this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Privacy

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Please, do not use Brave. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
 

I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.

Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.

Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.

After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL's. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.

Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I'd say the answer is a very clear no.

One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.

Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don't mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.

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[–] Linus_Torvalds@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

From the linked source (2023), which I assume you can understand as a German speaker:

  1. Fazit

Insgesamt hinterlässt Brave einen durchwachsenen Eindruck. Die Voreinstellungen des Browsers sind nicht ideal. [...]

Unklar bleibt, ob man zur A/B-Testgruppe gehört und welche Daten dabei an die Domain »variations.brave.com« fließen. Ebenfalls fragwürdig ist die Abfrage von Affiliate-Domains über die Domain »laptop-updates.brave.com«.

Passt man die Voreinstellungen an und installiert keine weiteren Add-ons, hat man einen Chromium-Ableger, der offenbar keine Verbindungen zu Google initiiert, aber dennoch unnötige Verbindungen beim Start aufbaut. So ganz passt die Außendarstellung bzw. das Versprechen zum Schutz der Privatsphäre nicht zum tatsächlichen Verhalten in der Praxis.

Can you link to where he says he uses Brave? Maybe I'm wrong here, but this seems sceptical.

More quotes:

In der Empfehlungsecke findet ihr einige Suchmaschinen, die ich für empfehlenswert halte. Brave Search gehört nicht dazu.

Ich erhalte oftmals die Frage, weshalb ich den Brave-Browser nicht empfehle und wieso ich nicht am Brave-Rewards-Programm teilnehme. Zunächst einmal basiert der Browser auf Chrome – das genügt für mich schon, um einen möglichst weiten Bogen darum zu machen. [...] Als datenschutzsensibler Nutzer verzichte ich darauf gerne. Auch das »Werbekonzept« finde ich wenig überzeugend.

(I really don't want to be toxic, but at least the Mike Kuketz talk is you spreading misinformation)