I've been contemplating switching back to Firefox from Chrome due to the upcoming changes to ad blockers - Is Brave a good choice for this, or should I go back to FF?
Been rocking Firefox as my daily driver for several years now. I don't understand why someone would not switch to Firefox at this point, unless there's just a really strong personal preference or niche feature.
Despite Mozilla's organizational woes, Firefox remains the one true "free as in free speech" browsers out there that has remained competitive. I'm of the opinion that we need Firefox to keep the Web open.
I just like Brave as a product more, primarily. Chromium native stuff like tab groups and PWAs are nice to have, and I like profiles over containers for isolation purposes (would obviously rather have both).
Plus, and this is somewhat beside the actual browser, I like that the Brave org is toolmaking focused, vs. Mozilla's activism schtick where they say they're just fine with platforms' algorithms getting tuned to favour sources the Mozilla activist people like. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
(Brave is not the only toolmaking focused org - see eg. Vivaldi. Both companies, insofar as they have politics, have politics of user control and privacy and leave the other stuff at the door, and it shows even in their marketing copy being more straightforward and less slimy than Mozilla's modern output)
Brave is a solid option if you don't want to leave the underlying Chromium and it's extension ecosystem but still have privacy capabilities that Google is axing with Manifest v3.
Firefox is also a solid option. Firefox is one of the few stable options remaining to use a non-Chromium based browser. Most popular Chrome extensions have Firefox releases as well so you may not even lose that functionality in a switch.
Advocates for Firefox frequently point out that part of how we got here with the Manifest v3 issues is by consolidating browser technologies. Chrome, Brave, Edge, etc all use the Chromium core which is part of what gives Google such a strong ability to influence web technology developments to their advantage and our detriment. If this is something you care about then it may be worth voting with your feet and giving Firefox a chance.
The new DDG browser may be interesting in this regard. It uses WebKit at least on Mac, but we'll see how their Windows version ends up like. Could very well be Edge WebView2.
I switched from Firefox to Chrome several years ago. After the announcement of the planned changes, I tried switching back to Firefox. I just couldn't stick with it -- Chromium-based browsers are faster (e.g., [1]).
I decided to give Brave a try because it's Chromium-based. It's been great. I did have to modify a few settings to get the look/feel how I like, but it I found it easy, and I expect others may not care. Brave shields block ads without the need of extensions like ublock. I don't have any complaints so far.
If you’re ok spending 1 minute turning off their weird crypto-powered ad stuff (or if you’re ok with it), I personally think Brave is the best Chromium browser available, and I believe they have said they will not be removing Manifest v2 support. Also their built in ad/tracker blocking is nice.
I closed my PayPal account years ago as they were constantly withholding my money, charging exorbitant fees, and they attempted to hold a lot of money from my father's business for 6mo whilst they 'investigated' until the threat of legal action suddenly made the problems go away.
Everyone should delete their PayPal accounts, and encourage friends/family to do the same. Shocking business practices, and they only continue to do business because they've often been the status quo, but since dropping them I've never once wished I still used it.
My friend uses Node-RED to automate and run a lot of devices/things in his van (which he lives in). I'm not sure if it's better to not have a programming background, because it's one of the more difficult environments I've helped someone with and the debugging when something wasn't working was really poor, it all felt very un-intuitive.
Have any wireless providers verified that Firmware/OS/App updates can't be pushed via OTA to those devices? Asking because to my knowledge no such verification has been attempted. Background: I used to push firmware updates to phones in the 90's on a GSM network. The only reason we didn't do this globally was risk of customer support issues.
I understand what you are saying, but in my opinion that doesn't really answer the question. For a phone to attach to a network, there is some level of bidirectional trust and those kill-switches aren't going to just arbitrarily activate. Has anyone at a wireless provider tested pushing OTA updates to those phones? Has the vendor explicitly stated that the phones will explicitly block by default any attempts at OTA updates or that the phones explicitly do not have the capability?
I don't think any vendor confirmed that. But is this possible to update software on my device without permission by its OS via a well-defined external interface? These phones are desktop computers running GNU/Linux. If they can be updated this way, then my laptop can as well be updated by a WiFi card, can't it? (I don't think so)
I suppose it depends on what standards each of these Linux phone implementations have followed. Android also runs Linux, but they modified it to give the wireless providers and Google full control, hence people wanting to root their phones. Just running Linux is not enough to give me confidence that the phone is truly isolated from network management. So I suppose it comes down to what kernel modules, libraries and trust these phones are giving to the provider and what standards they are following. A good start would be independent kernel hackers digging into the hardware and OS to see what they can make the phone do and what they see the phone doing under normal operations when attaching to the network and how the phone responds to OTA update attempts and what the firmware on the phone is doing. If I control the firmware and you control the OS, I control what your OS can read and write to. So I suppose my unanswered questions are:
- Who writes and maintains the firmware the OS is running on.
- Who writes and maintains the modem firmware and who can update it.
- Who can update that firmware for the board the OS is running on. This could be a different answer than who initially creates it for the retail distribution of the phone.
- What level of trust has been inserted into the OS by kernel modules and who maintains those kernel modules.
- What control is given to the end user to see what those modules are doing and limit what they can do.
I suspect more questions could arise as kernel hackers audited the phone. The dilemma I see is that such kernel hackers won't be interested until those phones are wildly popular. The only other way to get their interest is with money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOFAR_channelAnalysis of Heard Island Feasibility Test data received by the Ascension Island Missile Impact Locating System hydrophones at an intermediate range of 9,200 km (5,700 mi; 5,000 nmi) from the source found "surprisingly high" signal to noise ratios, ranging from 19 to 30 dB, with unexpected phase stability and amplitude variability after a travel time of about 1 hour, 44 minutes and 17 seconds.[3]
Thanks for the link. I traveled on the Cory Choeust multiple times during the late 80s, though not on Heard island test. Very interesting working on SONAR in the 80s, both on surface ships and subs. Riding alone in the conning tower of an SSN in Exuma sound was fun. And saw a full rainbow in north Atlantic
This is one of the most whiny and misguided articles I've seen near the top of HN in some time.
I really fail to understand how people can see something like the $PATH variable and not understand it 'for years' - does everyone else not just Google/DDG things they don't understand?
It's not really worth critiquing more of the article, as the entire premise of not being able to 'write code inside the browser' is just another fallacy that's based on the authors complete lack of knowledge, or willingness to acquire any more knowledge.
> Now, with the option to opt-out of tracking at the point-of-use, consumers won’t have to sift through their phone’s settings to protect their privacy.
