I’ve been using Brave for the past three or so years but I do know that Linux/privacy enthusiasts tend to swear by Firefox. Wanted to get people’s thoughts on this topic to see if I should be making a potential switch. Thanks!
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I haven’t done an audit of either but here are some points to consider:
- Brave is built on top of chromium, so it “by default” exposes lots of new APIs that Google is introducing that make fingerprinting easier if not outright invade your privacy. For example see https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ and look at the “negative” items. Many of them such as Web NFC, Web Bluetooth and WebUSB API are against because they don’t have adequate protections against fingerprinting or other privacy or security concerns. Brave seems to do a pretty good job removing or disarming these APIs but they are basically trying to keep their balance on a shaky and antagonistic foundation.
- On a similar note Google pushing these APIs work because of the greater market share. Again, derivatives can provide some resistance by disabling these APIs but unless all of them block the same APIs they will still be available widespread. So using a Chromium-based browser harms the entire web over time by allowing Google to have control. Right now Firefox (and derivatives) and Safari are the only browsers that you can use to truly oppose Google’s control over the web platform.
Agreed! Many times I faced the fact that the Chrome developers don’t follow the W3C standards, but they require it from Mozilla. Therefore, some functionality will only work in Chrome, but not in Mozilla (it’s not their bad!).
Brave has tried one scam after another before. I wouldn’t trust it for a second for any use.
Please provide any evidence for your false claim.
Not OP, and these aren’t scams as such, but there was some controversy with Brave inserting affiliate links within web pages and also hijacking links to redirect to other URLs that would earn them money.
The CEO also has some controversial views on the Corona virus and LGBTQ rights.
The CEO was before CEO of Mozilla lmao, but stepped back, because the entire Internet hated Firefox, because of his political opinion.
The CEO also has some controversial views on the Corona virus and LGBTQ rights.
Completely unrelated to “security” or “privacy”.
I disagree, especially from a privacy perspective. Just as an example, if the CEO of the company goes on a full power trip (Elon, for example with banning users/censoring content that doesn’t align with his views), whose to say they won’t include nefarious changes to their product or service that could jeopardise users they don’t agree with, or start handing over data of their users?,
I’ll need to find the article again, but if I’m not mistaken in my recollection, I recall reading about an app collecting and handling over data to anti-abortion organisation.
Again, this has nothing to do with technical issue regarding privacy or security. People are just making excuses. Don’t use it if you prefer something else, but don’t mix non-relevant stuff or paranoia in a semi-technical discussion.
By the way, that’s funny. In a similar way, I hope that you or other virtue-signaling people, don’t buy stuff on Amazon (i.e., support them) as the are notoriously mistreating their warehouse workers. Yes, it’s unrelated. I’m just point out a blatant hypocrisy.
Where was it mentioned by OP or yourself this is limited to a purely technical discussion? You’re in the Privacy community, if you read the sidebar it states it’s for discussion for digital privacy, including abuse of power, which is what I and others are discussing with this topic.
“Private/secure” is in the title and has nothing to do with the political/social view of the CEO. Until abuse of power happens/is proven, there’s no point in spreading FUD, fear-mongering and manipulation. As if FF and Mozilla didn’t have their fair share of controversies as well…
Don’t even bother replying, this is going to be my last comment in this thread (and probably in this sub, as I’m tired of discussion on “privacy-oriented” subs becoming paranoid every-fucking-time).
Good luck.
Yeah but it’s a great reason not to support them
Again, this has nothing to do with technical issue regarding privacy or security. People are just making excuses. Don’t use it if you prefer something else, but don’t mix non-relevant stuff in a semi-technical discussion.
By the way, that’s funny. In a similar way, I hope that you or other virtue-signaling people, don’t buy stuff on Amazon (i.e., support them) as the are notoriously mistreating their warehouse workers. Yes, it’s unrelated. I’m just point out a blatant hypocrisy.
Depends on what you call a scam. I am not sure it’s the right word, but duplicitous behavior and definite privacy violations (even if by negligence) are absolutely true.
