
from the when-extensions-are-just-not-enough dept.
Former Mozilla CEO Launches Brave, a New Adblock Browser
Brave Software, a new startup by Brendan Eich (creator of the JavaScript programming language and former CEO of Mozilla), unveiled the new Brave browser today for Windows, Mac OS X, Android, and iOS. The Brave browser is currently in beta, based on Chromium, and aims to block most advertisements, while still potentially making money for publishers.
Brave will block all non-native ads, trackers, analytics scripts and impression-tracking pixels. However, the browser will eventually insert advertisements of its own, but which Brendan Eich claims to be unintrusive, with no persistent user id or highly re-identifiable cookie. The aim of Brave isn't to create a list of approved advertisers, or to aggressively pursue ad dollars: "We hope our users will form a valuable enough audience that our browser-side anonymous targeting will get ads from the buy side organically. We don't want to play games."
Beyond privacy protection, Eich promises Brave's browser will come with a speed boost: It loads pages two to four times faster than other smartphone browsers and 1.4 times faster than other browsers for personal computers.
[Continues...]
Opinion: Eich's "Brave" Browser Is More Complication Than Solution
Brendan Eich's recent announcement of the Brave browser seems a bit too good to be true, especially considering that it's coming from the creator of JavaScript, the backbone of most modern dynamic elements in web design, and especially the backbone of the modern "death of a hundred cross-site-scripting loads" that causes webpages to take as long as their Year 2000 equivalents on hardware of the era, and for security to be thrown to the wind. But consider that the Brave website is half-broken when viewed via Firefox with NoScript enabled (script count at 42, only ytimg.com allowed via default ruleset). That doesn't speak well to the privacy-minded web user, but at least it's better than the page not rendering at all, which seems like a sadly escalating trend with highly-dynamically-scripted webpages these days. That superficial detail aside, there's also the question of the revenue cut hinted at by Kieren McCarthy's article on The Register. According to McCarthy, "the company hasn't said how much of a cut it would ask for, and of course the entire approach requires that there be a significant number of Brave users. To be viable, the company would need to become more popular than Opera (with 1.5 per cent of the browser market) and on a par with Safari (3.7 per cent). And that means between five to ten million users." Pitching Brave to the mass market seems like the best way to build market share, and surely Eich has been investing in a marketing plan to attract the privacy-concerned-but-technologically-novice user, which could easily cement the 10 million users necessary to turn a profit.
A bigger question is what the reaction from the web advertising industry will be, and if we are to go by the opinion of IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg titled "Ad Blocking: The Unnecessary Internet Apocalypse". Rothenberg recently (and perhaps personally) dis-invited Adblock Plus from the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting (SoylentNews coverage), so the reception will probably not be rosy. While IAB isn't taking a fully anti-ad-blocker stance (Ghostery senior VP Scott Cunningham is slated to speak at the conference), Rothenberg's diatribe calls ad-blocking "robbery", stating, "Some websites, particularly those with millennial audiences, are already losing up to 40% of their ad revenue because of ad blocking." Being the head of an industry organization, Rothenberg will probably not be enthusiastic with the idea of revenue sharing, or of "ad anonymizing" technology poisoning advertising analytics. He advocates "lean ads", the end of annoying autoplaying video and intrusive interactive ads that are "not worthy of a profession that aspires to cultural significance," and that "publishers must take control of their site experiences, and turn down advertising that doesn't meet their standards for user engagement." I expect that Rothenberg will want any ad content control to be on the terms of the IAB and its members, and not any third parties such as Brendan Eich.
As for myself, I've already seen the start of the "Internet Apocalypse", and it's not that bad. NoScript has been one of the best plugins I have ever installed, as it blocks JavaScript execution from all but approved domains, subdomains, and servers. It does make for half-broken (and sometimes fully-broken) websites, but I can eventually figure out the mechanics behind granting access to the subdomains necessary to enable a CDN or a merchant service provider, but not the external ad network. Locally hosted ads work fine, and perhaps that's the way things should be from now on, holding the website itself liable for any malware that is spread from its ads, instead of shrugging it off as coming from their ad provider, who does nothing, or close to nothing, since they barely curate ads for acceptable display and code content. I won't be downloading Brave, as the sales pitch seems too creepy and prone to being attacked by ad publishers or ad industry groups. (Rothenberg did say in his article that he could "contemplate suing unethical ad-blocking profiteers out of business.") I will, however, be sharpening the arsenal of privacy-protecting tools, especially with RefControl, a utility that allows per-site HTTP referer rules.
