@Klaas Vaak
Unfortunately, this guy, David Gerard, doesn’t have the slightest clue what he is talking about. Let me preface this by saying that I am somewhat tired and annoyed regarding this bit of FUD, because I have explained the real situation a dozens of times (literally) on gHacks already. This is not directed against you, just know that I no longer feel inclined to dive into this topic as deep as I used to, because in general it’s just a nuisance at this point for me.
Brave has several websites it partners with, those usually populate the sponsored New Tab Pages with their logos, in case you have those turned on. They mention their partners on their website. One of those partners is Binance, but there are others as well.
Now, in the incident this guy described, when a user typed in binance.us, for example, Brave added a referral link of their own to the URL and offered this as the first suggestion out of a list of suggestions. What was the purpose of the referral? Brave usually identifies itself as Google Chrome before websites for web compatibility reasons (a few websites exclude alternative browsers which do not provide mainstream user agents). Now, in order to distinguish Brave users from Chrome users, you have to find a solution. One solution would be to change the user agent (the string identifying the browser) for the few websites in question OR you can use a referral to the same effect. Since those Brave partners advertised themself on the New Tab Page (in case you have that turned on), they wanted to know how successful their campaign was, so they had an inherent interest to differentiate Brave users from the myriad of users that use the majority browser Google Chrome. This was the sole purpose of the referral – it allowed partner websites to see that you are using Brave and to count you as such. Identifying any single Brave user based on the referral was impossible, because all Brave users were using the same referral link – so this was never a privacy issue. It’s also deactivated by default now, despite other browsers happily doing it as well (it’s not problematic there, either).
This guy, David Gerard, is literally bashing Brave for letting partner websites count Brave users anonymously. It needs to be noted that other browsers like Vivaldi attach a static referral as well, whenever you search something within the browser, in order to let their search engine partners know how many Vivaldi users used their search engine, allowing Vivaldi Technologies to generate revenue without hurting user privacy (Vivaldi doesn’t collect and sell user data for profit, and neither does Brave Software).
Last but not least, let me point out some especially egregious remarks this guy made:
> There is no good reason to use Brave. Use Chromium — the open-source core of Chrome — with the uBlock Origin ad blocker.
I can name two reasons to use Brave right away: First and foremost, it is the first Chromium-based browser to come with credible fingerprinting protection (Ungoogled Chromium as no noteworthy fingerprinting protections):
https://brave.com/whats-brave-done-for-my-privacy-lately-episode-4-fingerprinting-defenses-2-0/
Secondly, by virtue of its built-in adblocker which is not an extension, Brave will be unaffected by Google crippling adblocking extensions. Ungoogled Chromium and several others have no solution for this yet, and as it stands extensions like uBlock origin will no longer work with the same quality as before, with no solution in sight.
> Or use Firefox with uBlock Origin — ‘cos it blocks more ads than the Chromium framework will let anything block.
He refers to CNAME uncloaking, which far fewer than 1% of all trackers actually do. Chrome extensions can’t defend you against that because Chrome is lacking a certain API. But as said, Brave Shields are not an extension, and therefore can do something against that – it’s actually on the roadmap for the third quarter of 2020:
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Roadmap
Funny that he recommends Firefox, a browser that was actually hijacked by Mozilla (applying the proper definition of “hijacked” here, not the nonsense David Gerard thinks it is) itself with a spyware add-on in the past:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-which-slurps-user-browsing-data/
Great alternative, have fun sending your entire browsing history to Cliqz when it happens again @David Gerard.
> If you’re on Android, use Firefox with uBlock Origin, or the new Firefox Focus browser.
Firefox on Android literally comes with three trackers built-in (Google Analytics, Leanplum, Adjust), surely it is a fantastic alternative to Brave which is tracker-free.
> Brave is a browser for suckers who want to keep getting played — so it’s a 100% crypto enterprise.
Yeah, I totally feel scammed by earning money for browsing the web, while I earn nothing with other browsers. The Brave creators I donate to probably also scammed by me giving them free money. Also, did you notice the complete bias that leaks out here?
> Brendan Eich has responded to this post by claiming “David lies about us all the time.”
Eich is not wrong, this article alone is pure FUD mixed with highly biased, malicious lies. I agree with Eich here. The article does not aim to discuss anything matter-of-factly.
So, there you go. The article deliberately misrepresented a thing Brave did which admittedly created bad optics, but little apart from that, it had no averse effect for the user whatsoever, especially user privacy was never compromised. Personally, I have no problem with Brave letting their partners count Brave users anonymously (Why would I?), I prefer that to them collecting user data and selling it for profit (like certain competitors of theirs do). I have tried to inform you about the real circumstances now, but please, for the love of god, do no longer refer to David Gerard as a source, his articles lack objectivity and he is out to damage the Brave project, caring little whether or not his articles are factually correct.
Image Source: Unsplash
