If you are keen on personal privacy, you might have come across Brave Browser. Brave is a Chromium-based browser that promises to deliver privacy with built-in ad-blocking and content-blocking protection. It also offers several quality-of-life features and services, like a VPN and Tor access. I mean, it’s even listed on the reputable PrivacyTools website. Why am I telling you to steer clear of this browser, then?

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    CEO was forcefully ousted from Firefox for anti-LGBTQ views and donations.

    I think this is making mountains out of molehills. My understanding is that he had a very good working relationship w/ LGBTQ people in the org, and he had been working for many years at Mozilla before this point. The issue was his private donations to an anti-same sex marriage initiative. He didn’t push for any company policy change, didn’t advertise the donation, and didn’t use company funds (used personal funds), so it really shouldn’t be anyone’s business.

    I personally disagree with his political views, but I think he was a fantastic candidate for CEO of Mozilla. How he votes or spends his personal money shouldn’t be relevant at all.

    Replaced existing ads on sites with Brave’s own “private” ads.

    I like this idea in principle, but not in implementation. Brave should have worked with major websites to share revenue, but what Brave actually did was remove website ads and insert its own, forcing websites to go claim BAT to get any of that revenue back.

    My preference here is to not use a cryptocurrency and instead have users pay in their local currency into a bucket to not see ads (and that’s shared w/ the website), and that should be in collaboration w/ website owners.

    Collected crypto on behalf of others without their knowledge or consent

    This is a big nothing-burger.

    Basically, Brave had a way to donate to a creator that wasn’t affiliated with the creator. The way it works is you could donate (using BAT), and once it got to $100 worth, Brave would reach out to the creator to give them the money. They adjusted the wording to make it clear they weren’t affiliated with the creator in any way.

    Injected referral links into crypto websites to steal crypto revenue

    Yeah, this is totally wrong, and they reversed course immediately.

    Put ads in the new page tab

    Not a fan, but at least you can opt-out.

    Shipped a TOR feature that leaked DNS

    Mistakes happen. If you truly need the anonymity, you would have multiple layers of defense (i.e. change your default DNS server) and probably not use something like Brave anyway (Tor Browser is the gold standard here).

    Doesn’t disclose the ID of their search engine crawler via useragent

    Also a bad move, though I am sympathetic to their reasoning here: they just don’t have the resources to get permission from everyone. Search has a huge barrier to entry, and I’m in favor of more competition to Google and Microsoft here.

    Removed “strict” fingerprinting protection

    This was for better UX, since it broke sites. Not a fan of removing this, they should have instead had a big warning when enabling this (e.g. many sites will break if you enable this).

    CEO is generally a right-wing dick.

    Fair, but that should be a separate consideration from whether to use a given product. Using Brave doesn’t make you a right-wing dick.

    You probably wouldn’t like the CEO of any company whose products you like, so basing a decision of what product to use based on that is… dumb.

    I personally use Brave as a backup browser, for two reasons:

    • it’s a chrome-based browser
    • it has ad-blocking

    My primary browser is something based on Firefox because I value rendering-engine competition. But if I need a chromium-based browser, Brave is my go-to. I disable the crypto nonsense and keep ad-blocking on, and it’s generally pretty usable.

    • Spectrism@feddit.org
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      23 hours ago

      My understanding is that he had a very good working relationship w/ LGBTQ people in the org

      Then why betray them? He has nothing to gain from funding such a campaign. There is no logical explanation and sure as hell no justification for it.

      […] so it really shouldn’t be anyone’s business.
      How he votes or spends his personal money shouldn’t be relevant at all.

      Oh, shut up. When this asshole funds a campaign that’s actively fighting against the rights of millions of people, it absolutely is our damn fucking business.

      Yeah, this is totally wrong, and they reversed course immediately.

      It’s bad enough that they even got the idea, let alone implement and actually ship it. Negative reactions shouldn’t be the first deciding factor for reversing such decisions.

      Brave should have worked with major websites to share revenue

      Not just share, completely give up that revenue. Blocking ads is one thing, but to then also monetise other people’s content should not allow Brave to earn even a single cent.
      Your proposed solution sounds fine, though.

      CEO is generally a right-wing dick.

      Fair, but that should be a separate consideration from whether to use a given product.

      Again, no. Maybe if there weren’t any alternatives, but there are plenty.

      You probably wouldn’t like the CEO of any company whose products you like,

      That’s probably true, however, Eich is a different story. Despite not gaining anything from it, neither for his companies nor for himself, he was willing to go out of his way to support a campaign in favour of discriminating millions of people, proactively. This doesn’t just make me not like him, it makes me despise him.
      Other CEO’s typically at least keep quiet about politics, and make me dislike them mainly because of self-interest and their resulting business decisions, which can at least still be somewhat understandable.

