this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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From article:

If you have the Brave Browser installed on your Windows devices, then you may also have Brave VPN services installed on the machine. Brave installs these services without user consent on Windows devices.

More reason to ditch the crypto bro browser.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 year ago (1 children)

ugh, don't touch my network stack

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not that I'm defending anybody but how is this touching your "network stack" any more than any other application?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

because a VPN is both a new network interface, and it has the ability to change how your traffic routes. Most applications don't do that.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

https://old.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/17b0pxl/brave_appears_to_install_vpn_services_without/k5kwd97/

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/33726

And crypto are disabled by default.

No, I wont' ditch it. It's the best browser out there, right now, since scummy/corrupt/hypocrite Mozilla (which, remember, is in bed with Google, Amazon and Facebook while criticizing them) decided that Firefox is just a side project for them and they're deceiving people making them believe that donations fund FF development.

Don't even bother to reply. I'm not going to fuel this shitty thread any further.

[–] [email protected] 122 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"In bed with"=takes their money to have their search engine and lets you change it in 30 seconds while being completely open source

I don't see the problem.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fine, for you I'll do it in 4!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

0.980s by using ydotool key 29:1 20:1 20:0 29:0 -d 0 && ydotool type "about>preferences\n" -d 0 && sleep 0.26 && ydotool type "search engine\t" -d 0 && ydotool key 103:1 103:0 -d 20

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Tbf, changing the default search engine probably has the effect that the vast majority of users will stick with it. So, although it is pretty easy for you and me to change the search engine, it still promotes Google quite a lot and thus undermines the independent character of Firefox as a whole.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Absolutely. I would prefer they didn't have google as the default, but I'd rather have Firefox with good funding and google as default than firefox with very little funding.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

That's a fair point, yes

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And brave being built on chromium is somehow markedly better?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I wasn't defending chromium or brave, not even commenting on them at all. I was just adding a caveat to what the other commenter said about Firefox.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd say so

https://lemm.ee/comment/4924770

solution that wipes the extremely profitable, For-Profit, Mozilla Corporation off your Internet

Mozilla should be removed from the entire internet but hey, it's a beginning.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Does anyone want to switch seats!?! looks around nervously

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm rickety AF

[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No one told you to ditch it. But can you fanboii a little less aggressively, please?

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you ever interacted with a Brave user? No, they can't.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I swear they all have some sort of brain slug that makes them cultish and just generally unlikeable

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you look at what a raging tool the CEO is and the implications of the browser's association with crypto (no matter how optional), I think that Brave just attracts that type of person

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Makes sense given that the Brave CEO is a member of an actual cult.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

the mormon church. it’s the reason he donates money to anti-lgbt causes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Thought for sure the answer was going to be the Cult of Crypto

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I actually didn't know that when I opened this thread!!!

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True open source projects like LibreWolf, Ungoogled Chromium > Sketchy world of Brave

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I applaud LibreWolf’s efforts, but the hard-coded timezone makes it unusable for me. Other than that, it’s a great browser. I used it several months until the timezone confusion got the best of me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's the deal with the timezone?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

If I recall correctly, it was meant as a measure against fingerprinting. It’s basically one less thing to uniquely define a user based on the info that the browser gives to a website. I’m not sure if it’s still like that, cause it’s been easily a year since I used LibreWolf.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes, what is the deal? I can't say that I've noticed any issues. Am in UK if that makes a difference. And I usually run it through Proton VPN.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While I’ve never used LibreWolf before (I use Waterfox), that probably does make a difference as the UK is UTC+0.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The UK is only UTC+0 for half the year, currently at UTC+1.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Two issues.

First of all a lot of websites show times in your current timezone. Beehaw for example says you wrote your post "2 days ago". Depending what timezone my browser is in, that could display 3 days or 1 day. When I hover over it, it shows the exact date/time in my timezone. Which is handy.

Second it doesn't actually achieve the intended goal. Even if you use a VPN chances are you've set it to give you a public IP address close to you to have good performance. And if your IP address is in Proton's London datacentre but your timezone is UTC+0 when everyone else is UTC+1... well you stand out like a single black sheep in a flock of white ones and ad networks are absolutely fingerprinting you with that.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago

It's still a behavior like "we are the best software in the world, once we get admin permission we can do whatever we want without additional user consent, people appreciate it".

No. You must ask permission to install useless Windows services, even if they're disabled.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago

Don't even bother to reply. I'm not going to fuel this shitty thread any further.

Nah I'm gonna pile on. Firefox is better.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You a full of mins information that only benefit google having full internet monopoly. Brave is chrome. Chrome is google.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

You’re the one who made it shitty. But much to crap on the bed then get up and leave.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Somehow I trust Opera and Microsoft over Brave as this point.

What a world.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

None of these companies know the first thing about consent, it's disgusting

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Just because I bought something from you doesn't mean I consent to you penetrating my inbox

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's the difference from Chromium? Main "selling" point?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm considering it, but how does thorium handle Google's recent Web manifest updates that break true ad blockers like uBlock origin?

I've been pretty happy with the customizability of librefox with the userchrome.css and ublock still works with YouTube.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, you have two options. The same developer of thorium does have a Firefox one and it's called mercury. Blazing fast, too. Or you can install adblock detection bypass extension on thorium. It is an extension that's made to work with chrome alongside ublock origin to bypass YouTube adblock detection. In fact, I literally just ran into that issue today and the other extension fixed it.

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