Brave
Fast and secure, ad and tracker blocking browser.
Comments and Reviews
Categories
Web Browsers • Security & Privacy • Bitcoin & CryptocurrencyTags
- Security & Privacy
- Efficiency
- Web browser
- acceptable-ads
Lists containing Brave
Summary and Relevance
Our users have written 60 comments and reviews about Brave, and it has gotten 512 likes
- Developed by Brave Software Inc
- Open Source and Free product.
- Average rating of 3.6
- 182 alternatives listed
People who know about privacy know this is b.s. - there is no more anonymity in Brave than in Chrome if you know what to do and (on the other side) when you know what to track. As for the claim on their homepage no less than it is 20x faster than Chrome or Firefox, b.s., as well I tested it and it doesn't load even 2x times faster.
The biggest con is that the wooper-dooper integrated ad filter is so bad that it breaks pages while at the same time allowing dozens of pop ups and pop unders that even the most basic extension for Firefox or Chrome can block perfectly.
Also, full of small crappy details, such as not being able to change the new tab page which shows a new random image over the interwebs (with no possibility to select the thematic/category at least) and a bean-counter's wet dream of numbers showing how many ads it (absolutely imperfectly) blocked (this tracks all the ads, pretty ironic for a browser bragging about privacy). Just to be clear: this disastrous bloatware new tab is NON NEGOTIABLE, you cannot disable it, not even through under the hood flags. Nothing. Better love to see every time a crappy stock photo and how many ads Brave failed to completely block, Bucko.
In summary, much ado about nothing. At this time it's neither more safe nor faster than any big name browser.
Summary:
• Brave browser spies on you
• Money-Servant
• Term limit your usage
• Illegal and deceptive
• Cash-grab & double dip
• Primitive
Strength:
• Partly open source
Challenge:
Spy on you
Brave browser spies on you and reports your activity to various third parties. Such as, but not limited to Amazon, Criteo Corp, Highwinds Network Group, Facebook, Twitter. Plus Brave browser's suspicious outbound connections on UDP port 137.
Source
• Screenshot during Brave installation at https://i.postimg.cc/zGYzmNbg/brave-browser-spies-on-you.jpg
______• "1e100.net" is Google' server. Source https://gwhois.org/1e100.net+dns
______• "amazonaws.com" is Amazon's server. Source https://gwhois.org/amazonaws.com+dns
• https://michaelhorowitz.com/BraveBrowserUDP137.php
______• https://archive.md/RzKhi
Money-Servant
Brave browser is owned by a for-profit corporation "Brave Software, Inc.". It is not owned by a not-for-profit community. Usually a corporation first priority is to hoard money. Not serve you and protect your privacy. In other words, Brave is risky to increasingly be a Money-Servant. Not a People-Servant.
Source
• https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=317170098
______• https://archive.md/oEby8
Term limit your usage
The Brave’s term reads: “You may NOT access or use our Services if” “you are using our Services for personal, family or household purposes”
Source
• https://basicattentiontoken.org/advertiser-terms-of-service/
______• https://archive.md/jMMYm#selection-453.0-459.74
"illegal and deceptive"
In April 2016, the CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, David Chavern, said that Brave's proposed replacement of advertising "should be viewed as illegal and deceptive by the courts, consumers, and those who value the creation of content".[20][21]
Source
• https://www.pcmag.com/news/343583/newspapers-ad-blocking-brave-browser-is-illegal-deceptive
______• https://archive.md/awAQd
• https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2016/u-s-newspapers-to-ad-blocker-drop-dead/
______• https://archive.md/jtk4t
"cash-grab" & "double dip"
In January 2016, in reaction to Brave Software's initial announcement, Sebastian Anthony of Ars Technica described Brave as a "cash-grab" and a "double dip". Anthony concluded, "Brave is an interesting idea, but generally it's rather frowned upon to stick your own ads in front of someone else's". TechCrunch, Computerworld, and Engadget termed Brave's ad replacement plans "controversial" in 2016.
Source
• https://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/mozilla-co-founder-unveils-brave-a-web-browser-that-blocks-ads-by-default/
______• https://archive.md/8bHJS
• https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/01/brave-the-ad-blocking-browser-from-former-mozilla-ceo-grabs-4-5-million/
______• https://archive.md/UKbSb
• https://www.computerworld.com/article/3284076/web-browsers/brave-browser-begins-controversial-ad-repeal-and-replace-tests.html
______• https://archive.md/yeQuU
• https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/20/privacy-browser-brave-pays-crypto-tokens-ads/
______• https://archive.md/M8PIY
"primitive"
In February 2016, Andy Patrizio of Network World reviewed a pre-release version of Brave. Patrizio criticized the browser's feature set as "mighty primitive,"
Source
• http://www.networkworld.com/article/3030134/microsoft-subnet/benchmark-tests-brave-browser-ad-blocker-chrome-firefox-ie-11.html
______• https://archive.md/sIOm5
Two Alternatives To Brave Browser:
1. Firefox Quantum
• Firefox version 60+ (Quantum) is presently FASTER than Chrome and use less memory than Chrome. Compare to previous versions of Firefox, the Quantum version is twice as fast, promote parallelism, and has more intuitive user interface.
