’s not loading anything. Seems like a weird bug
Setting the default browser, is a problem on Windows, there is a workaround I could dig up for you if you want. But basically you have to make a script and then modify the registry to point to that script as the default browser. It’s a pain in the butt but it works. Thankfully on Linux, and Mac OS it just works as the default browser
It does not work on Linux. Not for me.
On Qubes it just worked after I did --register-app
Their GitHub has an issue open for it in Linux, I see that the tor project is working on a solution as well to make it more elegant.
But since it doesn’t load any web pages for you, you don’t want to make it your default anyway.
“Command not found”. This is exactly why I don’t even bother anymore.
Brave’s CEO was fired from Mozilla so Mozilla bad.
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I follow Ghacks, a tech site, as well and boy there is a Brave shill on there who attacks everyone there for daring to say anything against it. He knows stuff, judging from his comments, yet is so anti Mozilla and pro Brave that I can’t understand. Almost thinks anyone not using Brave is inferior.
It’s not good to stereotype people. But, I would bet money that they have any three of these: bought
NFCsNFTs unironically, supports OpenAI unconditionally, propose blockchain on everything, bought a pizza with bitcoin years ago that would be millions of dollars today and are still salty about it, have a Starlink receiver, drive a beaten down Tesla they can’t afford to repair because they spent their money paying for FSD early access, and would definitely be first in line to fly Starship to Mars if they were allowed to, they posts to imageai regularly.EDIT: autocorrect.
Yes, that pizza for Bitcoin story is quite popular, though it happened in very early days of the currency. Also, I assume you meant NFTs instead of NFCs :p. For a second, I was wondering what did near field communication had to do with this.
The Mozilla foundation is super shady, and some Firefox devs does have it in them to change stuff to piss off people. It doesn’t excuse Brave though.
Please cite an actual source for that claim.
Their public reports were a fair share of the money goes to its administration, were the dev funds are lower each years, were some funded orgs does not seem to exist, with the addition of actual user contribution being a drop in the ocean of money influx, is the source for the “shady” part.
Me (and many other) having long debates on their bugzilla about changes they made that ignore user settings, against all common practices, with no chance of reverting them because they knew better, until some big service (say, gmail) is impacted at which point all their arguments are forgotten and the changes are reverted, for the pissing of people part.
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don’t you just love projection?
cant accept the facts, so deflect the criticism to something else that is in no way a valid target for them.
I’ve actually been attacked on several occasions by brave fan boys when I casually mentioned that I switched to Firefox and loved it. Idk what their deal is but I find it hilarious that all this stuff is coming out about brave recently 🤣
They’re literally on the payroll. It’s a pyramid scheme.
Please Brave: cutout the bullshit defaults game. Everybody’s getting smarter and companies are getting stupider
Edit: said this b4, don’t fuck with your own competitive advantage where you haven’t had a joint and duly qualified computer science lawyer who explains how easy it is to lose trust and commercial viabillity for a sketchy, underhanded product (see LastPass). Also FUCK LastPass, may this Pass be their Last
Ok. Chrome sucks. Brave sucks. What’s good. Firefox?
Firefox is great.
Firefox with good plugins is even better!
Absolutely! Another really good fork of FF to check out is Floorp I’m thinking of making it my main and going steady :) floorp.app/en/
Your link points back to this post.
he uses this post as the sole way to access the internet. He is forever trapped here with no way out. He weeps for there are no memes to him but his condition, as he slowly falls into the pit of insanity. He is forever condemned to read about Brave browser quietly slippin VPN services, and the occasional comment. But eventually the activity will die, and he will be condemned to a lifetime of loneliness until bit-rot will consume the thread or death will free him of his pain.
It’s like his personal version of when the sun dies for an immortal.
😆 How did I manage to do that? LMFAO
😄
Wow man, you should write a short novel
OMG fixed. Thank you :)
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Unless browser fingerprinting is your concern, in which case the most generic, unmodified browser is best (e.g. Tor).
But that is a huge topic for another thread.
Overall you‘re right but in which world is tor generic and unmodified 😂
It’s not possible to identify you if you use the tor browser without changing the window size or any other settings, because the fingerprint is literally the same amongst everyone that uses it this way. So you kind of blend in with the masses, it’s neither generic nor unmodified, I give you that :D
The Tor browser is a modified version of Firefox, but you are not meant to modify the Tor Browser, in order for everyone using the Tor Browser to look the same and blend in. This is done for maximum privacy and anonymity.
Simply the OS already makes that difficult, true. Nonetheless, it’s one of your best bets.
For those who truly want to stay private, installing plugins on the Tor browser is obviously a no go. Changing any setting or even the window size should not be done. Seriously.
And I’d venture that Tor on phones might be the most homogenous, though that still isn’t saying a lot, sadly. Plus, smartphones are a privacy nightmare regardless (tip of the iceberg).
In the end, fingerprinting makes true privacy very challenging. Great introduction to the topic.
And an advanced writeup with excellent resources for those who really want to get into the subject matter.
Edit: spelling
This is the way
And the only thing greater than Firefox is Librewolf.
Or hardened Firefox, which is pretty much the same thing (I use Librewolf myself for convenience).
And LibreWolf is better. It’s Firefox with all of the privacy settings preconfigured and uBlock Origin preinstalled. Also, crap like Sponsored sites and Pocket are removed.
Been very happy with Librewolf. Thought it would be another one of those softwares recommended by linux-losers but which never actually works, but it’s quite the opposite.
How is Librewolf different from Mullvad browser, which is supposed to be Tor browser (hardened FF) without the Tor?
The Mullvad Browser is based on the Tor browser, but it doesn’t use the Tor network, whereas LibreWolf is based on Firefox + arkenfox user.js. LibreWolf is better for normal day-to-day browsing, where as Mullvad is meant to be used for high privacy/security tasks. Mullvad is kinda hard to daily drive, because it can’t be configured to save cookies, you can’t really use extensions and it lacks some other things. These features were removed in the Tor browser, because as I said, it’s meant for high thread model usage. Edit: I like the Mullvad browser and I use it myself, but not as my daily driver.
