So did Brave stop that crypto thing that was clearly designed to steal money from content creators?
Yes I know, it's a tired complaint years after the fact, but if you launch a browser with that system as a core value prop then it should probably taint the leadership team for a good long while.
I also relate to this post: tried to make Firefox my default browser for years, but slowly Brave became my default browser over time due to its adblocking abilities and general speed.
That said, Brave is a bit of a UI mess out of the box, with too many of their unnecessary "features" like their wallet and crypto BAT stuff being shoved at the user.
I think they're slowly realizing that their user base just wants a straightforward adblocking privacy browser though. They released "Brave Origin" recently, which is a paid app on some platforms, but at least cuts out of all the unnecessary baggage.
Also been using Brave for a while. All the crypto stuff needs to be turned off but besides that for me, it's just better Chrome. Firefox always felt slower to me, Safari is just a weird kid from the neighborhood I could never get to like. I LOVED Arc. I think its a near perfect browser, but lack of proper mobile browser and Browser Company dropping Arc in favor of the new rebranded Arc with AI just left me with distrust. Brave just works, I can use it on all my devices, OSes, I can have uBlock Origin on it and vertical tabs. I don't really need anything else at this point.
It may be better in the shorter term, but using yet another Chromium based browser doesn't really improve the current situation with Google's browser monopoly. I'm personally using Firefox Nightly, and so far it has served me well.
>but using yet another Chromium based browser doesn't really improve the current situation with Google's browser monopoly.
Not everyone wants to be a martyr/activist to change their habits and experience in order to support a political cause they don't really understand.
Most people just want the best, frictionless and most familiar experience to the product they already know and love, which often means a slick and shiny product from a monopolistic anti-consumer company.
> support a political cause they don't really understand.
I'll accept this as a reasonable excuse for the non-HN crowd.
But the HN crowd should understand the cause. We've all experienced or heard stories of the IE6 monopoly days, and few of us trust Google.
And it's not much of a sacrifice to use Firefox, it's a great browser. Maybe not the best for everybody, but it is the best for some and OK for many/all. Calling yourself a martyr just because you use Firefox for political reasons seems a stretch.
>I'll accept this as a reasonable excuse for the non-HN crowd.
That's who I was referring to. If you want Chrome to not be a monopoly anymore you'll need to convince gen-pop to switch not just part of HN.
>And it's not much of a sacrifice to use Firefox,
It can be. A few of my most visited websites have issues on FF.
>Calling yourself a martyr just because you use Firefox for political reasons seems a stretch.
Majority of people will dump the new browser the second the find a website that doesn't work well on it. Using it despite that, IS a political statement, that not everyone will make.
This is a little off-topic, but the article calls it out specifically, accusing Brendan Eich of being an "absolute scumbag" Aren't we past performative displays of outrage over this?
He, like 52% of voting Californians, in 2008, opposed gay marriage. This was a different time: there were various arguments about "civil unions", concern from religious groups, worries about slippery slopes, etc., but we are passed that now -- he no longer holds this belief, and time has proven those concerns to be ill founded. Nobody should be held in indefinite contempt for political positions they once held. If we can forgive Barack Obama for opposing gay marriage, then we can forgive Brendan Eich. You can say that you like his work without having to have endless caveats about how you don't agree with a political position he took twenty years ago that even he no longer believes.
I once mildly defended Eich on HN, and he replied and asked me not to. I hope he won't mind if I just say that my view of him is more in line with those of his old Firefox employees who personally worked with him.
>You can say that you like his work without having to have endless caveats about how you don't agree with a political position he took twenty years ago that *even he no longer believes*.
The author mentions that he tried Vivaldi.
Vivaldi is the spiritual successor to the original Opera browser (not the Opera browser you get today, which is crap). Opera was for power users, and the same goes for Vivaldi today.
I can see that there's a learning curve, and it takes some time to get used to. But overall, it's a no-nonsense, fully featured workhorse that I use as my main browser. It has built-in ad blocking, mouse gestures, sync between devices, pane tiling, and a myriad of other nice little features I miss when using any other browser.
