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I know that I'm in a bit of a bubble with this one, but I am surprised there is still anyone using Chrome instead of Brave. I get the dependency on Gmail other
by SunshineTheCat 4mo ago
I know that I'm in a bit of a bubble with this one, but I am surprised there is still anyone using Chrome instead of Brave. I get the dependency on Gmail other Google-specific tools, but the built-in ad blocking and Google-free aspects of it made me switch instantly and haven't look back after years.
- bix6 4mo ago+1 for Brave. Been on it for years and it’s fantastic. Strongest security settings without issue. O no they gave you BAT for visiting websites. Ahhh crypto everyone run!
- maxloh 4mo agoI find Brave's UI uglier than Chrome's. Unfortunately, there is no way to switch back to the stock Chromium look.
- Markoff 4mo agowhy would you use brave with annoying crypto and no customization over superior Vivaldi?
- tcp_handshaker 4mo agoWhy did I had to come so much down this thread, before seeing a mention of my favorite browser?
- dave78 4mo agoTo each their own, but I've been using Brave for a long time (5+ years I think?). It was one or 2 clicks to turn off the crypto stuff when I first installed it. It was straightforward and no dark patterns were employed. It has never come back, unlike what Google and Firefox tend to do with their annoying features. It even syncs my preferences to any new browser I add so I only had to do it on one computer once and never worry about it again. The web's dependency on Chromium engines is deeply concerning, I agree. I used Firefox for a long time. But at this point, IMO Brave is the most pragmatic choice if you want a browser that's not Google but "just works" with the modern web.
- Markoff 4mo agoVivaldi just works without annoying crypto and most importantly provides lot of customization, brave feels like barebone browser next to it, hard to understand why someone stays on such basic browser not allowing any customization (tried both and was shocked how bad is Brave many promote here).
- ifh-hn 4mo agoI'm similar but instead of brave, which I don't trust, prefer Firefox.
- tardedmeme 4mo agoI don't trust Firefox either, so I use Zen, which is based on Firefox and also changes the UI.
- ifh-hn 4mo agoZen lost my trust since: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443494
- janalsncm 4mo agoIn my mind, no browser is perfect. However, as far as I can tell that’s not nearly as sketchy as the title implies. It’s for local debugging. Zen has other issues for me on Ubuntu (eating a ton of resources) which is why I usually use FF. But I put Zen in a different category from Brave and definitely better than Chrome.
- pamcake 4mo agoI don't understand this choice at all. What do you base your trust on here?
- jeffgreco 4mo agoI was very vehement about needing to stay in Chromium — until I tried Zen browser and it turns out I didn’t! (Unless I wanted to watch Prime Video)
- newsoftheday 4mo agoMy theory is that, since I'm going to do things like banking in my browser, I want one that has a lot of skin in the game. Chrome being backed by Google has trillions of dollars on the line should they ever do anything truly evil. Though this sneaky 4GB download comes close.
- SecretDreams 4mo agoThere's no skin in the game if they do not think they'll be meaningfully punished by government or consumers for their wrongdoings.
- AlecSchueler 4mo agoAnd they have trillions riding on milking you for all your data and ad impressions.
- SecretDreams 4mo agoWhich they seem to think they'll get, regardless of the quality of their web browser. Most people are entrapped by Android anywho.
- bix6 4mo agoGoogle is not liable for your banking.
- iAMkenough 4mo agoEdge and Chrome could both be eliminated tomorrow and those trillions would be safe. You’re the product, not the browser.
- RobRivera 4mo ago[flagged]
- esafak 4mo agoThis one: http://brave.com/ http://brave.com/ I don't use their browser but I like their search engine!
- plopz 4mo agoBrave started off incredibly sketchy and with terrible reputation, for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999 I haven't ever considered it since and I assume many others are in the same boat.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- rideontime 4mo agoSame here. I don't care how they responded to the backlash, the fact that it happened in the first place was enough for me.
- GeekyBear 4mo ago> Brave started off incredibly sketchy Chrome has stayed incredibly sketchy from the beginning, when Google gained marketshare by sneaking Chrome into the installer for other products that people intentionally downloaded. Then Chrome did things like "accidentally" uploading your entire browsing history to Google servers when you signed into Gmail. Now they have declared war on ad blockers, despite the government warning that ad networks are too big a malware vector to ignore.
- fragmede 4mo agoThat's a different kind of sketchy than whatever crypto ad replacement stuff that Brave was accused of doing.
- GeekyBear 4mo agoThe only difference is that Google is still doing new sketchy things with Chrome today, two decades later.
- Dylan16807 4mo agoThe stuff brave actually did was pretty mild.
- amatecha 4mo agoI'm just surprised people use Chrome at all. Google has proven over and over they can't be trusted and will exploit you every chance they get.
- e40 4mo agoBecause some things only work in Chrome. It's a fact. It's terrible. We're the frogs being boiled, over the last decade. People sounded the alarms, but they were looked at like they had tin foil on their heads. Now, it's clear they were right. I'm speaking generally, of course. I use Firefox for all my personal stuff, except for those situations where it doesn't work.
- tcp_handshaker 4mo ago>> Because some things only work in Chrome. What things? Looks like an urban myth.
- hparadiz 4mo agoA lot of IT now curates the extensions for the browsers and doesn't allow extensions not on the whitelist and then they basically just only do that work on Chrome and disable Firefox. It's kinda self defeating in the long run imo but that's the problem in the industry.
- input_sh 4mo agoChrome likes to make up new "standards" and then some websites adopt them immediately. That said, I can only remember two instances of that slightly inconveniencing me in the past, and both times I was inconvenienced by a Google-run website: once upon a time Google Earth refused to work, and once upon a time I couldn't tweak my Google Meet background. Both are no longer the case.