High threat*
Not trying to correct you at all, only for ppl’s understanding :)
Btw ty for mentioning Mulvad Browser. I liked it honestly but it’s still new, you feel me.
Thanks, just realized that this is not !privacy@lemmy.ml and people here are probably not aware of threat modeling. But in this context just the word ‘thread’ might actually fit better as the threat model pretty much stays the same.
Good call
Waterfox is similar, though it doesn’t install additional extensions but comes with a bit of look and feel customization options instead. It restores those non-floating tabs from quantum by default and is pretty speedy.
Waterfox is more for look and feel, whereas LibreWolf makes significant privacy improvements. You can choose for yourself. Btw: You can also customize the UI on LibreWolf, just enable userChrome.css customization under Settings -> LibreWolf -> ‘Allow userChrome.css customization’. Now, you can customize everything you want.
Well yes, Wolf is a lot more focused on privacy, but it’s also a secondary goal for Waterfox. In 6.0 they enabled DNS over Oblivious HTTP (no idea what that means but you probably do) by default and incorporated yokkoffing’s Betterfox preconfig of user.js. It’s for those who are concerned about privacy but not nearly as much as the privacy community. For me, I’d rather have cookies.
It’s basically the standard DNS-over-HTTPS functionality that is already present in almost every browser but routed over a special proxy server. Unfortunately though, Firefox uses Cloudflare services for this.
I also have LibreWolf configured to store cookies. It blocks 3rd-party cookies though.
Is LibreWolf still a version or two behind on Gecko?
AFAIK the most recent Firefox version is 118.0.2 and LibreWolf is based on that
Word. Last I had looked, they lagged a version or two behind on the base FF version. Likely just a lack of contributors or something then. Ty.
They used to lag behind, but now they caught up, so I can recommend LibreWolf to anyone without worries from a security perspective.
I love Firefox, used it for years. However I eventually had to switch because of weird bugs and issues with functioning sites. In my sparing personal usage I didn’t run into many issues, but using it at work I ran into really weird issues all the time.
It’s got its problem but it’s my preference
Firefox, or on mobile, Fennec. It’s a Firefox clone with some added functionality, maintained by the developers of the F-Droid app store themselves, so highly trusted & fully compatible to stay in sync with the desktop Firefox.
For those rare occasions where a website absolutely doesn’t work with FF, and you must use it for some reason, I’d suggest Chromium portable on Desktop, and Kiwi Browser on mobile.
Check out Mull.
Last time I tried Mull, I could only use a handful extensions. I chose Fennec particularly because it supports all desktop extensions. Is that still the case?
Mull has the same limitation as Fennec in that you have a small curated list of available add-ons unless you sign in with a Mozilla account and make a collection or whatever.
I have Kiwi installed and like that desktop Chrome extensions can be installed on it for the odd occasion. However, IIRC, it is updated infrequently and isn’t recommended as a daily driver.
I’d never use it as a daily driver, really just for websites that absolutely don’t work with Firefox/Fennec. Happens very infrequent if at all though.
I’m team Firefox, very happy here. There’s a small amount of optional telemetry to disable to maximise your privacy, and it has the best plugins because there’s a lot of choice and they’re not purposely crippled.
I like Firefox because it allows, Atleast for now, customization via userchrome.css files. I once tried Edge and hated it’s bloated right click context menu. Meanwhile, in Firefox, I can trim down the context menu to only basic elements.
I do wish Firefox had proper PWA support, but otherwise I have been using it as the main browser on both PC and phone(since uBlock Origin is supported on it, the only Chromium browser to support it is Kiwi Browser on Android).
There’s probably an addon for Firefox that gives some PWA support
There does exists one. But when I last tried it, the experience was worse than what a native integration would give. It wasn’t streamlined as in other browsers. It doesn’t matter much since I only use YouTube Music as a PWA, which I have a relegated to another window in another browser.
Off topic, but screw you Google, for not giving a native app. Spotify meanwhile has command line third party clients even(looks at ncspot) for Premium users.
Check out this custom YouTube Music desktop client: github.com/th-ch/youtube-music. It has neat features like an adblocker and a download feature and many more things built-in and it’s open source. It’s available for Windows, macOS and Linux.
It still uses electron though, but we live in this timeline after all.
Plus you can use pretty much any plugin on mobile. this is the biggest feature for me.
Firefox and Mull (a Firefox fork) have your privacy in mind. They work as good as Chrome and don’t fuck you without asking.
There is Fennec available on F Droid that is basically Firefox with some blobs removed. Not as hardened as Mull but still a worthy option. There is one more browser based on Firefox called Iceraven for Android but it is not available on F Droid even. Though it supports a much wider variety of extensions than mobile Firefox does as of now. The downside is that it gets security updates usually later than Firefox, being an independent project.
Firefox is the least sucky.
Vivaldi is a good Chrome replacement.
It’s really great! Been using it for nearly a year now and love the influx of privacy friendly features.
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So? There is no way for the vast majority of users to read or understand the source for something like Firefox - to the point it may as well be closed source. Agreed of course plenty of security researchers will be examining the code which they can’t with Vivaldi - but presumably if that was a security advantage Firefox would have less vulnerabilities when compared to other browsers. (Actually would be interested to see if this is the case!)
Floorp is my favorite Firefox fork!
Cool, that kinda looks like vivaldi except based on firefox.
It’s the closest I’ve been able to find to vivaldi. Unfortunately no one does workspaces as good as vivaldi, but their implementation deleted all my workspaces one day, with no back up, and that was after several other total wipes of my windows/tabs.
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Hell no. I lost all respect for them when they tricked users into uploading browser screenshots into their cloud and than took forever to fix it. And that’s just one of the many many missteps they had over the last years.
PS: Depressing how many of you seem to consider such a drastic violation of privacy acceptable.
