this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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Brave is essentially just Chrome with an adblocker, a bunch of bloatware, and a bunch of controversies.

Brave took BAT donations in YouTuber's names without their consent, with them keeping the money if the YouTubers didn't claim it. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice/

Brave's search engine crawler hides itself from websites by pretending to be Googlebot, and Meta (Facebook) buys API access from them to train their AI. https://stackdiary.com/brave-selling-copyrighted-data-for-ai-training/

The business model of Brave rewards as a whole is to block all other ad networks to replace them with their own, which is unfair as only YouTubers and websites that have joined can make money from most Brave users.

If Brave actually cared, they would create an acceptable ads style feature which was free for everyone and allowed simple contextual banners while blocking ads which track you, take up most of the page, or have NSFW content.

Their approach is monopolistic as they have full control and can strangle YouTubers and websites by dropping pay at any time.

And Brenden Eich has said on Twitter that he plans to release "Brave Origin", which is a paid version of Brave without the bloatware. That name is ironic as he is admitting that his browser is commercialised and bloated, which is similar to when gorhill gave uBlock way to Chris Aljoudi who commercialised it, which led him to create uBlock Origin.

If you use Brave, ditch it and look at using Librewolf or Helium instead, which both include no ads nor tracking and don't have Brave News, Rewards, Wallet, Talk etc bloatware.

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[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Man's dead.

Don't matter what he thought when he's rotting in the ground.

Does when you're still alive

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca -3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Oh I see, outrage of convenience.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

No.

It's very simple: if someone is alive and holds detestable views, then giving them money gives them a chance to then use that money to lobby for their views. And in many many many many many cases, they do exactly that.

If someone is dead and holds detestable views, they're unable to do anything about it (cause they're dead)