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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[–] TeamTeddy@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I use Floorp on PC and Firefox on my phone. Both I have uBlock installed on.

[–] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I thought Floorp was one of those joke names when you want to make something up, but apparently it's real.

[–] TeamTeddy@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Yeah it's a Firefox fork that has a focus on customization, one of my favorite artists used it so I wanted to check it out and it's become my favorite to use. Favorite function of it is the custom sidebar it has that lets you open sites on a side window which I use to quick access my emails and some social media sites.