      And let me be clear that I’m not going to jump on people who use Brave for whatever reason. But under no circumstances will I defend those who downplay or justify Brave’s, and especially Eich’s, actions.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        12 hours ago

        He has nothing to gain from funding such a campaign.

        He obviously believes that same sex marriage shouldn’t be performed by the government. If you want to know why, ask him, not me.

        That said, I don’t see this as “betrayal,” it was a private donation. The only reason we’re talking about it is because someone dug through his donation history (donations to such orgs are public record) and made a big deal about it. AFAIK, there were no accusations of him treating LGBT people unfairly, only opposition to his donation.

        It’s bad enough that they even got the idea,

        I’d like to see an explanation beyond, “yeah, we screwed up.” Who signed off on it, and what was their justification?

        Your proposed solution sounds fine, though.

        Thanks. The idea is that the browser has a vested interest in protecting the privacy of it’s users, so finding a workable solution for both the user and the website should provide some funding for the browser.

        But yes, either the browser should block ads so nobody gets revenue or work something out where everyone wins. Profiting off someone else’s content without permission will always be wrong.

        Maybe if there weren’t any alternatives, but there are plenty.

        Do you have a better suggestion for a chromium-based browser that’s FOSS and has effective ad blocking and tracking protection?

        I use Firefox (or fork) most of the time, but I need to test on a chromium browser and need a backup for the odd website that fails on Firefox.

        Brave sticks out as the obvious solution here.

        Other CEO’s typically at least keep quiet about politics

        He tried to. He never advertised his political beliefs, donations, etc. Someone just found out and blasted him for it. For an org that supposedly cares about privacy, that’s pretty alarming!

        But under no circumstances will I defend those who downplay or justify Brave’s, and especially Eich’s, actions.

        Nor will I. But I will separate my criticism of them.

        I’m 100% happy to jump on board an Eich’s political positions hate train, and I probably share the resentment. But I will not jump on a Brave hate train just because Eich is associated with it. I’m happy to blast Brave over technical mistakes it makes (I avoided it for a long time until BAT was deemphasized), but I won’t transfer that frustration into a personal attack on Eich. They can and should be treated separately.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      It’s tempting to see his donations to prop 8 as just his personal business, but like so many others you’re missing the fact that when your political beliefs are that other humans are actually subhuman and not equals, that goes beyond “personal politics.” Like outright naziism, there should be no safe place for a single ounce of this thinking. If you think it’s akin to liking shrimp more than chicken, you should deeply rethink your own “personal politics” because you’re casually glancing over the dehumanization of other people with a shrug.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        14 hours ago

        you’re missing the fact that when your political beliefs are that other humans are actually subhuman and not equals

        Wait, so believing same sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed means you think gay people are sub-human? That’s quite the leap. It may be true, but you’ll need a bit more evidence than a private donation to a group pushing a bill to ban same sex marriage.

        Even if he is literal Nazi trash (big doubt), his company produces FOSS, which can and should be evaluated on its own merits.

        Look, I’m married to an immigrant POC. If he supported banning immigration interracial marriage, that would piss me off, but it wouldn’t have any impact on the quality of the browser. I bet CEOs of companies that make a number of products I use have terrible political takes or like Eich, but that doesn’t change the quality of the product.

        If he brought his politics into his company, that would be different. But how he spends his money and free time doesn’t really matter to me.

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          You keep saying “but the product is fine” as if you don’t understand the concept of a boycott on moral grounds. It’s also hard to trust your privacy to someone who doesn’t believe you should have the same rights. Yes I consider that dehumanizing. If you’d been prevented from marrying your immigrant POC you would feel dehumanized as well, and I hazard to guess you might choose alternatives to products built by those who helped bring you to that state. At least fuck I hope so, because otherwise you are missing a screw.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            14 hours ago

            I absolutely do boycott based on moral grounds. I’ve been boycotting Walmart for >10 years because of unfair competition actions (killing off small businesses), poor treatment of workers, and being a massive force for reducing worker treatment in other companies by forcing prices down. Likewise for Nestle and what they’ve done in Africa, I’m trying to eliminate Amazon for their warehouse policies, and I’ve been reducing or eliminating purchases from other companies as well along similar lines.

            I draw the line at actual actions by companies though, and I don’t really care what c-suite types do on their own time and with their own money. If I boycotted companies based on what their execs believe, I wouldn’t be able to buy anything.

            you would feel dehumanized as well,

            Oh absolutely, but I would funnel that anger at the people who supported and passed it, not at the companies those people work for or the products those companies produce.

            • scarabic@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              It’s one thing to differentiate between a company and the staff who work for it. But I think you have to be pretty thick to gleefully patronize a company whose founder and CEO you detest. If you want to compartmentalize to such an extreme, that’s your business, but don’t argue it to me as if it makes any objective sense to ignore who you are enriching by your purchasing power.