That feature was originally meant to be an image sharing platform, but had an unfortunate name and the button being called “Save” (although it did have a cloud icon on it) didn’t help either. Long story short, people mistook it for a screenshotting tool.
It was definitely a blunder, don’t get me wrong, but it was dumb rather than malicious.
Tbf, when Mozilla realized their blunder they cut out the sharing part and left it just as a screenshot tool because that’s the part that people liked.
I have a hard time seeing how anybody can be stupid enough to make such a colossal mistake by accident. Let alone how it can slip through all the layers of QA that are in place and then take so f’n long to fix it once the bug reports come pouring in. This is not a small woopsy, but goes completely against decade long establish GUI nomenclature. This was straight up from the malware dark pattern cookbook.
And even ignoring that, an upload into the cloud should always come with a big fat warning anyway. The whole process made it incredible unclear where the data is going, who has access to it, how long it is staying, how to delete it and all that.
All that from a company that has made “privacy” their main marketing feature.
It IS a screenshooting tool.
The sharing part was great. The problem was never the functionality, but the malicious and misleading integration of it. Them removing that part just felt like they were trying to hide the evidence of their misdoings instead of fixing the problem.
To what end? They didn’t do anything to exploit it and deleted the sharing platform as soon as the confusion became apparent. What was Mozilla’s nefarious goal, to dig through people’s screenshots? 🙂
It is now. Originally it was just a tool to capture pages as images and share them online. If it had been called “Share” they could have avoided the whole debacle.
This only goes to show how conflicted the whole thing was. You can’t find two people who liked the same two aspecte of it. 😅
Trust me, you can’t get such a confusing mess on purpose. Please also remember who you’re dealing with, this is Mozilla, the inheritor of Netscape, which previously gave the world such blunders as Netscape 6.
This was a Pilot program that mixed multiple goals together and ended up as feature gore. I also wish they could have salvaged the sharing platform too but rescuing the image capture as a screenshot tool was a pretty good outcome, all things considered.
Which browser do you recommend?
Brave. It ain’t perfect, but I actually like that it comes with Adblock, IPFS and Tor support out of the box. Gives you a fully functioning browser out of the box without having to mess with tons of plugins.
If you want something more minimalist, Librewolf might be worth a look.
It’s more that I had hoped we left everyone who acts like any little thing Firefox does is the worst and most egregious privacy violation in the world back in r/Firefox where they let all the Brave astroturfing take over.
Sure, you’ve got one significant issue (that was already mitigated and addressed), but you’re ignoring how unique it was while also saying there is “many, many more” without any hint of what they would be. Is “The Megabar exists” one of them?
Yeah, after a year. Sorry, but I don’t take lightly to companies that are stealing screenshot of my browser and than act like it’s no big deal.
Have you not been paying attention over the last few years? Mozilla’s numerous missteps ain’t exactly a secret. Here is a little list:
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That site isn’t a list of egregious privacy violations, it’s some random guys inane and hyperfocused ranting.
A lot of people lost trust in them after they sneakily installed an extension on users’ browsers to promote Mr Robot.
Why is this news?
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Just imagine: using Windows and being concerned about privacy. Big lol.
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Imagine claiming to be technically competent and using Windows, being obliged to “lock it down” to made it a “non spyware”. Take your meds, dude.
Imagine being such a dink you know nothing yet you open your mouth.
Oh wait, you don't need to imagine.
Why would someone who uses Debian care about Windows?
I use Debian. And somehow I still know how to use Windows and MacOS. Because I'm competent.
I don’t, because I have better use of my time than to learn to use someone else’s computer
"Sorry boss, I can't be arsed to reimage Steve's hard drive. It's Windows and fuck that shit."
Hope you don't want to work in IT.
They have a point though.
Windows automatically means you don’t have privacy and you cannot have privacy.
On Linux you at least may or may not, depending on configuration.
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Nobody does. Windows is closed source and its inner working is a trade secret. This means you cannot know how to lock down windows. Of course there are best practices based on info from microsoft or people who know a thing or two about info sec but it's all guess work and/or trusting the developer by its blue eyes.
There's no fucking guesswork. Everything in and out of the system can be monitored. If you knew anything about Windows you'd know that, but your entire Windows knowledge comes from shit-tier memes and snarky stories from The Register.
Thats something Ive never understood about closed source.
The OS, in its entirety, is on your computer. Why are you not able to open it up and root around within it? Is it just encrypted to a degree it cant be cracked? Or is the legal ramifications of unraveling it just not worth unraveling it?
Exactly, that’s the point he was trying to make.
You can’t harden windows to the point of an acceptable level of security. That is the inherent nature of proprietary software.
And yet there are people that do that every single day, and it's pretty much trivial to do.
It's fucking hilarious how many high horses Linux users ride on while knowing absolutely nothing about any other system. You just repeat shit that The Register or Slashdot told you was true.
How do you harden windows?
Prove to me that your windows system is actually “hardened” and that you have no backdoors or telemetry broadcasting at all. At the very least, Microsoft still knows what you are doing, you cannot trust your 3rd party firewall because windows can still sidestep it.
I don’t even know who the fuck those people are, all I can tell you is that there is a reason that any professional application that requires legitimate security, runs on foss systems, or at the very least source available. If you are too stupid to realize that, then you really don’t have any say in this matter whatsoever. It doesn’t even just include baremetal Linux either.
I don’t know who you’ve been arguing with on this, but I actually make a living working on Linux machines, I’m not even coming at you from a freetard perspective, solely work experience.
"Windows just ignores firewall rules" - CITATION FUCKING NEEDED
You know nothing.
EDIT
Oh, to be fucking clear you know nothing about Windows. I don't give a shit how much experience you have with Linux. You very obviously do not know how to administer Windows systems.
ahem
Active directory, Azure, Windows Server. Those three things are on my resume. I have extensive systems administration experience, being a good systems administrator requires you to be able to administrate more than one operating system.
