Brave - Attain Privacy, Lose Freedom

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After reading a paper on browsers and the information they relay, I was pretty pissed to see what Firefox sent, but impressed with what Brave sent so I thought about moving over.

That was a couple weeks ago and today I just decided to install Brave and give it a a go.

Having been unable to block google from storing cookies in my browser on Firefox, despite all attempts and blocks put in place, the first thing I decided to do with Brave is block google f*ing cookies… only too see an “accounts.google.com” entry that “always allowed” google cookies, and even worse, clicking “Remove” does… NOTHING! There’s also a firebaseapp.com in there, which is also impossible to remove. How lovely!

I then try adjusting the browser to how I like it to appear… the “customise toolbar” button on Firefox, only to see that… it doesn’t exist!.. You cannot customise your own toolbar! How lovely!

You cannot even enable a fking MENU BAR!

I don’t want all this crap on my browser and I want to put the browser buttons where I’ve had them since I started browsing the internet. But I can’t do that… not allowed!

End result (after 5 mins of testing) - BRAVE UNINSTALLED

I value my privacy and would very much like to start using Brave because of the fking crap that Mozilla is up to with my IP address, constantly sending it to their servers.

But I actually value my convenience a tiny bit more, and in this toss up between having my IP address sent to Mozilla servers on a constant basis, and having my hands tied with my browsers customisation, I am sad to say that I choose Mozilla.

You cant even choose your own new tab page and need an extension to do it if you want a custom one.

Brave seems like a great browser with regards to privacy, even confirmed with extensive tests.

But then you tie up everyone’s hands and shove set layouts and formats down peoples throats… customisation disabled, menu bar disabled… so disappointing… the only browser that offers good privacy takes away your freedom.

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It is a chromium thing.
It is true firefox is quite customisable compared to other browser via about:config or via userchrome.css which does not hold true for other chromium browsers.
As brave was focused on privacy and cryptocurrency they underworked on visual aspects like toolbar etc compared to other browsers like Vivaldi which are based on customisability instead of privacy.

Something is incorrect here. As far as I know, no such cookies are preloaded whatsoever. Also, there was a minor bug with deleting cookies which was solved few months back, so deleting such cookies should have been possible.

I would suggest giving it another try in a proper environment and see if you like it.

Go thorugh these privacy features related to telementry and look into it.

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Yeah but this isn’t chromium, it’s a fork which is supposed to improve on major things that chromium got wrong.

  1. Sending PII to google servers - Fixed
  2. Ability to customise your browser - Not fixed

The actual discrepancy and cause for my disappointment here is that I’ve mistaken Brave for something which it is not.

After reading good reviews and the above paper on how Brave was the best browser for privacy, I wrongly combined privacy with freedom and expected both from the browser.

Hence the reason for my post, feedback, feature-request and return to Mozilla.

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Anyway, how difficult would it be for Brave dev’s to add a ‘customise toolbar’ or an ‘add menu bar’ to the browser?

Surely nowhere near as difficult as all the correcting/tinkering they’ve already done.

It’s a couple of tiny things that would add an enormous amount of usability to the browser.

Time taken to achieve = minimal
Effect = huge

It doesnt make sense that it hasn’t been done already. After I installed Brave and was looking how to enable a manu bar I saw tons of threads online with people asking for the same thing.

It’s absolute bollocks that the ability to add a menu bar to your browser has been removed and people are forced to fcuk around with some hamburger crap.

I noticed Brave does shove a lot of stuff down your face such as possible, opt-in ad’s, tokens and stuff I’d never heard of before I tried Brave so maybe that’s their goal… make money that way and disable peoples ability to edit the interface… I dont know, and I’m not going to find out because I don’t want the interface like that and not being able to customise it and not being able to do something as simple as add a god damn menu bar to my browser means I will not be using Brave.