              Companies are like Soylent green, after all: they’re made of people.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                10 hours ago

                The CEO isn’t the company, they’re just the ones at the helm. The CEO’s personal opinions don’t really impact my decision of whether to patronize their store, provided they keep their personal opinions out of the business. If a CEO aligns with me but their products suck, cool, but I’ll avoid the store. If a CEO is opposite to me and their products rock, I’ll probably buy from them. If a company abuses its employees or actively tries to interfere w/ democracy (more than their competitors), then I’ll avoid their products. I think it’s important to send the right message to the right person/group.

                I disagree with Brendan Eich, but he seems to keep his personal politics out of his business. I can dislike him while being okay with his business, and I don’t think that’s an insane thing to do at all.

                who you are enriching

                At the end of the day, a ton of distasteful people get wealthy regardless of what I do. It’s also true that they get a very small percentage of the money a company takes in, it just so happens that a small piece of a very large pie is still a ton of money.

                At the end of the day, it’s absolutely a personal choice which products and organizations to support. I personally see more value in supporting ideas (e.g. privacy) than tearing things down just because an unsavory character is affiliated with it. In other words, I prefer to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

    • endeavor@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      Using software made by people who are politically aligned to sell out your country to russia is stupid stupid stupid and makes you an idiot, idiot, idiot.

      Its not just politics when the politics are treason and electing a kgb asset. In a normal country and time it wouldn’t be a big thing wether your browser maintainer wants feee public transit or not but in current time right wing means you literally voted to destroy the entire us in order to weaken nato for the russian invasion.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        It sounds like you need to step away from social media and touch some grass.

        But let’s say you’re right, pretty much every big company is sucking up to Trump, and you’d be hard pressed to find something in your shopping cart that doesn’t benefit someone that supports him. That’s an untenable position.

        The better approach, IMO, is to avoid products from companies that mistreat their employees. That’s why I avoid Walmart, Amazon, and a few others, because that sends a clearer message and funnels my money to a better cause.

        Avoiding Brave is just virtue signaling, it doesn’t actually accomplish anything. If Brave goes under, Eich will still be conservative and probably still donate to causes you don’t like, but we’ll have one less competitor to Google’s absolute hegemony over the web browser market.

        Use Brave if it solves your problems, don’t if it doesn’t. Don’t base that decision on the personal views of the person who happens to be in charge.

        • endeavor@sopuli.xyz
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          22 hours ago

          So brave is for people who want privacy and security and are fine when their private, secure software is designed by people who see no problems with not investigating russian cyberterrorism, russian bots and propaganda and see no issues with sharing some of the highest state secrets over some fucking messenger group with random people from outside the government. OH and not to menition think traitorous felons who failed a coup should be punished with 4 years in the highest office.

          I do not know about you but this is not the software I want to entrust literally all data of all my finances and important personal details on.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            15 hours ago

            designed by people who see no problems with…

            Do you have a source for those beliefs, or are you just assuming that someone vaguely supporting Trump has that perspective?

            I honestly don’t care what the devs believe, as long as they don’t intentionally put in vulnerabilities.

            this is not the software I want to entrust literally all data of all my finances and important personal details on.

            Same, which is why I use and recommend Firefox and derivatives.

            My point is that if your requirement is a chromium-hard based browser, you can do a lot worse than Brave.

            • endeavor@sopuli.xyz
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              9 hours ago

              You cannot support current administration and at the same time be pro freedom, privacy and even pro common sense. These things are mutually exclusive, unless you’re lying or insanely stupid bot.

              Very simple.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                9 hours ago

                I guess that depends on what you mean by “support.” You can support certain things the administration does while attacking others. I dislike most of what Trump has done, but I happen to like a few things Trump has done as well. It’s totally rational to say what you do and don’t like about a given administration. I voted for Biden, for example, and I was happy that he largely stayed out of my news feed and actually pulled us out of Afghanistan, but I’m not particularly happy about much of the rest of his presidency (still don’t regret my vote though).

                I don’t know how far Eich’s “support” goes, you’d have to ask him that. All I know is that he isn’t a fan of same-sex marriage at the government level. Maybe he’s a single issue voter, or maybe it’s something else. I don’t know, I haven’t seen much about his political preferences.

                My point is that we shouldn’t jump down someone’s throat and start assuming a whole host of things based on very limited evidence.

                • endeavor@sopuli.xyz
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                  9 hours ago

                  The shit repubs are pulling, defending and double standarding is insane enough to not trust them as a whole for any rational person used to a functioning government. Period. You are doing the classic “hitler did some good things too” argument. Big picture doesn’t give a fuck. Any single issue voter, rational person or a non-piece of treasonous shit would distance themselves from repubs and try again with a sane political party. Anyone still not condemning republicans is untrustworthy and an enemy of democracy and freedom. Easy as

                  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                    9 hours ago

                    You are doing the classic “hitler did some good things too” argument

                    I’m really not. Hitler was a very different situation than Trump, and if you think they’re directly comparable, you need to take a break from the internet.

