As an American taxpayer who has a twenty-five year decade long career in IT this concerns me. Doesn't surprise me in the least but concerns me. Yet you see this waste and take to HN instead of reporting the waste and abuse via channels such as whistleblowers?
I'm glad you're good at what you do, but to me, and this attitude of "I know this is an issue but I'm still gonna waste taxpayer funds as part of my job and perl-clutch on HN" is concerning.
Outside of your paycheck contributions and otherwise, that isn't your money friend.
This is how any large federally funded markets operate in the United States. Businesses pay into trade associations or lobbying groups, and they try to impact public policy to ultimately increase/decrease regulation or get funding in future years. This is just the IT version of that.
With Trump at the helm, yes. However; with that being said, the rot and decay has been festering long before Trump came into power.
The issue is that most average Americans don't know how far they have fallen. One day, a great very many of them will wake up to the fact that the illusion of American supremacy was, just like most things in America, nothing more than a marketing ploy and a national "pep rally" -- nothing more.
That's when the resentment will set in. That's when the anger will set in.
Until then, most Americans have tuned out the news and are sleepwalking into whatever dystopian fascist-techno nightmare our billionaire overlord class has prepared for us.
Everything about his body language screams, "I'm doing something slimy and I know it, but here, listen to these words spoken authoritatively whilst I wave my hands around and forget about it."
I need someone to explain to me, at length, at some point in my life the value proposition of Brave and what it brings to the table that other browsers do not.
For example, most of the key differentiators of Brave could be accomplished similarly in Firebox with a litany of extensions -- such as UBlock Origin as just one example -- or Privacy Badger if you'd like to be less 'heavy handed'.
The only other differentiator I see is the use of cryptocurrency as a way of compensating users for watching ads and the use of a crypto wallet; which if your not interested in such functionality is meaningless.
Yet I see very educated, competent, and intellegent people I've known for years be advocates and at some points "zealots" over the browser.
I would love to understand this. I'm honestly open to discussing this in good faith as I would like to understand the benefit here, and if I am somehow missing something will be the first to admit I was ignorant.
I use Brave, and for me it's really just the least bad option.
Firefox-based browsers do not support macOS automation (AppleScript/JXA). Safari lacks features/extensions. Orion/Vivaldi had bugs any time I tried them.
From the Chrimium-based browsers I tried, Brave blocks ads, supports PWAs, the crypto stuff can be turned off, and is stable. Brave does not excite me, but it's good enough.
For me the reasons for using brave for over an year now are:
- no ads, no trackers and they are transparent about it
- I can install chrome extensions
- I don’t feel like I am handing all my data to Google
- overall feels faster even with dozens for tabs open
I get that and it makes sense. What distinguishing features does it have that keeps you coming back to Brave that, say, Edge or Chrome or even Firefox doesn't bring? I ask because most of the items you listed could be accomplished in other browsers with extensions.
Just trying to find the secret sauce that keeps people coming back specifically to Brave.
I really appreciate you engaging and listing your reasons! Thank you for sharing your viewpoint and why you enjoy Brave.
> I ask because most of the items you listed could be accomplished in other browsers with extensions.
Having functionality in extensions adds friction. You'll have to remember which ones you used and install them separately when you do a new install. Also remember that Android and iOS browsers (usually) don't have extensions, so having adblock built-in is advantageous.
None of those seem like unique advantages. In fact, the only advantage there seems to be "Ad block is built in", which is still a dubious advantage at best.
You could install Brave, or you could install adblock for the browser you're already using. It doesn't seem like much of an advantage for Brave to ship with adblock built-in, given that everybody already uses a web browser.
A second spent thinking about HN karma is one too many.
>Perhaps quibbling over an upvoted comment is a pattern that tires me.
You could just simply not reply if you think I'm not engaging in good faith, as opposed to actively sabotaging the forum with pointless trolling. What's the point?
At least a year ago, Chromium-based browsers were significantly more secure than Firefox, as measured by the rate at which high severity vulnerabilities were discovered every month and the ease with which Firefox would be hacked in competitions.
The trouble with Chrome is that it is deliberately configured to maximize Google's ad revenue. The omnibar does not show you recently visited websites when you start typing something because they want you to do another Google search so they can serve you more ads. The new extension model deliberately neutered the most effective ad blockers available.
Brave is Chrome without the perverse incentives. Their developers take a security-first approach to everything, to the extent of explicitly _not_ having a centralized sync service for bookmarks, passwords, etc. They have an excellent content blocker built in, thereby doing an end-run around Chrome's new extension model. The crypto wallet and Brave ads are optional - you can disable both in the settings very easily. And since it's a Chromium variant, you can use all of the existing Chrome extensions for third party software like 1Password and the like.
Would use Firefox on the main workstation if it had better devtools, other then that it just works and has some useful features, see: Tor and ipfs integration.
