You want the publishers should adhere to something proposed by the FTC? That sounds suspiciously like socialized communication. Socialism! Socialism! Be afraid!
[edit - I don’t actually approve of what he is doing, though it is hard to see how else he could fund the development. But implementing DNT was indeed an FTC recommendation, and the attempts of advertisers to ignore it are not good citizenship.]
And also avoiding driveby malware.
Just because a website calls me a thief because I refuse to let them run unsigned, unverified, unaudited code for a third party I don’t know, and who has terrible standards that lets anyone with $5 serve out whatever malware they want to their network, isn’t a reason I should stop blocking ads.
To the whiny content providers who serve ads from third parties: You may call me a thief. I call you the digital equivalent of an unvaccinated plague carrier. If you won’t take responsibility for user’s security, then I reserve the right as a user to secure your site myself.
Seriously, I don’t owe anyone the use of my computer. Least of all third party adservers. And if that costs content providers money, I guess it sucks to be them. They should serve out their own ads instead of letting Honest Bender’s Totally Safe Ad and Tracking and Corporate Espionage Network do it for them.
Exposing yourself to the potential driveby malware hosted from Brave’s advertisers instead of the main sites. Brave may vet their advertisers better but they’re still subbing new content for old, which could also expose you to malware.
Ad blockers do stop malware, the only reason I really started using them a few months ago, but Brave is not ad blocking. They are ad replacing.
Yup. I was just whipping my old dead horse about why I specifically choose not to download random people’s crap in exchange for viewing a website.
I do understand that Brave, while likely better about ad-security, is still serving ads, likely from third parties as well.
If the publisher doesn’t want to serve content to the Brave browser, then they shouldn’t.
Or they could change their practices and stop abusing their readers.
If Eich were hiding how this all works, I would agree with you.
Readability tried a similar “pay the publishers” except from readers that signed up instead of a different set of advertisers. That didn’t work out for them, it just pissed off publishers.
http://blog.readability.com/2012/06/announcement/
Sorry but I see a huge difference between ad blocking (which I consider more of a grey area, but ad security and bandwidth is just ridiculous these days) and ad substitution. I don’t think ad substitution is a good idea.
When the ad providers (and this includes major sites) quit breaking my browser with whateverscript or worse flat out push out malware I will happily quit blocking ads. Till then the content providers can suck it.
I don’t run scripts from jquery.com or webkit or node or wherever, for similar reasons.
I turn discourse.org on when I want to comment, and only then.
Same here.
I’m not seeing anything on their site about Javascript whitelisting or similar mechanisms but I guess I’m not surprised since JS is his baby.
I guess I’ll stick with FF + NoScript.
Maybe off topic but javascript is in desperate need of a formal package management and code signing mechanism. Right now referencing a package amounts to a #include. Namespaces are voluntary and there is no way to say “I want that code and nothing else”.
On the server side, there’s two ways. You can chop the code you need out and host it in a file on your own server, or you can say “screw that fat old package” and write your own routine that is better anyway. My son favors the latter, I generally prefer the former.
On the client side, well, yes. You can only filter by source server or by the subset of javascript capabilities that your browser allows you to block. Which is pretty lame, but anything more granular would be pretty hard to manage, managing by script source server is already too disruptive for most people’s web browsing.
Why is it worth mentioning? Does it have some bearing on the issue that this article discusses?
Do the CEO’s personal beliefs have something to do with the browser his company makes? What about those of the CTO? A VP in Engineering?
I “knew” Brendan for years in that I worked with him from 2006 until he resigned. Even the people I used to work with whom I dislike for their seeing social justice issues everywhere (even when nothing was going on) admitted that they got along with him fine and had seen no indication at work that he had issues with the queer community. Everyone (except I guess close friends) was pretty surprised when his political contributions were revealed. I gather he’s a devout Catholic and this was some weird religious thing.
I don’t care for him personally but that’s for other reasons.
I’m not sure “steal” is the actual word here.
