How to hide the Tips icons that Brave places on some sites automatically as part of its Rewards system
If you have updated the Brave browser to a recent version, you may have noticed Tips icons being added to some sites. Tips are part of Brave Rewards; they allow users to tip others on the Internet, e.g. a user on Twitter or a site owner, with tokens that can be earned by viewing ads or bought.
You can activate the Shield icon in Brave's address bar to tip any site/page on the Internet. Tips that Brave embeds on sites are displayed on three sites only at the time of writing. The sites in question are Twitter, GitHub and Reddit. On Twitter, the site I noticed the Tips icon first, you see Tips added to any post that is made on the site.
Similarly, on GitHub, you do get them when you browse issues on the site. I could not locate them on Reddit, but the Brave Rewards page suggest that they are displayed on the site as well.
Tips may be displayed even if you have disabled Brave Rewards. The following paragraphs demonstrate how you can turn off the Tips icons that Brave embeds on sites so that no embedding takes place anymore.
How to hide Brave Tips
- Load brave://rewards/ in the address bar to get started. The page is the central management location for all things Brave Rewards.
- You can check if Ads and Monthly Contributions are turned off, but even when you do so, you will still get Tips icons embedded on the Internet.
- Locate the Tips section on the page, and active the Settings icon in its titlebar. It states "Tips Settings" when you hover the mouse cursor over the icon.
- Brave lists the supported sites when you do, and you may uncheck some or all of them.
- Note that you may need to restart Brave before the change takes effect.
When you disable Tips using the interface, Brave won't embed Tips icons anymore on the listed sites.
Closing Words
Making Tips opt-in instead of opt-out is the user-friendly choice; Brave should consider adding an easier opt-out option at the very least to avoid user confusion and irritation.
Now You: What is your take on Brave embedding content on sites?
Brave is my daily browser but when they continue to do this kind of nonsense – tips for Reddit, really- and Brave Today, it is time for me to change to Vivaldi.
You would think in your naivety that Eich had learned from the bloat generating browser that Firefox is. But of couse not. What’s next? Adding Pocket with tips? I think it will end with the downfall of Brave.
If you read the Brave user forum you see people choose Brave primarily for their rather good privacy controls, not for this.
somehow it was always clear that it would go this direction. Brave is about advertising, so the derangement potential was there since the beginning.
@Sebas
I feel inclined to agree. I understand that Brave Software has to fund itself, and I appreciate that they are trying to fund themselves via the BAT ecosystem instead of collecting and selling user data, or by making themselves dependent on their competitor (primary example: Mozilla), i.e. search engine royalties.
But I think part of the reason why Brave Rewards / BAT was accepted so far was that it was disabled by default, which made it non-annoying. They are still sticking to that policy, but they are including more and more hints at Brave Rewards / BAT which you have to separately turn off, and as with you, I also predict that my ways with Brave will part if that trend continues.
But where to go? Firefox also comes with annoyances that with their announcement to focus on “making money” (monetizing Firefox even more) now, I feel like that would be like jumping from the frying pit into the fire, if you know what I mean. Vivaldi is certainly a great browser, but lacks appeal for me because I am not that interested in UI customization. My second choice would probably be Ungoogled Chromium if Brave decides to further annoy me with stuff like that. But for now, I’ll stick with it.
There is always the PaleMeme browser.
How f%$^&%$#&@king disgusting .. injecting their own promotional material (that’s what it is, highlighting the existence of Brave Rewards) into other’s web content. I mean just how low can you go.
– First they act like some sort of legacy gatekeeper and become a man-in-the-middle to exact tolls on advert networks – I get it, it’s a revenue/sustainability model/strategy .. but it’s shady, and we all know about fat legacy gatekeepers
– edit: lots of shady shit in between: like payouts to content creators and more
– Then they hijack the urlbar .. not just searches, but actual TYPED URLS to add affiliate links – and they admitted they crossed a line and said opphs, whoopsy, my bad [before IH says there was no PII, that is not disputed and not why users were upset]
– edit: more shady shit in between
– Now they’re injecting their OWN advertising and marketing spam into content they have no right to be in
– OMFG .. it’s opt-out
Iron Heart: nothing to see, move along people .. “It’s just a random button”. Quick, someone call the hypocrisy police
@Pants
When you ask “How low can you go?” you seem to not consider random trolls making a mountain out of a molehill, acting like some random button is some major shit we should all be very concerned about. Yes, I mean you.