Here's an exhaustive list of why I, personally, have been using Brave for years:
- vertical tabs
- maintained by more than a
single person
- support for extensions
- not owned by China
- not Firefox
- not Edge*
All the AI and crypto slop can be turned off completely, so I don't care at all about features I never see after initial install.
*Edge is fine if properly configured via GPO, which I can neither be bothered to figure out how to do under Linux nor have the patience to do on my private Windows machines. Works great at work though.
I use Brave, and I second the sentiment that it's the least bad of many bad choices. I say this as an opinionated person who has put a lot of effort into looking at alternatives. I've even spent time trying to use Epiphany and Lynx as my daily drivers.
I assume we would both already exclude the likes of Chrome, Edge, Opera, Safari, etc.
This will be a long reply though.
The TLDR is: Security is number one, so extensions are bad and built-in features are good. I hate the cryptocoin/adware/AI features but the degrading act of disabling it all is mercifully short. It also has to run on Linux, so I can't even consider browsers like Nook. Most important to me are the (1) Chrome features and (2) the Shields feature tacked on. I use profiles and shields very extensively.
The TLDR TLDR is: Shields good
---
Caveat with the below is that Brave is full of bullshit to disable, with a new piece of bullshit added every year or so. That disparaging term is not one I use lightly!
The bad aspects are made worse by the fact the CEO of Brave is a person who I generally don't trust. I've been using Brave for years with the understanding I might have to jump ship at any moment.
Onto the good things:
One of the necessary things it provides is a browser which I can use to browse the internet, including captchas. For my mileage, Firefox has been broken for me on every platform I've used it on, every time I've tried to get back into using it, for years. I've exhausted all the time I ever wish to spend trying to fix a browser. Since I could not use Firefox to browse, it was not an option for me.
A second necessary requirement is that the browser should be available on the major desktop and mobile OSes, especially Linux. So, Orion, Nook, etc. don't count as browsers to me.
A third necessary requirement are timely security updates. Last I checked, Brave got security fixes from Chrome on a timely basis. Nice.
Then, there are a bunch of nice to haves. Brave has the Chromes profile which I use heavily (although Firefox is set to get a clone of Chrome's profiles soon-- the existing 'profiles' and 'containers' solutions were not usable alternatives.)
A second nice-to-have is telemetry - how often is my browser making requests unrelated to browsing, and to how many parties? I last checked this years ago, but I remember Brave performing well here.
The third nice thing is the Shields feature, which I've come to rely on. (If Firefox copied this wholesale, like they're doing with Chrome profiles, that would be a major improvement.) It's an easy-to-use interface to block ads and JavaScript. It works on mobile as well, which is a huge advantage.
Shields can be replicated with extensions, but I try to minimize the extensions I use. Each extension requires permissions for every site (!!!) So, if just one of these extensions developers were compromised, or the extension itself had a vulnerability, then I would be compromised too.
Funny. In my five+ decades on this planet, I seem to find the right more apt and eager to employ 'thuggish authoritarian attempts' -- akin to my time growing up in East Germany. But now being in America for over a decade it's really not much different.
WhatsApp I can buy due to the communication factor, but Instagram you're really going to have to sell me on fitting into the category of 'critical for daily functioning'.
You’re about to be in a world where your consent is totally out of the picture with Meta releasing this product and people will be recording you all the time now and sending that data directly to Meta where they can then build models about where you are, who you’re with, what you’re doing and what you are talking about and all without providing you and way to opt out other than breaking the glasses when you encounter them in public.
The alternative seems to be that the Trump admin directs the State Dept to revoke all student visas from UC Berkeley, and they lose half their student body (and a good number of faculty) overnight.
Which is, of course, flat out unacceptable on many levels.
However; it seems to me some of these institutions could band together and pool resources both legal, financial, and otherwise to give something of a stronger defense than one alone.
Rock and a hard place certainly.
But there has to be something that can be done, albeit even in the United States broken systems of law, both constitutional and otherwise, to fight off this assault. Anything other than bending the knee and enabling further assaults on higher-education and/or the US democracy.
It could be done, but I guess many these institutions think it's futile, especially given Supreme Court's recent stances. Harvard stands out and have secured a temporary win, but who knows what happens in 3 months. I am not optimistic.
I stopped believing in constitution for a while now. If the interpretation of it depends on who sits on the bench, it means it's nothing more than a piece of paper with some words on it.
All major universities public and private are heavily dependent on federal dollars in numerous ways.
The Fed has tremendous financial and regulatory power over any institution of any size.
Large corporations have been bending the knee for the same reasons. I highly doubt Tim Cook is a huge Trump fan but he was right there to kiss ass on day one. That’s because Trump could, with the stroke of a pen, decimate Apple’s business by destroying its global supply chain.
Actual conservatives and actual libertarians were warning about growing Federal power for decades and decades and they had a point. Nobody listened of course.
