A note on the continued usefulness of Brave

[Null]

Over a year ago I started shilling Brave because it has a built-in token wallet for BAT, their cryptocurrency. If you opt-in to see advertisements, you will earn BAT that can then be sent to websites or YouTube/Reddit/Twitter users in their publisher program. Brave also tends to just give you free BAT to encourage adoption. For affiliates, they had a generous commission for shills (me).

Predictably, Brave Foundation ate a lot of shit when I started promoting it and their management found us to be a very high risk. They applied a "Section 8" limit on my account, removing me from the affiliate system and restricting me from receiving any BAT earned by Brave users from the Brave Foundation itself. This means I could not receive any grant money, which was the most abundant source of BAT.

This was a huge blow. The first month when I had affiliate and grant tokens coming in I was given a very large payout that was cut down about 95% the following month. I had also seen that many of the Brave Foundation staff members were being personally and horrifically smeared by the usual suspects for not completely barring me from the publisher system and the BAT economy (something which is not technically possible and would completely undermine and destroy the entire concept of BAT).

Despite that, it's been a long time and I haven't had any further complications. I'm sure the income from Brave would be much higher if I could receive grant money and affiliate money, but the ad money has become a significant source of revenue for the site on its own. It has also demonstrated a sort of resilience I've never seen from a third party provider before.

If you currently use Brave there is no advantage to sending BAT to any site that I own other than kiwifarms.net - it all goes to the same place with the same restrictions.

TL;DR: We have a lot of new users. If you've not tried Brave, try it. It's Chrome that doesn't spy on you for Google. It is without a doubt the best browser app on mobile devices. It has built-in adblock and mobile browser extensions. Just do it, and then figure out the BAT wallet so you can send them to meeeeeeeeeee.


(I'm also reviewing re-adding PIA as a sponsor because Linus from LinusTechTips interviewed them and re-sponsored them. I am interested in an independent security audit and a plan of transparency moving forward.)

 

[plgfarts]

Protip for Brave on mobile: there is a setting you can enable which allows you to play audio when the app is in the background or when the screen is off, essentially giving you Youtube pro or whatever the fuck it's called (all with NO ADS).

Edit: Now you have to open the options menu and select "Desktop Site" for this to work.

 

[Goyslop Muncher]

Protip for Brave on mobile: there is a setting you can enable which allows you to play audio when the app is in the background or when the screen is off, essentially giving you Youtube pro or whatever the fuck it's called (all with NO ADS).

I think this is only true for Android. I'm on IOS and I'm pretty sure it's not available. Brave still blocks youtube ads though.

Edit : Brave is aware its IOS users want a background play option and are looking to add it sometime in the future. However this has been asked for years now. Apparently there's a lot of push back from Apple/youtube to allow browsers and apps to perform background play.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

>It's Chrome that doesn't spy on you for Google

Citation Needed. Not only does this Browser connect to Google to download fonts but the fact that Google is the default search engine means it's already fucked out of the gate. Also it whitelists Facebook and Twitter, which is just as bad (if not worse) than Google (Link 1, Link 2)

Regarding mobile browsers, there are other alternatives

 

[MidUSA]

Protip for Brave on mobile: there is a setting you can enable which allows you to play audio when the app is in the background or when the screen is off, essentially giving you Youtube pro or whatever the fuck it's called (all with NO ADS).

Finally!
Thank you so much for that tip.

Get fucked, shitty zombie mobile game commercials!

 

[Near]

Still using it. It's easily the best browser I used by a long shot.
But for some reason they still haven't patched the voice typing for stuff like Google translate.

 

[Sexy Senior Citizen]

Brave is a wonderful browser and I would never have found it without the Farms. Thanks, Null, for showing I don't have to be Google's slave.

 

[Null]

Not only does this Browser connect to Google to download fonts

Stop using this site then because you also connect to Google to download fonts visiting here.

<link href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?display=swap&family=Open+Sans:400,400i,700,700i|Quattrocento:400,700" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

the fact that Google is the default search engine means it's already fucked out of the gate

Just change it. I'm a privacy weirdo and I still use Google because all the other ones suck. I tried giving DDG, Yandex, whatever chances and they're just shit.

Also it whitelists Facebook and Twitter, which is just as bad (if not worse) than Google (Link 1, Link 2)

I've never seen ads on Twitter but I don't use Facebook. If you're so paranoid about privacy that you won't allow your computer to connect to fucking Google Fonts, but will use Facebook and Twitter, you're already a moron.

I also use AdNauseum in conjunction with Brave's privacy tools. I suggest doing that. Your complaints are that Brave is not how you'd like it out of the box which is bizarre.