I have debunked the “They hijacked the URL” myth in one of my comments below, yet you keep repeating it, which is pretty pathetic in its own right. Ms. Firefox Advertisement, may I remind you that Firefox also displays affiliate links in the URL bar suggestions:
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/jybx2w/uh_why_is_firefox_showing_me_sponsored_links_in/
But in their case, they are not privacy-respecting hardcoded entries meant to be user counters, as was the case with Brave, nope, in their case a shady proxy was involved. So, my dear Pants, as you would say: “Quick, someone call the hypocrisy police!”
The “more shady shit in between” nonsense I’ll take seriously once you actually say what you mean and provide a credible source, not before. But whatever it is, I am fairly sure it won’t be on the level of the Cliqz experiment, where Mozilla hijacked Firefox downloads (that’s what “hiiacking” actually means, you know, the experiment was inserted without notification and users had no choice) and grabbed people’s browsing history. If you find something that big, I’ll listen.
> “It’s just a random buttonâ€.
Well, pretty much yeah. It just sits there and does nothing. You don’t want it? Turn it off. Except when you have to troll here, in which case it is worth to make some fuss about it.
https://www.coindesk.com/brave-browsers-affiliate-link-controversy-explained
> Monero developer Riccardo Spagni, also known as Fluffypony, captured some of this unease when he tweeted, “Bro. I don’t want my browser touching the URL I type in the address bar.â€
let me type that slowly for you… TOUCHING. THE. URL. I. TYPE. IN. THE. ADDRESS. BAR. … So a user types in binance.us (or pastes it in), does not use any suggestions … and does not expect it to modified/changed – but it is, if that’s not hijacking then up is down
This has nothing to do with search engine referals. A search is not an URL, it is a query that is internally parsed and modified (e.g. dropping search keywords etc) and sent to the right web page etc – part of that modification is adding a referal for search engine deals – which all browsers do (ALL HAIL EICH!! .. see his comment below)
https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269317625915400192
> The autocomplete default was inspired by search query clientid attribution that all browsers do, but unlike keyword queries, a typed-in URL should go to the domain named, without any additions. Sorry for this mistake…
let me repeat that for you, slowly so you can understand
A. TYPED-IN. URL. SHOULD. GO. TO. THE. DOMAIN. NAMED. WITHOUT. ANY. ADDITIONS.
You own beloved leader admits it. Searches are not URLS. They fucked with people’s URLs. And just as bad, they didn’t do any of it transparently.
So much for your debunking “They hijacked the URL†myth
> Well, pretty much yeah. It just sits there and does nothing.
OMG it’s OK everyone .. it doesn’t do anything. Phew. That was close. Oh, and if you don’t like it you can turn it off. Thanks goodness. That makes it all better. Except, no it fucking doesn’t. They’re INJECTING spam and shit into web content. Where does it stop? What’s next?
You cry and scream if Firefox adds sponsored (pocket) stories to Activity Stream (i.e the default start page). Activity Stream is part of the UI/chrome/privileged pages, not web content. But when Brave injects advertising into actual web content, which should be sacrosanct, just like typed URLs, it’s all “bah, nothing to see, move along”.
Clearly Brave cannot be trusted to stop pulling shady shit – they will not stop and they refuse to “learn”, because ultimately the goal is money, not protecting users.
@Pants
> TOUCHING. THE. URL. I. TYPE. IN. THE. ADDRESS. BAR.
Brave doesn’t do that for 99.999999999999999% of URLs, only for a few select URLs on partner websites, and even then, you had the option not to choose the referral link. It was offered as a suggestion. But it’s certainly good enough for a Pants trolling attempt.
Perhaps you prefer them to fund themselves via shady deals with Google, sellling their users out to the search & ad monopoly, like Mozilla does. Well, I don’t.
> A search is not an URL,
This is stupid, a search always produces a URL (anyone who takes a look at the URL bar on e.g. the Google search result pages knows that), and of course you could modify that if you wanted to.
> A. TYPED-IN. URL. SHOULD. GO. TO. THE. DOMAIN. NAMED. WITHOUT. ANY. ADDITIONS.
Cool, no browser does that. Firefox doesn’t do that, either. They also modify search URLs with referrals, just like Vivaldi does. How is that allowed, and on partner websites it is suddenly forbidden? Hypocrite much?
> They fucked with people’s URLs.
I repeat myself: So does any other browser which has search engine deals attached to its business. And on publicly known partner websites it is suddenly forbidden?
> That makes it all better. Except, no it fucking doesn’t.
What does the Tip button actually do (i.e. what negative effect does it have for the user) that triggers you so much? Oh right, nothing.
> You cry and scream if Firefox adds sponsored (pocket) stories to Activity Stream (i.e the default start page).
