
The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes - davidgerard
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/
======
this_user
I'm surprised people are surprised by this. Brave have said from the beginning
that this is how their business model works. What I'm even more surprised
about is that Brave has gotten any traction at all, as there is really no
reason to use it instead of a normal browser with regular ad blockers.

~~~
mmcru
I use it on iOS because its an easy solution for ad-blocking. Is there a good
ad-blocker for Safari on iOS?

~~~
chrisjarvis
I use 1Blocker on iOS and MacOS safari, which is great but costs 5$ a year.
There is no full port of uBlock to safari at this time.

~~~
fossuser
I'm a huge fan of 1Blocker and I'm glad they charge $5 a year and it's
someone's full time lifestyle company.

I've had a few content blocking apps on iOS and they've all been abandoned (or
worse sold to ad companies).

1Blocker so far has stuck around and stayed high quality.

------
egypturnash
From the same browser that brought you “Hey we’ll just start taking donations
for everyone whose ads we block, and we won’t put any effort into contacting
anyone to tell them about this - and if they do find out, the process to start
getting those donations is a giant pain in the ass!”

I’m tempted to add some browser sniffing to my site just so I can block this
scammy thing. I don’t even have ads on my comics any more, just a Patreon. And
I fully expect at this point that anyone clicking my Patreon link on Brave
would get redirected to some weird site they built that skims my Patreon
posts, makes you pay in crypto, and only pays me 5¢ out of every dollar you
think you’re paying me.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
Nothing I've read about Brave has ever made me want to use it instead of _any
other browser with a basic ad blocker,_ and this whole "we will save the web
by substituting other people's ads with our own and making them all party to
our business model whether they want to be or not, also something something
cryptocurrency woo" shtick was the main reason. It continues to be the main
reason.

~~~
ketamine__
They don't substitute on page ads and viewing ads that are notifications is
optin. There are also ads on new tabs. That's another chance to earn BAT. The
user decides if they want to donate to a site. If the owner doesn't sign up
the tips remain with the user. I have donated $10 to my favorite open source
developer after convincing him to sign up. All I had to do was visit his
GitHub profile and click a few times.

That Brave uses cryptocurrency is not a reason to dismiss it. There is a lot
of hand waving but the hand wavers have no idea how Brave works. At least be
familiar with the object of your criticism. Even the author of the blog post
doesn't know the difference between a link and auto complete. How is that
helpful?

A legitimate criticism of Brave is that competitors like Scroll have amassed
quite a few publishers for their micropayments platform. Can Brave catch up?

------
phnofive
> However, Eich is very sorry that Brave got caught — again — and something
> will be changed in some manner to stop this behaviour, or at least obscure
> it.

No surprise there.

> There is no good reason to use Brave. Use Chromium — the open-source core of
> Chrome — with the uBlock Origin ad blocker [...] or use Firefox with uBlock
> Origin — ‘cos it blocks more ads than the Chromium framework will let
> anything block.

Is this true? I assumed the functionality would be the same.

~~~
molticrystal
How is the android scene for Chromium based browsers that either have
extension support or adblockers?

I am aware only of Yandex & Kiwi as Chromium browsers that support extensions
that allow you to install an adblocker. So perhaps Brave is trying to
integrate itself there somehow by having it built in.

Anybody know a better breakdown than this for mobile browser market share?
[https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
share/mobile/world...](https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
share/mobile/worldwide#monthly-201905-202005-bar) It says Chromium is 61% and
Yandex is 0.1% but it would be nice to see if Brave was included or not.

~~~
aasasd
Yandex is the company whose sites actively fight ad-blocking more than anyone
else of whom I know. Afaik Yandex is just not in the uBO lists anymore,
because it was no use changing the filters again and again. So I guess Yandex
_might_ allow installing filters which can't catch it anyway, but I wonder if
it won't cripple the extension somehow for good measure.

~~~
Markoff
their browser doesn't affect functionality of ublock, but it's not good
browser anyway, trying to show down your throat many intrusive features by
default

------
meerita
Being a happy Firefox user and watching all the browser drama from the
backyard. I still don't understand why people uses Chrome or Chrome variants
claiming privacy things.