                    Yeah Trump sucks, and he’s dangerous (but mostly in an inept sort of way). I get it. But I think it’s highly unlikely that he tries to take dictatorial control of the US in any meaningful capacity.

                    There are some reasonable Republicans who don’t like the nonsense Trump is doing. In fact, I’d be surprised if most Republicans aren’t a fan of him flagrantly ignoring the law. Don’t lump them all into the same set of problems, that’s just going to put roughly half of the US against you. Instead of that, you could find some common ground and get a significant number to be on your side. Why fan this stupid culture war nonsense more than necessary?

                    Call out bad policy, acknowledge good policy, and demand accountability for lawbreaking.

                    Brendan Eich isn’t some secret Project 2025 mastermind, he’s just a dude that thinks privacy on the web is important and thinks his company has an interesting approach to solving that problem. Yeah, he has at least one bad political view, but that doesn’t mean everything he touches is automatically terrible.

        • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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          1 day ago

          but we’ll have one less competitor to Google’s absolute hegemony over the web browser market.

          Brave isn’t a competitor to Google, it’s an enabler. It uses the same engine, which is all Google cares about: Their engine, their internet.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            It absolutely is a competitor. Yes, it uses the same engine, but it blocks their ads. And at the end of the day, serving ads is what Google wants to do.

            But again, Firefox (and forks) is my main browser, and it’s what I recommend to everyone. But Brave is on my list of acceptable Chromium browsers, assuming you need a Chromium browser (I do for web dev at my day job).

            • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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              1 day ago

              Yes, it uses the same engine, but it blocks their ads.

              Which means nothing, when Google can, and is, pushing technology to freely unleash their ad network on all web pages, as a function of the engine itself.

              No, it’s not a competitor. Excepting in their ad markets, and frankly, it’s not a competitor, it’s a statistical blip.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                12 hours ago

                as a function of the engine itself.

                AFAIK, there’s nothing in Blink (the rendering engine), V8 (the JavaScript run engine), or any other low level pieces of the browser that does this. What they’re doing is hamstringing extensions and building in a layer of tracking into the browser on top of the engine. A fork can absolutely keep the engine bits and remove the tracking bits.

                The problem with Chrome’s hegemony over the rendering engine has nothing to do with their ad network, but with their ability to steer people to use their products instead of competitors’ (e.g. “Google Docs is faster on Chrome, switch today!” just because they introduced a chrome-only spec extension).

                Brave absolutely is a competitor. They block Google’s ads, have their own search engine (and are building their own index), and provide a privacy friendly alternative to Chrome without any compatibility issues. That’s why it’s my backup to Firefox (and forks), sometimes things don’t work properly on Gecko and I want a privacy-friendly alternative to chrome. That used to be Chromium w/ uBlock Origin, but with that extension taken from the chrome web store, I reach for Brave, which has it built in.

                And yeah, it doesn’t have a ton of users. That doesn’t mean they’re not a competitor though.

    • Lumiluz@slrpnk.net
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      1 day ago

      Holy copium batman, imagine excusing malware and checks notes literally aiding in denying rights to LGBTQ+ people.

      Let me guess, you pretend to be centrist by day, and you wear

      By night?

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        You got me, I guess? But don’t tell my POC SO that I’ve been happily married to for >10 years.

        Seriously though, this is the kind of extreme take I’m pushing back on. I strongly disagree with the Lemmy devs’ politics, yet here I am on their platform. I’ve even contributed bug fixes. I strongly disagree with Eich’s politics, yet I use Brave as my backup browser. Why? It meets my technical requirements. Firefox is my main browser though.

        I’m not a centrist either, whatever that means, but I guess of you average out my extreme takes it could look that way. Conservatives call me socialist, Progressives call me far right, so I guess the middle of that is centrist?

        • Ulrich@feddit.org
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          For what it’s worth, I agree 100%. I’m awfully tired of this whole “everyone who disagrees with me is a nazi/KKK” extremism. It’s a great disservice to the severity of those atrocities.

        • Lumbardo@reddthat.com
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          22 hours ago

          I made the mistake of responding to Lumiluz on a different comment thread. They haven’t responded yet, but based on this communication here I will just ignore any reply. It’s strange we live in a world where you can be accused of being a KKK member due to unrelated tools one uses to browse the Internet.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            14 hours ago

            It’s not strange, people love jumping to extreme conclusions if there’s even a whiff of something they don’t like. Name calling is unfortunately very common.

            I’d prefer more fact based discussions, but here we are.

            The crazy thing is, I very much dislike Trump, but I get labeled as a supporter if I dare say anything positive about him or anyone who supports him, or in this case, not vehemently oppose everything a Trump supporter touches. I find that ridiculous, but here we are.