Yes, windows will ignore your firewalls rules if you try to block certain applications from broadcasting telemetry. I don’t need a citation because you can very easily test this for yourself. The fact that you need a citation tells me you don’t know shit about what you are talking about because it is incredibly easy to reproduce.
You can rip these components out at the expense of usability, to the point where you could potentially have a secure windows system that is so useless, that you might as well just run desktop Linux or BSD. You will never see patches to potential backdoors, you will never see any bugfixes, hell to even begin the process of hardening windows, windows update is the very first thing you have to disable. Even windows AME’s team says that their spin of windows is not as secure as the average Linux distro for these very reasons.
So you don't know how to use a firewall is what I'm seeing here. Weird flex but shut the fuck up.
So you don’t have basic reading English comprehension is what I’m seeing here. Weird flex but shut the fuck up.
It's good users are now aware that Brave includes redundant features that you have to pay extra for to activate. Users browser will update everytime the browser or the VPN software needs an update.
For example Firefox VPN from Mozilla is separate software. They don't force millions of users to download it even if they don't want it.
This is yet another example why people should not be using Brave and should be skeptical of its intentions.
Brave is shit but calling this a reason to be skeptical is fucking stupid. Almost every piece of software includes features that some subset of users will never touch. That isn't a reason not to include it.
"Oh no, Firefox includes a bookmark toolbar! I don't use bookmarks so they need to get rid of this!"
brave is basically installing a future minefield with system-wide access waiting to be triggered by them, or an exploitable bug by others, on all brave users' pcs and not just those who sub to their vpn service.
You may want to work on your literacy.
Mozilla has been forcing Pocket on Firefox users for years, as well as Mr Robot ads and numerous other things. They don’t exact have the moral high ground here.
Whats pocket? And why is it bad that its on the browser?
Pocket is Mozilla’s bookmark/sync pay-cloud-service. Comes with Firefox by default and can’t be easily removed. From a company that claims to care about privacy I would expect a self-hosted local-first approach for such problems, not a cloud service.
But its not active unless you turn it on right? Just preinstalled so if you decide to use it its already there?
Cause that does sound like a little bloatware but if thats the only bloat they have and thats its only issue Im not sure Im bothered by it.
that’s exactly what people are complaining in this thread, just about different browser
Because it's Brave and people like to jump on bandwagons. This is like the 6th time I've seen this article posted in lemmybin also.
And since we have the reddit-minded folk here, no, I do not support Brave and never will and I would much rather they disappear from the internet, but using ragebait to complain about the browser installing the necessary files to have one of their advertised services working, like pretty much every other software does, is not the way to move forward.
Yea i don’t get the hate boner for brave. I get it’s sketchy and don’t use it myself, but they aren’t sneakily installing some VPN to redirect all your web traffic without you knowing. They tell you about it right up front because it’s a service they want to sell.
If you don’t like the browser, don’t use it. There isn’t a need to go on some crusade to smear them with bullshit.
It’s a bunch of people upset with the company’s CEO or whatever over personal views. The browser itself wasn’t that bad after you disabled the ad and crypto stuff, which they heavily pushed on you.
I had switched to it from Chrome last year but ended up not caring for it, so I went to Firefox and Librewolf. People can use whatever the hell they want, idgaf. But for those who will eventually end up complaining about YouTube ads and continue to use Chrome, I have no sympathy for if you can’t take the few minutes to download and install a new browser and move your favorites over.
This community has some of the worst biased tech readers.
Why is installing a VPN considered bad? Is it because it is done without user consent? I don’t understand if there is any malicious intent.
They’re installing extra software that’s useless unless you give them money. Plus you really want to be aware of your VPN since all your traffic will be going through it.
It doesn’t auto enable and chromium also gives you a lot of unnecessary features. While I think Brave is bloat I don’t see how this is any more than the usual.
Because a vpn can monitor all the websites that you visit. Not directly what you’re looking at, but definitely where you’re looking. Just line your provider can, if you’re not using a vpn. But at least with your provider, you have a contract with them - you pay them to transport your data and nothing more. Some very scummy providers aside, that’s where it stops.
A free vpn, however, needs to pay for transporting your data somehow. And if you’re not paying for it with money, then who/what is?
See also Tom Scott’s explanation about vpns, why you probably don’t need one, and why he refused their advertisement money.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Tom Scott’s explanation about vpns
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It’s not even free, the service itself is a payed subscription. But it’s there and it could be working and funneling data without the user knowing it if they wanted to.
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I’m interested to hear what you think a vpn will protect you against. Or what you think the flaws in Toms arguments are.
Edit: I don’t know about you, but I trust my own, GDPR-backed isp far, far more than I trust whichever foreign based vpn company. Especially if they for it for free or cheap.
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The only thing you’re “protecting” yourself from by using a vpn to surf the Internet, is your own provider. It won’t stop any spying software on your phone, or any nefarious scripts on the websites you visit.
Tom’s argument was more nuanced than that, which is why I linked it. I suggest you watch it and explain where he’s wrong if you want to give your argument to ignore him any weight. Ad hominems and “imagined” arguments alone won’t get you very far, I’m afraid.
I actually work in cyber security and I was really happy Tom Scott released that video. VPN companies are some of the scummiest companies out there, and their rampant sponsorships on YouTube were shameless misinformation and fear mongering in order to scare you into giving all your internet traffic to them. Seeing so many sellout tech YouTubers take their sponsorships despite knowing better COUGH NetworkChuck, was one of my biggest pet peeves.
There are seemingly legit VPN companies out there, and there are some legitimate use cases for them, but what Tom is addressing are the shady ones that lie to you about what they’re for and how they help you for their own monetary and in some cases data mining benefit. In most cases you do not need a VPN, and it doesn’t do anything to protect you from “internet criminals”, or provide extra “security” and it only “protects” your privacy by shifting the for-profit company that gets to see all the websites you visit.
I too would like to know why you think a VPN is needed “on today’s web”, I would bet money it came directly out of one of theirs ads scripts.