~~~
doc_gunthrop
With Chrome taking the lion's share of the browser user market, you end up
with a lot of sites that work well in Chrome but not so well with other
browsers.

So even if you use Firefox as your main driver, you'll still want to have a
Chromium-based browser as a backup.

Now the problem for Android users is that, in light of this news, there's now
one less (seemingly) viable option if you're using Google Play services.

If you're using F-droid, however, you have Bromite and ungoogled-Chromium as
prime candidates.

~~~
ifdefdebug
> So even if you use Firefox as your main driver, you'll still want to have a
> Chromium-based browser as a backup.

Nope. When something doesnt work in my FF then good bye. I cant be bothered to
do extra work like switching browsers for to support their incompetence.
It'been rare though.

~~~
cerberusss
Very rarely, I fall back to Safari because I'm on Mac. But on my laptop, I
don't have anything installed from Google. It's just not necessary.

------
tyingq
I would think the affiliate programs wouldn't like this either.

The browser isn't doing anything to drive traffic. It's just taking credit for
traffic that was coming already.

~~~
javajosh
Good point. Maybe brave should make affiliate-able links blink and/or respond
to clicks in a wider area? (Just to be clear: this is satire. Please don't do
this.)

~~~
ashtonkem
Don't give him ideas.

------
Nextgrid
Brave's whole business model is flawed, even ignoring shenanigans like this.

They claim they want to fix everything wrong with today's web (annoying and
privacy-invasive ads, etc) by replacing them their own ads backed by a shitty
cryptocurrency. While this might work in the short term while the browser is
niche, they will have no choice but to deploy the same techniques once it goes
mainstream and ad fraud goes up, removing their only selling point.

The only real solution here is to just admit that view-based or click-based
advertising on the web is flawed (and will always be vulnerable to fraud) and
get rid of it, replacing it with time-based advertising where you pay for an
ad to stay up for a certain period of time regardless of how many clicks or
views it gets, making it immune to fraud and reducing the need for privacy-
violating analytics because the only analytic that matters is "do we make more
money?". Of course, this _real_ solution wouldn't allow opportunistic
middlemen to make money out of thin air, so that's why we have Brave instead.

~~~
anderber
> by replacing them their own ads backed by a shitty cryptocurrency

This is not true at all, and it has been talked enough here but I figured I'd
explain it again. The Brave ads are opt-in, for people who would like to earn
"shitty" cryptocurrency by clicking on them.

They are fixing the ad issue by blocking the ads and letting you "pay" the
sites with BAT tokens. This can be done by a one-time donation or
automatically each month (based on your attention). Reason for the Basic
Attention Token name.

~~~
lakeWater
Thought I should point out you receive BAT for viewing the notifications. Not
for clicking on them.

[https://support.brave.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360026361072-Bra...](https://support.brave.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360026361072-Brave-Ads-FAQ)

------
FillardMillmore
I am an enthusiastic Brave user - but seeing stories like these make me wonder
if I'd be better off configuring Firefox to be more secure/private and using
that.

As a privacy and transparency advocate, it disappoints me to see Brave fail to
pass the test, especially considering that privacy and transparency are
supposed to be the browser's MO.

~~~
luxurytent
Not too difficult to configure Firefox imo. My recommendations on plugins:

* HTTPS Everywhere: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/https-everywh...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/https-everywhere/) * DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-fo...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-for-firefox/) * uBlock Origin Firefox: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/)

~~~
whycombagator
Privacy Badger[0] too. Multi-account containers[1]. I also agree with the
Decentraleyes[2] suggestion.

[0] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-
badge...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-badger17/)

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-
account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-
containers/)

[2] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes/)

------
dkdk8283
Brave has to pay salaries - I suppose this is better than selling user data.
Chrome is subsidized by search and Firefox gets money from Google.