            Anyway, hopefully someone finds what I write useful.

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
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      He didn’t push for any company policy change, didn’t advertise the donation, and didn’t use company funds (used personal funds), so it really shouldn’t be anyone’s business.

      It’s everyone’s business that cares about those people.

      How he votes or spends his personal money shouldn’t be relevant at all.

      Using products from a company that benefits him is empowering him to do those things.

      Brave should have worked with major websites to share revenue

      That’s a monumental task. They would have had to create their own ad network similar to Google and then somehow out-compete them to get their business without any of the information that Google has about users.

      they weren’t affiliated with the creator in any way.

      Yes, that’s the problem.

      Yeah, this is totally wrong, and they reversed course immediately.

      Only because they got caught, and they didn’t refund any of the crypto they earned in the interim.

      Mistakes happen.

      When it comes to TOR, mistakes can be a matter of life and death. People only use TOR when they need complete anonymity.

      they should have instead had a big warning when enabling this (e.g. many sites will break if you enable this).

      They did indeed have exactly that. It said in the actual setting itself “Strict, may break sites”.

      You probably wouldn’t like the CEO of any company whose products you like, so basing a decision of what product to use based on that is… dumb.

      Not true. I like Our Lord Gaben. I like Meredith Whitaker. I like lots of CEOs.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        It’s everyone’s business that cares about those people.

        But is it though?

        Believing that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be a government-supported institution isn’t the same as believing LGBT people are “invalid” or “wrong” or whatever.

        For example, I personally oppose government-supported marriage entirely (despite being married myself) because I think marriage should be a religious/personal thing instead of an official government institution, and that we should replace it with a series of contracts that grant certain legal privileges (e.g. joint tax filing, power of attorney, etc) in an a la carte type setup (i.e. you may want to join finances w/ someone, but not give them hospital visitation rights). I think we should also allow more than two parties to enter into these agreements to cover a wide variety of unique living situations (e.g. you may want to joint file with a parent that you care for).

        I don’t know Eich’s personal political views, and I honestly don’t care, as long as they don’t interfere with his role.

        That’s a monumental task. They would have had to create their own ad network similar to Google and then solicit every site on the web to participate.

        Not necessarily. For example, they could partner w/ someone like Axate, which basically does just this.

        Only because they got caught, and they didn’t refund any of the crypto they earned in the interim.

        My understanding is that they can’t really do that, because the payments are anonymous. I could be mistaken though.

        When it comes to TOR, mistakes can be a matter of life and death. People only use TOR when they need complete anonymity.

        And if that applies to you, you should be very careful about the tools you use. Brave is a new thing and is relatively unproven. Use established, proven tools like Tor Browser.

        Not true. I like Our Lord Gaben. I like Meredith Whitaker. I like lots of CEOs.

        Eh, I don’t really like Gabe Newell, but I certainly appreciate the investment into Linux. It just so happens our interests align more than they don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if GabeN’s personal politics were quite conservative, because conservative policies generally benefit rich people like him (the closest I can see is maybe libertarian).

        Meredith Whitaker is an absolute treasure, we don’t deserve her.

        • Spectrism@feddit.org
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          22 hours ago

          Believing that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be a government-supported institution isn’t the same as believing LGBT people are “invalid” or “wrong” or whatever.

          That’s great and all, but we don’t live in those times yet. Not granting people the right to marry whoever they want in current times based on the premise that we should change the marital law somewhere in the future is still nothing short of discrimination. And let’s not forget that Eich supported a campaign that was very explicitly against gay marriage, not the current concept of marriage altogether. Weak argument.

          and that we should replace it with a series of contracts that grant certain legal privileges (e.g. joint tax filing, power of attorney, etc)

          That’s what marriage already is for the most part in many parts of the world. And in those cases, the resulting financial disadvantage for example also makes it more apparent, why being against gay marriage is not just about names on a piece of paper.

          I don’t know Eich’s personal political views, and I honestly don’t care, as long as they don’t interfere with his role.

          How empathetic of you. Might as well support Josef Mengele with that attitude. A bit more personal responsibility couldn’t hurt.

          My understanding is that they can’t really do that, because the payments are anonymous.

          Well, last I checked it’s just another ERC-20 Token and not a new Monero, so I have my doubts about that. I also assume that they must keep transaction logs somewhere to keep track of the amount of BAT donated to a creator. But I can’t be sure either.

          Use established, proven tools like Tor Browser.

          It’s also kind of useless for Brave to have implemented Tor in the first place. Even if Brave matures further, there’s basically no reason not to use the Tor Browser for its intended purpose.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            12 hours ago

            not the current concept of marriage altogether.

            I never claimed it was. I merely gave an example of how opposition to something doesn’t necessarily indicate opposition to the people it’s intending to help.