The one saving grace of Eich's efforts with Brave is that it adds another player to the Internet advertising battle. Aside from allowing plugins, Google's Chrome team and The Mozilla Foundation haven't been approaching the problem of adverspamming and malvertising, possibly to avoid backlash from the IAB.
Former Mozilla Boss Brendan Eich Brandishes Brave Ad-Blocking Browser
Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla, has released a beta version of a privacy-oriented Web browser based on Chromium:
At Brave, we're building a solution designed to avert [an ad-blocking] war and give users the fair deal they deserve for coming to the Web to browse and contribute. We are building a new browser and a connected private cloud service with anonymous ads. Today we're releasing the 0.7 developer version for early adopters and testers, along with open source and our roadmap.
Brave browsers block everything: initial signaling/analytics scripts that start the programmatic advertising "dirty pipe", impression-tracking pixels, and ad-click confirmation signals. By default Brave will insert ads only in a few standard-sized spaces. We find those spaces via a cloud robot (so users don't have to suffer, even a few canaries per screen size-profile, with ad delays and battery draining). We will target ads based on browser-side intent signals phrased in a standard vocabulary, and without a persistent user id or highly re-identifiable cookie.
Coverage at The Register :
Rather than simply acting as an ad blocker, the company hopes to provide a more nuanced approach. It recognizes that many websites are reliant on advertising in order to provide their content for free, so it is planning to utilize a user's browsing history to fit them into standard advertising segments – and then provide that segment information to websites and advertisers.
The idea is that advertisers will still be able to reach users but they won't have the same depth of information on an individual user. Nor will Brave. The result, in theory, is greater control over privacy and none of those ads for products you recently looked at that make you feel as though you are being watched.
Of course, to make that approach work, Brave would act as a gatekeeper and take a cut of the ad money, which is what would fund the company. The company hasn't said how much of a cut it would ask for and of course, the entire approach requires that there be a significant number of Brave users. To be viable, the company would need to become more popular than Opera (with 1.5 per cent of the browser market) and on a par with Safari (3.7 per cent). And that means between five to ten million users.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
Related Stories
We didn't act like you'd expect Mozilla to act. We didn't move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We're sorry. We must do better.
Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He's made this decision for Mozilla and our community.
Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness. We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.
We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public. This is meant to distinguish Mozilla from most organizations and hold us to a higher standard. But this time we failed to listen, to engage, and to be guided by our community.
As of this time, there is no named successor or statement on who will be taking over Mozilla's leadership.
IAB said the meeting is for "serious conversation."
http://www.businessinsider.com/adblock-plus-un-invited-from-iab-conference-2016-1
Popular ad blocker Adblock Plus claims that it was uninvited from the US Interactive Advertising Bureau's big conference.
The IAB represents the biggest names in the digital-advertising industry: Google, Facebook, Twitter, online publishers, and ad-tech companies.
Each year it holds its annual leadership meeting in Palm Desert, California. It's where the biggest names in the online-advertising industry network and thrash out their ideas on the issues and trends of the day.
This year they've got Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, Yahoo's global revenue chief Lisa Utzschneider, and Google ads boss Sridhar Ramaswamy speaking.
Adblock Plus won't be attending, though.
Last week, Adblock Plus received an email saying that the company's registration fee was being returned and its registration had been canceled.
When Adblock Plus said that "there must be some confusion" because it didn't ask for a cancellation or a refund, the IAB simply replied: "I'm sorry if there's any confusion. Just to be clear, there will be no ticket available for you and we've refunded your registration fee."
-- submitted from IRC
The battle over the Brave web browser has begun. A group of seventeen newspaper publishers (including Dow Jones, the Washington Post, and the New York Times), have sent and co-signed a "cease and desist" letter to the company behind the Brave web browser, (headed by Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla and developer of JavaScript).