The revenue model for browsers is fucked up.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Ironically there’s only one browser with a sane business model and it’s
Safari. You have to buy an Apple product to use it. Simple.

That’s probably why it’s the only mainstream browser, outside of obscure open
source browsers like Falkon and Gnome Web, that doesn’t have any built-in ties
to third party services.

~~~
the_duke
Apple gets billions and billions each year to make Google the default search
engine in Safari on iOS and Mac OS. (reported to be 12 billion in 2019 [1])

Apples privacy efforts and signaling are motivated by differentiation to
Android/Google and are mostly just marketing targeted at increasingly privacy-
aware consumers. Not some value judgement. (in my opinion)

[1] [https://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-
en...](https://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-engine/)

~~~
vvG94KbDUtRa
Also increasingly apple is moving to compete in services. Every incentive in
the world will be to adopt the practices the other guys do. Putting your trust
in apple right now on the privacy issue seems pretty misguided.

------
Havoc
Wow. They appear to have a death wish.

If your entire raison d'etre is privacy and clear stated model then one covert
shady move like this can wreck trust irrevocably.

If they had just declared that their model includes inserting affiliate codes
then that would all be fine.

The codes aren't the issue here its a violation of trust. If I'm OK with
mystery monetization stuff happening behind the scenes I'd be using Chrome.

~~~
fastball
Except mystery monetization is a pre-req for heavily maintained software that
you don't pay for.

I'd rather the mystery be "affiliate deals" than "selling my data".

Mozilla's mystery monetization is getting paid lotsa dollars to make Google
the default search engine in Firefox. And Google can only afford that because
of ads. If Firefox integrated ad-blocking by default like Brave did, Google
might be inclined to pull that deal, as it is paid for with ads.

I trust the company with that conflict of interest less than I trust Brave.

~~~
Havoc
Very valid point :)

------
heavyset_go
It's as if Brave is performance art put on by Mozilla's advertising
department.

~~~
chrisjarvis
he updated the article and quoted you in it :D

~~~
heavyset_go
Nice catch, wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

------
mukuz
Most comments here are blowing things way out of proportion. Links are in no
way getting modified by the browser. The issue is that when someone types
binance.us(or a few other brave affiliate sites) in the address bar, the top
recommended link comes to be one with the referral link appended. When enter
is hit that link is automatically selected(normal chromium behaviour) and page
opens with the url with referral code. This sure is problematic. As Brendan
has said[1] it sure was not the right way to do it. Again, the links in pages
are in no way modified as people are trying to portray.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269317625915400192](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269317625915400192)

------
Meekro
You know how Firefox has a deal with Google where if you use Firefox and do a
Google search and click on an ad, Firefox gets a cut of the ad money? This is
sort of like that: Binance and Brave have a deal[1] where Brave promotes
Binance from an in-browser widget[2], and in return Brave gets affiliate money
whenever a Brave user signs up for Binance (whether by clicking on the widget
or not).

In cases of affiliate hijacking, the company (and not the user) is the victim
because the company is made to pay referral money when the hijacker didn't
actually refer the customer. This didn't happen here because, again, Brave and
Binance have a deal and Brave is operating according to that deal.

I suppose editing URLs out from under people is a little weird, so now that
there's been an outcry they'll probably change it to identify Brave users by
UserAgent or by injecting an HTTP header or something.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269289242905042944](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269289242905042944)
[2] [https://cointelegraph.com/news/brave-browser-brings-
binance-...](https://cointelegraph.com/news/brave-browser-brings-binance-
integration-to-all-desktop-users)

