Brave browser - a good review article

[ssfc72]

https://www.androidauthority.com/brave-browser-review-1110069/

A nice article about Jason's favourite browser, Brave. :-)

I am going to download and try it out.

[Jason]

Hope you like it! I'm still using it. My main reason for using it is to allow content producers to advertise but in a non-annoying way (not big flashy ads) and not taking away your privacy by sharing it with ad networks from website to website.

But I'd be surprised if it could tear you away from Opera.

[fox]

In the last few months I have found some problems with Firefox (on Ubuntu) not playing video clips. Anyone else notice this? If I go to play the same clip on Chromium it plays OK. I wonder about Brave; I haven't tried it on Linux. Are there any problems with Brave that you haven't had on Firefox?

[Jason]

Are there any problems with Brave that you haven't had on Firefox?

Do you mean regarding videos or anything? The only thing I've noticed with Brave is that its tracking protection can sometimes be too aggressive so some websites might act peculiarly or not function properly. You can easily turn this off by clicking on the shield to the right of the location bar. You can also report the site as a 'broken site' if you find that the site then works correctly. I haven't had any issues with video clips not playing. If you're using an ad-blocker, try to turn it off temporarily. It might be thinking the clip is some kind of ad.

[ssfc72]

The Brave browser seems to render web pages very quickly, so far in my limited experience with it.  I am quite pleased with it's performance.
The one feature that I use all the time with the Opera browser is when you scroll way down a web page, to get back to the top of the web page, just takes a simple mouse click of the window tab, at the top of the browser. There is no need to scroll the mouse wheel or drag the the right hand slider, to get back to the top of the page.
Brave does not have this neat Opera feature.

Hope you like it! I'm still using it. My main reason for using it is to allow content producers to advertise but in a non-annoying way (not big flashy ads) and not taking away your privacy by sharing it with ad networks from website to website.

But I'd be surprised if it could tear you away from Opera.

[Jason]

Brave does not have this neat Opera feature.

That's handy. Maybe one of these extensions might help?

[ssfc72]

Neat. Thanks for the Link to the extensions, Jason.

[Jason]

Neat. Thanks for the Link to the extensions, Jason.

You're welcome. Consider it your Christmas present! The lamest present ever.

Do let me know if one of them works for you. This is a feature I could use.

[ssfc72]

I did install one extension called "scroll to the top". It had the most users of the 3 choices available.

It works well. It does take 2 mouse clicks, to scroll the web page to the top.
I am somewhat uneasy using extensions, because I think they must be tracking my usage of websites that I visit, in order to sell that information, to make money.

I wound up uninstalling the extension, for now, because of this concern.

[buster]

My desktop has a great keyboard with a separate number section and a separate scroll set of 4 keys. So I can go to the top of a long web page, the bottom, or scroll up or down.

Given to me by a friend who bought a laptop.

[Jason]

It works well. It does take 2 mouse clicks, to scroll the web page to the top.
I am somewhat uneasy using extensions, because I think they must be tracking my usage of websites that I visit, in order to sell that information, to make money.

I suppose that's possible but I believe extensions now are required by the main browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, etc.) or the derivatives to ask the user for special permissions. I've noticed extensions asking me for extra permissions occasionally.

Also, how do you know Opera doesn't do that already? Their browser is free, it's created by a commercial company and it's not even Open Source so nobody knows what code is in there. It'd be harder to get away with I suppose being a well-known company and not some small developer.

Thanks for letting me know which one you tried. I'll take a look into it myself. Your worry has me curious, though, how do we know any extension isn't doing stuff behind our back? I'll have to look into this.

[Jason]

My desktop has a great keyboard with a separate number section and a separate scroll set of 4 keys. So I can go to the top of a long web page, the bottom, or scroll up or down.

Cool. What is the model? I have a mouse with a hyper-scroll mode on the wheel. It's a Logitech Marathon mouse.

[ssfc72]

I think when I was in the Extension store for the Brave browser, a warning came up about possible security risks with installing extensions.
The Opera extensions page also warn about security risks with installing extensions.

I suppose that's possible but I believe extensions now are required by the main browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, etc.) or the derivatives to ask the user for special permissions. I've noticed extensions asking me for extra permissions occasionally.

Also, how do you know Opera doesn't do that already? Their browser is free, it's created by a commercial company and it's not even Open Source so nobody knows what code is in there. It'd be harder to get away with I suppose being a well-known company and not some small developer.

Thanks for letting me know which one you tried. I'll take a look into it myself. Your worry has me curious, though, how do we know any extension isn't doing stuff behind our back? I'll have to look into this.

[Jason]

They have that warning with many installations.

Windows says that every time you install anything outside of their Windows store now. And Android says that when you install apps outside of the Google Play store like F-Droid. There's nothing wrong with it or the apps that you can install through F-Droid (they're open source apps so somebody would likely find privacy issues. But you still get the warning because Google can't confirm the apps are safe so you need to do your due diligence.

Perhaps a search on the extension's name would find any issues associated with the app. That's what I do when I'm not sure about an app/plugin/extension/program. And I've caught a few that were "bad" like the Hola extension that I used years ago that was basically a VPN if I remember correctly. They were selling your processor cycles to unvetted users.

I seem to recall the browser warning you when you installed an extension that wanted unusual permissions. Now that I think of it, PIA has a browser extension and on installation, the browser warned me that the extension would observe the webpages you visit (it has to do with that because of a certain feature in it).

[Jason]

Before installing the 'Scroll To Top Button' extension, I looked clicked on 'Read More' on the extension description page. It says on it:

This extension does not read, change, store, or transmit any of your personal data (e.g., logins, passwords, messages, contacts) from any of the sites or your computer in absolutely any form.

Free open-source extension.

Since it's open-source anyone familiar with JavaScript can look at it the code. If you click through to the developer page and then their link on GitHub you can see the code here. So they seem to be fairly transparent. Now, we don't know if anyone has looked at the code but even if they haven't, extensions that ask for permissions will ask you. I installed it and it didn't ask.

On the extension page, it also says this:

Does not require any permissions upon installation.

In Options, if you decide to try the highly customizable expert button modes ââ,¬â€œ modes that work by adding the button(s) onto all pages unless you choose to disable it for certain pages or websites ââ,¬â€œ the following permissions will be requested:

ââ,¬Å"Read and change all your data on the websites you visitââ,¬Â is used to add the button(s) itself, its logic, and its design properties onto all websites without extra actions from you.

So I don't see a reason to worry unless you use the customizable expert button mode. And after trying out the expert mode there appear to be some bugs in that things aren't functioning. But it could be related to Brave's security settings.