I only use brave at work because it somehow bypasses the firewall there and I can install and use it. I run it to watch videos about cooking or traveling and reading news when I have nothing to do at my job.

At home I usually run tor browser (tbb) and firefox with addons to block ads and tracking.

I’m not sure I should turn to brave as default browser. How do you see it?

what’s your experience with brave like?

    • CouncilOfFriends@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      In OP’s case it sounds like the VPN service is the whole reason they’re using it. Not that I would recommend it, as their corporate IT likely has a policy against exactly this sort of thing

    • AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      The VPN services are installed but do not run unless/until you activate Brave VPN. This is such a non-issue.

    • online@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I just discovered this on a relative’s computer. Any trick to removing the VPN service?

  • const_void@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    It’s shady AF. Anything with that much crypto bs baked in shouldn’t be trusted.

  • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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    1 year ago

    Used it for a while years ago, hated all the crypto stuff it tried to push but could still ignore most of it. Then saw the CEO sharing antivax propaganda and decided to try different options, ended up finding much browser options out there. These days I’m running Vivaldi. I think I would only put brave ahead of chrome itself now.

    • ayaya@lemdro.id
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      1 year ago

      Apparently you need to follow your own advice do a search because it takes 30 seconds to see they are using data from their search engine not the browser. So if you don’t use their search (which is pretty shit anyway) it’s not relevant to the browser side of things. The browser is completely open source. Everyone can see what the code is doing.

      And isn’t using search data to improve search results a pretty reasonable usecase for AI? Seems like a nothing burger.

      • online@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409406835469-What-is-the-Web-Discovery-Project-

        If you opt in, you’ll contribute some anonymous data about searches and web page visits made within the Brave Browser (including pages arrived at via some, but not all, other search engines). This data helps build the Brave Search independent index, and ensure we show results relevant to your search queries. By “data” we mean search queries, search result clicks, the URLs of pages visited in the browser, time spent on those pages, and some metadata about the pages themselves.

        My emphasis.

        • ayaya@lemdro.id
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          1 year ago

          So just don’t opt in then? They’re not selling the data, it’s completely optional, and they explain exactly what they’re collecting, how they’re collecting it, and what they’re using it for. This is all completely reasonable. They have to get this information for to improve the search somehow. Even the actual collection component is open source. I’m not sure what the issue is.

          • online@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            My reply was purely to get to the accurate information versus your reply which says that they are “collecting data from their search engine not the browser” as it’s important that people reading know what’s actually going on.

            I’m not here to argue about whether they should or should not do that and I’m not going to (and when I used Brave I consciously went into the menu to opt into this to improve their search engine so we could have a competitor).

      • binarybomb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Ahh yeah I actually remember that now that you mention it, I used to be a heavy brave user since then I’ve moved to ARC, is pretty cool also built on top of chromium just like brave.

  • jacktherippah@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    All evidence points to it being a very technically sound browser but with a terrible leadership. I used to use Brave but have since switched back to Vanadium.

  • m105@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    At work I use firefox, but to be fair we don’t have any firewall or restrictions. Home I use librewolf for privacy reasons.

  • Big P@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    If you so much as mention a browser on reddit you’ll get 5 replies telling you to try Brave

    • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Haven’t seen it mentioned once. Most of the time, it’s to NOT use brave as it’s sketchy, and to use Vivaldi, or even better Firefox.

  • TheTeej107@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    As a regular user, it’s fine. I know the controversy around it. At the moment, it doesn’t bother me as much as it does with others. I only use brave, the browser. I don’t use its search or any other of their services.

    I would like to go to Firefox but only thing keeping me from switching is its PWA experience is not good compared to Brave/Chrome.

  • ezjohnson@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    It’s a great browser. The mobile version is packed with features not found in other browsers and the desktop version is the best chromium based browser imho.

    A lot of people here trash talk brave because of the CEO but there are bad apples in every corporation.

  • NoiseColor@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    It’s a good browser. I used it for a really long time then switched to Firefox. Now I’m switching back, because Firefox has bizzare issues with rendering some pages and apps.

  • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    I agree with the people here. Secondly: Tor is good for some use cases and not so much for others. Mind that you’re tunneling your data over some exit nodes you probably know little about. Make sure to use https and only encrypted connections, so your data can’t be intercepted. Tor Browser might already come with a https only plugin by default, I don’t really know.

    I also don’t know much about Brave. If it’s tunneling your data somewhere to bypass the firewall, the same thing applies. Make sure to understand why this firewall is there in the first place. And the consequences of bypassing it. And the people you trust with your or your company’s data. For news and cooking videos, it should be alright in any case.

    I use “Mull” on my Android. And some Firefox on Linux.

  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Assume you are new here? Lemmings suckle at the teet of the red panda. Brave is hated for its pretense of privacy while in reality being perhaps even shadier than the big data boys.

  • Ferro@lemmy.eco.br
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    1 year ago

    I’ve used it on my phone once, and had trouble trying to change my home page. Searching for it, apparently it was because of an option that was glitched. Turning it off solved it. This glitch was present for years, from what I read, and still wasn’t solved.

    It had the A.I. controversy that people mentioned. So I guess it’s not very reliable in the privacy section, even if it’s their main “appeal”.

    I’m using Firefox on both PC and mobile. Only experimented with Brave for a short time. Can’t say much more about it.