            For the record, I support same-sex marriage, on the grounds that my preferred policy (which would open up marriage to more than just same-sex couples) is unlikely to get traction anytime soon, so something is better than nothing. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of better.

            However, I have friends who oppose same-sex marriage and don’t hate gay people (in fact, they’re good friends with LGBT people). The world isn’t black and white, so we shouldn’t assume someone is a Nazi just because they believe a couple of the same things Nazis do. That’s a logical fallacy, and it does way more harm than good.

            That’s what marriage already is for the most part in many parts of the world

            Exactly, and I’m arguing that those benefits shouldn’t be bundled. I’ve known couples that want to share custody but not finances, or maybe visitation rights but not power of attorney. Relationships are complicated, and I think the institution of marriage is outdated. We spend tons of time and money on divorces and prenuptial agreements, and I think that could be dramatically simplified if we separated out the specific agreements and let people pick which they want.

            Marriage should be a religious/personal thing, not a legal one. Whether you want to consider yourself married shouldn’t depend on a piece of paper in much the same way that your chosen gender shouldn’t.

            Josef Mengele

            That’s quite the logical leap.

            it’s just another ERC-20 Token and not a new Monero

            I don’t know, and honestly it doesn’t matter.

            My preferred form of record keeping is GNU Taler. You’d load a wallet to pay for articles or whatever and the browser vendor would use a very cheap form of accounting to keep track of purchases, and lump payments to websites together with payments from other users. Taler is nice in that it protects the privacy of the purchaser, has cryptographic protections without the complexity of P2P verification (and none of the ecological impact), and is pretty easy to understand. The vendor could even audit transactions if they want without violating the privacy of the user.

            But honestly, I don’t care what mechanism they use, whether crypto or some form of centralized wallet. I just want to be able to pay to remove ads without needing a million accounts.

            It’s also kind of useless for Brave to have implemented Tor in the first place

            I disagree. There’s value in having a second rendering engine in case a website doesn’t work on Tor Browser. It’s unlikely to have similar protections (e.g. finger printing resistance), but it could work in a pinch for a site you need to access that doesn’t work on Gecko for whatever reason.

            That said, you could probably achieve that by pointing the browser at a running Tor service (e.g. Orbot on Android). You’d need to be extra careful about things like DNS (which Brave got wrong), but it’s an option. Having it bundled is nice though.

        • Ulrich@feddit.org
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          Believing that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be a government-supported institution isn’t the same as believing LGBT people are “invalid” or “wrong” or whatever.

          How is it not?

          we should replace it with a series of contracts that grant certain legal privileges

          I mean, legally, that’s what marriage is.

          you may want to join finances w/ someone, but not give them hospital visitation rights

          You don’t have to do either of those things just because you’re married. Marriage just gives you the option.

          For example, they could partner w/ someone like Axate

          And what would they bring to this partnership?

          And if that applies to you, you should be very careful about the tools you use.

          You should be. But companies also should not be creating tools that propose to give you those protections when they’re not smart enough to. Just leave it to the professionals.

          I wouldn’t be surprised if GabeN’s personal politics were quite conservative

          As long as he keeps his mouth shut about them and doesn’t financially support them, he’s doing worlds better than Mr. Eich.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            Believing that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be a government-supported institution isn’t the same as believing LGBT people are “invalid” or “wrong” or whatever.

            How is it not?

            It seems incredibly obvious to me. For example, here are some things I believe:

            • gambling is bad - yet I support legalization of gambling; why? Personal freedom comes first.
            • prostitution is bad - yet I support legalization of prostitution; why? Sex work will happen, so it’s better for it to be properly regulated than happen on the black market
            • drug use is bad - yet I support legalization of recreational drugs; why? Illegal drugs laced w/ fentanyl are a big problem, and most drug users would be better off w/ a regulated service.

            Personal beliefs about what government policy should be can be very different than personal beliefs about what is “good” and “bad.”

            To be clear, I support same-sex marriage because it’s on the table and my preferred alternative has almost no shot of being considered. So I support it as a harm-reduction policy, not because I actually believe the government should actually regulate marriage.

            I mean, legally, that’s what marriage is.

            Marriage is a basket of contracts (power of attorney, joint custody, financial obligations, etc), and it’s limited to two people, which is odd. The original intent seems to be to encourage procreation, but it’s hardly enforced at all, nor is that particularly important in most countries (except maybe Japan).

            We should treat marriage similarly to corporations. If you want to call your civil partnership “marriage,” more power to you. If you want to call it being BF/GF, life partners, or whatever else, more power to you. The government should only care that you meet the requirements for whatever the benefit is.

            You don’t have to do either of those things just because you’re married. Marriage just gives you the option.

            In many (most?) states, it is enforced unless you specifically opt-out (e.g. a pre-nup). Laws certainly vary by state, but generally speaking, if you’re legally married, anything you earn in the marriage is considered joint assets, even if you keep them in separate accounts. In some areas, things you bring into the marriage are also jointly owned, unless they are never interacted with.