Well, Firefox also suggests affiliate links and connects to some random proxy during that process. That’s much more shady than anything Brave does, by a long shot. You just choose to hypocritically overlook it, as always.
> Clearly Brave cannot be trusted to stop pulling shady shit
The “shady shit” Brave pulls is not even in the same league as Mozilla’s proxy affiliate links or the Cliqz experiment. You are a proven hypocrite. Perhaps you should clean up behind Firefox before you make an attempt at bashing Brave. You still have much to do. You are currently promoting spyware, dear friend.
> they will not stop and they refuse to “learnâ€, because ultimately the goal is money,
You have to make money if you don’t want to end up Google’s slave like Mozilla. None of their money making has ever affected user data, only when this happens I might care. Not before, nothing you have said so far is something I care about, because its negative affect on the protection of my data or my security can be quantified: Zero.
Stick to the point dude and take your strawman waffling elsewhere
– No-one has claimed it did it to all URLs
– No-one is crying over suggestions (or links in the home page widget/advert)
– No-one is crying over search queries
– No-one is crying about a company’s need to generate income
Even Eich can admit that search QUERIES are not the same as a user-generated URLs (typed, pasted, bookmarks). Even Eich can admit this crossed a line. Why did all those people get upset and explicitly say “typed urls” etc – because that is the point, along with no transparency
But you won’t admit this: so you can justify Brave’s actions
—
Same with a line being crossed when the browser decides it can arbitrarily inject content into web pages to promote itself and it’s services. Today github, tomorrow the world.
Also, comparing to something Firefox did (over three years ago) to the shit Brave pulls today, doesn’t make the shady shit Brave does suddenly OK. Take your aboutwhatism elsewhere
@Pants
> No-one has claimed it did it to all URLs
Only to websites publicly PARTNERED with Brave Software. You are surprised that Brave gets funding from partners? Mozilla also gets funding via Google Search (Google is Mozilla’s overlord) in much the same manner, hypocrite.
> No-one is crying over suggestions (or links in the home page widget/advert)
Except you do, claiming “hijacking” when in fact there was a choice presented in the drop-down menu. Sick of it.
> No-one is crying over search queries
It’s inconvenient for you to talk about search URLs because that would reveal your hypocrisy. Every browser does what Brave does AT LEAST in relation to searches.
> No-one is crying about a company’s need to generate income
Brave Software getting funding was the only effect of the referral link, since it did not hurt user privacy or security.
> Even Eich can admit that search QUERIES are not the same as a user-generated URLs (typed, pasted, bookmarks).
There is no material difference between the URL a search generates and any other URL. Don’t try to cheaply deflect here.
> Even Eich can admit this crossed a line.
Yeah, a line every other browser also crossed by doing it to searches at least:
“We should note that all browsers with major search engine partnerships add affiliate codes to search queries (this is industry-standard since Safari’s Google deal in 2003).”
source: https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/
Eich also pointed that out in what you deem his “apology”, but of course you omit that to invoke another impression. It’s called lying by omission.
> Why did all those people get upset and explicitly say “typed urls†etc – because that is the point, along with no transparency
There is no point because nothing bad materialized for the user here. In fact, there is no point to anything you write here.
> Same with a line being crossed when the browser decides it can arbitrarily inject content into web pages to promote itself and it’s services.
OK, even though I did originally not plan to, I go in a little bit into what such a statement means: That would mean all dark mode extensions, stuff like GreaseMonkey, adblockers (at least their cosmetic filtering), quite a few translator extensions injecting a “Translate this with me!” button into websites etc. etc. would have to get banned, because after all, they do modify web pages, in case of the translator extension even doing the very same thing Brave does (injecting a button into web pages, promoting their service).
If web content is “sacrosanct” as you put it, all those things would have to frowned upon. Except I hear nobody complaining about random shite like that, except here, from you, in an attempt to bash and discredit Brave. You are pretty much alone with such nonsense. Nobody cares about such buttons at a deeper level, and your whining is not really about to change that.
> Today github, tomorrow the world.
And the day after tomorrow, the universe.
> Also, comparing to something Firefox did (over three years ago) to the shit Brave pulls today, doesn’t make the shady shit Brave does suddenly OK. Take your aboutwhatism elsewhere
Well, Brave does not do it anymore, either. The incident we are talking about here happened in June 2020, half a year ago. They have since disabled that (Of note: Personally, I wouldn’t have disabled something all other browsers also do just because some Firefox trolls asked me to):
https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/
So you are allowed to ride historical incidents to death, issues that had no impact on the privacy and security whatsoever, while I am not allowed to bring up historical incidents of Firefox that had an ACTUAL impact on the privacy of users? Your hypocrisy level has just reached new levels, lol. If you think you are justified in bringing up stuff that Brave does not do anymore, I can do the same with Firefox. Those are the rules.