------
davidgerard
OP here. Brendan Eich is now publicly calling me a liar, though he's
inexplicably failed to detail the claimed lies. I've asked him to do so.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200606232839/https://twitter.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200606232839/https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269403116740308993)

~~~
mthoms
Your title is, at the very best, poorly phrased. At worst, intentionally
misleading. Whether or not you approve of what they are doing, and regardless
of whether what they are doing is moral - they are not "hijacking links". That
practice of "hijacking links" _specifically_ means re-writing/modifying
_existing_ links on pages that you don't control (hence the term "hijacking"
\- or taking what belongs to someone else).

A URL _typed_ in an address bar is not "a link". It's a typed URL.

Curiously, your article seems to describe what is happening pretty accurately
so it's hard to see why you chose the title you did (other than to be
clickbait-y and sensationalist - you are selling a book on the topic after
all).

Again, that's not to excuse what they are doing. At all. But link hijacking
has come to have a specific meaning and this isn't it.

TL;DR - Link is short for hyper-link. There are no hyper-links involved here.

~~~
mthoms
I know I'm not supposed to reference downvotes on HN. But I would like to
kindly ask downvoters to explain _why_ what I've written is incorrect.

~~~
fault_lines
Regardless of whether the terminology is technically correct, it's easily
understood what the meaning is. Modifying links and modifying typed URLs are
equally bad, so your claim that it is sensationalist doesn't make sense. Your
post is pure pedantry that does not make any substantive contribution.

~~~
mthoms
>Modifying links and modifying typed URLs are equally bad

Sorry, but you're plainly wrong.

"Modifying links" implies another victim in the scheme: The party who authored
the link in the first place. It implies that a third party is being deprived
of their affiliate revenue because the link they wrote was "hijacked".

That's not what happened. No one is having anything _stolen_. If that
distinction is not important to you.... then I don't know what to say.

Words matter. Never more so than when making serious accusations.

~~~
fault_lines
They are equally bad because in both cases _the user_ is taken to a place that
they _did not intend to go_. They are not bad because something is getting
"stolen", they are bad because the user is no longer in control. That is a
significantly more concerning aspect than someone not receiving affiliate
revenue, which to be completely honest, I couldn't care less about.

~~~
mthoms
So a third party _also_ being wronged does not change anything because... you
don't like the third party? Classy.

Do you have an actual argument or is that it?

Edit: This has got to be the first time I've seen an HN'er _defend_ someone
adding a clickbait title to their submission. A submission that points to
_their own_ marketing website. The guy is selling a book. Don't be so naive.

The accusation stands on its own without sensationalizing it.

~~~
fault_lines
I simply don't believe that mistakenly saying "links" instead of "URLs" is
sensationalist. The author is not engaging in clickbait by substituting that
word. A layman understanding of the web will not make a distinction between a
URL and a link. The issue is clearly the fact that the browser _deceives the
user_ , whether it is changing a link in a page or changing the URL typed in
the address bar, these are both equally deceptive from the user's point of
view.

Hell, I have a reasonably good knowledge of the terminology and I will
regularly ask people to "send me links" or "send me URLs" interchangeably.
It's just needlessly pedantic.

~~~
mthoms
He's a _technical writer_ (by profession) directing traffic to his blog
dedicated to _marketing_ his _technical book_. Don't be naive, he knows
exactly what he's doing.

Furthermore, I responded directly to the OP when he pondered aloud why he
would be accused of lying. I explained. Then you jumped on me for being
pedantic and posting non-substantive comments? Okay, seriously?

Speaking of which, why _did_ the OP post the comment to HN about Eich calling
him a liar, if not to stir up controversy (and traffic)? That's highly
unusual. Did you ever consider that Brave is not the only one selling
something?

>The issue is clearly the fact that the browser deceives the user, whether it
is changing a link in a page or changing the URL typed in the address bar,
these are both equally deceptive from the user's point of view

That's simply not true. They are not equally deceptive.... _at all_. A web
browser surreptitiously re-writing third party web-content is next level evil.
The implications would be absolutely _astronomical_.

It's not the same and you know it.

------
srich36
This is similar to when Pinterest did this back in 2012 and very quickly made
large amounts of money but were crushed by public opinion and quickly shut the
practice down. It’ll be interesting to see how Brave responds.

