Why I recommend against Brave
thelibre.news

If you are keen on personal privacy, you might have come across Brave Browser. Brave is a Chromium-based browser that promises to deliver privacy with built-in ad-blocking and content-blocking protection. It also offers several quality-of-life features and services, like a VPN and Tor access. I mean, it’s even listed on the reputable PrivacyTools website. Why am I telling you to steer clear of this browser, then?

  • Spectrism@feddit.orgEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    Believing that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be a government-supported institution isn’t the same as believing LGBT people are “invalid” or “wrong” or whatever.

    That’s great and all, but we don’t live in those times yet. Not granting people the right to marry whoever they want in current times based on the premise that we should change the marital law somewhere in the future is still nothing short of discrimination. And let’s not forget that Eich supported a campaign that was very explicitly against gay marriage, not the current concept of marriage altogether. Weak argument.

    and that we should replace it with a series of contracts that grant certain legal privileges (e.g. joint tax filing, power of attorney, etc)

    That’s what marriage already is for the most part in many parts of the world. And in those cases, the resulting financial disadvantage for example also makes it more apparent, why being against gay marriage is not just about names on a piece of paper.

    I don’t know Eich’s personal political views, and I honestly don’t care, as long as they don’t interfere with his role.

    How empathetic of you. Might as well support Josef Mengele with that attitude. A bit more personal responsibility couldn’t hurt.

    My understanding is that they can’t really do that, because the payments are anonymous.

    Well, last I checked it’s just another ERC-20 Token and not a new Monero, so I have my doubts about that. I also assume that they must keep transaction logs somewhere to keep track of the amount of BAT donated to a creator. But I can’t be sure either.

    Use established, proven tools like Tor Browser.

    It’s also kind of useless for Brave to have implemented Tor in the first place. Even if Brave matures further, there’s basically no reason not to use the Tor Browser for its intended purpose.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      12·
      3 days ago

      not the current concept of marriage altogether.

      I never claimed it was. I merely gave an example of how opposition to something doesn’t necessarily indicate opposition to the people it’s intending to help.

      For the record, I support same-sex marriage, on the grounds that my preferred policy (which would open up marriage to more than just same-sex couples) is unlikely to get traction anytime soon, so something is better than nothing. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of better.

      However, I have friends who oppose same-sex marriage and don’t hate gay people (in fact, they’re good friends with LGBT people). The world isn’t black and white, so we shouldn’t assume someone is a Nazi just because they believe a couple of the same things Nazis do. That’s a logical fallacy, and it does way more harm than good.

      That’s what marriage already is for the most part in many parts of the world

      Exactly, and I’m arguing that those benefits shouldn’t be bundled. I’ve known couples that want to share custody but not finances, or maybe visitation rights but not power of attorney. Relationships are complicated, and I think the institution of marriage is outdated. We spend tons of time and money on divorces and prenuptial agreements, and I think that could be dramatically simplified if we separated out the specific agreements and let people pick which they want.

      Marriage should be a religious/personal thing, not a legal one. Whether you want to consider yourself married shouldn’t depend on a piece of paper in much the same way that your chosen gender shouldn’t.

      Josef Mengele

      That’s quite the logical leap.

      it’s just another ERC-20 Token and not a new Monero

      I don’t know, and honestly it doesn’t matter.

      My preferred form of record keeping is GNU Taler. You’d load a wallet to pay for articles or whatever and the browser vendor would use a very cheap form of accounting to keep track of purchases, and lump payments to websites together with payments from other users. Taler is nice in that it protects the privacy of the purchaser, has cryptographic protections without the complexity of P2P verification (and none of the ecological impact), and is pretty easy to understand. The vendor could even audit transactions if they want without violating the privacy of the user.

      But honestly, I don’t care what mechanism they use, whether crypto or some form of centralized wallet. I just want to be able to pay to remove ads without needing a million accounts.

      It’s also kind of useless for Brave to have implemented Tor in the first place

      I disagree. There’s value in having a second rendering engine in case a website doesn’t work on Tor Browser. It’s unlikely to have similar protections (e.g. finger printing resistance), but it could work in a pinch for a site you need to access that doesn’t work on Gecko for whatever reason.

      That said, you could probably achieve that by pointing the browser at a running Tor service (e.g. Orbot on Android). You’d need to be extra careful about things like DNS (which Brave got wrong), but it’s an option. Having it bundled is nice though.