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?
My take: No other browser is sustainable without advertising. Orion looks to be that guy, but we will see. We’ve already seen many other browsers stop development, like Mull and LibreWolf, due to lack of resources. Firefox itself is on the chopping block with Google potentially being forced to sell Chrome. We’ll see what Kagi is able to manage with Orion, though releasing it with pretty much all the features one could want for free doesn’t appear promising. I think taking a “private advertising” approach is the best we’re going to get. This makes Brave sustainable.
The CEO is a dick, no doubt, but they pretty much all are, and every browser has it’s drawbacks.
As far as the useragent, I kinda agree with Brave on that one. Sites want to be crawled by Google but they will block anyone else, which obviously creates an anticompetitive environment in an industry that severely needs competition.
As for the fingerprinting, I kinda get it. I’m sure some users were turning on strict protection and then complaining about the browser not working properly and ultimately ditching it while complaining to others. That being said, even with “standard” fingerprint blocking, Brave is the only browser I’ve used on CoverYourTracks and it returned “you have a randomized fingerprint”. I’m not any sort of tech genius but I think the folks at EFF are and I trust them.
My take: We can have an open source browser. No resources are required. We don’t need ads to view content we make. There is no need for a megacorp or any entity taking money and controlling us.
Most browsers are already open source. They’re all funded by advertising (except Safari which is a whole other problem).
Are you planning to imagine it into existence?
When you find one that has some sort of sustainable model that isn’t advertising, please let me know. I’ll be all over it.
Okay are you ready?
The model:
I don’t think you understand. It would take you time to do that. A whole lot of time. Probably thousands of hours. Time is what’s known as a “resource”.
I understood perfectly, your claim is that it takes advertisement. Not time. And nobody has said it doesn’t take time.
You very clearly did not and still do not.
Somehow you managed to gloss over the only point of my statement while also simultaneously fabricating things that I never said anything about.
You said “no resources are required”. As I’ve just finished mentioning, time is a resource.