They have sent out direct mailers that basically equated to a customer list leak; also I’d take a peek at the wikipedia entry about their business model, which mentions some stuff that isn’t the most savory:
… Brave earns revenue from ads by taking a 15% cut of publisher ads and a 30% cut of user ads. User ads are notification-style pop-ups, while publisher ads are viewed on or in association with publisher content.
On 6 June 2020, a Twitter user pointed out that Brave inserts affiliate referral codes when users navigate to Binance
In regards to the mailers, they messed up and passed blame,
In this process, our EDDM vendor made a significant mistake by not excluding names, but instead including names before addresses, resulting in the distribution of personalized mailers.
With regards to the CEO, he made a donation to an anti-LGBT cause when he was CEO of Mozilla in 2008. He lost his job at Mozilla due to his anti-LGBT stance.
He also spreads COVID misinformation.
Tbh. Mozilla wasn’t better in the past and as long it doesn’t affect the product I don’t mind the political views of the owner (it’s still concerning). As long Brave can provide me better privacy and security for my daily browsing I will continue using and recommending it. And listening to Wikipedia he stepped back, by himself.
Really loving how a CEO’s political views somehow fucking matter the security of a browser lmao. God I fucking hate this generation
It’s just a conversation dude, you can make your point without the need for Reddit style aggression.
The views of those CEO can in some instances be important, those in charge shape the direction of the company and ultimately the product. Look at Twitter for example, once a place of relative free speech, but now controlled by a CEO who bans users he personally doesn’t like, demotes content that doesn’t fit his beliefs, and prevents linking to other services like Mastodon/Lemmy/Instagram.
I’m not claiming it would, but whose to say similar censorship wouldn’t happen with Brave? The CEO has already injected content into webpages and redirected links for monetisation purposes, what if more nefarious actions were taken for content he doesn’t agree with?
Its not chromium cringe therefore yes.
Is it more private than brave? Normal Firefox: no Librewolf (Firefox Fork): yes Hardened Firefox: yes
Good answer. Hardened Firefox or LibreWolf with some extensions are awesome options for privacy!
LibreWolf nd Brave are on the same Level if both are hardened.
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Mull on android too, hardened firefox
Mull is awesome! And you can install normal desktop extensions with it. Killer feature 🔥
As hard as it is for me to admit, and based on some tests, Brave had better fingerprinting resistance than Firefox. I don’t trust the guys behind Brave, but their product is good.
Iirc isn’t it more like Brave is better out of the box, but given sufficient configuration, both are more or less equal?
Out of the box - yes, maybe. But I think that with some extensions (uBlock Origin, CanvasBlocker, Chameleon) and tweaking hardened Firefox (LibreWolf, Mull) would be way better!
Short version: Firefox on desktop, something chromium-based on Android. See https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/ for the long version!
For security - yes, chromium-based. But for privacy Mull (Fennec) with extension support would be superior!
Maybe the explanation is somewhere on the site you linked, but I didn’t see it. Why is Firefox on Android less secure?
On Android, Firefox is still less secure than Chromium-based alternatives: Mozilla’s engine, GeckoView, has yet to support site isolation or enable isolatedProcess.
No sync that way though, so I’m not sure how someone would access bookmarks, history, and open tabs that way.
Up to you if you think that feature is worth the security/privacy loss. Personally I’ve not missed syncing tabs across devices, I do most things on the one device anyway.
I don’t think there would be any privacy loss, Firefox sync is encrypted and all that. I work on multiple devices so I absolutely need it.
I meant the security/privacy loss of using Chromium on desktop or Firefox on Android
I did not find any justification of why they arbitrarily did not considered Gecko browsers in privacyguides. They just made that statement. I am not surprised that certain chromium browsers are more secure simply because Google has a bigger budget, but I did not see any justification for it. Then again the EFF will say that Tor Browser is better then Brave so we can argue about these minor points forever.
Then again none of that minor stuff matters to me. I care more about the goals of the organizations themselves and I am not convinced that any of the Chromium browsers take us down a sane path. So I will be staying with Firefox thank you very much.
On Android, Firefox is still less secure than Chromium-based alternatives: Mozilla’s engine, GeckoView, has yet to support site isolation or enable isolatedProcess.
From this page (which has links to Mozilla if you want to read more)
Thanks, I did not see that before.
