if you can add features like auto redirect to alternative frontend for popular site.
Can take inspiration from here: https://github.com/libredirect/libredirect
Or from: https://github.com/hnhx/librex ( can add this in brave search engine ).
redirects Twitter, YouTube, medium, Reddit, Google Search, & Google Translate requests to privacy friendly alternative frontends for those sites
Unless Brave hosted those services (which I don’t think they would) then, how can you trust those servers? If you go to Searx which is claimed to be private, you can see a list of many that have modified the searx instances and add weird stuff, even what seems to be trackers.
You don’t know if Piped, Invidious or Nitter instances are good or not. you Just hope you can connect.
Plus some instances can be placed in countries where content is hidden, like Germany instances (and most EU) will censor a lot in Twitter.
That’s just one problem, then we have the stability, if they are up or not, and also how slow they are compared to the official sites.
Now, the way to fix this would be to add extensions to Brave on Android, the problem is that Chromium removed all Extension support from Android so adding it back is too much cost for what people ask.
Of course extensions are cool to have, but to be honest I think it is a waste of money and time to add it to Android because most people when they are asked “what extension do you want to add” the always say the dumbest extensions to add, or extensions that can be solved by simple features that Brave has promised to bring like Procedural Cosmetics and user Scriptlets support.
I actually can do redirect inside Brave without any extension, I made a script to redirect from twitter to Nitter moomoo, it works fine.
Of course, my script might not look pretty or work the most optimal way it could but does it matter? nah, since I am the only one using it.
With root support, the same can be done in Android, I have only tried it on Desktop though, but it is a workaround until Brave lets me easily add my own scriptlets/scriptlers like uBo Scriptlets.
Adding support for scriptlets is cheaper and better, even if Extensions seem nice ot have.
And if Brave wants to give more power to users, they could even add a userscript manager inspired in tampermonkey or something, since it would allow to inject more like using jQuery.
That’s the problem I see with this feature request, seems nice on paper but knowing how unstable or slow instances can be, it will be just a weird integration like what WebTorrent has, where it can be a hit and miss.
Of course, in the case of a simple redirection extension, letting us add our own scriptlets (in the roadmap) or going more powerful and letting us install userscripts would be better, since it would be cheaper, and work for a lot of things, not just one thing.
Option will be there to enable and disable this setting, it depends on you if you like you can enable it and if don’t then do whatever you want.
Second if we go with your words then we can also say that maybe brave is injecting Trojans in devices and all Open source projects are untrustworthy including linux.
We can never trust anything I know but too much suspicion is also not good.
Brave has told many things I will add this and that but at the end it’s just another chrome with an addition of Adblocker. I don’t see anything special other than Adblocker which differs from chrome even auto Translate is not working properly.
Nicer strawman arguments there.
“let’s add a feature because I say it, it doesn’t matter if the experience is terrible, we don’t have do talk about the issues, because anyone can turn it off and don’t use it”
Do you think a Browser development to make money should be ran by that logic?
Instead of getting irrational for my opinion, what about answering the simple questions? you did everything and complained about even about Brave’s translate feature but you didn’t touch about the downsides I brought up.
I mean, let’s not even talk about the risks of redirecting URLs to random services. But about the issues with instances and services and all that, it’s not just 'not trusting, it is also about thinking about the future… and why do you want to add something you have to tweak because it keeps breaking? Are you suggestion Brave should audit every single server for every single service?
Why would be the gain for Brave to do that? unless they hosted the services, do you really think brave wants to redirect people to random servers?
And seeing Jitsi being hosted by Brave, and then being monetized by Brave, and Brendan saying they are not charity on twitter. well… you get your conclusions.
But for example, what about when services just stop working? like with Bibliogram? a change on the way Instagram worked and it was gone, or what happens to piped and invidious when Youtube changes something and instances don’t even update to latest version to fix anything for weeks or ever.
Running libredirect is already a terrible experience for the most part, unless you spend (waste) time unchecking almost every instance then well, not much to say.
Since Brave already has extension’s support on Desktop (it’s not like Brave muon), then this issue is about supporting redirect in Android.
The problem is you don’t understand Brave would have to implement the whole feature natively because Brave doesn’t support extensions on Android.
When they added Adblock cosmetics to Android, they had to change the way it was done on desktop, to do it natively and stop being an extension. So that also weights on the “is it worth it?, would a developer spend time and resources in this type of feature that redirects to random out of control instances that could be insecure, not private and malicious?”
For example (so you can understand more about worth it or not cases) something easier and faster to implement in Brave, the VAFT scriptlet to get rid of Twitch ads, there was a PR about it months ago, it never got added to the resources because Brave team knew it was it was obvious VAFT would end up eventually breaking. That’s exactly what happened after a while.
Now the only way to ‘get rid of ads’ it’s not even getting rid of ads, it’s through extensions that will connect to proxy servers in countries where Twitch ads don’t run yet.
In your logic, Brave should just go ahead and add support for Twitch proxy ads because if they are insecure, who cares, as long as it mostly works, it is fine.
Do you think that’s how a browser development which is meant to make money should be ran?
That’s why I said Android extensions could fix the issue, but it is realistic to think about this, they only said they will revisit the decision to see if they add the extensions this year, but it is still the same case than 4 years ago, seems more like a waste of money and time, and huge work for a small team like Brave, when people just want to run the most nonsense lamest extensions that could be done through a scriptlet injection.
That’s why I said that scriptlets injections would be the best way since it is already in Brave.