And it’s also not “whataboutism”, it is meant to show what kind of scandals you are willing to let slide if only they happen in a product YOU are a fan of and promote, while at the same time fighting Brave tooth and nail over something that didn’t even violate user privacy and was a fully legal and legitimate means of funding (the same way Firefox funds itself in relation to searches, rendering you a double hypocrite).
I am about to add yet another case of what you would call “whataboutism”, because you failed to heed my advice…
“Perhaps you should clean up behind Firefox before you make an attempt at bashing Brave.”
…so here it comes:
Mozilla also, in another incident, inserted a system add-ons into all Firefox installations that kept the default settings. That experiment “Mr Robot” (meant to promote the TV show of the same name – no way Mozilla got paid for that one, eh?) ALTERED WEBPAGES, the very same thing you bash Brave for:
“In this case, Looking Glass was pushed to a big bunch of people – seemingly everyone who kept the default settings – and was intended as a game to promote the hacker-centric TV suspense-drama. Looking Glass, when activated, would alter webpages participating in the, presumably paid-for, Mr Robot promotion, to present web surfers with puzzles, clues, and similar stuff.”
source: https://www.theregister.com/2017/12/18/mozilla_mr_robot_firefox_promotion/
Oops, the very same thing you bash Brave for, happened in your beloved Firefox, however, it was even worse for a number of reasons:
– Brave used hardcoded entries, i.e. the application itself provided the suggestions and it did so after a regular update. Mozilla used a built-in backdoor in Firefox allowing them to make users download and execute whatever remote code they come up with, i.e. they hijacked Firefox with adware coming from their servers. It’s a case of remote code execution, and that’s plain malware behavior.
– This happened for all Firefox users, while on Brave, you would only encounter the “Tips” when on Reddit / GitHub / Twitter or the historical suggestions in the URL bar when you were going to a crypto-related website. The Mozilla incident was much bigger in scope.
– The “Tip” buttons promote Brave Rewards, a built-in feature crafted by Brave Software. The referral links aided funding Brave when you visited known(!) partner websites. Mozilla was never partnered with the company producing Mr Robot and there was no prior announcement, so there is the “lack of transparency” we hear about so much here.
What happened in Firefox so far, compared to what happened in Brave so far:
– FF still suggests promoted websites in the address bar drop-down, however, contrary to Brave, Firefox feels the need to connect to a random proxy as well, while Brave just provided hardcoded suggestions.
– Firefox alters websites for some random company Mozilla has never been partnered with, and uses remote code insertion on all users to achieve that. Brave promotes a built-in feature on select websites.
– Mozilla hijacks a number of Firefox downloads with Cliqz spyware, again using remote code insertion, collecting the browsing history of users. There is (luckily) not even a remotely comparable case for Brave yet.
Don’t cry me river now saying those are historical incidents, you find it valid to attack Brave for historical incidents as well. Same rules for everyone.
After these examples, your hypocrisy and the lack of validity of your hatred towards Brave is laid bare for all to see.
The underlying truth is this: I have a history of calling Mozilla out on their malware-like behavior, behavior that has had an actual (not just emotional, lack of transparency blah blah) impact on users, who got their browsing history stolen and worse. Which is why I don’t use their product anymore and trust Brave Software over them now. You feel hurt by this because you have invested serious girl hours in a quest to improve Firefox’s privacy, you’ve come into close contact with engineers, had lively discussions with users etc. In short, you grew attached to the product. So when someone like me comes around saying that he doesn’t trust Mozilla and makes no secret out of using a browser on whose users and founder you look down upon, this aggravates you. So you dig and dig and dig, trying to find some dirt you can throw back at me, but since there isn’t any actual Mozilla-level dirt, you have to resort to making mountains out of molehills as a surrogate, bickering about random buttons on websites or autocomplete suggestions for known partner websites in the address bar. This may grant you some undeserved applause by some halfwit fans of yours, but anyone with more than half a brain should realize by now that if those are literally the only things you could find in your vain quest to discredit Brave, it’s actually a pretty solid browser.
I know that you are seeking cheap revenge on me because I do not hide some lesser known and more ugly facts about Mozilla, but do realize this: For every spoon of dirt you throw at Brave or me, I have two cans of dirt to throw back at Firefox and you. So if you want to play that silly game, play it, but realize that you will lose and lose badly. I’ll expose your nonsense and won’t give up if I can help it, because I hate hypocrites.