Other interesting thing is that about:config is disabled on mobile except maybe nightly. Wonder why?
The other advantage of Brave is that it is more secure out of the box. From privacy point of view that should be better at blending in to the crowd depending on user base size. In Firefox I usually add an extension and configure it and some about:config settings. Somewhat minimal but probably quite unique.
Not sure about
about:config, though it’s the kind of discussion that pops up in !privacyguides@lemmy.one so you might have better luck asking there.I never know what to think of Brave. They do seem to have some serious privacy tooling available, but they also seem to get up to so much dodgy behaviour when it comes to money that I don’t really trust them.
Browsers are very complex and fast moving tech. This means expensive. This implies professional paid staff. Then comes how to raise money. The big companies have revenue streams. Smaller groups have to do it any way they can which is always compromising something.
Mozilla too makes compromises… setting default search to places I would not use. Trying to offer a subscription set of services which is actually not a bad plan but is not exactly to the point. So I trust them more and want to see them succeed but they have challenges too.
Some ways huge parts of tech relies on questionable income streams including the tracking, ad, and personal information broker business. Google of course but Mozilla is funded largely by Google as far as I know. Apple may get similar funding but larger. Microsoft even in Windows installs crapware from partners. So it is everywhere. HP laptops typically do too.
Brave isn’t more private than Firefox but depending on the platform that Firefox is on, Firefox might be less secure than Brave.
Still waiting for Firefox Android to be secure enough for me to ditch Brave.
OOL, what’s up with firefox android’s app?
IIRC something along the lines of it not having proper site isolation, making it less secure.
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Not the point. Using a chromium browser is a vote for Google domination of the web. Just no.
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At least Librewolf is a thing. I use both, really, mainly Librewolf, and for anything I can’t open with it that is absolutely necessary, Brave. Librewolf is still my main choice more out of principle, both are equally good feature-wise in my opinion.
Brave is more secure, in terms of safety, because it’s base on chromium and has unique Privacy Features. If you won’t use Brave, LibreWolf or hardened Firefox is ur best choice.
While Chromium itself is a very solid platform, and correspondingly Chrome is a hard exploitation target, it’s quite easy to screw up a fork of it. Comodo Secure Browser was a chromium fork that was fixed to an old version of the renderer with known security issues and was built to disable the sandbox. It also added libraries that were compiled without ASLR that worsened security for every application that loaded them.
Chrome has an enormous security team behind it in addition to P0, so bounties on Chrome exploits are around $500k. FF bounties are a fifth of that, which is probably a portion of less security, and a portion of lower target market. Brave could be doing terrible things that without an audit would be unknown. Web3 code is pretty terrible on the whole, so adding that to a secure base may not be great…
Brave is so unsecure because it uses chromium. The only unique thing i saw on brave was the crypto miner included. Chrome can easily just change terms so that brave looses his licence for chromium. Firefox is more secure in the way it is more secure, because they are not focused on stealing your data and there is librewolf yeah that one is open source and is the most secure of those 3
Yep. They definitly added a crypto miner into their opensource code. 👍
It was rumored sometime that they did or even thought about it.
It would be the stupidiest thing ever.
https://lemmy.world/post/1510069
LMAO something other happensd
If you read it, you realize it isn’t bad as it sounds and has nothing to do with there browser and really less with trustworthyness of the company in terms of privacy and security. So instead of trying to find evidence why “Brave is bad” make a Pro and Con List for Brave and compare it with the google infected Firefox and you will see why I prefer Brave as the browser of trust and use LibreWolf as second, because it’s like a real private version of Firefox.
Ok Chrome but in orange.
Unsecure how exactly? Being chromium makes the browser more standard. It blends in with other browsers easier which means it can add protections while still showing itself as chromium compatible. I’d like to learn more about how chromium can just kill forks by updating the license, last I heard it was a BSD compatible one and I wasn’t aware of it retroactively restricting access. Of course google can just fork and deprecate chromium with a more restrictive license given their the key copyright holders but as their project that isn’t surprising. Firefox isn’t interested in harvesting your data but that isn’t security, it’s privacy. Most chromium forks are the same. Brave doesn’t harvest your data. It did once (and it can be argued you should avoid it just for that) but you seem to care less about which browser is best for your online privacy and more for just shilling firefox. For reference I use and love librewolf, but I like to consider myself open minded enough to try the other options… such as they are.