- StilesCrisis 4mo agoCitation needed. I've seen the opposite--unless there's a very specific niche that can't be otherwise solved, there's huge internal resistance to going it alone. The biggest counterexample I can think of: WebUSB was critical to Chromebooks supporting external devices, but I can see why Safari might not want it. It has Firefox support at last, though.
- shevy-java 4mo agoWell, why would I want to use Brave? Brave is the Google empire aka chromium. I use thorium, which also belongs to the empire, so it is not really any different to Brave - but I can use ublock origin still, so that's better. I think we are all in the Google empire here. Praising Brave as alternative, simply does not make a whole lot of sense really. Firefox is a bit outside of it but it basically got rid of most of its users. When I use firefox, I can not play audio on youtube videos. It works fine with thorium. I tried to convince the firefox developer who said everyone on Linux must use pulseaudio (I don't) but there is no reasoning with Mozilla hackers here. He thinks he knows better than everyone else does. (I could recompile firefox from source, but Mozilla uses mozconfig still: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/xsoft/firefox.html https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/xsoft/firefox... - they are too incompetent to transition into meson or cmake. A failing project, no wonder it lost most of its users. Titanic got nothing on the Firefox team.)
- vehemenz 4mo agoOk, why Brave though? There's Safari, Chromium, LibreWolf, Ladybird, and plenty of others.
- nazgulsenpai 4mo agoThey mentioned the built-in adblock
- rolymath 4mo agoBrave is has pre-configured as block that works on everything, also a polished sync experience.
- g8oz 4mo agoVivaldi's sync experience is nice as well. Top notch customization too.
- rolymath 4mo agoI started with Vivaldi. Was unstable in my experience. Constant crashes.
- aucisson_masque 4mo agoVivaldi is often behind on chromium security patch. In fact they are right now.
- fg137 4mo agoNot everyone is on Mac. In fact, most people use Windows. So Safari and Ladybird are out of the question, that's two gone.
- bloqs 4mo ago1. Because it's most popular. Guaranteed support and "monkey see monkey do". 2. The adblocking is preconfigured, and non technical users trying to find the right extensions has a very bad history of unintentional malware. Ad block? Adblock plus? Ublock? Ublock origin? This is a great example of what floors a lot of technical folk who would be "why not just install ublock origin" and fail to understand the "why should I when I can just get Brave one and it works" 3. Most people don't use macs
- afavour 4mo agoYou’re definitely in a bubble. Google advertises Chrome on TV. Most users haven’t even heard of Brave.
- skocznymroczny 4mo agoI switched to Firefox when Chrome started messing with the ad blockers. Haven't really had any issues. I prefer developer tools on Chrome but I rarely need to use them anyway.
- xacky 4mo agoThe trouble is that Mozilla has admitted they can't survive without Google's revenue. You are basically using Google by proxy unless you use a truly independent browser engine of they get blocked by Cloudflare for not having enough fingerprinting tech.
- hparadiz 4mo ago(Ungoogled) Chromium and Firefox are both projects that are open source and readily available. The code is sitting there ready for you to compile. More users = more donations. You can be the change you wanna see.
- unethical_ban 4mo agoI don't agree that you are using Google by proxy when Firefox has more technical independence from Google than Chrome and can be quickly decoupled from the few Google defaults it has, search and safe browsing.
- close04 4mo ago> You are basically using Google by proxy unless you use a truly independent browser engine This conclusion doesn't follow your premise. Google has to pay because if Mozilla dies, so does the claim of any real competition on the browser engine market. So everyone agrees Firefox's engine is truly independent. Google pays so Firefox users don't use anything that has to do with Google. If you think about it, the only real way to not hurt Google is for Firefox to stop existing. Chrome would end up being spun off from Google.
- frizlab 4mo agoI use Safari personally. It’s good.
- platevoltage 4mo agoMe too. I don't get the complaints.
- touristtam 4mo agoAfter years of using alternative to chrome (Firefox, Chromium, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Edge, etc ...) I have stopped fighting the choice of IT for installing and setting Chrome as the default browser on a Mac. I still use Firefox when I can and religiously reroute URLs to it where possible, but this is beating me down and I would rather spend time playing with LLMs rather than continue this struggle.
- coldpie 4mo agoI want to use a browser engine that is not developed/owned by Google, so I use Firefox. I also don't want to support Brave's CEO's politics, so I would not use Brave regardless.
- blks 4mo agoBrave’s owner is a very sketchy dude. With all the news that were happening around brave, all the shitcoin stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised if the browser is mining crypto. The single affiliated link scandal is enough to not touch that project with a ten foot pole.
- StilesCrisis 4mo agoIf you're anti-Google, use Firefox. It's hypocritical to use the browser they're paying to build, then complain about how they generate revenue to fund it.
- blks 4mo agoI was using Firefox, Vivaldi, Zen, and finally got fed up with various issues that Zen was having, so I switched to Waterfox. I am very happy and the browser is very fast; difference is immense.
- nelsonic 4mo agoWaterford -> WaterFox for anyone wondering: https://www.waterfox.com/ https://www.waterfox.com/
- blks 4mo agoThank you, autocorrect sometimes misfires.
- 2ndorderthought 4mo agoWaterfox is literally owned by an ad company.
- blks 4mo agoDo you have any source on that?
- 2ndorderthought 4mo agoLast I heard they were purchased by System1.
- dubious2 4mo agotry ironfox sometime. I think its better for privacy.
- blks 4mo agoIt seems to be only available for mobile?
- Brian_K_White 4mo ago"I am surprised there is still anyone using Chrome instead of Brave." Bubble indeed. No one should use Brave.
- PufPufPuf 4mo agoThere are other browsers that are free of both Google and sketchy cryptocurrency business!