this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023

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Privacy

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Please, do not use Brave. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.

Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.

Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.

After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL's. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.

Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I'd say the answer is a very clear no.

One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.

Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don't mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.

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[–] Grant_M@lemmy.ca 60 points 1 year ago (2 children)

getfirefox.com

[–] RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If someone can help me fix a major issue I have with Firefox I'd love to switch.

I heavily use the per-application sound volume in pipewire on my Linux PC.

Firefox will reset whatever volume I have set as soon as I pause a video and resume it a couple seconds later.

I have a deej board and use that to control the application volumes.

Firefox makes it simply unusable for me...its a known bug and Mozilla just doesn't give a fuck...

[–] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does this also occur with Firefox forks? They might have fixed it.

[–] RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago

Only used fire dragon and it shows the same

[–] Jayb151@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

If fire fox has profiles like brave, I'd switch instantly. I need profiles to separate all my different accounts

Edit: I just wanted to say thanks to those who replied to my comment, it looks like I've gotten a couple of really good ideas for implementing profiles within Firefox. I'll be exploring these thanks much!

[–] alelmy@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago

Container in Firefox is better IMO. Use this addon to enable the feature https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 20 points 1 year ago

What do you mean, of course Firefox has profiles.

You can also separate online accounts with container tabs.

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Don't know how no one mentioned this yet, but Firefox does have profiles. Unfortunately the only way I know to access them is using "firefox -p" via the command line. But you can set this to be the default way it launches within that menu.

[–] Gestrid@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should be able to modify the desktop shortcut to run the command every time you click it.

Alternatively, you can create a batch file that runs the command every time you click on it and put it on your desktop. You could probably even assign the Firefox icon to it and pin it to your task bar.

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This would all achieve the same as simply unticking "Use the selected profile without asking" option, which is what I tried to say before.

[–] amju_wolf@pawb.social 3 points 1 year ago

You can use options to create a shortcut that immediately opens a specific profile, which is great (you also need -no-remote though). I have a main profile as default but when WFH I use a shortcut to open a work profile (which has a separate sync profile, different addons, etc).

[–] totallynotfbi@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What about the about:profiles page?

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't know about that! Doesn't seem to have a prompt for startup though?

[–] Lemmonaid@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Set "about:profiles" to your default homepage on your default profile.

[–] jawsua@lemmy.one 13 points 1 year ago

Firefox Multi-Account Containers

[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Firefox has profiles, it's just not nearly as intuitive/easy to find as Chrome.

I had created shortcuts on the desktop to easily choose between them. One for "school" one for "junk/entertainment" and for "important/shopping"

Eventually after school, I merged them and just use containers. This when I started using a separate password manager. For the sites I have multiple accounts for, it's no trouble to pick the one I need.

If I ever need a completely separate work browser, I'd use a separate profile for that.

I do keep an "add-on free" profile for when I run into some website that's completely broken otherwise, but rarely need it.

[–] Grant_M@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Check out Floorp. It's based on Firefox, but has a lot of other functionality. Maybe it has what you're looking for! https://floorp.app/en/