Apparently you didn’t get the memo where I said I already redirect Twitter to Nitter this way, without using any extension, Brave’s adblocker can inject scriptlets just like uBlock does, what Brave doesn’t have is the UI for users to ‘officially do it’, so I found my way until they officially support it.
The issue to let users add their own scriptlet injection was made by Anton, the one who pretty much develops Brave adblocker, so with 3 cells left in the brain, it’s easy to understand it is going to happen because it is something made by the person who develops the Adblocker (2+2=4), of course, it will be meant for advanced users so they also have to plan the UI since simpleton users shouldn’t just do anything like that, so it will take time because there are more important features in the roadmap like Procedural Cosmetics.
And like I said, it can be unofficially done.
So, even adding an userscript manager that will work in both Desktop and Android, would be better and smarter and better than extensions support (in Android). Of course this is my opinion, but it is the one that makes more sense.
But you don’t even believe Brave would add the features, you are pretty much complaining in your last paragraph, and then you get weird because I talked (asked) about the downsides of libredirect.
I don’t even know what’s your point on acting irrationally here for my opinions, saying something that already exists in Brave like scriptlets injection is better than making a single feature from zero for Android (since it can be loaded in Desktop) that is not even stable or good.
What features have Brave promised that haven’t hit Brave? I will wait until the day I die because I am sure apart from Android extensions, which were only overhyped by Brendan Eich who shouldn’t have, there is no promised features that I have heard that are important to say “wow they haven’t added it back? Brave team sucks”.
About auto translate, which has NOTHING to do with this topic (again, nice strawman argument) if you searched in Github (because Brave Browser is fully open source) you would have found out that it was removed because Brave Team removed it.
I actually wrote a long comment giving links and explaining how to enable it for Desktop, here on the forums.
So it ‘doesn’t work’ because it is not meant to work, if they added it back or they give the flag to people to control it or whatever, I don’t care, I don’t use it, I only know they disabled it but also talked about giving a flag to control it and I even gave the CMD command to enable it back on desktop.
It’s so weird you “Brave just like Chrome but with an adblocker” so is Brave going to become better because they are a terrible experience to brave like Libredirect? or is it because you are suggesting it? so if they don’t add it the browser sucks?
You can’t even grasp the potential that having the native adblocker Brave has, first, Brave is the only Chromium browser that can have CNAME uncloacking, the almost feature parity with uBlock adblocker that won’t break with Manifestv2 removal a bit, unlike other garbage native adblockers, Brave can add anything to it eventually, but Adblockers are not just meant to block ads and connections, they can modify website content inject CSS properties and Javascript snippets or scriptlets, which means you can change completely the behavior of websites, and it works in Android just like it works on Desktop already.
Also, Brave has Vertical tabs, building a playlist manager like iOS has, with a VPN in the works, with Tor, with IPFS and all those web3 features, wallet and rewards that I don’t care much about.
But sure! Chrome with just an adblocker, what is the logic here? It’s confusing why anyone would request a feature and then complain about Brave as a browser as being “chrome with adblocker”, when I pretty much told you Brave already can do redirections and anything since simple scriptlets would do it, no extension that will require more development or maintenance needed.
Anyway, you already added a ‘vote’ why do you complain about my comment? why the strawman arguments? why the hyperbolic BS “many features not delived by Brave”? Why are you not putting some logic to your Feature Request and then get weird for being challenged about the downsides?
You could have asked Brendan Eich on twitter about this, instead of adding it to a forum where anyone, like me, can technically say whatever we want. Seems like you should have just ignored my comment and move on.
But just so you know…
Yes, Brave can inject bad code into websites, that’s why it is important it is open source, so you can check the code, they could also be injection buggy JS code or something.
They use uBlock resources/scriptlets and they could also be buggy and security risk (since they aren’t controlling them).
But just to let you know, every website you probably visit will inject a script for Ethereum wallet and Solana Wallet, unless you set it to disabled in settings, it happens. Did you know that?
If you turn WDP it will then use an extension that will see searches you make in other search engines, and even websites you visit to improve brave search indexer.
I mean… seems like you don’t know how things work in Brave, but by using Brave you are actually trusting Brave for a lot of things, including the fact they proxy the connections to Safe Browsing and Extension updates.
It’s like trusting Vivaldi with your phone number to use their email system, and your email and IPs to make an account or every 24h when they send information to their servers.
Yes, you always have to trust anyone, it is obvious. But the point is libredirect is not just one service with one instance, and in the end you never explained how to develop a feature where 90% of instances are trash “turning it off” seems like the dumb idea, then what about don’t waste time and give priority to features that already exist in Brave like again, scriptlets injections and let us do it with just 3 lines of JS code? I already do it, it works.
So I don’t understand what is the whole “but I want what I requested” when all I said is that there were better ways to accomplish this, that are already possible and Brave only needs to improve them to make it easier for users interested to do it.
But then, maybe Brave team will implement it tomorrow, just for you, even if you didn’t really explained how and just threw a link and say “do it, because I say do it” and I will clap and say congratulations to prove me wrong!
So have a good day!
First, I already said whether they want to add or not it’s their choice it’s not like I am forcing them.
Second, even if they decide to add or not whatever it doesn’t really important to me as I mostly want that for medium and reddit nothing else.
Third, it’s truth that brave is just chrome with Adblocker. You tell me something really that differ brave from chrome like firefox or Vivaldi.
Fourth, I know that brave have provided settings to let them know what we search. And even if we disable all this setting they still get access to those.
Fifth, be happy I don’t really care whether they add this feature or not but the translation issue is truth so no need to down vote a genuine issue.