... the 17 newspaper-publishing companies that cosigned the cease and desist letter [PDF] sent to Eich on Thursday say that this business model is "blatantly illegal" because they claim Brave is profiting from the "$5 billion" a year the industry spends on funding journalism.
The publishers argue that Brave's advertising-replacement plan would constitute copyright infringement, a violation of the publishers' terms of use, unfair competition, unauthorized access to their sites, and a breach of contract.
The letter compares Brave's business model to a company simply stealing their articles and pasting them on their own websites for profit.
For those that don't recall the announcement of the Brave web browser:
Brendan Eich's new browser, Brave, announced its launch early this year. The browser — available on iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, and Linux — has ad-blocking software baked into it, which blocks all ads by default and replaces them with its own ads that it says load quicker and "protect data sovereignty [and] anonymity" of users by blocking tracking pixels and cookies.
With Brave, publishers get around 55% of revenues: 15% go to Brave, 15% go to the partner that serves the ads, and 10% to 15% goes back to the user, who can choose to make bitcoin donations to their favorite publishers in order to get an ad-free experience on their websites...
Previous Coverage: Former Mozilla CEO Launches Brave, a Privacy Oriented Browser
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @09:49PM
Give your users a cut of the ad money. That would be Brave.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @11:20PM
> Give your users a cut of the ad money. That would be Brave.
RTFA, that is exactly Brave's business plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @11:53PM
"Users can spend their funds to go ad-free on their favorite sites"
The 'revenue' sharing amounts to users earning the right to not see Brave's ads on certain sites?
Doesn't sound exactly like what the OP suggested at all.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by davester666 on Friday January 22 2016, @03:42AM
There's nothing "brave" about this. The browser still shows ads. It still tracks the hell out of you. The only "new" thing here is another middleman wanting a cut...effectively by extortion.
(Score: 2, Informative) by trimtab on Friday January 22 2016, @05:23AM
So we are getting an open source ad blocking, privacy enhancing browser that we can modify (if needed) to work for us the way we want.
And BTW. The release even says that users can block ads and TURN OFF Brave approved ads.
Have we all been burned before by the many false promises of corps promising "privacy?" Absolutely, but a completely open source browser means we can hold these guys to their word... at least until they close off the source.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @09:53PM
Another browser, just what we need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:40PM
Honey
I accidently laminated the cat
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday January 22 2016, @12:05AM
What, you hate choice? Stick with iOS ... except wow, this is even available for the OS. No Linux though, which is a bit disappointing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday January 22 2016, @12:30AM
No Linux though, which is a bit disappointing.
Not THAT disappointing - I mean how useful is a browser that blocks some ads and then inserts others?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Friday January 22 2016, @01:20AM
No? [github.com]
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday January 22 2016, @10:28PM
Thanks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2016, @07:30AM
Another browser isn't actually that bad an idea actually. The problem is we only ever get "Another browser that's geared towards displaying unwanted advertisements/malware". And that's what we don't need.
I was at least willing to bookmark the browser's website to keep an eye on it until I saw it's going to eventually insert it's own ads - which you know will be a pain in the ass to block, if at all possible. So yeah, I'll just keep waiting for someone to re-tool an existing open source browser and make it actually secure against trackers/advertisements/malware/etc.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday January 22 2016, @02:42PM
Except it's not really another browser. Just Chrome Clone #437B, Available Now! From Former Mozilla Guy!
Don't settle for imitations!* Ask for Chrome Clone #437B by name!
.
.
.
*may be an imitation
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by cykros on Monday January 25 2016, @12:50PM
In fairness, I'd absolutely love a console based browser with decent ECMAscript support, and perhaps some html5 as well. Work it in with the ascii-output that mplayer supports for html5 video and I'll be totally impressed.
But this? Seems about as original and useful as SRWare Iron, except more shameless about the money grab.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @09:54PM
Just wait until all websites render themselves completely within a single canvas element.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:04PM
Some already do. [skullcode.com]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday January 22 2016, @06:03AM
Just tried 'em.
Typical business page that comes across like someone wearing a mask into a shop.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @05:19PM
It's still better than when everybody's website was made entirely in Flash.
But only slightly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2016, @07:22AM
Oh, You mean exactly what happened long time ago with flash-only pages?
