this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
1445 points (91.6% liked)

Privacy

32471 readers
424 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
1445
Please, do not use Brave. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
 

I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.

Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.

Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.

After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL's. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.

Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I'd say the answer is a very clear no.

One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.

Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don't mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 66 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Brave was also made by a guy who got kicked out of Mozilla for being homophobic. The cryptocurrency stuff is brave also a major scam, it's a crypto that must first be converted into another crypto before it can be converted into real money. How is that a "currency"?

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Personally, I trade my monopoly money into beanie babies and use that to pay my rent. I'm homeless.

[–] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As I stated in another comment, I didn't bring up the CEO's controversies because they are subjective. Some people might be fine with what he thinks. It also doesn't really impact the software in any way.

[–] Infynis@midwest.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Those beliefs do trend among the same kind of people as crypto scams though

[–] Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works -4 points 1 year ago

No they don't.