______• Video at https://youtu.be/n6wiRyKkmKc
______• Read more and see performance test results at https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/quantum-performance-test/
______• Article 1 at https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/five-reasons-to-try-mozilla-firefox-quantum/4116662.html
______• Archived article 1 at https://archive.fo/LhYdw
______• Article 2 at https://lifehacker.com/why-you-should-switch-from-google-chrome-to-firefox-1821879163
______• Archived article 2 at https://archive.fo/XJEz7
2. Tor Browser
• https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
• Powered by Firefox. But with much stronger privacy. Slower than Firefox though.
NOT IMPRESSED. This is a locked down browser. You cannot add/edit/delete addons; cannot add/edit/delete search engines. Does not list/use the #1 clean (global results) engine IxQuick.EU (not .COM). And there appears to be no way to add it. Misindentifies itself on some sites. More than one report (not all verified) that it is (in one way or another) redistributing user statics and/or data... something Mozilla is now doing as well with the telemtry added/expanded as of v.57.
This is not for people who deplore the You Don't Need To Know sales pitch/spin of Google... and recently Mozilla... or those value their privacy from developers as well as sites. We expected better and it failed to deliver under the hood.
This has changed. I agree it was a big problem. I kept using it because I saw the potential of the BAT token to be the micro-payment solution we have waited 2 decades for. I will at least be keeping it around as my 2nd browser (after Firefox). Before that was Vivaldi.
Reply written more than a year ago
used to be great once but recently they added a bloatware cryptocoin extension BAT which can't be removed
[Edited by iZero, March 29]
read full conversation as the discussion continues
Maybe you could open a GitHub issue? Also, I understand it's an extension that can't be removed, but bloatware?
Reply written more than a year ago
yes bloatware, it is something no one asked for and keeps track of your visited sites, and tracking is the main reason users want to leave chrome
Reply written more than a year ago
Well, I'm going to post for the clarity of other people reading this review that the version of Brave at the time of this writing does have a way to turn Brave Rewards (BAT) off. Furthermore, website tracking in this extension does not report your usage to Brave. It isn't different in any way from your browser keeping a history of visited sites. That is of course, up until the point that you send your BAT to the sites - and you control whether or not that's even sent out. Since it is a crypto token, it can be sent anonymously (although you do need to give Uphold, a third-party exchange, your credentials to buy the token with USD, should you choose to do that). Furthermore, Brave isn't earning money from the exchange of BAT.
In short, I still think this browser is breaking ground and worth everyone giving a try. I'm sorry to see that this has given iZero so much distaste that they won't keep trying the browser out. It's still in it's nascent stages, it's open source, and run by a not-for-profit company, so working with them with this feedback would be way more productive than writing a misleading review.
Reply written more than a year ago
if there is a way to 'turn it off'- so are ways to turn chrome to more secure one like ungoogled chromium.
"not-for-profit" stops when users are being forced into some crypto BS. moreover if they love BAT so much, they should just make an external extension for it which is NOT INSTALLED by default, and not bake it within itself, this is clearly something no one wanted and you are just finding reasons to justify the product.
edited:my bad, i phrased it 'your product' because you were very defensive about it and almost made me think you work for brave.
[Edited by iZero, March 12]
Reply written more than a year ago
Since it was phrased as "your product", I feel like I need to explain that I don't work for Brave. I'm not not even a software developer. I have opened and commented on GitHub issues, but I haven't worked on the browser.
As they've explained before with their ad blocking, "baking in" these tools allows for them to write native C+ instead of injecting more JS into the page your viewing. This decreases CPU load for each page.
BAT was always part of the Brave roadmap to not only block ads for users but help websites who rely on that funding find alternative revenue sources. It's a model that gives some license back to the users, unlike ads. Many of us who believe in Brave's mission wanted exactly this; not a better blocker but a new ecosystem that eliminates the ad market as it currently exists.
Chromium is a great browser which I hope iZero enjoys, but it doesn't have native ad-blocking.
Reply written more than a year ago
also brave is a for-profit company, recently clarified that on their reddit
clearly, the reason behind this browser is not to provide safe, secure and fast ad free experience, but to make a mirage of these and push users into their cryptocurrency platform.
you can also see that they are desperate to get the normie userbase to get using brave by posting google ads, xda ads, youtube ads and sponsoring youtube creators to feature their product.
an average user wont go to alternatives.net to check comments on what people are saying. they would see it as eye candy as soon as they see privacy, adblock, and 100x faster than chrome
Reply written more than a year ago
"google ads, xda ads, youtube ads and sponsoring youtube creators to feature their product" - that for me was the final straw. When I see a sketchy commercial of a product that encourages me to "fight the system" on YouTube of all places, that's the moment my alarm goes off.
So, I don't use Brave anymore.
Guess I'm not that... brave.
YEEEAAAHHH!
Reply written more than a year ago
It was good when it was released but now with bloatware cryptocoin extension BAT i don't trust a bit and should you not too.
That's part of their completely optional and transparent ad reimbursement program. The idea is to pay users for watching ads instead of forcing it upon them. Definitely nothing sketchy.
Reply written more than a year ago