this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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Why I recommend against Brave. (thelibre.news)
submitted 1 week ago by Tea@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
315 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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?

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[–] Tristus@lemmy.world -5 points 1 week ago

I don't use Brave as my main browser but I think some of the accusations are not fair.

  1. TOR Feature. I don't think it was deliberately done. Similarly Firefox revealed your up address even if you used VPN while using. As long as there was no malicious intent we can't say anything other than that they software has big bugs.
  2. Yes, it is questionable what they do for getting money but same can be said for most donations or schemes that FOSS use. There was long discussions about the money Mozilla receives from Google, or things Opera did (basically similar to Brave)
  3. Getting news from right wing is useful if you ever need to do research, I had a course in uni about anti-islam and getting really right wings news was difficult. We all knew the same 2 sites.
  4. The political opinion of the CEO is concerning but not important enough. In that case I'm wholly on the same boat as the developer of the Factorio, if Hitler were to make good Browsers I'd use them.
  5. It is also important to note most of the problems are in the past. Sure it means there are likely a lot we could not find and it is annoying to use a product where they would exploit you if they are given a chance.

That said Brave is still #1 Browser I'd recommend someone installing. If I can I'd install Firefox myself, but on the phone it is what I recommend. I don't trust my uncle to install Firefox and install uBlock etc. on top of it. But I trust him to install Brave and use it.

Most privacy minded Browsers like Libre Wolf have restrictions, like not enabling WebRTC out of the box, meaning using Zoom, Meet etc is not possible. There are people who are forced to use such software and not able to tweak with config files. Some people think just because they can do it, everybody should be able to. I think it is a good choice to recommend to people, very good in place replacement for Chrome, you can even take your bookmarks and addons with you