I doubt either one of you will ever hear from them. I guess they haven’t even watched the video to begin with.
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I’m sorry you felt the need to denounce claims in videos while openly admitting you don’t even know what the claims are.
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That’s your own VPN, not a commercial VPN service and you’re using that for what I would assume is DNS filtering. Thats entirely unrelated to what a commercial VPN service does and what Tom Scott’s video is about. And that’s not even a benefit of your VPN, your VPN is just a tool you’re using for remote access to your DNS filter/server which is what’s actually providing you that service. I could do the same exact thing with a recursive DNS server and Pihole using DOH without a VPN at all.
That is again an entirely different use case and product than what a commercial VPN service is offering. That’s not even for privacy, it’s for secure remote access to your company network.
That’s not a problem a VPN service solves.
With a VPN service like ProtonVPN, all you’re doing is changing the corporation that can see which sites you visit from your ISP, to Proton. It isn’t inherently any more private or secure, you’re just choosing which corporation you allow the ability to spy on you.
No, his argument was that outside of spoofing your location, and hiding which sites you visit from your ISP specifically, VPN services don’t provide the average consumer with any additional benefit over what you get for free by default due to the wonderful inventions of TLS, and HSTS. The point is that VPN service companies use scare tactics to get you to purchase a product you don’t need to solve problems you don’t have. NetworkChuck made a whole sponsored video about how somebody can man-in-the-middle you at a coffee shop to steal your credit card information to demonstrate the effectiveness of a VPN service and the attack he demonstrated was literally impossible. He created a fake, non-real world scenario straight out of 2003 to deceive the less tech literate public in order to shill a VPN service.
Tom Scott provided a fantastic public service by educating people on what a VPN actually DOES and what it DOESN’T DO. So people can actually make a decision as to whether they need one due to the facts, not misinformation and false advertisement. You on the other hand still can’t seem to articulate what exactly you think a VPN services does for you and how it does it. You have a lot of buzzwords and vague statements about “being spied on”, and never actually said why you think commercial VPN products should be used by the average user “On todays web”.
I agree with what other people said. And here’s a new twist.
Any software that messes with the networking stack, can cause really difficult to debug errors. And it may induce errors in other programs. The more complicated your computer’s networking, the more fragile it is.
So introducing, silently, unasked for, network drivers and VPN hooks into the operating system is harming the compute stability of their user base.
At the very least, it should be opt-in! There should be a dialogue asking hey we have this new awesome feature, click okay to install it, something like that. Informed consent
It's "all your mail is now redirected to a third party that makes money by mining it for data without you knowing" level of nastiness. Absolutely deplorable and a reason to never touch anything made by the people behind Brave even with a ten foot pole. Brave is a scam and why people pretend its not is beyond me.
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They're apprehending ALL of your browsing activity to their lucky vpn provider of choice.
that's what the new outlook 'app' (replacing win 10/11's mail 'app') does with gmail accounts. routes all your mail from gmail through microsoft servers before delivering to the app on your pc.
a service has far more privs on the system than a browser should have or need (which can be installed on a per-user basis, no admin/root required).
Sick. Thanks brave.
Installing VPNs without telling the end user isn’t a good thing.
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Yes they did install services.
ghacks.net/…/brave-is-installing-vpn-services-wit…
O.o did you even click the article? That’s exactly what they did.
And that’s what we call a Trojan horse
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Just use Firefox. Or LibreWolf if you want a pre-hardened Firefox. Remember to install uBlock Origin.
Thanks for pointing me to LibreWolf. I like to use separate browsers as information silos and have been using Brave as my secondary. Been looking forward to switching it out for a long time, LibreWolf sounds like just the ticket.
You can also use Firefox containers. One of the best features of Firefox.
Paired with the Foxytab plugin to automatically open websites in specific containers or restrict containers to a list of websites. Firefox also has profiles, and a simple extension (with a tiny thing to install in your PC) makes them as easy to use as they’re on Chrome
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Independed browser from Google when?
Opera does this too and nobody bats an eye (anymore).
For some reason people like to clown on Brave specifically.
Probably because nobody cares about Opera doing that since the ones pointing this out are at least privacy aware people that won’t use Opera. It is also a problem when Brave does it because it is a “privacy focused” browser. They sure have the balls to do this.
Opera was also 100% up front about it and sold it as a feature. They didn’t sneak it into installers and crap. IMO that’s the issue, the lack of communication.
It’s crazy to me that people ever thought brave was “privacy focused” when it was clear that they were trying to jump on the crypto bandwagon with their own in-network crypto and ad network. It was always just a reskinned chrome with ublock built in and then their ad network tacked on top
Brave is doing the same: ghacks.net/…/brave-partners-with-guardian-to-brin…
brave.com/desktop-vpn
Did you do any research at all before making your statement?
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DDG did WHAT
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Sounded nasty so I looked out up. Seems it wasn’t intentional.
reuters.com/…/factcheck-duckduckgo-gates-track-id…
When was the last time you read any posts from privacy communities? Firefox is usually what people suggest and noobs talk about Brave.
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The ol’ bait and switch…classic. Opera used to be good too, then chinese people bought it, then emerged opera vpn. Shaddy af. Same as camscanner
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And those devs working at Opera that objected to the sale of Opera started Vivaldi, literally “one of the kings of opera” as a competitive browser. It uses chromium under the hood but they’ve made strides in a power user browser. No crypto, built in ad blocking. The only revenue they get in the actual default browser install is that there are like 20 bookmarks to commonly used sites to start, and they have affiliate tags if you keep those bookmarks and use them. Other than that, they’ve turned off chromium’s new DRM features
Camscanner hurt. I used it constantly. Then boom, absolute 180. I guess that’s the goal. Make a legit app that people love. Then sell it to someone who will exploit your loyalty customers. Cool!
Pretty much everybody has a number they will sell out at, for some it’s astronomical, for others it’s basically what you’d expect
Mine is staggeringly low.