            That’s why divorces are so messy, the couple could have agreed to keep things separate at the start, but without any evidence of that, it’s up to the courts to decide what’s fair. And pretty frequently, they’ll lean on the side of 50/50 for all assets, regardless of when it was acquired or what the understanding was.

            And what would they bring to this partnership?

            Integration into the browser product, users, and marketing.

            I’ve been wanting Firefox to do something like this so get more visibility w/ online services. I’d love to be able to load up an account balance and click “view article” and the website owner sucks a few pennies from that balance or whatever. But my only options are:

            • find a workaround w/ my ad-blocker - reader mode, archive, etc
            • make yet another account and maybe pay for a monthly subscription (why do that when I only want the one article?)
            • not read the article

            Axate provides more than that, but so few online services work w/ it. A browser could bring them a ton of visibility.

            But companies also should not be creating tools that propose to give you those protections when they’re not smart enough to. Just leave it to the professionals.

            Agreed. But like I said, users request features, bugs happen, etc. At the end of the day, the responsibility is on the user to pick the right product for their needs. Brave isn’t that product for at-risk individuals until it has been vetted by actual security experts.

            As long as he keeps his mouth shut about them and doesn’t financially support them, he’s doing worlds better than Mr. Eich.

            Eich did the first half of that, his only “sin” was that someone found out about his donation. That’s it. My understanding is that nobody was aware of it until someone dug into the donation records.

            • Ulrich@feddit.org
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              gambling is bad - yet I support legalization

              Got it, so being gay isn’t “wrong” or “invalid”, it’s just “bad”?

              it is enforced unless you specifically opt-out (e.g. a pre-nup)

              Yes, that’s what I was referring to. You might call it a “contract”.

              Integration into the browser product, users, and marketing.

              They don’t need Brave for that. They need the website owners. If you’re talking about injecting Axate ads where Google and other ads already are, then we’re back to square 1 where you’re ripping off content creators from their revenue for their content.

              I’d love to be able to load up an account balance and click “view article” and the website owner sucks a few pennies from that balance or whatever.

              The problem with doing that with fiat is that there are transfer fees. You’d essential be paying a $3 to transfer 5 cents. That’s why everyone uses crypto for this.

              But like I said, users request features

              Users can request features all day, developers are the ones who have to implement them.

              bugs happen

              It’s a completely unnecessary bug from someone trying to replace a perfectly safe and secure tool with their own and build value for themselves. This isn’t just any bug. Like I said, people’s lives can hang in the balance in a very real way. They need to get it right or just stay the fuck away.

              the responsibility is on the user to pick the right product for their needs

              Bullshit. Both are responsible.

              Brave isn’t that product for at-risk individuals until it has been vetted by actual security experts.

              Then they shouldn’t have launched it.

              Eich did the first half of that

              Not good enough.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                Got it, so being gay isn’t “wrong” or “invalid”, it’s just “bad”?

                I didn’t say that.

                My point here is that personal views can differ from political policy views.

                Yes, that’s what I was referring to. You might call it a “contract”.

                The issue is that it’s opt-out. Instead of that, people should opt-in only to the parts they want.

                If you’re talking about injecting Axate ads where Google and other ads already are

                No, I’m talking about creating a protocol where browser clients can inform website owners that the customer is using this separate method of payment. It could happen separate from the browser (e.g. as an extension), but the browser gives it a lot more visibility.

                The UX here would be pretty simple: if the user has enabled this feature, websites would prompt users for payment or to show ads.

                Browsers win because they get a revenue stream, Axate wins by having more customers, and websites win because they’re getting paid instead of customers blocking ads.

                The problem with doing that with fiat is that there are transfer fees. You’d essential be paying a $3 to transfer 5 cents. That’s why everyone uses crypto for this.

                That’s why you batch up transfers. General flow:

                1. users load up a balance (say, $20)
                2. service (e.g. Axate) tracks which payments have been made and bulk pays website owners monthly or whatever

                Boom, total number of transfers are pretty low, no need for cryptocurrencies.

                Both are responsible.

                Sure, but the browser vendor has very little at stake, whereas the user has everything at stake. At the end of the day, it’s on the user.

                Not good enough.

                You’re welcome to your opinion. I personally don’t have an issue with how people spend their money, I only have an issue with how they treat their employees and choices they make about their product.

                • Ulrich@feddit.org
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                  My point here is that personal views can differ from political policy views.

                  That makes absolutely no sense. You would advocate for and even donate to political reform for something you don’t personally believe in?

                  At the end of the day, it’s on the user.

                  No, it isn’t.

                  I personally don’t have an issue with how people spend their money

                  Nothing says more about who a person is than their political donations.

                  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                    You would advocate for and even donate to political reform for something you don’t personally believe in?