Whatever happened to those... oh right, they gone the way of the dodo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2016, @03:20PM
This, or similar ad embedding things, are what I've been fearfullky anticipating since HTML5 got announced. Fuck 5, 4 at least had blockable ads.
(Score: 5, Touché) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:04PM
Brave Software, a new startup by Brendan Eich (creator of the JavaScript programming language and former CEO of Mozilla),
Uh-oh. I'm sure this definitely isn't going to turn into a PC politics debacle. But we'll see...
unveiled the new Brave browser today for Windows, Mac OS X, Android, and iOS. The Brave browser is currently in beta,
Okay...
based on Chromium
MOTHERF---Can we not have a single god-damn browser that isn't based on Chrome?!
Brave will block all non-native ads, trackers, analytics scripts and impression-tracking pixels.
Fair enough.
However, the browser will eventually insert advertisements of its own
So much for that idea.
The aim of Brave isn't to create a list of approved advertisers, or to aggressively pursue ad dollars:
That you feel the need to tell us this is already bad news.
Beyond privacy protection, Eich promises Brave's browser will come with a speed boost: It loads pages two to four times faster than other smartphone browsers and 1.4 times faster than other browsers for personal computers.
Yawn. Wait another year and everybody will have caught up already anyway.
Even the former CEO of fucking Mozilla can't be bothered to use Firefox.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @11:23PM
> MOTHERF---Can we not have a single god-damn browser that isn't based on Chrome?!
They should have implemented it as extensions so they wouldn't have to fight the inertia of convincing people to switch browsers.
Does the new MSIE support extensions?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sudo rm -rf on Friday January 22 2016, @08:58AM
Does the new MSIE support extensions?
I started up the monstrosity called Edge (after launching the monstrosity that hosts it), just to answer your question: no.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Non Sequor on Friday January 22 2016, @12:26AM
Blocking ads and inserting other ads? It's like he's trying to unite advertisers and ad-block users against a common enemy.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:10PM
Mormon anti-gay CEO? And now I find out he created JavaScript? Tell my why I shouldn't have a bad feeling about this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @11:32PM
'Former CEO'? Didn't he basically get tossed on his arse immediately after being sworn in?
Moreover though, why didn't the people who approved him becoming CEO without adequate vetting of his potential controvercies as the public image of their rather 'publicly left leaning' organization get forced to resign as well?
I mean c'mon, they're still making a mess of the rest of the company even if they're not making a mess of appointing ceos anymore.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday January 22 2016, @12:08AM
Oh come on. I was in favor of him leaving, but let's be realistic and factual: he wasn't "tossed on his arse", he left voluntarily because of the huge controversy over the issue. And while a company *should* vet any CEO candidates, all the guy did (that I know of) is make a donation in favor of the Prop. 8 anti-gay-marriage law. Someone found this out somewhere (because these political donations are public records for people who bother to get access to them), then made a big stink. Personally, I think it does look really bad for someone who's anti-gay to be the head of a company that squawks a lot about diversity, inclusiveness, etc., which I think is why it was right that he left, however, please explain how you think any normal vetting process would have found this out about him. Unless the guy goes on anti-gay tirades at work (which I highly doubt, guys like him are more "closet religious conservatives" because they know they're in a field filled with social liberals so they keep their mouths shut in public), I don't really see how the vetters would have known about this single donation. Now maybe he has a bunch of right-wing anti-gay crap on his Facebook page or something, but even here unless he's one of those people stupid enough to make that public (and a guy of this caliber is probably not), that's private info that some corporate board doing a background check has no right to get access to. Who knows, maybe they interviewed him and asked him some questions about his stances on diversity, equal rights, etc., and he, being a smart guy who knows what values the company espouses, told them what they wanted to hear. Wouldn't you? Politics are a highly charged and frequently polarized topic of discussion, and while I haven't created a programming language, I do know enough to keep my mouth shut about that stuff when I'm in a job interview or at work if my boss of the owner of my company says anything I might disagree with.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday January 22 2016, @01:02AM
Personally, the whole gay marriage thing is a toss up for me. On the one hand, sure, let him donate to whoever. However, I do not want to make a single contribution to his revenue stream that enables him to donate to anti-gay marriage organizations.
