TL;DR: The article claims that the Brave web browser is bad and should not be used.
The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage. Along with making the claim that Brave’s goal is not to act as an ad-blocker, but instead to build and grow their own advertisement network, and he also believes that the network has several flaws:
- Brave Ads paysout in a form of cryptocurrency, called BAT (🦇).
- As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatility.
- BAT can not be redeemed for fiat (“actual”) money directly from within the Brave Wallet.
- The author also believes that “it [the network] has largely failed” but that it “has generated a lot of revenue for Brave,” via the ICO (Initial Coin Offering; IPO for crypto).
In addition to these key points the author also:
- Claims that Brave prompted FTX, before the scandal.
- Cites the The Brave Marketer Podcast where ex-CMO of Crypto.com Steven Kalifowitz shares an ambitious goal of being a “‘brand like Coke and Netflix.’” The author then mentions that:
- In 2023 there was a report from The Financial Times that Crypto.com traded against their customers.
- In 2022 the company try to hide the severity of its layoffs.
- Mentions Brave’s integration with Gemini, and how the crypto exchange is under investigation for lying about FDIC insurance.
- Mentions a partnership with the the 3XP Web3 Gaming Expo where they sponsored the Esports Arena and rewarded contestants with the BAT token.
- Claims that Brave added affiliate/referral codes to URLs, such as “binance.us.”
Finally, the author lists Firefox and Vivaldi as alternatives to Brave, and ends the article with “Brave Browser is irredeemable, and you should not use it under any circumstances.”
I am human, please let me know if I’ve made a mistake.
Edit: Fixed bat emoji and typo.
The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage.
My impression was Brave got started after he got hoofed out of Mozilla or left on his own accord after the backlash for showing his ass to be a homophobe. Redditor types were of course very angry about this blatant disregard for frozen peaches and jumped onto his new venture in droves
As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatilability (I don’t know if I spelled that right :/ ).
Volatility :-)
I don’t use it because the UI and logo are ugly
The fact is i don’t care about these things. All it matters is that Brave uses Chromium, therefore I’ll never touch it.
To be honest the best chromium based browser I’ve used (when I’m forced to use a chromium based browser) is the Samsung internet one. It has a dark mode that actually works and protects my vampire eyes lol.
Never used brave because I heard all of the scammy ad network and crypto stuff years ago, immediately put me off it. Now learning that the creator probably hates me, it’s just another reason not to touch it.
I got a nice open source recommendation I think you’ll like: https://github.com/uazo/cromite
It has the same dark mode plus much more. I’ll leave you to reading through it yourself though.