 

[Fireman Sam]

I've been using Brave for a while now, it's good. You can make Duckduckgo your default search engine straight away and turn off 'friendly advertisers' so you see NO ads, (because seeing websites cry about how I have ad block turned off makes me chuckle).
Never touched the bitcoin thing, didn't interest me. Everyone can go ahead and disable all ads because no point giving your free bitshekels to Josh if he can't fucking use them.
Brave is pretty good. AdNauseum is a great plugin to use alongside it.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Just change it. I'm a privacy weirdo and I still use Google because all the other ones suck. I tried giving DDG, Yandex, whatever chances and they're just shit.

Aside from the fact that there's plenty of searx instances, you can always try Qwant Lite

I've never seen ads on Twitter but I don't use Facebook. If you're so paranoid about privacy that you won't allow your computer to connect to fucking Google Fonts, but will use Facebook and Twitter, you're already a moron.

>implying I use Twitter/Facebook

I also use AdNauseum in conjunction with Brave's privacy tools. I suggest doing that. Your complaints are that Brave is not how you'd like it out of the box which is bizarre.

>not using uMatrix
Also my complaints have nothing to do with how I like it, it has to do with the fact that you continue to shill for a browser that is documented for having multiple issues and ethical concerns (even a user on this very forum stated how it's Tor mode is shit)

 

[Null]

Aside from the fact that there's plenty of searx instances, you can always try Qwant Lite

I've tried them all, they're all shit.

>implying I use Twitter/Facebook

I address your hypothetical user which does not exist.

>not using uMatrix

I want to actively hurt Google.

Also my complaints have nothing to do with how I like it, it has to do with the fact that you continue to shill for a browser that is documented for having multiple issues and ethical concerns (even a user on this very forum stated how it's Tor mode is shit)

I shill for a browser that's good, works for everybody, and opens avenues to privacy most people don't think about. It's the halfway point between the privacy someone like Crunklord wants and the privacy my mom needs. It also introduces people to crypto, enables the site to make money, and has been very good at addressing issues over the year.

Someone like you doesn't need to be told what to use but what I've advertised is exactly what I use. Real privacy does not come from a browser, it comes from behavioral changes.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

I want to actively hurt Google.

Ok now I'm confused. I support this notion, but the fact that you just stated this site connected to Google to download fonts seems counter-productive to your end goal, so how does that work? Wouldn't this place not communicating with Google at all be a better solution?

 

[Null]

Never touched the bitcoin thing, didn't interest me. Everyone can go ahead and disable all ads because no point giving your free bitshekels to Josh if he can't fucking use them.

How did you derive this information from my post? I CAN receive money from Brave Ad Grants. I cannot receive the free BAT they give you.

Ok now I'm confused. I support this notion, but the fact that you just stated this site connected to Google to download fonts seems counter-productive to your end goal, so how does that work? Wouldn't this place not communicating with Google at all be a better solution?

We had our own local fonts but I disabled them recently trying to optimize the site. But like I said, this is a dangerous Google Fonts area, so you might want to stop posting.

 

[TwinkLover6969]

BAT is gay, somehow they managed to make ads almost as annoying as autoplay garbage

I SURE LOVE AD NOTIFCATIONS

 

[longtimelurkerfirsttimepo]

Protip for Brave on mobile: there is a setting you can enable which allows you to play audio when the app is in the background or when the screen is off, essentially giving you Youtube pro or whatever the fuck it's called (all with NO ADS).

I would recommend newpipe, if you are interested in using youtube on android. It has background play (that I suspect takes just the audio, but I haven't confirmed that.) as well as pop-up video display, easy downloading of videos complete or audio only in different format and quality, no age restrictions or subscriptions without an account, a clean interface, custom playlists, no ads of course and is as fast or faster as compared to PC playback.

You'll need to get the f-droid repo but it's a great program.

Edit: grammar.

 

[José Mourinho]

Been using Brave browser for at least a year and never looked back. Really loving how great it is in terms of adblocks and loading.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

I get ads once in a blue moon for some reason, despite it working fine in the past.

 

[(not) y2k compliant]

My powerful autism wont let me let go of XUL addons, I've got a dozen or so that can't be replicated in WebExtensions (Multirow tabs, downloadthemall, etc, etc). Brave for what it's worth is the best Chrome based browser I've used, but I still want to customize my fucking browser ui/experience which no browsers really let you do anymore. And then great news happened, Waterfox sold to a datamining firm just recently, so fuck me.
IMO all browsers suck in their own way at this point. Firefox before their leadership lost their minds was the only true browsing experience.

 

[Floop]

Brave’s pretty cool. I don’t fuck with crypto, so when I get my BAT tugboat I just give it all directly to the site.

 

[General Disarray]

I send you all my BAT, used to do so through MATI. Just gave 80 BAT through tipping KF. Hope you get it all!