As I put it on the other site: I demand traditional marriage! Blacks marrying white women! Harumph! Next thing you know, goats will want to marry white women!
But yeah, the idea that he's going to profit by my usage of his browser, be it Firefox-with-ads or Chrome-with-ads, is a non-starter for me. If he wants to produce a quality browser that he will not profit from my usage of, then by all means! Get it out there! I don't care what he thinks “traditional marriage” is or is not!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Friday January 22 2016, @07:22AM
Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't come out for gay marriage until 2013 [politifact.com] and it took her a decade of slow inching to do so. Meaning that in 2008, she had similar views to Eich. #FeeltheBern
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2016, @06:05PM
She certainly took her sweet time, but not publicly supporting gay marriage is not the same as making donations to support a ban on it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday January 22 2016, @06:26PM
Well, that shouldn't be a big surprise since Hillary is a right-winger. She's just not as far-right as the Republicans.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday January 22 2016, @12:56AM
a bad feeling about this
It could be worse!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:15PM
When the website for downloading the privacy promising tool, violates your privacy, then perhaps the people running it *may* be disingenuous? www.brave.com is infected with non-native trackers, analytics scripts, etc. If I download their browser (Chrome based), do I get to view the download site "privately"?
The rest of what that man has to say is just weaselese and slimy marketing speak for, "Hey, I want to make a ton of money in advertising too". So sad. We really do need a privacy oriented browser, not some thinly veiled alternative distribution channel to redistribute advertising influence and wealth.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Kunasou on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:21PM
This. And it's just another chromium-based browser, pretty much useless. And the advertising companies maybe go after him.
(Score: 4, Funny) by unzombied on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:31PM
An ad-blocking browser with built-in ads, that blocks advertisers yet advertisers can still reach customers, with a cookie that is identifiable but not highly identifiable? Just need to synergize leverage on the diversified cloud before greenlighting marketing.
Which of those 2 sentences makes more sense? Neither.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:37PM
How private will my browser be with ads inserted by my browser? At least with Firefox, etc. there is an option to use Ad Blocking Add-ons. It's like all those "free" apps on Mobile that don't have in-app purchases, but have advertisements. Having my browser be the source of extra junk my screen, No thanks.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Thursday January 21 2016, @10:44PM
There is no honor among thieves, I guess.
People that have advertising networks on their little sites -- or big ones -- often get funding from the ads to help offset the costs of the website.
Some people don't even have control over the ad placement, like when using a hosted service.
I will not defend the use of ads, or any "cost savings" they bring. I for one would smack any friend or relative that put up a webpage, asked me to visit it, and got paid per ad impression by viewing their little site.
But what this is, this is hijacking that revenue and calling it ad blocking. This is not a robin hood scenario here--any cost offsets on a small website that relies on ad impressions (good or bad) will be denied that funding due to the greed of someone not even involved in the process *at all*. Even a tax would allow for people to keep some profit. This prevents the ad impression to begin with, and the ad presented then directs the revenue to another party entirely, of which Mozilla gets a cut of.
I disagree with all the premises here, I wish it was all free like many BBSes used to be. I realize that's not the world today -- but this is wrong. calling it what they call it doesn't make it right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @11:18PM
Your post was excellent until near the end. This isn't Mozilla's doing, they don't get a cut.
But we don't need to worry too much as this browser won't last. It'll be sued on copyright grounds just like the ISPs were who tried the same thing. I never realized the Javascript creator, Brendan Eich, was such scum, but I should have guessed due to how the language was named.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @11:28PM
> But what this is, this is hijacking that revenue and calling it ad blocking.
So what? It's my browser running on my computer, I can do whatever the fuck I want on my property.
The guy has recognized that ads have filled the niche of micro-payments and he's trying to make that fact explicit so we can start making better business decisions. I think it is a great experiment to try because really the situation can't get much worse than it is now. Whether it produces a desirable result, we'll just have to see what happens. But your ignorant faux-rage is completely misplaced.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @11:07PM
nt
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2016, @11:44PM
A stuffed Panda you say? No need to advertise the fact. Damn, my blocker failed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2016, @12:06AM
What was its response? Bam boo?