Every browser that is chromium derived is depending on google. I tried before firefox chrome. But after the v3 manifest. That killed every “real” adblocker and script blocker. And that you cant block scripts is so secure :) ! Firefox IS the other option. F*** chrome browsers is my motto. As they are just poison. Because the fake “Polypol” google is creating with chromium.
Again, I use Firefox, for the most part because of the reasons you’ve described. But none of what you’ve said is really an argument for security or privacy against the browser. If you just wanna say Google = evil, so don’t trust anything they make, that’s fine. The chromium forks aren’t google owned and they don’t need respect what google tries to do. Case in point manifest v3 came and brave still has native ad blockers and intend to support both manifest 2 and 3 going forward. It’s really just a matter of who has the bandwidth and funding to maintain a browser of the scale of chromium or Firefox. Google clearly does, mozilla does a decent job despite the iffy funding situation actively restricting donations purely for the browser. If its just small privacy enhancing tweaks atop chromium smaller vendors like brave can do that. End of the day chromium is a well optimised, standardised and frankly well written browser that is perfectly fine for anyone that wants to use it. Should Google be the entity in charge of chromium given their clear conflict of interest, obviously not. But no one else has stepped upto the plate and mozilla is clearly the inferior in regards to features or browser optimisations (just due to scale of support available). Don’t get me wrong, Firefox is great and everyone should use it for their own sakes, but this just blind fear mongering of anything chromium related isn’t productive.
Brave is more secure in terms of security. Security and safety are two entirely different attributes from a technical pov. And privacy and security are also not the same, though privacy is greatly impacted without security as you implied.
Firefox is more private than Brave but less secure. Neither is necessarily safer than the other, it depends on how much either app tends to misbehave within the constraints of your own use case. Since the use cases are different (privacy vs. security), it’s harder to compare safety on an even playing field.
I would like to see evidence for your claim that Firefox is more private.
Exhibit A: The Tor Browser, which focuses on maximizing privacy, is based on Firefox rather than Chromium. They upstream a lot of their major stuff to regular Firefox.
Exhibit B: Firefox therefore has privacy features that Chromium-based browsers just do not have, like first-party isolation or letterboxing for example.
Brave’s preconfiguration is a lot more private than Firefox out of the box, but hardened* Firefox is more private than Brave even with extra work put in.
*: Not just configuration (Arkenfox) but also patches. Like Librewolf (better) or Mullvad Browser (even better) or straight up Tor Browser (best).
Brave and Chromium itself has same good firstparty isolution as Firefox. If you check https://privacytests.org/ you can compare it with LibreWolf which is prehardened Firefox and hardened Brave is stronger then hardened Firefox, due the fact it don’t need to have a lot of users to function + it uses the hide in the crowd effect + randomization at the same time which is stronger then only trying to make everyone looking the same.
Librewolf is not really prehardened Firefox, Librewolf is Firefox with the Mozilla stuff torn out. It’s more private than regular FF but a long way out from Tor or Mullvad browser. You’re right that out of the box Brave will provide better privacy than Librewolf, but everything else you said doesn’t really make much sense.
You can’t say that Mullvad or Tor are hardened Firefox Browser, that are completly different things and do have any arguments and evidence for what you say? That it doesn’t make rly much sense? I mean it do. It seems more like your knowledge about Brave is pretty small while I do know a lot about both.
All right, here goes nothing.
I came to the conclusion that what you said didn’t make much sense after you called Librewolf prehardened Firefox, which—while not a completely alien assertion—is not exactly very accurate as I explained in my previous comment.
What’s worse though is that you continue making exotic assertions like the hide in the crowd + randomization theory without backing them up with anything, while simultaneously asking for arguments(?) and evidence supporting my relatively straightforward and popular position–both of which I have presented very clearly in my previous comments by the way.
What you fail to deliver in the meantime are explanations as to A) how Brave’s approach is different or unique compared to anything that any hardened/forked/otherwise enhanced readily available Firefox could offer and B) why Brave’s particular approach to privacy is then also objectively better than the multiple different approaches that various Firefox configs and forks offer.
