It gets my goat that people think it’s a good option. There are plenty of articles explaining some of the many issues with it, but a few are:
- It’s run by anti-LGBTQ+ crypto bros.
- It has ads right out of the box.
- It collected donations towards people who never signed up for them - then held them to ransom in exchange for the kind of information you should never share on the Internet.
- They’re a for-profit advertising company. “Privacy-centric” my elbow.
I’m still mystified as to how Brave took any market share. I thought there’s two camps: people who care about browser privacy and people who don’t. The latter crowd stay with Chrome or whatever their PC comes with. The former crowd…did I miss a memo on what was wrong with Firefox?
Because they pumped out ads for it and paid astroturfers to promote it like crazy. It’s not really that surprising. There are laws against deceptive advertising but they rarely get enforced, and when they do, it’s usually a slap on the wrist. Which is how Brave can lie about browser privacy, get popular, and never get called out for lying in any meaningful way.
With Firefox, presumably compatibility, AI stuff, and a string of lesser Mozilla controversies, I guess?
As for Brave, I think you’re underestimating people. They don’t want to be tracked, they don’t want to see ads. They won’t necessarily go seek a solution out, but if a one-click solution to fix that presents itself in front of their eyeballs, they might try it.