(Score: 2) by Celestial on Friday January 22 2016, @12:02AM
I just find it amusing that Brave is based on Chromium, not Firefox. Even the former CEO of Mozilla no longer wants anything to do with Firefox / Gecko. Then again, using Chromium as its foundation may actually have a privacy benefit... since almost every browser these days is based on it, Brave browser users will blend in with the crowd.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2016, @12:15AM
> Even the former CEO of Mozilla no longer wants anything to do with Firefox / Gecko.
https://www.brave.com/FAQ.html [brave.com]
5. Why aren’t you using Mozilla’s Gecko engine on laptops?
We were, under a partially sandboxed, multi-process architecture called Graphene. But we did a careful head-to-head comparison and by every measure, Electron/chromium won. We wish Mozilla well, but as a startup, we must use all sound leverage available to us. For web compatibility and in particular Chrome compatibility, this means chromium.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2016, @04:41PM
I consider that part deeply troubling. I thought we finally had reached a consensus that browser-specific sites are bad.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday January 22 2016, @12:20AM
It's good to see the guy responsible for the way the web looks, own up to his mistakes and try addressing them.
With any luck, this will serve as the precedent that Google, Microsoft and Mozilla need to incorporate built-in ad-blocking of their own.
compiling...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by naubol on Friday January 22 2016, @12:35AM
Is Mr. Eich still unfriendly to gays?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Common Joe on Friday January 22 2016, @05:45AM
naubol's been unfairly downmodded. Off topic? Maybe. Troll? No. There are too many people on Soylent News who care about personal freedoms. This is a big issue to consider for some of us -- especially in a new browser that wants to control the ads you see. If Brendan Eich wants to peddle software to us, this is something of interest that should be pointed out and kept fresh on people's minds. I think it's a fair question. I'm giving him back a point.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ticho on Friday January 22 2016, @08:51AM
As long as the software he is "peddling" to you is open source, you can check for yourself. Therefore personal quirks of its authors are irrelevant. I have given both you and OP an Offtopic mod. Keep the drama on 4redditchanbookwitter, or wherever.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Common Joe on Friday January 22 2016, @10:12AM
You are correct. So long as it is open source, there shouldn't be a problem. Thank you for correctly making that point clear to me. Off topic points accepted with humility.
(Score: 2) by naubol on Saturday January 23 2016, @12:21AM
offtopic is in the eye of the beholder. If the head of the KKK were to release open source software, people would complain. Frankly, it's just not that unacceptable to support anti-gay causes and that is why I was modded OT an troll. You don't have to like it, but it's the truth. I certainly don't like it.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday January 22 2016, @11:59AM
I don't understand what value this browser offers the user. I can already do what I need with ABP, Ghostery, and the other dozen extensions I use to block trackers and scripts. How does this browser offer any value since it's basically replacing one set of trackers with another? Sure, "no persistent user id or highly re-identifiable cookie," but they can track you in other ways. This thing is DOA. Advertisers might like it, but if no one uses it, it doesn't matter.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday January 22 2016, @02:40PM
Well, people will eventually need a Firefox replacement when they jettison their classic extensions system ;)
(Pale Moon!)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by acp_sn on Friday January 22 2016, @02:56PM
The problem isn't bad ads or intrusive ads. The problem is that ads are something that cost the viewer attention, time, bandwidth/computer power, cognitive load, and provide no measurable benefit to the viewer.
Ads are like of mosquitoes. They each steal a tiny bit of your life (and web ads can spread malware so the analogy is even more appropriate). And like mosquitoes a single one usually isn't noticeable but a swarm can make it impossible to concentrate on the tasks you want to do.
I don't want my life interrupted in the tiniest possible amount to receive marketing messages. Find a way to turn my attention into money that doesn't have ANY cost to me.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2016, @05:31PM
Last night when I browsed to brave.com my filters blocked 6 trackers. 3 only seem active now (including "doubleclick"). Regardless, not a great start and probably a harbinger of brave's true colors (more like a Trojan Horse).
Brave to rest of world: "All your (advertising and trackers) base are belong to us".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @11:20PM
screw you, dumbass. i guess you figured you should stick with your slave demographic?