At this point that seems to be the case everywhere. The future looks bleak, and so for most, trying to get what they can out of life before the climate wars, or WW3, or whatever happens seems to be the case. I don’t criticize it. I think there’s a high probability that the reason that we see little extraterrestrial life is that they did the same shit we are doing. The universe has a fractal nature. There are likely many species that also had planets that could support intelligent life. However since the competition for resources is baked into existence, they probably did what we are doing and are themselves no longer alive because they ended themselves before they could really end their stupid arguments about their gods, or work for the collective good more than the individual good
Can you elaborate on CamScanner please?
It’s a Chinese app that lets people “scan” a document using the camera on their phone. It was “free” for a long time, turns out it was dropping injected adware on people’s phones.
To be honest, Microsoft lens has had the same features for a long time, but didn’t have “scanner” in the name and most app searches are piss poor so people just literally searched “camera scanner” and got the adware result. Microsoft has their own long and shady history, but dropping an adware payload wasnt part of that.
I’m not so sure that’s true anymore with Windows 11.
Showing in app ads is one thing. Installing a Trojan specifically meant to circumvent App Store ad requirements is another. Windows 11, and most MS products at this point are ad delivery platforms, but they still follow the rules of app stores with the basic requirement of “shows in app ads” and “won’t try to inject a Trojan that beats your phone’s app sandboxing”
Thank you!
I use it a lot during my study. But when CamScanner started serving ads, intrusive ads, “cloud backup”…i tried searching for alternatives and use microsoft lens. TBH, microsoft lens is shit compared to camscanner. The detection is slow, janky, cant do multiple pages scan and a lot more troublesome to use. CamScanner detection algorithm was way better at that time. So i bite the lbullet and just use it until end of my study.
Some of the OG devs who made Opera have made Vivaldi. It’s chromium under the hood, but with googles tracking and telemetry turned off. It’s not perfect, but it adds a significant number of power user features, includes its own (limited) ad and tracking blocking. I alternate between that and Firefox dev edition as my daily driver
You have to be very brave to download that browser
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Ok but have you tried my nft browser?
I’m not downloading Brave, fuck off
Well, they do have some sort of crypto integration in that browser, so it makes sense why they come off that way.
Meanwhile there’s Floorp xD
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I love that most people don’t realize how close Reston, VA (You know, where AWS 1 and 2 is located) is to DC.
The White House probably isn’t doing much illegal SIGINT dragnetting of US citizens, but I bet the Pentagon, NSA HQ, and the Hill all do.
Just a reminder, any time you see a “tech” youtuber with brave installed, they’re not going to be an excellent source of information
What browser signifies an excellent source of information? Ice weasel? w3m?
Lynx
raw dogging straight html
Haha, my browser is called curl
I have Orion (macOS only for the time being) and it’s sooo good.
The amazing part is that it even works as a daily driver if you’re a not-so-techie person/normal user… but then on top there are all these little extra features and optimizations that make it like Safari if Safari was actually good.
I would at this point a) not be able to go back to either Safari or Firefox as well as b) immediately trust an Orion user on most of what they have to say about a “tech” related opinion :D
Based on your comment, I’ve just downloaded Orion to give it a shake. Very much enjoyed the OS X-esque intro video. Took me right back to installing Snow Leopard for the first time.
Sounds interesting. I’d thought I’d heard of all the browsers that exist lol. Gonna give it a spin .
Wow, Orion is pretty slick! And Orion+ doesn’t offer any actual features aside from early access and input on the roadmap. So far so good. Custom buttons is really cool, built in tree style tabs is slick. Also!! orion has workspaces that are as good if not better than vivaldi’s! This is really slick, thanks for sharing
Brodie Robertson is an excellent source of information ☹️
Except in terms of browser choice apparently. Either they’re ignorant or being paid. Either way it’s not a good sign.
I don’t like brave because Brandon Eich (CEO, formerly with Mozilla) doesn’t support gay marriage and was pushing anti-vax stuff on twitter. I don’t look for this shit to titillate my tits like some folks, but when it hits me in the face I can’t ignore it.
When fact checking myself I found even more controversies, but I’m not wasting time reading articles that feed a confirmation bias.
I don’t like Brave because they’ve done dodgy things like this time and time again over the years, and each time Brandon Eich went on a marketing campaign across social media to drum up new users and drown the story out.
It’s crazy to me that people ever thought brave was “privacy focused” when it was clear that they were trying to jump on the crypto bandwagon with their own in-network crypto and ad network. It was always just a reskinned chrome with ublock built in and then their crypto and ad network tacked on top
He’s also the creator of JavaScript if that irks you any more.
it does
Brave to me is like an online advertising racket. They push ad-blocking software by default in their browser, then extort companies into using their own ad network to advertise to their users. Brave Ads are of course opt-in and the main incentive of enabling them is to earn BAT (Basic Attention Token) which is their cryptocurrency. In terms of their intrusiveness, they’re like push notifications you get up to six times an hour, and from my experience using the browser, it was all mainly crypto marketplaces and VPN’s advertising.
Compared to 2020, when you could earn hundreds of dollars in a year from frequently being served Brave Ads, BAT isn’t really worth shit anymore thanks to the crypto crash, so the main financial incentive to use Brave is gone.
If you want privacy, Firefox is that way. Or if you absolutely need to use something based on Chromium, everyone and their fucking mother has forked that browser.
Generally speaking, any service or organization that has to pay youtubers or twitch streamers to drive traffic is…a racket. Avoid like the plague.
Blame YouTube for screwing over legitimate content creators and forcing them to be paid shills for shitty VPN and mobile game companies to pay the bills.
Anyone who claims “We’re the best most privacy conscious, secure, and safe product” is already extremely suspicious.
Brave has already been caught Red handed doing anti-privacy and crypto shilling before, yet people decided to forgive them. You don’t forgive these things EVER.
I don’t trust Brave, there’s too much money tied up in it for it to be good for users.
So what?
Are people upset about this? I honestly don’t understand.