But wait, I’m not done yet. You also fail to explain why you consider Mullvad Browser or Tor to be “completely different things” as you suggested just now. Brave is the best Chromium based thing out there in terms of privacy, shouldn’t it then be fair to match it against the best of Firefox’ class? Or is it because Tor Browser targets a very specific user base and is less fit for your average every-day surfing and that’s why you think the comparison isn’t sound. In that case I bear bad news about your deep well of knowledge on web browsers, because Mullvad Browser is based on Tor Browser but doesn’t require any overlay network of any kind in order to function properly.
And since engaging with you has not yet led to anything of value, I will refrain from partaking in this discussion any further unless this changes.
While Chromium itself is a very solid platform, and correspondingly Chrome is a hard exploitation target, it’s quite easy to screw up a fork of it. Comodo Secure Browser was a chromium fork that was fixed to an old version of the renderer with known security issues and was built to disable the sandbox. It also added libraries that were compiled without ASLR that worsened security for every application that loaded them.
Chrome has an enormous security team behind it in addition to P0, so bounties on Chrome exploits are around $500k. FF bounties are a fifth of that, which is probably a portion of less security, and a portion of lower target market. Brave could be doing terrible things that without an audit would be unknown. Web3 code is pretty terrible on the whole, so adding that to a secure base may not be great…
By default? I think so.
(these test are done with browsers at their defaults). Librewolf is on par with Brave, but I vehemently hate its interface and refuse to unfuck it wasting my time on CSS.
I’m on Brave as well since 2021, after almost 20 years of being an avid FF user and supporter. I don’t like how FF is evolving and what Mozilla is doing and I don’t buy the “Chromium domination” argument. If the sole reason to use FF is that “it is not Chromium”, well, the developers aren’t doing a great job.
However, let’s be real: privacy on a browser matters until you go to whatever website that track you on the server side (Google/Facebook/Youtube/Whatever), or when you write an email from from you Gmail account, or when you buy stuff on Amazon… And so on. Just use the browser that works best for you and don’t be paranoid.
Don’t forget that https://privacytests.org/ is run by a Brave employee!
That hasn’t do anything with the results. You can test everything yourself. Techlore also made a interview with him.
As I said in another comment, if you work for Brave you’re probably going to write tests that play to Brave’s strengths
There is enough evidwnce that this is wrong. I would recommend to watch Techlores Interview too.
Are you telling me that you don’t think a Brave employee would write tests based on the areas of expertise they have, that they may well already have implemented fixes for? Or, on a more sinister level, do you think Brave would allow their employee to have a web page up that made their browser look bad?
I’m not trying to be agro here, I’m just pointing out that you can’t really consider this an unbiased source even if you are happy with all the tests!
I would suggest checking the Interview that Techlore made, he ask the owner of the site similar questions.
It discloses that on the front page, below the test table. Anyway, the tests are open source and they check pretty common stuff. I can’t see the problem there if Firefox comes out having actually worse defaults.
It is how it is, there isn’t much more to say. As a matter of fact, Librewolf gets a lot more green ticks, same or more than Brave. Thus, I can hardly see bad faith on what the website does.
It’s not necessarily bad, and I assume all the tests are legit, it’s just that someone working for Brave will have a bias towards writing tests for things that Brave does well (and on the flip side, Brave will make them take the site down if it makes them look bad)
I understand that, and what you say is entirely possible, in theory. On the other hand, I see that the tests performed there are pretty standard. I mean, there is nothing exotic that only Brave does well there and Librewolf shines as well. Then, c’mon, Brave surely had missteps in the past, but is generally know to be a solid choice with regard to privacy.
That said, there’s an open issue with the same concerns. Even if I’d say that nobody would complain about the employer of the author if Firefox came out with better score from those test…
@Engywuck do you mind expanding on this? Genuinely curious: “I don’t like how FF is evolving and what Mozilla is doing”
No, sorry. I have had endless arguments and discussion about this topic. I’m tired of talking about it. I’m just using a browser that works better than FF for me and I don’t want to support Mozilla anymore (after 20 years). That’s it.