Your petty revenge based on non-issues you attempt to blow up, in an effort to make them look like something legit, is wasting my time just like everyone else’s. The only thing it achieves is cluttering the comment section with irrelevant nonsense.
Holy cowabunga dude … get it out of your system man … you seem angry. Now go look up the definition of aboutwhatism
> There is no material difference between the URL a search generates and any other URL. Don’t try to cheaply deflect here. [snip ] Yeah, a line every other browser also crossed by doing it to searches at least [snip] It’s inconvenient for you to talk about search URLs because that would reveal your hypocrisy
I’m not deflecting anything. People had no issue with referrals on search engine deals: i.e search QUERIES – every browser does it and it’s been standard for a long time. The issue they had was non-search queries .. i.e typed URLs. This was a new and unexpected behavior
End users could see a difference and complained. Eich could see the difference. But you don’t. You’re welcome to say that _YOU_ don’t personally see a difference .. but you can’t speak for all those who complained and Eich agreed with them, not you.
> So you are allowed to ride historical incidents to death
lulz … I hardly ever post here. For years, you have repeatedly brought up old historical Firefox changes and posted what I can only describe as copy-pasta in spamming Firefox articles: no-one is saying any company shouldn’t be held up to scrutiny (and crucified for dick moves) – what is important is how a company responds
– for example, after Cliqz, Robot: Mozilla introduced a digital trail of accountability and sign offs. Not just for experiments, but for telemetry as well – and it’s never happened again.
– Brave makes a mistake (e.g. the affiliate link), apologizes and fixes it. You: “Oh, bugs happen. It’s been fixed. It was a mistake. Fake news”
– Firefox makes a mistake (e.g. Mr Robot), apologizes, fixes it, never happens again for three+ years so far .. You: “NEVER FORGET THE ROBOT”
You’re the one that brought up Cliqz in this thread. You’re the one trying to compare browsers. I was showing a part history of Brave’s slim-shadiness, in an article about Brave
> The only thing it achieves is cluttering the comment section with irrelevant nonsense
ROFL. That’s so hilariously ironic. You should become a comedian. Nothing I said is irrelevant. What you have said is outright misleading, completely off-topic, or repeating what I already said: exhibit A: aboutwhatism, talking about PII, security, number of domains involved, arguing about search QUERIES vs URLS, etc
> > [me] Same with a line being crossed when the browser decides it can arbitrarily inject content into web pages to promote itself and it’s services.
> [IH] OK, even though I did originally not plan to, I go in a little bit into what such a statement means
Read what I said: … when the BROWSER decides … to PROMOTE itself. This has nothing to do with legitimate functions let alone extensions (which are user opt in)
You just keep clutching at straws and making dumb generic wild off-topic statements because you know what Brave is doing here is SHADY AF. They’re a venture capitalist first and a browser fork second: revenues trump users: but I get that this is a fine balancing act
But they are always going to be pushing the boundaries on what people find acceptable. Just own up to it bro.
@Pants
> Of course they end up _AT_ an URL, pointing this out is just a waste of space
They are still URLs and you could add anything to them if you wanted to (this is what all browsers I know of do, adding their referrals to the URLs resulting from searches).
> All those who complained + all the articles outlining the problem, and even Eich: typed urls are not search queries, changing typed urls by default is new and unexpected, we hear you, we reverted it: an admission of crossing a line
> IH: eh, a search is the same as a typed url
What you say is nonsense because the very premise is nonsense. I specifically referred to there not being a TECHNICAL difference between a typed URL and a URL produced by a search, because there is none. Both are URLs and can be modified. What Eich meant is that there is a difference when it comes to BUSINESS CONDUCT, i.e. most browsers add their referrals to search URLs, while Brave also adds their referral when you go to select crypto-related websites. There is a business difference here (although IMHO a negligible one, if you do it for searches, it can’t suddenly be wrong for other partner websites – that would be absurd), not a technical difference.
You attempt to make me look like an idiot here by pitting my technical explanation against Eich’s more or less business-related differentiation. You are deliberately misleading here.
> Guess who is right and who is wrong
Perhaps you shouldn’t mix up different topics before that can be determined. Both Eich and me are correct.
> Dude, the referral link is automatically chosen for you by default … (caps mine) “when he typed “binance.us†into the Brave search bar, and the browser AUTOCOMPLETED it to “binance[.]us/en?ref=35089877.â€
1. You still had the option not to choose the referral link.
2. That the referral link was chosen was a bug they have admitted to: https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/
I quote from that:
„The bad news is that we made a mistake when adding affiliate codes and logic using them to suggest alternative completions shown in the drop-down under the address bar. The error was adding the affiliate code to the default completion (where you go if you hit the or key) for a small set of URLs, instead of only to the suggested alternative completions that users must pick manually.“
source: https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/
I consider this another case of you riding former Brave issues to death while I am expected to instantly forget and forgive when it comes to Firefox. As I said, hypocrisy.