1\.
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2012/2/8/2783807/pintrest-
skimming-affiliate-links)

~~~
lexs
Ironic that you posted an AMP link

[https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2012/2/8/2783807/pintr...](https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2012/2/8/2783807/pintrest-
skimming-affiliate-links)

~~~
llacb47
That's still an AMP link

~~~
greenyoda
Non-AMP link: [https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/8/2783807/pintrest-
skimming-...](https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/8/2783807/pintrest-skimming-
affiliate-links)

------
RJVB
Interesting discussion. I'm probably not the only one who started using Brave
(on the side) because it's being put forward as one of the fastest/leanest
browsers around. And I need something like that for the hybrid Win10 PC I
chose as a cheap tablet alternative that will also run desktop software. I
can't attest to "leanest", but it is indeed the only browser that works
reasonably well with something like Facebook on that tablet. Anything else
becomes unbearably sluggish after a short while, an MS Edge just has a too
much crippled UI (and general incapability to function with my filtering
proxy, Privoxy).

I see lots of remarks about FF being slow. It's a memory hog indeed (can't use
it on my tablet because of that), but so are Chromium-based browsers, and FF
is the only one I know where you can trigger a GC run that actually has some
effect. I combine that with "The Great Suspender" extension to keep things
manageable. Funny enough it was by far the fastest a year or 2 ago on what
seemed a reasonably representative HTML5 benchmark that has been taken offline
since. It's also the only option to have an up-to-date browser on my Mac that
I've been keeping under OS X 10.9.5. That alone earns them my support...

I do wonder why WebKit2 isn't been used more; outside of the Apple universe
(where it's sadly linked to the OS version) the only "official" browser I know
of that uses it is Gnome's epiphany which isn't exactly cross-platform. My
tests with the rebooted QtWebkit suggest that the older (but maintained,
AFAIK) WebKit codebase superior in performance and resource use to Chromium
("WebEngine") for sites that don't require newer, unsupported features (and as
an embedded HTML renderer).

------
throw2308230492
This article is highly inflammatory.

These are not random websites they are hijacking for affiliate money like the
article purports. These are all advertisers / partners that appear on the new
tab landing page when you sign up for Brave rewards...This is affiliate
tracking for advertisements baked into the browser itself not some nefarious
scheme to skim off someones else's traffic.

~~~
egypturnash
This is not on the new tab page, this is hijacking links typed directly into
the address bar. “If you’re using Brave and try to go to the Binance crypto
exchange, Brave hijacks the Binance link you typed in, and autofills with its
own affiliate code.”

There’s an animated screen capture of this happening here:
[https://twitter.com/cryptonator1337/status/12692014801055784...](https://twitter.com/cryptonator1337/status/1269201480105578496)

~~~
secr3t0
Hate it when people do this. Have you actually even tried it ? It just shows
the referral link suggestion at the top, it doesn't hijack the link you typed
in. You're still free to open the original link. Of course the twitter post
cleverly hides this by hiding the list of suggestions. Now we have this long
flaming thread for something that's totally normal and perfectly acceptable.

~~~
RandomBacon
Firefox: type in Binance.us and immediately press enter - no referral code.

Chrome: type in Binance.us and immediately press enter - no referral code.

Brave: type in Binance.us and immediately press enter - yes referral code.

~~~
lakeWater
Looks like their plan for resolving the outrage is an opt-in setting.

[https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269404443818119168](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269404443818119168)

------
gridlockd
This is a nothingburger. Brave adds its own referrer code to a handful of
crypto-related websites, if you type them into the address bar. It doesn't
modify other affiliate links, as far as I can tell.

------
kohtatsu
Don't they understand they're undermining the entire point of affiliate codes?

This would never be sustainable long-term, it's just dumb and awful for very
short-term gain.

------
rsynnott
> “In short run, without sounding Nietzschean, will matters. Patreon’s is weak
> or corrupt. Ours is not“

What is he, a ‘Silicon Valley’ character?