Seems to work on my mac. Always good to have a extra browser around to I can try to isolate stuff. (Facebook is quarantined as the only thing i use Opera for)
Hey guys, Brave really has two business models.
The first one is the one getting all the attention - ad substitution.
But the second one is the most interesting - paying to go ad free.
Both can fund the costs of creation and publishing, but the later offers us, the customers, the ability to directly fund the work by cutting out all the big-brother ad and tracking networks, all the associated security risks and all the annoyance of obnoxious ads.
The websites that are complaining feel threatened because they have a business model that they are happy with so they see no reason to change if they don’t have to. But nobody likes ads and the precipitous rise in ad-blocking ought to be seen as an even bigger threat.
I don’t know how to convince those websites that the days of ad revenue milk and honey are coming to an end. But Brave is offering them a business model that can survive ad-blocking, it is a potential life-line, not a threat.
wouldnt this require them to record every page you visit
That’s not really a fair comparison. It’s not like he’s sneaking into your computer. You’re downloading, by choice, a browser that does a thing. I could configure my browser to display zero ads if I felt like it. I can also just completely refuse to look at ads- which I generally do. What’s next, forcing me to look at the ad by holding my face to the screen? Bear in mind that this browser only does this to the most obtrusive and browser-breaking ads that collect data off you like a sponge everytime you visit a webpage. Let’s not pretend that this is the same as intercepting all ads all the time.
“Content-creators” (a term I despise because it has the same dubious ring of “job-creators”) have to contend with the fact that running a browser without at least minimal Adblock is essentially asking to be swamped with the world’s most annoying ads all the time. That’s not the users’ fault. They didn’t turn websites into garish blinking heaving billboards. It’s also not technically the “content-creators” that are at fault either. Take BoingBoing for instance. A lot of people get upset that they “circumvent” adblock by displaying affiliate content, but in the world of AdBlock, making revenue isn’t easy. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but feature stories on BoingBoing have gotten fewer and further between. Reading between the lines I think that they’re having a hard time paying for freelance or other content. Maybe @beschizza can shed more light on this, but even if BoingBoing is not having a hard time of late, they’re likely the victims of garish, privacy invading ads as much as the users are.
Users don’t always mind ads if they’re minimally invasive, but when the Internet becomes actively hostile to people without adblock software, it forces people to engage in reasonable protective behaviors that ultimately deprive even reasonable websites like BB of revenue. It’s an arms race where only scum triumphs. Browsers like Brave that actively punish malfeasance and privacy-invading ads may be the only way to put a stop to this dynamic.
Side note: I miss the old BoingBoing store. There’s not much in the StackSocial store that I’m really interested in, and the old store had some cool t-shirts and notebooks. I’m not made of money or anything, but I don’t mind throwing my favorite website some green here and there in exchange for some cool swag.
ETA: Or in exchange for you know… something. It doesn’t have to be much, some special content or whatever. I know that most of the price of a t-shirt gets swallowed up in overhead unless you’ve got economies of scale going on. Point is, I spend too much time on here to pretend I shouldn’t toss some money in the gig bag- just make it a little easier.
In general I try to avoid products made by unethical companies/founders, like many people, so it’s probably worth mentioning.
It was definitely newsworthy, and when disgraced individuals attempt to make a return to mainstream life, it’s only fair to point out why they have to mount a comeback in the first place.
It would behoove him, in my opinion, to return with a pro-LGBT product or service, and a mea culpa/apology for his past actions.
In short order, homophobia like Eich’s will be seen as backwards and wrong as opposing “miscegenation”
It doesn’t matter to me that “close friends” thought he was nice. What matters to me are his actions, and I haven’t seen any out LGBT folks who have been defending him as a nice guy. If one is only nice to members of they don’t hate, they’re not a nice person.
I’m proud to fight for justice. It’s not an insult to be an SJW. kisses, sweetheart.
nothing says “im sorry for materially contributing to your oppression” like then trying to make money off of the same group
