I guess we disagree, since to me, serving ads with my page is making my position about wanting to show ads with the page pretty clear.
But even if it wasn't, Brave has special filters for sites that have anti-adblock measures, and it's spoofing the user agent to make it seem like regular Chrome.
Blocking ads and serving up new ads are entirely different procedures. It would be entirely technically possible for brave to show brave ads in addition to the existing ads on a page. It is also possible for users to turn off ads entirely (including the brave ads). You can't just lump these two separate steps together, they are independent, and the only part of it that might directly harm the original site/page creators is blocking the original ads. Serving up new ads is no different than what the site creators themselves are already doing for their own work.
I don't agree here with your premise. You claim not to care if people block ads, but that's the default behavior. "Brave Rewards" is opt in.
Additionally, as they show ads as system notifications, I've never equated them whatsoever with what I'm browsing, and I'd assume that's by design.
I use Brave because (for me) Firefox is slow, and Chrome is Google. As someone who's quite fond of you for example on HN, I'd love to not be blocked, but I'm not switching browsers for the privilege...
The headline and post title are misleading. Brave is not an ad-blocking browser. It is an ad-replacing browser. Blocking ads is useful and ethical. Replacing ads to capture revenue is bad and unethical.
It is the users who are censoring the pages by choosing to use an ad blocking browser. I don't think the fact that Brave is offering an alternative revenue stream taints their browser's ad blocking capabilities. It is a feature that is available on almost all other browsers, natively or through a plugin.
Except it does. It has the functionality to do BOTH.
The tagline of giving the option to either disable ads or replace ads is to provide a way to enjoy an ad-free experience or to receive only optimized advertisements.
A big reason some users dislike ads isn't because of their entire existance but rather their tendency as of late to be malware-ridden or cause drops in webpage performance. These are the things that cause some users to enable ad-blockers, and Brave is the only way I've heard of that has pushed the envelope of a BETTER ad experience.
From their blog, the first is a great introduction to what Brave is about[1], as well as their response to an attack on their ad-replacement ideology[2].
[The user interface] shows the major choices that Brave enables:
You’re game to try our default mode of operation, for a better ad-supported Web. Just leave the Replace Ads item checked. This is the default mode of operation. We insert ads after blocking without hurting page load speed, and those ads will support the sites you browse. We choose ads based on browser-private user data with no remote tracking — not even by our servers.
You want to block all ads and trackers, but you’re not sure about our plan to insert better ads with high performance and privacy. You can do this with Brave by checking Block Ads. We want you on board even if you’re just blocking everything.
You’d like to try Brave without ad blocking or replacing, to get whatever ads and trackers you would experience in other browsers. Check Allow Ads and Tracking. We still protect you with HTTPS Everywhere and other defense by default.
Many people don't like ad blockers that let in ads. That's the obvious issue with the brave browser. The shocking thing to me is that some people tolerate this behavior. I'll take an ad blocker that blocks all ads myself, not one coming from the ad industry itself. Nowadays, this applies to chrome and safari too if they've gotten rid of their old plugin apis that enabled ublock (hard to keep track of spyware features).
Their point is not that there is an adblock counter, but that brave injects ads on their own homepage to inflate the apparent usefulness of their browser. It's similar to labeling a casino a buffet and saying you don't need to gamble.
Do you have a citation for this? Why would brave users be less likely to click on ads than a normal user if they weren’t using a browser that blocked ads?
That's what I did before I knew about Brave. If I don't have a choice I'd use whatever browser provides adblocking, but with a choice I'd prefer a Chromium-based browser.
That's basically what Brave does - web browser with a built-in adblocker. Or, for that matter, Chrome with any adblocking extension. It's not illegal, but it's not exactly popular with webmasters, and they're within their rights to block access to these browsers. In practice it tends to evolve into a cat-and-mouse game where adblockers block the ads, websites try to detect the adblockers and show you a pop-up encouraging you to turn off the adblocker, adblockers try to block the pop-ups, and so on.
Brave not only shows 0 ads to you, but also blocks all ads, unless you actively opt-in to a system they have where you're paid 70% of the revenue gain from the ad in the form of a token. I do not, and will not ever opt in.
The browser itself is also fully open source and you're free to verify that they're sending exactly and only what they say they're sending. You can also disable what limited analytics that they do use if you'd prefer them not see hyper-sensitive information like a bucketed grouping (1, 2-5, 6-10, 11-50, 51+) of how many tabs you have open.
But even if it wasn't, Brave has special filters for sites that have anti-adblock measures, and it's spoofing the user agent to make it seem like regular Chrome.
reply