~~~
ashtonkem
Life imitates art.

------
oldgregg
Given the Total Information Surviellance from Google this is _relatively_ a
non-issue. Nearly anything that meaningfully restrains Google is a net good at
this point. Getting bent over this is like people who dismiss Signal for not
having perfect e2e- purists that are oblivious to what is actually happening
in the world.

------
oftenwrong
How could they not realise this would turn away their target audience?

~~~
rsynnott
What IS their target audience, though? I always vaguely thought it was the
crypto people, who as a community are quite accepting of weird slightly shady
stuff. I could never really figure out who this product was for tho.

~~~
RandomBacon
People that are too lazy to install add-ons or that want some pocket change in
tokens?

The shills say "privacy", but it's not any better than Firefox with add-ons
(and worse because using it adds to the Chromium ecosystem which Google
ultimately controls), and you have to KYC if you want to withdraw the tokens.

------
KennethSRoberts
I use and love Brave (since beta). As usual HN making a bigger deal out of
nothing. They gotta make money, and it's not like they are stealing from
anyone else (replacing ref links).

Chill out.

~~~
foob4r
This. HN is so entitled - I want the perfect thing, then complain about them
trying to be sustainable.

------
gnicholas
Bummer! I got the Tracking Token Stripper [1] to help remove stuff like this.
Wonder what the result is if I use this and Brave — which one wins?

1: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tracking-token-
str...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tracking-token-
stripper/kcpnkledgcbobhkgimpbmejgockkplob?hl=en)

------
josefresco
Vivaldi is my "third" browser. I have it setup with maximum privacy settings
and extensions.

[https://vivaldi.com](https://vivaldi.com)

"Vivaldi is a freeware, cross-platform web browser developed by Vivaldi
Technologies, a company founded by Opera Software co-founder and former CEO
Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Tatsuki Tomita."

------
jccalhoun
I seem to collect browsers like some people collect pokemon. Right now I am
typing this in firefox and have twitch open in chrome in my second monitor. I
use Edge for work accounts, Waterfox for times when I want to use a couple old
addons that were never ported over, and opera and vivaldi around just to see
how they measure up.

------
ChuckMcM
Filed under "Things people do that are 'perfectly legal' and reprehensible at
the same time."

------
xtat
I get that this is a bad look but practically speaking it's not that different
from Google paying Mozilla for every search query that comes in with a FF
User-Agent. Article reads more like personal beef

------
christophilus
Typing this on Brave for iOS. What is the best browser for iOS from a privacy
standpoint? Firefox doesn’t have uBlock Origin. I don’t trust Microsoft Edge
or Chrome. What do you suggest?

~~~
Nightshaxx
Um Firefox not only has uBlock origin, it's way better than Chrome's version.
FF is definitely way better.

~~~
RandomBacon
Apple doesn't let it's users have the freedom to install add-ons.

~~~
mukuz
You can install Firefox Focus[1] on iOS and enable it as a content blocker in
safari settings. It works really well as an ad-blocker.

[1] [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-
browser/...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-
browser/id1055677337)

------
modzu
please brave dont f this up. we really need you!

------
fulldecent2
Project plan for a new browser:

1\. Copy Brave. 2\. Remove everything except the part about paying monthly and
supporting websites you visit

Who's with me?

~~~
ketamine__
Micropayments have failed many times before. I can earn BAT with Brave and
donate it to sites without having to sign up and deposit money with a credit
card. There is much less friction compared to solutions that came before it.

Andrew Mason is forking Brave and doing some of what you describe. Being
associated with Gab and Andrew Mason isn't for everyone.

------
slashink
Always a balance with a tradeoff, I'm not sure if to uninstall here or come to
terms with the business model.

------
ijustwanttovote
Copied my wallets and removed Brave off all my devices. It only lasted a
couple weeks, lol.

------
drummer
They began sucking pretty fast. Good riddance.

------
Markoff
who even use brave on desktop? author completely misses point with
alternatives

for Android he recommends only Firefox which is either slow or buggy, but
nowhere close to stability and speed of chromium browsers

if you want chromium browser for Android with ublock your only options are
Kiwi browser with outdated chromium, shady Russian yandex browser, ungoogled
chromium pretty much in alpha or brave which promises extensions by the end of
June

------
waynesonfire
i'm done with brave.

------
arez
You have become the very thing you swore to destroy!

