I donāt why people want to use google in the first place, even if you want to use javascript-free search requests, that place has so much search engine bio, hides sites that people need, and brings all the proppaganda to the surface. It doesnāt seem like there is any sense in using it. You seem to get higher quality results from search.brave.com or even DuckDuckGo anyway
4 Likes
I like DuckDuckGo but find the search results are bad. For simple things that any search engine could find maybe itās fine, but in general itās not a very good search engine.
I do not use anything related to Brave because the company is so shady and dishonest.
I have tried a lot of things over the years and Whoogle has always given me the best results.
5 Likes
Itāll soon be once again possible to log into your Google account in System Settings ā but unfortunately without Google Drive permission, since we have thus far been unable to demonstrate to Googleās satisfaction that our software capable of interfacing with Google Drive is safe. This makes the account somewhat less useful to log into, but at least you can again. (Nate Graham, kaccounts-providers 24.12.2.
A good answer for the people that ask about it on telegram.
2 Likes
Do you have an example of this? Curiosity abounds.
1 Like
I donāt know where to begin, it seems like their history of doing shady things over the years is just nonstop.
How about when they got caught whitelisting Facebook and Twitter trackers?
After they were caught, they responded by saying basically āitās not that bad, fingerprinting isnāt very effective anyway.ā Script Blocking Exceptions Update | Brave
" Fingerprinting is not always a reliable tracking method. Given that most users on the web share IP addresses with other users because of NAT, it is unlikely this can be used to reliably track users unless they have a very distinctive user agent string."
Um, okayā¦this is a āprivacyā browser, right? 
As far as I know, these tracking URLs are still whitelisted, because not breaking some random siteās Facebook widget is more important that protecting their users from tracking I guess.
Then there was the whole fiasco where they started injecting affiliate codes into user traffic.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/brave-browser-caught-redirecting-users-through-affiliate-links
Not only is this just kind of scam-like, it also sabotages the userās ability to hide their browser identity from these sites.
https://www.technewsworld.com/story/brave-browser-caught-redirecting-urls-for-cash-86701.html
After they were caught, they basically said āoops, sorry about thatā and turned it off.
Ooh, how about the time the announced they were going to block adsā¦and then replace them with their own ads?
I donāt know, that just seems so shady to me. Is this a web browser, or malware?
They have also been criticized for collecting unsolicited donations for content creators without their consent (and then they keep the money?). Check out this archived Twitter thread:
More recently, Brave has decided to install their VPN service without the userās consent on Windows computers.
Maybe itās fine because Windows users are used to having no control over what is installed on their computers anyway. 
So anyway, itās not like one thing happened and now I never will use Brave again. I just feel like over the years the news about the shady things Brave has done have been unrelenting. I think it is unlikely the company will ever re-earn my trust.
16 Likes
I learned a hard lesson with online crypto wallets when using Gmail many years ago, because my account got hacked, and my wallets got drained. Nobody should be using these services for really any reason unless for some reason employeers forced you to use it for your job.
To make a long story short, I used CTemplar before it shut down, now I use Mailfence. I wanted to use Counter Mail but I couldnāt get an invite to use the service.
I recomend to everyone getting a paid email service from really anywhere outside your home country. Donāt make it easy for your local government to get access to your information, and it can help make it harder for hackers as well in some ways.
Did anyone look closely at the comments in this article? Someone made a good point hereā¦
Glork said on October 19, 2023 at 2:39 am
Reply
If the service is not started and is not running unless someone buys and opts in to the VPN, and the service is removed when the browser is uninstalled, I fail to see the issue. Ok, the install is slightly more bloated than it would be otherwise. You are running Windows, that ship has sailed. Get a grip.I mean Brave is a browser whose business model has historically been hijacking (not simply blocking) web ads, and yaāll are upset about an extra Windows service being installed? Many, many software packages install services which may not be possible to unbundle or without giving an option to do so.
Anonymous said on October 19, 2023 at 10:01 pm
Reply
@Glork seems to be the first to take the trouble to check before firing off a comment! Brave seems to add the services but they are set to manual. Manual services need to be triggered to start. Leave the VPN icon alone in Brave and they do not run.I am now guessing someone out there will ābe thinking, you cannot trustā¦ā. Keep your conspiracy theories to yourself, pleaseā. We already had enough flack from the first comment.
VPN services have always been installed with Brave, even in the Linux version as well. You can see all the settings in the options, if you donāt like it, you can always uninstall it. They are right, the VPN service isnāt turned on. You have to turn it on yourself.
2 Likes
If you really needed protect your identity that badly, I would be using the Tor Browser on TailsOS.
Personally, I still like Brave over most other browsers like Firefox.
1 Like
I did not read the comments. In fact, I hardly even gave the article more than a cursory glance. Another article about Brave doing something shady, taking advantage of their users with their own self interest in mind? 