But even IF the user chose the referral, you still owe me an explanation regarding the negative outcome for the user here. As far as I can tell, the user would help Brave in getting funding from Binance, while user privacy and security remain fully intact. If that is the only outcome of the referral that makes it different from the ordinary Binance URL, give me a reason to care. Modified links in itself are not concerning, if that was a concern, I’d also have to be angry about how all other browser conduct searches.
Are you done now riding that historical incident to death?
> As you so often say, defaults matter .. except when they don’t and it suits your argument. Personally I don’t give a shit about defaults – I only care about what the browser can actually do.
When I said „defaults matter“, I said it in relation to privacy and security, not in relation to random shit not connected to either. Why should I care about settings that are not related to my own privacy and security to begin with? My „default matters“ statement still holds true the way I intended it, not the way you are trying to frame it here. Also, considering that you supposedly don’t care about defaults, this is a pretty hilarious quote of yours:
> OMG it’s OK everyone .. it doesn’t do anything. Phew. That was close. Oh, and if you don’t like it you can turn it off. Thanks goodness. That makes it all better. Except, no it fucking doesn’t.
If defaults doesn’t matter according to you, then why is me suggesting to turn it off if you don’t want it invalid? If you don’t want it, turn it off, defaults don’t matter! You would not let that slide when it comes to Brave, but it’s your policy for e.g. Firefox. Hypocrite much?
And then again, when I said „defaults matter“, it was clearly related to privacy and security (the only settings I care about, and nothing of why Brave can’t be trusted according to you has anything to do with either), in that case the privacy and security of Firefox. Firefox has privacy and security settings that have user-hostile defaults, among others the Firefox Experiments / Normandy-related settings that allow Mozilla to pull off funny tracks like the above.
> When I qualify a statement for your (and readers’) benefit, you repeat it and/or attack it, and you almost never qualify your own claims. Why should I bother anymore when I point out your BS.
Quite patronizing coming from someone who has no achievements. You don’t grant me any advantages and most of what you say is frankly bullshit, manipulation, and lies by omission. Your most recent lie by omission happened literally one sentence ago, when you ripped my „defaults matter“ totally out of context to invoke an impression much different than what was clearly intended by me.
> Hijacking .. oooh, you don’t like that word – it makes you angry.
I have no problem with the term, you just don’t know what it means and keep using it in wrong ways. Hijacking implies:
– No user choice involved (not the case here).
– Totally different destination from what was intended by the user (not the case here).
Referral links don’t qualify for the term „hijacking“.
> If it’s automatically completing my typing with an added referral then I’m calling it HIJACKING:
See, you don’t know what the term means. See above.
> it jumped in my urlbar, modified the contents, and went down slim-shady alley.
It modified the URL, but you had another choice which you conveniently forget about here. And again, that it was the default suggestion was a bug, but even then, you still had a choice that was easily accessible.
And „slim-shady“ alley, coming from a Mozilla supporter: LOL!
> Feel free to call it “helpful url massage for making of prodigious moneys for glorious brave†or something if you want.
I won’t craft such stupid wording but indeed, the only thing differentiating the referral from the ordinary Binance URL was that the former helped funding Brave Software (not out of the user’s pocket, out of Binance’s pocket). Again, this is preferable over selling out to Google and deliberately keeping privacy- and security-related settings at their user-hostile values because the overlord demands it and most users don’t know how to change it (*cough* Mozilla *cough*)
> lulz .. more crap and noise. Who said to do anything like that?
Lutz. It was you who said that the referral link was not just a Brave identifier, but a campaign-related referral. I said there was no difference, because the referral was only offered in Brave and not in other browsers, and that it’s thus acting as a Brave identifier as far as Binance is concerned. The only way in which it would not serve as a Brave identifier is when you copy the URL out of Brave’s address bar into another browser like Firefox, and go to Binance then. I said this was implausible. As this is highly implausible, it is indeed a Brave identifier and the differentiation between „It identifies the browser!“ and „It is a campaign referral!“ is totally irrelevant. There is a difference in wording only unless you think copying the referral from Brave and using it in another browser is a plausible scenario.
> I hardly ever post here.