Bonus points: Vivaldi on Android recently added support for Chrome extensions.
It's not for everyone, but I suggest giving it a try.
I've tried helium as a chrome-based ad-blocking browser alternative and found it nice to not have to hide the crypto/AI-nonsense since it doesn't exist. Everything beyond the Crypto/AI stuff is indeed pretty damn good in Brave.
At the end of the day it's basically just a uBlock-Origin preset for chromium, but that's really all I'd want from Brave regardless.
I was eager to jump to Brave ~5 years ago, but was so turned off by the scammy crypto stuff that when I rebuilt my laptop I didn't bother. And then when all of the details came out of one of the founders -- support for banning same sex marriage, resignations from his previous boards when he was appointed, being a COVID denier / anti-vaxxer -- the reasons it came bundled with all of this weird crypto stuff made a lot more sense.
It still amazes me that in California if someone donates to anti-gay marriage initiative they can be openly called "absolute scumbag" and people just roll with it. It's called having political views.
Having the opinion that there should be restaurants, stores, and bathrooms only for white people was an acceptable, mainstream political view during my father's lifetime. Expressing that opinion now would make you a social pariah. If you donated money in support of that cause today you'd probably be fair game for being openly called an "absolute scumbag" almost universally.
How that analogy compares to being against same-sex marriage is going to vary from person to person, but times change, as does what is considered just political views vs a civil rights issue.
Annoyingly, Cursor dumped a ton of tokens into creating FastRender, but won't answer my request for a license on their code, so we can't go anywhere with it.
Yes I know, it's a tired complaint years after the fact, but if you launch a browser with that system as a core value prop then it should probably taint the leadership team for a good long while.
Switching to Brave from Firefox due to AI and ethical concerns seems like a lateral move at best if being generous.
I also relate to this post: tried to make Firefox my default browser for years, but slowly Brave became my default browser over time due to its adblocking abilities and general speed.
That said, Brave is a bit of a UI mess out of the box, with too many of their unnecessary "features" like their wallet and crypto BAT stuff being shoved at the user.
I think they're slowly realizing that their user base just wants a straightforward adblocking privacy browser though. They released "Brave Origin" recently, which is a paid app on some platforms, but at least cuts out of all the unnecessary baggage.
Not everyone wants to be a martyr/activist to change their habits and experience in order to support a political cause they don't really understand.
Most people just want the best, frictionless and most familiar experience to the product they already know and love, which often means a slick and shiny product from a monopolistic anti-consumer company.
I'll accept this as a reasonable excuse for the non-HN crowd.
But the HN crowd should understand the cause. We've all experienced or heard stories of the IE6 monopoly days, and few of us trust Google.
And it's not much of a sacrifice to use Firefox, it's a great browser. Maybe not the best for everybody, but it is the best for some and OK for many/all. Calling yourself a martyr just because you use Firefox for political reasons seems a stretch.
That's who I was referring to. If you want Chrome to not be a monopoly anymore you'll need to convince gen-pop to switch not just part of HN.
>And it's not much of a sacrifice to use Firefox,
It can be. A few of my most visited websites have issues on FF.
>Calling yourself a martyr just because you use Firefox for political reasons seems a stretch.
Majority of people will dump the new browser the second the find a website that doesn't work well on it. Using it despite that, IS a political statement, that not everyone will make.
He, like 52% of voting Californians, in 2008, opposed gay marriage. This was a different time: there were various arguments about "civil unions", concern from religious groups, worries about slippery slopes, etc., but we are passed that now -- he no longer holds this belief, and time has proven those concerns to be ill founded. Nobody should be held in indefinite contempt for political positions they once held. If we can forgive Barack Obama for opposing gay marriage, then we can forgive Brendan Eich. You can say that you like his work without having to have endless caveats about how you don't agree with a political position he took twenty years ago that even he no longer believes.
Not according to the public record.
At the end of the day it's basically just a uBlock-Origin preset for chromium, but that's really all I'd want from Brave regardless.
How that analogy compares to being against same-sex marriage is going to vary from person to person, but times change, as does what is considered just political views vs a civil rights issue.