• bizarroland@lemmy.worldEnglish
      474·
      22 days ago

      Well, I would recommend waterfox over firefox because waterfox has just straight up removed any AI stuff rather than giving you the option to opt out of it.

        • jello@programming.devEnglish
          6·
          21 days ago

          I agree, but also Waterfox just generally has a more free/unmonitozed default and the AI stuff is just an example. It’s a one-time switch to Waterfox and it’ will forever turn off/on the stuff that you would otherwise have to do manually.

    • imjustmsk@lemmy.mlEnglish
      212·
      21 days ago

      You can maybe try Ladybird (most websites is kinds usable now I guess)

      • atopi@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        221·
        21 days ago

        the lead developer for ladybird had a controversy regarding transphobia though

        while checking to see if anything happened regarding the controversy, i found that the same person that claimed that suggesting using gender neutral pronouns instead of assuming the reader was a man was advertising personal politics, the lead developer for ladybird, also complained about white men being actively discriminated against in tech and said he hopes “many more debate nerds carry on his quest to engage young people with words, not fists.” regarding the death of Charlie Kirk

        i was going to link sources for everything here, but this article has all of them already and its easier to have a single link

        • imjustmsk@lemmy.mlEnglish
          14·
          21 days ago

          Ohh yes, obviously not in the condition to daily drive, and you need to compile from source.

  • Manu@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    21 days ago

    I don’t usually take the software creator’s ideology into account if it works well on my computer. However, I stopped using Brave when I found out that it’s a company funded by Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir and one of the most toxic investors around today. The combination of Brendan Eich and Peter Thiel has now pushed me past the point where I can separate software from its creator’s ideology.

    • lepinkainen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      33·
      21 days ago

      I don’t think “toxic” covers the kind of evil Peter Thiel.

      An actor with mildly spicy views on stuff is “toxic”.

      Thiel bought a fucking Vice President and got him to do a 180 on his views on Trump.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20·
        21 days ago

        This is the guy that Epstein sent an email to saying:

        “Finding things on their way to collapse, was much easier than finding the next bargain.”

        3 days before Brexit vote. Peter Thiel is named over 2,200 times in the Epstein files, confirming their extensive correspondence.

        And Thiel did nothing but sabotage society for finding the next bargain. He’s a caricature super villain from James Bond, that should be at the bottom of a volcano somewhere not funding web browsers.

      • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        9·
        20 days ago

        Technically the order was:

        Buy

        180 on views

        Make him VP

        He didn’t really buy a ready-made VP, he groomed him.

    • MIDItheKID@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      20 days ago

      Brave Browser: “Privacy Forward”

      Funded by Peter Thiel of Palantir, the most un-privacy corporation that ever pravacied.

      That math ain’t mathing for me.

      As others mentioned, Thiel is basically a cartoon supervillain. There’s definitely something more sinister at play that he’s trying to accomplish with this “privacy forward” web browser. Not sure exactly what it is, but I don’t trust it for a fucking second.

  • GreenShimada@lemmy.worldEnglish
    445·
    22 days ago

    Shocking number of people under-informed about browsers here.

    Brave just released a $60 paid (except on Linux Desktop) version without bloat. It worked barely OK in the first place, but didn’t obfuscate all of your browser fingerprint. It spoofed fonts, that was its major innovation.

    Only Tor truly anonymizes web traffic. This is not opinion, this is fact.

    LibreWolf, Mullvad, and hardened FF help, but they all give their own fingerprints. As does Vivaldi and Floorp.

    Personally, I cycle through all 7 of these. Only things tied to my name on stock FF. Everything else gets its own different browser private mode and VPN location.

    Use whatever you want, but understand that unless you’re on Tor or spreading your risk across multiple tools, it’s trivial for Google to triangulate you across the web.

    • adr1an@programming.devEnglish
      51·
      21 days ago

      Thanks. Very good comment, I agree… And yet…

      Ironically, not being on what most people are using (stock Chrome without extensions) is already a fingerprint. And tor browser, even if it is providing anonymity, is also a huge fingerprint on itself, by blocking all the fingerprinting stuff…

      The irony is lost the moment you come up with a proper threat model upon which you base the decisions of what security and privacy measures are going to be taken for a given online activity.

      I really liked (and used it for quite a while) that extension, Ad Nauseam, that would actually follow behind scenes all ads and shit…

      • GreenShimada@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        21 days ago

        This is a bit like the “If you’re not doing anything, you have nothing to hide” argument. You’re thinking this is an all or nothing position, and it’s very much not. It depends on one’s threat model, but there’s two sides to the coin worth considering.

        First, that your entire life is open to anyone with money. Individuals so motivated can spend a couple grand and buy your advertising data and stalk you. Everything you think, every little whim, every random question, is used to build a profile on you that benefits someone else financially. All you get is free email and a mediocre browser from a billion-dollar company that derives an average of $1,600 from you a year if you’re in the US ? You can pay for those services for a tenth of that. So you’re 90% profit to Google.

