The writer is proposing Vivaldi, a closed-source browser, as an alternative to Brave, which is free and open-source. I think a better alternative would be Ungoogled Chromium.
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Just because something is open source doesn't mean the people behind it have the best intentions in mind.
I think one of the biggest issues with FOSS-minded people is that they automatically consider open source software private, safe and having good intentions in mind, but they never actually go beyond the surface to check if it actually is.
Most people who use FOSS are not qualified to check source code for ill-intent (like me) and rely on people smarter than them (and me) to review the code and find any problems. FOSS isn't automatically private, safe, and having good intentions, but if it isn't, at least the code is transparent and the review process is open for all. Commercial software has no review, and zero transparency.
I agree that you shouldn't use Brave browser cause of things they've done in the past but, oh Jesus, that article is so stupid it reminds me the Hogwarts Legacy boycott.
Unfortunately, there are the ame stuff about Firefox too. Mozilla Foundation is such a corrupt organization with extreme shady finances.
Foundation's main income is royalties by google: 567M per year.
Donations: 7M (which almost goes to the CEO's bonuses)
the CEO gets 700K salary and 4.6M bonuses. Lmao.
I'd suggest, using Firefox but not donating to them.
I've been trying out the DuckDuckGo browser lately on mobile. It uses the Chromium backend, so some sites work better in it than in my normal Firefox.
The neatest feature of the browser is the ability to generate random email addresses in signup forms, and those emails all get forwarded to your real email address. As it forwards the emails, it removes trackers from them. You can click a link in one of the forwarded emails to disable that address from being forwarded any more if it gets spammy.
Firefox works well enough for me. Never given me any problems or grief. I don't really understand the fascination with chromium forks or the insistence on using them instead of Mozilla's engine.
I stopped using Brave over the whole BAT thing, it just felt shady and weird. This article just validated my decision even more. Happy to be back with Firefox, even though Mozilla has its own issues.
Well, fork, I hadn't looked at this team behind Brave. I use both Firefox and Brave. Bye bye Brave...
I think that the number 1 reason to not use brave is that is based on the chromium engine. The number 2 is that they use limited anti fingerprinting tools and support his self built tracking and ads. The others about ideology of the CEO i think are not so important.
Honestly I don't care who or what he personally donated to. But the ad model is the problem for me.
I just read an article about a browser... That somehow included a court case about hulk hogan being gay or not... I had to stop right there lol.
This article did not present a compelling case for abandoning brave. Who cares what the founder thinks about various political issues. If the software is good, then that’s all that matters.
Don’t get me wrong, I support same sex marriage, but people have a right to oppose the concept as marriage is a government idea that is tied up in politics.
I hadn't read the details of their intended ad network. I just recall it sounded shady. Now that I read about it, it sounds very similar conceptually to Google's Privacy Sandbox. I'm not sure if this is a better or worse approach than the status quo but I surely don't trust Brave Inc, a startup with a questionable business model and investors, with gathering and processing this data.
Out of the box Firefox is definitely not very privacy conscious, better than Chrome no doubt, but worse than Brave. It can be configured to be better than both or one can use Librewolf/Mullvad browser