Does your frequent anti-Brave trolling still qualify as „hardly ever“, I don’t think so…
> For years, you have repeatedly brought up old historical Firefox changes and posted what I can only describe as copy-pasta in spamming Firefox articles: no-one is saying any company shouldn’t be held up to scrutiny (and crucified for dick moves)
Bad luck lying day, my friend. I haven’t even been on gHacks for years, so if you attempt to lie about me, try to get the dates right. Anyway, I haven’t even mentioned Mr. Robot, Cliqz etc. for quite some time because there was no immediate need to. I have to bring them up again to show you for the serial hypocrite you are. So much for „copy and paste“ (which is something I also never do if I can avoid it).
> what is important is how a company responds
You mean like this?
„Mozilla pilots Cliqz engine in Firefox to slurp user browsing data“
„Updated: Mozilla insists the pilot program will improve user privacy, not lessen it.“
source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-which-slurps-user-browsing-data/
War is peace, freedom is slavery, weakness is strength, data collection is data protection.
Mozilla unapologetically responds with Orwellian newspeak when they were caught stealing user data, while Brave is forced to apologize for non-issues. Very just, I prefer Brave Software still.
> for example, after Cliqz, Robot: Mozilla introduced a digital trail of accountability and sign offs. Not just for experiments, but for telemetry as well – and it’s never happened again.
Well, this was as recent as one month ago (shady proxy incident):
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/jybx2w/uh_why_is_firefox_showing_me_sponsored_links_in/
Also, as if any of us could verify structural changes of Mozilla. LOL, fairy tale land. If anything, their recent fuck-up is proof that nothing has changed.
> You: “Oh, bugs happen. It’s been fixed. It was a mistake. Fake newsâ€
That wasn’t even me:
„The bad news is that we made a mistake when adding affiliate codes and logic using them to suggest alternative completions shown in the drop-down under the address bar. The error was adding the affiliate code to the default completion (where you go if you hit the or key) for a small set of URLs, instead of only to the suggested alternative completions that users must pick manually.“
source: https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/
So yes, it was a mistake, and you are spreading fake news.
> You: “NEVER FORGET THE ROBOTâ€
You: „NEVER FORGET THE REFERRAL LINKS!“
Hypocrite much? Except Mozilla inserted their stuff malware style I guess… So it’s not that easy to forget.
> You’re the one that brought up Cliqz in this thread. You’re the one trying to compare browsers.
Wrong. I am providing context for your complaints by demonstrating what an actual problem would look like. Has the side effect of revealing you as a hypocrite.
> Nothing I said is irrelevant.
All of what you said is totally irrelevant unless you can show me how the „Brave fuck-ups“ actually impacted user privacy and security because if you can’t demonstrate that, nobody has a reason to care. It would also mean you are making mountains out of molehills (as if that was a surprise…)
> when the BROWSER decides … to PROMOTE itself. This has nothing to do with legitimate functions let alone extensions (which are user opt in)
The browser is also „user opt-in“, nobody forces you to use Brave. If blown up non-issues are enough o disqualify it, use something else. Who are you to say that Brave Rewards is not a legitimate function? Because this is what the Tip buttons are advertising after all…
> You just keep clutching at straws and making dumb generic wild off-topic statements because you know what Brave is doing here is SHADY AF.
No, what they are doing is not „SHADY AF“, and Pants wishing that it was so doesn’t change that. All other browsers also modify URLs resulting from searches, so if Brave is shady based on that, so are other browsers – there is no technical difference between doing it on a search result page or on e.g. Binance as a publicly known partner. Brave also isn’t shady based on putting a button into websites, this behavior is exhibited by various popular browser extensions (and occasionally Firefox, lol), and nobody out there cares.
The examples I came up with nicely show what you are willing to let slide if only Firefox is the involved party, while attacking Brave over imaginary „issues“ unrelated to privacy and security, i.e. non-issues.
> They’re a venture capitalist first and a browser fork second: revenues trump users: but I get that this is a fine balancing act
Perhaps you should refrain from accusing Brave of questionable ethics. Again, an example of what you are willing to let slide if only Firefox is the involved party:
Mozilla is split up between the non-profit foundation and the for-profit Mozilla Corp. Since for-profit corporations are banned from begging for donations, but Mozilla wants to do that so much, they came up with an oh-so-not-shady solution: They beg for donations, but they don’t overtly tell people that the donations are being used for virtue signaling projects supported by the Mozilla Foundation, instead of Firefox development (you know, the purpose people actually donated for), as Firefox development is conducted by the Mozilla Corporation, which receives its income from Google (meaning Firefox is already fully funded). So in addition to Firefox not even needing any user money, they are misleading people by not making it clear that donations can literally go anywhere except to Firefox development.
