this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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So as the title mentions, I'm wondering how much is too much?

I am currently using Brave with the setting to:

  • Aggressively block trackers & ads
  • Only connect with HTTPS
  • Block fingerprinting
  • Block cross-site cookies

In addition to that, I have installed the following extensions:

  • uBlock Origin
  • Ghostery
  • Decentraleyes
  • DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials

So my question is: Is this overkill? If so, what should/could be removed that may be redundant? I want as much coverage as possible, but not have things bloated.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Brave is trash and its owned by an asshole. I use adblock browser in my phone and Firefox otherwise. Not sure about the owner or Dev or whatever, but it's much better quality for blocking ads.

An answer to the more pertinent question of how much is too much, however? None. There's no such thing as too much ad blocking.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Why is it trash?

And why are Americans obsessed with the politics of who makes a product?

Its a free, as in free beer, browser. By using it you are not donating money to the CEO.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure he donated to (or still donates to?) homophobic action groups.

That's more than enough reason to boycott something that person is in charge of, imo

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How does that affect the software.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

When you support software you support the company making it, allowing them to grow and profit. If someone does not want to financially support the actions of someone they disagree with, then that is fine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I do not want success for that man, therefore I'm not going to give his project market share

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Market share.. Of something that can be had free? You are making less and less sense.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, because if the browser has no market share, there is no point in it continuing to exist and the company folds.

I don't care if it's free or costs money, the man gets paid if the product is successful. I don't want to support him, therefore I don't use the product. If enough people agree with me and do the same, the product dies & the man fails. Or at the very least the rest of the company kicks him out and the man still fails.

Like this isn't rocket science

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This makes no sense.

How do you expect to convince a large group to stop using a product? Just by saying "he's bad"?

Be honest with yourselves and admit it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling of "sticking up to the man" by doing... Nothing.

You see you are deluding yourselves in believing you are making a change, but it's all in your head.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you never heard of a boycott?

I've said why I think he's bad, therefore I boycott him and his product. There are other people out there doing exactly the same.

I'm not really sure how you're struggling with this

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How are you thinking of stopping a free product.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You know they still profit from the product right? How the fuck else would they continue to exist?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The ads, that you can choose to hide, and donations.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Okay, one last time, but I've said all this before in fewer words:

Brave is owned by a for-profit company that makes money from its users. One of the ways it does this is the ad credits system on the new tab page (there's probably other ways, I've not looked into it too hard)

If it doesn't have enough users (market share) to sustain the company or if they can't sell the ad space, the company doesn't make enough money to sustain itself and has to do something or fold. If the company folds development stops, the product stagnates and basically dies.

The company might decide to kick out the CEO if enough people are boycotting for the same reasons, that would resolve the issue too.

But yeah I don't even care about the software, I just don't want to support the company and therefore the CEO, so I won't use its product. Otherwise known as a boycott

There's not really much else to say about it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As i said in another comment:

Be honest and admit that you not using it the product won't change anything, you just want to have the warm fuzzy feeling of "sticking it to the man" without doing anything.

And finally, you admitted it.

But i have a singular, most concerning word for you: Donations.

There are people who pay for software (lol) and will keep things afloat for quite a while.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In 2008 he donated $1000 in support of California Proposition 8. I don’t know of anything else, at least publicly. Californians also voted and passed the amendment 52%/47%, it was thrown out by the courts.

More recently in 2020 he did say some of the typical conservative stuff about COVID lockdowns, mask mandates, calling Fouci a liar, etc.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Never mind the American politics nonsense, Brave has a history of slightly dodgy behaviour. Replacing websites ads with their own, keeping donations meant for creators, hijacking referral links and adding in their own, a lot of cryptocurrency shenanigans, and that's just what's on Wikipedia!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I agree with you, that's irrelevant. What's not irrelevant is that it's chromium as in based on chrome, the browser trying to add drm to internet pages. Please use Firefox instead

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Given that the US has almost zero privacy legislation, the politics of the owner/maker often hints at decisions that eventually make it into the software. Many of the reasons to avoid chrome and chromium are similar to this, though not about a specific person but about the values that google holds in fucking over standards. We see this reflected in some of the decisions of say social media platforms (even "free-as-in-beer" ones) and many companies.

In many cases, you're still giving them money and/or power to continue fucking up open standards.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What money am I giving. I didn't spend a singular cent.

What power am I giving. I didn't vote for anything.

Who made you like this?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why waste your time on lemmy/kbin or the fediverse? Reddit/X/Threads are free-as-in-beer so you don't pay for them, there's more content, and you don't pay for them. You can skip all of the ads with adblockers and have a great time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (28 children)

I don't get the point that you are trying to make

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