My point was not that this one VPN thing is terrible or whatever (I can see why people would think it is a big deal, and I can also see why people would think it is not a big deal), my point is just that the examples of this company doing shady stuff go on and on and on.
From the video description:
āFirefox recently said it was more private than Brave, but an independent audit suggests the opposite.ā
Iām not going to watch that super long video, but I did skip ahead to see what the so-called āindependent auditā was.
Hmm, PrivacyTests.org? Letās take a look. Click the āAboutā link:
Then scroll all the way down until you get to the section entitled "Full disclosure and transparency:
Full disclosure and transparency
(Updated June 2022)
This website and the browser privacy tests are an independent project by me, Arthur Edelstein. I have developed this project on my own time and on my own initiative. Several months after first publishing the website, I became an employee of Brave, where I contribute to Braveās browser privacy engineering efforts.
Thatās right, PrivacyTests.org is developed and maintained by a Brave employee.
Iām not saying Brave is cheating on the tests, or anything like that. All I am pointing out is what this disclosure already makes clearly evident: an employee of Brave Software, Inc. designs and administers the tests published on this website.
This is what I mean: everywhere you turn, this company is doing something shady. I am not one to begrudge someone their browser choice, but I think anyone who has any trust whatsoever in Brave has been fooled by the marketing and hype.
8 Likes
Wellā¦I guess I got owned on that argument 
And if you go with firedragon, librewolf, mulvad, tor(if your crazy). You already better off then brave an have a real ad block.
3 Likes
Whatās your beef with the Tor browser? This should be an interesting story
But following that itās onward to the Linux 6.14 kernel merge window for which it will be yet another very exciting round from completing the NTSYNC driver to adding new hardware support and much more. Here is a preview of some of the changes expected to be submitted for the Linux 6.14 cycle.
5 Likes
Iām with @BluishHumility any sane person will question how you can have a ads rewards program and claim to be the most privacy centric browser. If thatās not a oxymoron nothing is.
6 Likes
This or that is installed, but disabled by default. Very generous. I would expect a reputable vendor to inform me about this without me having to go through everything after every update to see if something has been installed again. A reputable vendor would offer the option to install such tools, or at least provide transparent information about them.
This companyās behavior is simply opaque and borders on fraud.
Regarding the comments you posted
They are talking about Windows and that another service is not relevant. This may be true for SpyOS and 99% of its users. One of the reasons I use Linux is to avoid things like this.
The behavior of this company, the handling of certain things is just completely wrong. It doesnāt have much to do with identity protection either. It is the whole package that simply offers too little transparency. The deliberate concealment of āfeaturesā and the way they gloss over them when they are discovered creates exactly 0 trust.
6 Likes
Nop, perfectly possible, depends on how you do it. That was the whole pointā¦ privacy respecting ads.
Talking about Brave or Mozilla?
Because most of the issues with Brave was downright bugs/incompetenceā¦ I can attribute that to everything and everyone in the IT world.
But of course lets not forget what Mozilla has done, like the name trademark debacles with a certain database, a certain computers company and debian (phoenix, firebird, iceweasel), Cliqz, Pocket, Mr Robot, Telemetry by default, Google by default, security mess , Origin Ublock drama, and this is just from the top of my head, and not mentioning things related to the CEOās $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
That saidā¦ to me, brave miles ahead as a browser (welcome to vertical tabs, firefox!!! I didnāt knew if you were going to make it before the Year of the Linux Desktopā¦what about pwaās?), but ā¦ Firefox plays videos using less CPU (its very good for videos, resource usage on par on playing them on mpv) and has some interesting customizations.
I also would like to wonder why I canāt change the default search engine in the policies if not using the developer editon? (maybe because the DE edition has forced telemetry?? and Google literally is what makes Mozilla survive?)
You use what its best for youā¦ I used to use Firedragon, when it was based on librewolf. Then used librewolf itself, recently been testing zen browser, which seems pretty awesome in the UX side (seriously, how can they do this and mozilla not even close? how come mozilla can only make tabs fatter and themes???).
In the meanwhile, Brave (and chromium/electron) got video gpu accel.
At least Brave company never put popups in my browser telling me I should go watch āBarbieā ! (although to be fair, I loved Mr. Robot till the last 3 or 4 episodes)
1 Like
Brave.
Iām glad you like your browser. 
Iām not on a mission to discourage anyone from using Brave, I was just explaining my motivation for steering way clear of the company, and of any product they ever make.
No clue, I have not used Firefox in years. With Librewolf I have always been able to add or remove search engines very easily, even custom/self-hosted ones.
4 Likes
Open a new tab and type in the address bar:
about:config
In the search box type:
browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh
Click on the little + symbol on the right. Change to true.
In the āSearch Shortcutsā section you should notice a new āAddā button.
2 Likes
NOPE, not buying it for a 10th of a second.
Not my mission alsoā¦ Nor for this to become a ādiscussionā. Just to give my 2 cents 
2 Likes