I honestly don’t understand someone that would accept anything from a stranger.
You member U2 and the forced album through iTunes?
No, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
But I still don’t understand why people would make a big deal about a piece of software that installs multiple software packages…
I mean have you ever installed Microsoft office? Did you ask it to install Microsoft access? What does Microsoft access even do?
Or have you ever installed nvidia drivers? Did you ask for the whole “GeForce experience”? Wtf does that even mean?
Installing extra software packages is definitely par for the course, bit in the brave example, at least the extra shit isn’t required for the main app to work, in fact it’s disabled by default, that’s great!
To answer your original question: yes I do think people are genuinely upset with this.
If you take your office installation example, you’re installing a suite of applications. You’re not just installing excel, you’re installing the office suite so you’re bound to get all the applications in the suite.
Meanwhile, this would be like installing the office suite and getting a service installed along with it, that can monitor outgoing network traffic without them saying anything about it.
The main two reasons I’d be upset with this if I used brave was: They installed it without saying anything and It’s something that’s inherently a privacy and security risk. Even if brave themselves don’t do anything malicious with it, doesn’t mean that someone who’s found a potential exploit in the VPN service won’t.
Also just as an aside, I also absolutely despise “GeForce Experience” and there are ways to fetch the drivers as standalone packages without getting the telemetry spyware installed alongside them.
Ok, well a vpn is a potential security improvement if anything… But regardless, it’s off, it’s disabled, unusable unless you’re paying for it. I mean just for perspective, any browser is much more of an inherent security risk than a VPN app sitting dormant and inactive.
But you’re right that users never asked for it, so I get that part.
A VPN is only as much of a security improvement as the service behind it. If it gets installed in a shady way, how much trust can you put into the service?
This was my point exactly. A VPN may just as well be used to spy on your traffic rather than secure it. And that’s why I’d be upset, personally: because I don’t trust brave or the company behind it.
But I think the main thing people are up in arms about is the fact that they didn’t ask for it. :)
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Nothingburger who cares?
Not surprised. Brave is dodgy af.
Use Vivaldi or Firefox if you care about privacy
Bro said Firefox 😂 Firefox’ been Google bitch for a good while now, it’s either Librewolf or Mullvad now
Care to share some examples?
why so many down votes?
Lemmy is a linux/firefox circlejerk overall, don’t try
It’s the most sane thing to do.
You tried. RIP
Because it’s not true for the browser itself?
Google is paying Mozilla to keep their search engine the default in Firefox. Period. There is no Google spyware (or any spyware in general) in Firefox. Just because Google is the default search engine in Firefox doesn’t mean Firefox is Google-controlled spyware.
Also Librewolf’s privacy is in some ways selfish on their part. It strips out Firefox’s troubleshooting data collection so Mozilla loses a good chunk of clues on how well the browser works. Lack of any data would lead to lower browser quality, ends up as a worse Firefox release, and Librewolf gets to be affected directly as a downstream of Firefox. By removing troubleshooting or usage data (which practically doesn’t affect privacy in any way), Librewolf is just hurting itself in the long run. If they’re really aggressive against directly contributing data back to Mozilla, then they should just run their own collection server and contribute the final data back to Mozilla.
telemetry and troubleshooting information can be used for fingerprinting. This isn’t an issue for most people but I can understand why some wouldn’t like it. Tor browser strips a lot of that as well for similar reasons.
My understanding is that google primarily funds Firefox because if chrome becomes a monopoly then google would have to face antitrust laws. Getting broken up would be more expensive to them than keeping Firefox viable with a minority of people using it as their browser.
I tried ff yesterday… it slowed my laptop like crazy. It was a clean install, not sure what was rhe issue, it was eunnin from an ssd
Very odd. It’s not supposed to effect the os at all
I know, that is why it is so strange. Maybe I need to see if there are addons in the background.
I’m running FF on a 10 year old Linux laptop with no issues.
Maybe I need to change to Linux, this one is Windows 10 and I am tired of getting errors because of things that Windows change. Last week I had the search bar activated with thr last update. Thanks for the tip
I would strongly recommend looking into it. There’s not much you can’t do with Linux these days and it’s easier than ever to adopt. Check out Linux Mint for a good distro for those new to Linux.
I will do that, I mean there is something wrong with windows, it was slowing ff for some reason. And not only that, other apps. I mean I have 16gb of ram, and only running that and whatsapp
Did it a little over a year ago. Has been fun thus far, my computer really feels like my device now which it didn’t really do before. Its like when a meal tastes better because you make it yourself. Still have issues once and again ofc but I had that on windows too tbf. Not an OS advisor, not OS advice
That would have been around the same time that I did too. High five Linux twin!
Eyyyyy high five. Any good or bad stories or something to recommend? I will start. I am now the go too person on work for people who have issues with their usb drives. Not matter what, on linux I can always read the filesystem or make their flash drives work again. And people are always super thankful :)
Haha that’s really cool! I had something similar at work - when the adobe suite stopped working properly with the computers there I was able to get GIMP and and Libreoffice working for everyone instead. I most recommend the application “cherrytree” and avoiding flatpak. Also, if you’re thinking about self-hosting check out YUNOhost. How about you?
I will try it, i am really angry at ms, it is not normal that it was running ff slow, with 16gb if ram and onky running WhatsApp in the backgroud. Thanks for the recommendation
I think angry is good, that helps you pull through. Godspeed!
I did just over a year ago and haven’t looked back.
I will do that. Just need to backup my bookmarks and some files and format both drives clean.
I have issues with FireFox running YouTube on windows 10 - it gets super laggy - the issue is nonexistent if I used the Piped frontend. I think it depends a lot on what website you are using - some don’t play well with FireFox.
That being said, I did not have issues with FireFox on Mac when I used that, or on Linux, though I don’t use my Linux laptop a lot for web heavy stuff
It’s believed to be that Google will serve different websites to non-Chrome (maybe non-Chromium) browsers, or they specifically use features that only they implement to ensure that it performs worse on other browsers. And I don’t mean they add a new feature and it’s only them, but that <img alt="they use deprecated features that only they have" src="https://www.techradar.com/news/mozilla-claims-google-has-made-youtube-perform-worse-on-edge-and-firefox">. Honestly, fuck Google.
