Just as a counterpoint, I switched to Brave because Firefox no longer holds the technical or moral high ground. Brave is an open-source browser which makes it different from Chrome and Vivaldi. Brave is a privacy-focused browser. Brave is the only browser that is open source and also lets me pay for it so I can have a clean, uncluttered, fast experience. Brave is the only chromium-based browser that I'm aware of that continues to support Manifest V2 for UBlock Origin, which is critical for my use case.
Mozilla has been distracted by a million shiny things around them. They've been mismanaged almost criminally and they have changed their terms of service to be much less privacy-oriented than they used to be.
In my humble opinion, Brave gets far too much hate on this site and is actually the best browser made today in terms of open source availability, a focus on privacy and empowerment of the end user, while maximizing site compatibility.
> Mozilla has been distracted by a million shiny things around them
also this - like Brave being inundated with crypto shit and now AI shit isn't them hopping on every last fad as fast as possible?
it's also wild to me how many people default to citing FireFox when there are open-source, privacy-focused forks like LibreWolf, Tor Browser, and Mullvad Browser out there, all of which blow Brave out of the water for privacy by their own admission on that privacytests.org site (that one of their staff engs owns)
This isn't accurate. Mozilla stopped focusing on their core product, which was the browser. Brave has desperately been trying to monetize the creation of a privacy-focused browser for some time, much to the chagrin of folks on HN. I decided to pay for their open source offering, which doesn't have any of that.
The hate for Brave is some combination of people dredging up issues from very early in their existence and mischaracterizing them as often as not, and folks that insist that it's jammed full of crypto shit when it's very straightforward to either disable or remove it entirely by just using Brave Origin.
I have used all three of the browsers that you happen to mention aside from Firefox, and while I keep them in my back pocket, Brave is my daily driver. I don't tend to visit a huge variety of websites. I usually have JavaScript disabled when I do so, and I have other privacy preserving mechanisms in place besides just the browser I picked.
I'm happy for folks to trudge on with the Firefox engine, but I no longer see Mozilla as a good custodian of it. I do think the privacy-focused forks of it are good, and worthy of significant attention. On Android, I would also recommend both IronFox and Cromite.
montroser · · focus · HN ↗
Switching to Brave from Firefox due to AI and ethical concerns seems like a lateral move at best if being generous.
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
Mozilla has been distracted by a million shiny things around them. They've been mismanaged almost criminally and they have changed their terms of service to be much less privacy-oriented than they used to be.
In my humble opinion, Brave gets far too much hate on this site and is actually the best browser made today in terms of open source availability, a focus on privacy and empowerment of the end user, while maximizing site compatibility.
MeetingsBrowser · · focus · HN ↗
Isn't Brave's main source of revenue serving you ads based on information collected about you from while using their browser?
paimapi · · focus · HN ↗
also this - like Brave being inundated with crypto shit and now AI shit isn't them hopping on every last fad as fast as possible?
it's also wild to me how many people default to citing FireFox when there are open-source, privacy-focused forks like LibreWolf, Tor Browser, and Mullvad Browser out there, all of which blow Brave out of the water for privacy by their own admission on that privacytests.org site (that one of their staff engs owns)
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
The hate for Brave is some combination of people dredging up issues from very early in their existence and mischaracterizing them as often as not, and folks that insist that it's jammed full of crypto shit when it's very straightforward to either disable or remove it entirely by just using Brave Origin.
I have used all three of the browsers that you happen to mention aside from Firefox, and while I keep them in my back pocket, Brave is my daily driver. I don't tend to visit a huge variety of websites. I usually have JavaScript disabled when I do so, and I have other privacy preserving mechanisms in place besides just the browser I picked.
I'm happy for folks to trudge on with the Firefox engine, but I no longer see Mozilla as a good custodian of it. I do think the privacy-focused forks of it are good, and worthy of significant attention. On Android, I would also recommend both IronFox and Cromite.
FrinkleFrankle · · focus · HN ↗
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