Brave funded by Peter Thiel's VC firm

General
21

I guess it comes down to personal decision, what you prefer and what you’re willing to put up with, and what you trust.

It’s really difficult to make a good decision, but for me I read this last night, and I switched my stuff to Firefox and derivatives only without really thinking much about it. After looking through the thread, now, I guess it sort of comes down to “If the thread had been titled ‘Mark Zuckerberg funds Brave Browser’ would I be happy?” because it’s kind of the same level of trust and what looks best today may not be tomorrow and I might not know about it, in fact I didn’t know about it until yesterday.

It’s interesting to see reactions tagged on people’s posts, like there’s a right and a wrong about how to think about it.

22

I hope you resolve the issue you’re trying to fix. I’m currently testing IronFox; the new 150.0.3 update has better performance than the previous version.

I understand the (hidden) messages from the people who commented above against Brave.

As I told someone on a Discord server a while back, it was about the data logging issue… it doesn’t matter if you pay for a service or not; if they want to spy on you, they’ll do it secretly, ignoring their own policies, which are simply words, just words.

I made it very clear to that person: I use free things for my own benefit, and I’m the one who profits. For example, Google. Google offers free products, and everyone has their own way of doing things.

I’m not afraid of any company; even so, I recognize that there are still people (independent or in groups) with good intentions who create free things for those who can’t pay, for those who don’t know how to program, etc. They are a minority.

I told that person very clearly: I use free things for my own benefit, and I’m the one who benefits. Where the world is overly focused on business, gratitude is fading and sincerity is dwindling.

Whether it’s Brave, Firefox, or another browser, you can use it wisely. If you don’t want a browser connecting to the company’s main servers, you can simply block its IPs and domains. And if you don’t like a particular application, operating system, or anything else, don’t use it. Everyone has different options; it all depends on the individual (what they’re looking for, what they want to achieve, etc.).

I navigate this world to avoid being influenced by things that don’t uplift me.

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23

I really don’t get why Brave was ever recommended. Their adblocker not blocking Brave’s own ad network is enough reason for me to write it off as not worth my time.

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24

You seem to have a pragmatic approach, which I do appreciate but I want to just want to preface that having to use a piece of software day to day and liking it aren’t exactly the same thing. Overall great take though its important to not let perfect be the enemy of good and remember tools are tools

25

For me besides researching the background of the company and if they have controversies, I let myself use it for a certain period to see how I feel and if I spot something which makes me uncomfortable (can be bugs or can be something invading the privacy). I may also contact the support if I have problems and even measure, like their privacy level, say, by checking how many trackers have been blocked for some websites, or results from Cover the Tracks.

I try to see what they do and don’t, besides the incidents surfaced online. Then I have a clearer conclusion of whether I will keep using it.

I have just tried DuckDuckGo browser, noticing that only their search website’s privacy can’t be checked, while Safari spotted they have Facebook and three other trackers. Although DDG is not as controversial as Brave, I won’t accept this practice (not disclosing their trackers but others’).

26

wow i had no idea

i just started using brave too lol

27

You download Brave which is a fork of Chrome.

You could download for instance LibreWolf and you wouldn’t have to do a thing.

I’m not sure the comparison is fair here.

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28

Not exactly. For me personally, the compromise that you have to make on the security side by using LibreWolf is not worth it (larger threat model) when you could just get virtually the same experience just by taking the time to configure Firefox and not have to worry about all those issues. The difference is Brave has a deeper security bench and a much, much, larger engineering team behind it. LibreWolf is a smaller community project.

There isn’t really a gecko based fork that fills that gap that Brave does for Chrome I don’t think. (again, depending on your threat model) I think a better analogy would probably be closer to Mullvad. But it’s not exactly a daily driver, and from what I remember, it also lags a little on security updates. But then again, it’s kind of a false equivalent because Mullvad serves a purpose that is completely different than Firefox.

29

I would be interested in what security compromise you get?

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30

I am always skeptical of someone with such accomplishments knowing how much ONE entrepreneurial project costs -in time, and from experience; let alone multiple successful ventures. This is unsettling and makes me doubt brave.

31

The rejection thread already goes through those concerns in detail. I’d rather point people there than restart the same debate here.

LibreWolf (Firefox-Based Browser)
32

How are people sync’ing between devices and OS’s with helium/librewolf etc?

33

Librewolf supports encrypted Firefox sync

Helium didnt support syncing when I last checked; a brief online search doesnt seem to suggest it’s been added in the interim

34

This is FUD at this point if you’re not able to point towards a specific concern.

Pretty much all security concerns have been debunked.

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35

I would love to see where all of this was debunked: Firefox and Chromium | Madaidan's Insecurities

36

I really feel that we need an updated version of this comparison.

There are a few security improvements on Firefox, some of the points are now outdated.

Personally I still use Chromium based browsers for my security logins, like banking websites. I use Firefox based browsers for privacy navigation, including Tor. Nevertheless, I feel that Firefox is starting to catch up on the security side. Maybe we are now in a reasonable acceptable security threshold.

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37

We’ve been at an acceptable security threshold with Firefox for quite some time now. Everything that gets brought up about insecurity is either heavily outdated information, the situation with android, or just arguments from a purest / absolutism pov. It’s like making fun of someone for wearing a kevlar vest to a snowball fight because you brought a titanium shield. You’re both perfectly fine.

38

According to who? There is a lot of stuff that could have been done years ago, but Mozilla just has their priorities elsewhere.

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39

From the news this week:

In a report published Thursday, the Chrome security team says the browser’s two major version releases in June included fixes for 1,072 security bugs—more patches than the team shipped in the prior 23 big releases combined.

Is Mozilla fixing bugs at this scale now, too?

40

Kinda? Yes. Though probably not at that exact scale, but I also never said Mozilla has Google’s pipeline, or what Mozilla shoulda, coulda, woulda done. I was talking about an acceptable security baseline. Mozilla is also using advanced fuzzing, static analysis, and AI assisted vulnerability discovery, so Google is not the only browser company using newer technology to find security flaws. 423 security bugs in April alone is nothing to sneeze at.

1,072 is not a cross browser security score. Google is counting security fixes across the broader Chrome codebase after introducing a new bulk scanning system. And it’s own post says that system found a sandbox escape that had survived for more than 13 years, and says that a sudden increase in bugs found and fixed is not evidence of failure.

The accounting is also different. Chrome’s totals cover a big ass range of components and products, while Mozilla sometimes consolidates multiple memory safety bugs under a single cve. Unless the numbers are normalized for scope and exploitability and counting method, comparing “1,072” with Mozilla’s advisory count tells us very little.

It shows that Google currently has greater bug discovery and remediation. That is not by itself show that Firefox falls below an acceptable security baseline.

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