I do have lag issues with YouTube on FF as well, but only the video not the audio. I just assumed it was a codec issue, or just RAM management, since it only occurs when I’ve been running FF plus a game like wow all day
Check out the Freetube application for watching youtube videos. You can import all your subscriptions from youtube, make playlists, download video/audio etc.
The Brave team are basically a bunch of dodgy wankers at this point.
Question: why would they do that? If you don’t even know it’s there, what good is it doing for them?
It’s also enabled by default.
Edit: Apparently it’s not enabled by default. I tried brave some time ago and remembered that it was enabled, which promoted me to uninstall it immediately. Maybe it was enabled by default then, maybe I misremembered.
Having a VPN basically just means sending your traffic (albeit encrypted) to someone else’s server, before sending it to the wider internet.
That means if you don’t specifically disable it, everything you do in the brave browser could theoretically be logged, processed and analyzed by the owners of brave.
Even if the traffic itself is still encrypted, like with online banking, just knowing how many people in a certain city use which bank for example, could be very interesting to advertisers.
Depending on how evil they are, they could also log extensive amounts of user data, just waiting for the day it becomes legal to sift through it (just like a lot of governments do).
Or maybe they just log and sell your data even though it’s illegal. Like a lot of companies do all the time (see Cambridge Analytical scandal etc.).
Or maybe they don’t. But if I was a browser company I’d sure enjoy having all my users route all their traffic through servers I control.
Holy fuck, well that is a whole other issue…
Thanks for explaining for an idiot like me. I was having trouble understanding what the problem was.
the toggle shows up by default, but without a paid subscription the vpn is unusable. even then you need to enable it. you can disable it completely in brave://flags and set “enable experimental brave VPN” to disabled. it’s shitty that they include it by default, but it’s disingenuous to say they’re rerouting traffic of all brave users through their own vpn servers.
Alright, thanks for the correction.
I don’t understand when and why Brave became such a household name. It seems so many people use it and swear by it, but its reputation is “suspicious” at best.
Just use Firefox. It’s been around way, way longer and it doesn’t use the Chromium engine. Google doesn’t need more of a monopoly on the internet.
But what’s wrong with non Chrome Chromium based browsers?
(Just give me downvotes, I don’t care if my question is stupid)
Chromium is still controlled by Google, so having an overwhelming market share of Chromium-based browsers reduces competition and increases Google’s control of the market’s position and future. Using Firefox (and Safari, if it were not locked to a single ecosystem) reduces that threat.
K
It just means if they want to do something bad then they can
If Google wanted to they could ban VPNs on all Chromium browsers and all the forks downstream would have to comply
More likely they can make it so only verified websites will load and down the line charge to be verified. It kills the open internet and the ability for anyone to make a website/host it where they want
Damn.
When we say “controlled”, that’s still only accounting for the primary fork, right?
As long as it’s open source, it feels like the idea is that the day Google pushes “feat(): Users now automatically have $1 sent to Google a day” commit, someone creates a “chromium-nongooglefucked” fork repository from the prior commit, and everyone uses that.
Well Chrome(ium) has almost all of the browser market share and google is trying to push something called web environment integrity which would implement a sort of certification system where web servers evaluate the authenticity of the client. If you extrapolate that idea a bit further it boils down to “we won’t serve you content if we don’t like your browser, device, OS, etc”. Which I would consider as hostile to the open but rapidly closing internet as we know it.
Edit: I forgot to make my point lol. Firefox is a completely different browser engine from the chromium based browsers which is why you see a lot of people recommending firefox because they don’t comply with web integrity. I don’t think it’s working though because this is something only the techbros and the cybersisters care about while everyone else just goes about their day.
Makes sense.
It’s not a stupid question, some people just don’t know.
Mainly it’s because:
There are probably plenty more reasons but these are the big ones, and of coarse this is a simplification, in reality things are always a bit more complicated.
Web dev here. Regardless of my opinion, I need to make sure my web projects work on chrome because of market share.
I use it as my YouTube/spotify browser because the ad block just works. Firefox is janky because I have other extensions running that screw up playback on some sites (this has gotten a lot better but I still just use brave out of habit)
The only real problem I ever had with Firefox was this privacy option that would disable auto playback on sites like Twitch and TikTok but that was a setting I wasn’t even aware of. Other than that, I rarely ever have an issue with FF outside of web dev when it doesn’t yet support some cutting-edge web API feature.
Yea, it was something with various extensions I had going. I’m not blaming Firefox at all. I love Firefox. Just easier to use the other browser on the occasions when my configuration causes issues than try to troubleshoot it.
I’ve had issues with add-ons on some sites too. For those times I just use a different Firefox profile (each has its own set of add-ons and settings :D)
That’s a good idea.
I think if Firefox can find a way to have full parity with chrome extensions, that might be a big shift. I’ve talked to more than one person that has a specific extension they rely on that they can’t duplicate with Firefox options. They have many of the big names, but also some holes
Genuinely curious. What extensions are stopping people from moving to Firefox?
Not OP, (and Firefox is still my main), but I keep Chromium-based browsers around for Ichigo, an addon which automatically translates raw manga - which is a godsend for avid manga readers like myself who frequently run out of existing translated manga to read. There’s also Scan Translator which works in a similar way, but sadly Firefox has nothing like them.
In my opinion best bet is ungoogled chromium for any extensions or applications that utilize chromium.
I just spent awhile trying to switch from Vivaldi to Floorp before going back. It just doesn’t work as smoothly, things like tabs wouldn’t save properly between sessions, pinning tabs doesn’t prevent you from closing them, UI elements would disappear, etc.
It’s the other way around in my experience
Firefox over everything. use Vivaldi if you insists on rendering blink