                    Yes. I believe in personal freedom, so I’ll support the freedom to do things that I believe are harmful like drug use, gambling, or prostitution. You doing those things doesn’t impact me or anyone else so it should 100% be your right to do it. In short, I believe principles should carry the day.

                    I may not agree with you doing something I believe to be bad, but I’ll defend your right to do it.

                    In the same vein, I believe governments should be as small as possible, and no smaller. The role of government is to protect me from you, and vice versa. It’s not to ensure I’m making good choices, in fact it shouldn’t be in the business of deciding what’s “good” or “bad,” it should merely enforce laws that protect people from eachother.

                    Does the government deciding which marriages are valid protect me from you? Not really, all it does is determine who can take advantage of certain benefits. That sounds exclusionary with no particular purpose, so the government shouldn’t decide that.

                    So I really can’t speak to why Eich donated to the prop 8 fund (or whatever it was). Was it because he hates gay people? Or because he thinks same sex marriage goes counter to the reason marriage exists as a government institution? Or something else? I don’t know, nor do I really care, provided it doesn’t get in the way of doing his job.

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      Fair, but that should be a separate consideration from whether to use a given product. Using Brave doesn’t make you a right-wing dick. You probably wouldn’t like the CEO of any company whose products you like, so basing a decision of what product to use based on that is… dumb.

      So it’s ok to buy a Tesla nowadays in your opinion? Genuinely curious.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        So it’s ok to buy a Tesla nowadays in your opinion? Genuinely curious.

        Yes, if it’s the vehicle that fits your needs the best. Elon doesn’t need your money, and with Tesla getting roasted in the media, you can probably pick up a good deal.

        That said, I wouldn’t buy a Tesla for other reasons, such as:

        I do boycott certain products though, first among them is Wal-Mart, but that’s because I find Wal-Mart to be anti-competitive (drives smaller stores out of business) and they contribute to poor working conditions either directly (i.e. their own products) or indirectly (i.e. forcing suppliers to cut costs). I’ve been boycotting them for ~20 years, and honestly haven’t bothered checking if they’ve improved. I also try to avoid buying from Amazon for similar reasons.

        Maybe Tesla is similar to those, idk. I personally don’t buy Musk’s products because I find them lacking, and I haven’t needed any more reasons to avoid his products than that.

        I literally don’t care about the political views of the CEO/owner of a company. I dislike Chik-Fil-A’s founder, for example, but I like the food there and the workers seem to be treated well, so I shop there. I especially like that they’re closed on Sundays, which guarantees workers get at least one day off. Whether some idiot gets rich from a fraction of the money I spend on a certain product doesn’t bother me, I mostly care that the business is run well and the product is good.

        • deathbird@mander.xyz
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          I appreciate your perspective, and I agree that we should probably be more concerned with how the company functions than the personal character of the CEO .

          Sam Walton was a hardworking, amiable, humble man by all accounts. And even when he was alive Walmart the company was cutting throats.

          At the same time, if a CEO deeply ingrains himself in the political process, I can probably take a pass on his products even if they are marginally better. So these days Musk is doing so much damage to the functioning of the US government that even if Teslas were good I wouldn’t buy one.

          The Chikfila guy on the other hand was just donating to a few discriminatory “Christian” charities last I checked but stopped trying to change policy, so…as fast food shops go it’s actually not too bad even if I don’t prefer to eat there.

          Starbucks…evil CEO, but preemptively boycotting before the organized shops strike doesn’t help the workers.

          Brave…has had too many fuckups for my taste. On the rare occasion that I need a privacy focused Chromium-based browser I just use Chromium with uBlock Origin for the one website I need to visit.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            Sam Walton

            Oh yeah, I absolutely respect the man, I just don’t respect his business choices. There needs to be a balance between cutting costs to bring prices down for customers and providing for your employees.

            if a CEO deeply ingrains himself in the political process, I can probably take a pass on his products

            But why? He doesn’t need your money anymore, and if everyone stopped buying his products and Tesla went bankrupt, he’d still be ridiculously rich.

            I get that it’s sending a message, but what does that accomplish? Maybe the board boots him as CEO, but he’ll retain his ownership stake.

            I don’t see it. That’s why I focus on company culture, which often survives a change in management. If the culture is busted, I go out of my way go avoid their products.

            Starbucks

            Starbucks has actually been fantastic, at least in the past, with even part-time employees getting great benefits and pay being very competitive. I don’t know how things are with the CEO changes (Chipotle guy now, right?), so maybe that’s no longer the case.

            That said, I don’t go there because I don’t like their products.

            Chromium with uBlock Origin

            Does that still work?

            I mostly just need something to test on, since I’m a full stack web dev, and I don’t like having ads everywhere when I need to prettify some JSON or something. Also a fallback on the few pages Firefox doesn’t work on, once in a blue moon.

            That’s really it.