        On the flip side, by giving up so much high-value data, that profile becomes active in real time. Even if you use ad blockers and don’t see the ads (which as a Chrome user, you no longer can do). You are an active target by companies. Not just you, everyone around you. Friends, family, coworkers. For some big ticket items, advertisers will target anyone connected to your profile. So your parents, your kids, your neighbors, might start to get ads about a cruise. Not for them, but for you, since it looks like you might be a good mark for a cruise. These companies manipulate people around you to be the ads, so that when you bring up “we’re thinking about doing a cruise” at some point, everyone around you jumps in with the same “oh, well I’ve heard that XYZ Cruise company is good.”

        You trust a company that much to manipulate you and everyone around you without bias? With your best interests in mind? You want to cede your agency as a human to real-time auctions?

        Personally, this is fundamentally abhorrent to me. And I understand that other people are fine with this. However, I’d rather leave a small and bland trail of a few occasional and useless crumbs, and then leave “redacted” as a middle finger because that deprives Google and Meta of using me as a revenue source. The nice part is that even partially masking your footprint and traffic, it’s enough to break the real-time value of you as an individual. So not only does every little bit help, every little bit has effects to protect you and your family.

    • Razen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      21 days ago

      Librewolf logouts from all websites and also dark mode settings is reverted once i quit the program and re run. Is it how it is supposed to be?

      • toddestan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        21 days ago

        Librewolf by default deletes all cookies when you close it. So that will log you out of every website, but that also makes sure things like tracking cookies don’t hang around.

        You can tweak those settings if you want.

  • Evotech@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    21 days ago

    Brave has ran a bunch of youtube ads. Like raid shadow legends style. That’s how I know it’s a shit browser

  • Ethanol@pawb.socialEnglish
    13·
    21 days ago

    It’s good that OG directly linked to the toot but I always hate when dates are cutoff. This toot is from 2024 when Google started introducing manifest v3 which prevented ublock origin from working, hence many people were looking for alternative browsers and Brave was one of the more popular ones. While I would not recommend Brave, I’ve heard the crypto rewarding program is opt-in and the affiliate link injection was removed soon after getting backlash.

    Brendan Eich is still an ass though, and Brave has very bad business practices. Only recently Brave announced a 60$ (free on Linux though) minimalist variant that removes unwanted features like the crypto rewarding program, Brave VPN and AI chatbot which are built-in for the default browser variant.

    • Manu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      21 days ago

      Brave is asking for money to remove the bloatware it has added over the years and to be able to use the original browser it first released.

  • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.netEnglish
    141·
    21 days ago

    If you don’t use Firefox (or webkit) you want Google to control the entire web. Simple as that.

  • Log in | Sign up@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    21 days ago

    I’m a big fan of the duckduckgo browser. Love me the burn-all-the-cookies-and-history bonfire button that make it great as a default browser and I click random links more confidently now that it’s my go-to.

  • ms.lane@lemmy.worldEnglish
    154·
    22 days ago

    Also Pale Moon is still borked from the Tobin saga.

    Firefox will sign you up for ‘Studies’ that phone home and disclose your browsing data without consent, you need to check this periodically. Turning it off is not enough, you need to check it as it will periodically turn itself back on with updates.

    Waterfox is clean after you turn off crash telemetry.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      22 days ago

      Firefox will sign you up for ‘Studies’ that phone home and disclose your browsing data without consent, you need to check this periodically. Turning it off is not enough, you need to check it as it will periodically turn itself back on with updates.

      On desktop? That’s fucked, idk how that’s not more publicized

  • 666dollarfootlong@lemmy.worldEnglish
    121·
    22 days ago

    Haven’t seen much talk about Zen on Lemmy, i think i’m gonna try that when i have more time since it seems like the most radically different browser ever

  • FreddiesLantern@leminal.spaceEnglish
    9·
    21 days ago

    Librewolf and you’re done, just look at the settings a bit if you need a website to remember stuff. That’s it, your search is concluded.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
    9·
    21 days ago

    I stopped using Brave for Peter Thiel reasons. Using Librespped, Mullvad browser, Zen browser and Helium. Helium isn’t fully finished, but looking amazing. I like options

  • Dzheyk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    8·
    20 days ago

    Just wanted to say thanks, this spurred me to swap over to Zen until I hear how that one is also terrible for me however far down the road.

    • Luffy@lemmy.mlEnglish
      161·
      22 days ago

      Zorin is a piece of shit thats only reason of relevance is that a bunch of sloptubers jumped on the „LiNuX iS uSeR fRiEnDlY now???” train. There is nothing to learn from Zorin except that you could sell 80% of humanity an overpriced and underperforming product by marketing everything but their product as overly complicated and only for nerds

        • Luffy@lemmy.mlEnglish
          5·
          21 days ago

          Its the most sub average you can get.

          It works, but the package maintenance is sub par, with some apps being years old, the ui does not allow a user to have more advanced options, like the updates executable just being a loading bar instead of something fully featured like KDE discover, etc

          • Mac@mander.xyzEnglish
            3·
            21 days ago

            I test drove it for a couple days and it worked well enough for a noob. I don’t think it’s intended for advanced level use.

            I’m checking out Linux Lite next—my laptop is ancient lol

    • Sturgist@lemmy.caEnglish
      4·
      22 days ago

      Well, they have paid and education versions, so likely it’s the default because Brave paid to be the default. Gotta get cash from the free users too.