~~~
Koshkin
Yeah, that’s the thing with trust: you shouldn’t.

------
buboard
bit overblown. It's not all "links", they did the redirect for the
autocomplete of "binance.us" and they are correcting it.

[https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269313200127795201](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269313200127795201)

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
It's not just "binance.us", it's common terms like "bitcoin", "btc", "ltc",
"eth", etc.

[https://github.com/brave/brave-
core/blob/master/components/o...](https://github.com/brave/brave-
core/blob/master/components/omnibox/browser/suggested_sites_provider_data.cc)

Eich's tweet worsens things as it omits that fact.

I see there is already a user submitted PR to remove this code:
[https://github.com/brave/brave-
core/pull/5759/files](https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/5759/files)

We'll see how that goes.

~~~
duskwuff
Wow... that looks to me like they're injecting their affiliate code to some
URLs which the user would have to type in manually, like "binance.com",
"coinbase.com/join", or "trezor.io/product/trezor-one-metallic". _That 's
affiliate fraud_ \-- Brave is not responsible for referring the user to those
URLs, so it's inappropriate for them to claim credit for the referral. I'd be
shocked if the parties involved didn't terminate Brave's affiliate account
upon discovering this.

------
sergiotapia
I'm going to have to switch browser AGAIN? Dammit.

Is Opera safe or what shady shit have they done? I haven't used Opera since
Opera back in 2006. God I miss the Presto engine and dragonfly.

Can I go back to them or they doing shady stuff?

~~~
kick
Opera is still proprietary, and, uh, also they got caught doing some stuff
involving predatory short-term loans to the impoverished in African countries,
not to mention their CEO was _also_ involved in an entirely different Chinese
conglomerate that was also involved with fraud and some lending thing.

Oh yeah and if you haven't used it since 2006: Opera is Chromium now, and the
company behind it got sold a time or two.

~~~
sergiotapia
what the fuck, whats happening in the tech scene :(

what should I use if I _dont_ want to be in the botnet or scammed and outside
of google's mesh

~~~
superkuh
I used Opera from 5 to 12, then Firefox till v37, and it's been Pale Moon ever
since. Check out the latest release notes. I know I'm not the only one that
likes things such as,

>Removed more telemetry code

>Removed the in-browser speech recognition engine and API

>Removed support for the obsolete and unmaintained NVidia 3DVision
stereoscopic interface.

Palemoon is Firefox if it were still Firefox instead of feature-for-feature
chrome copy for watching encrypted netflix.

~~~
Shared404
I would love to be able to use Palemoon, but I just can't get over the fact
that it's a single main developer trying to maintain an entire web browser.

That seems like a security nightmare waiting to happen. If I'm wrong about
this, please let me know, I really like the idea.

~~~
Koshkin
Except they don’t “maintain the entire browser,” rather, they “maintain” a
trimmed-down build.

~~~
duskwuff
I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to draw here. The fact that
Moonchild has removed some a few features they don't like from Palemoon
doesn't make the remaining codebase meaningfully easier to maintain. They're
still left with what is effectively an orphaned codebase, increasingly unable
to use patches from mainline Firefox, and subject to unknown vulnerabilities
in portions of the codebase which no longer exist upstream.

~~~
superkuh
Maybe we're touching the same elephant but we're obviously on opposite ends of
it. That's how I perceive Firefox security with all it's crazy new features,
old experiments left in, black box DRM that's literally unauditable, etc.