Again, we can talk about company ethics here, but this will again something that will horribly backfire for you. Believe me, you don’t want me to discuss this in depth, suffice to say that in terms of morals, Brave Software is not as corrupt as Mozilla (you know, the company you hypocritically support while bashing Brave).
> But they are always going to be pushing the boundaries on what people find acceptable.
Call me again when they hit rock bottom like Mozilla (i.e. stealing the browsing history of users in ways typical for malware and worse)
This is my last comment in this thread. Feel free to carry on with your petty revenge, blowing non-issues out of proportion in order to then ride them to death, mislead your naive fans all day long, but know that I – contrary to you – have actual dirt on the project you so ardently support, hypocrite.
> > Me: You: “Oh, bugs happen. It’s been fixed. It was a mistake. Fake newsâ€
> IH: That wasn’t even me
I am going to call you a big fat massive LIAR
You said all of those right here in this article’s comments. e.g. You replied to DrItalo with “that old fake news”, and I can find you saying those same things about the affiliate link fiasco in other threads
> Iron Heart: “Anyway, I haven’t even mentioned Mr. Robot, Cliqz etc. for quite some time”
I am going to call you a big fat massive LIAR .. AGAIN
comment December 23rd: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/12/22/firefox-84-0-1-update-fixes-crashes-and-other-issues/
quote Iron Heart: “other incidents like Cliqz experiment, Mr Robot extension”
comment December 21: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/12/20/firefox-85-will-improve-privacy-with-network-partitioning-feature/
quote Iron Heart: “Occasionally, anyway: https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-which-slurps-user-browsing-data/”
comment December 12: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/12/11/google-enables-controversial-extension-manifest-v3-in-chrome-88-beta/
quote Iron Heart: “You are a bit late to the party, it’s not like collecting the browsing history of users it never happened with Mozilla: https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-which-slurps-user-browsing-data/”
for years (or at least a couple of days shy of two years to be more precise), you have spammed ghacks articles with incessant repeated posts and copypasta, not to mention all that shilling
> Bad luck lying day, my friend. I haven’t even been on gHacks for years
I am going to call you a big fat massive LIAR … AGAIN
comment December 31 2018: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/12/31/firefox-with-ads-on-new-tab-page/
search for Iron Heart
> This is my last comment in this thread
Sweeeeeeet. But sheesh dude, that last one was really long. I hope you wasted lots of time typing it all out. It’s all crap dude.
Brave is SHADY AF when it comes to money/funding. If money is on the table, users/content-creators can get stuffed. They’re happy to just do it and deal with any fallout later, hoping to get away with it.
Everything I said is 100% true. Almost everything you said is smoke and mirrors and noise and a waste of time. And for the love of humanity, go look up the word “aboutwhatism”. Also, look up the word hypocrisy. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I post to show two things 1) that what you say is misleading/lies/incorrect and 2) to show up your hypocrisy. And now it seems that is your favorite word to describe me. I do not think you know what the word means.
> unless you can show me how the „Brave fuck-ups“ actually impacted user privacy and security because if you can’t demonstrate that, nobody has a reason to care
I never claimed the affiliate linking did. Did you know that Mr Robot also did not impact any user privacy or security. And yet you have brought that up probably a hundred times. Just another example of your hypocrisy: seriously dude, go look the word up
@Pants
> I am going to call you a big fat massive LIAR
What I said was the original claim that it was a bug (i.e. that the referral was the first suggestion) did not come from me, it came from Brave Software. That’s true and I have even provided a source for that, so why are you still arguing over it, in your usual insulting manner no less?
> I am going to call you a big fat massive LIAR .. AGAIN
Okay, provided the frequency with which I warn people of Mozilla’s shady business antics even matters: I went for months without mentioning Mr. Robot or Cliqz (in any depth), and you know that. But hey, rest assured: Your anti-Brave bickering and massive trolling incites me to mention it more again in the future, because why shouldn’t I? If historical incidents are good enough for you to bicker about, be prepared for me returning the favor…
> You replied to DrItalo with “that old fake newsâ€, and I can find you saying those same things about the affiliate link fiasco in other threads
I said that it’s fake news because that is what it is – I was talking about the hijacking claim in this instance, don’t mix things up to confuse others, Pants. The hijacking claim is wrong to a degree where even trolls like you don’t claim it anymore, after being shown what the word really means (and you are the one suggesting I should look words up, lol…).
> for years (or at least a couple of days shy of two years to be more precise), you have spammed ghacks articles with incessant repeated posts and copypasta, not to mention all that shilling
No, I haven’t been a regular commenter for “years”, and I do not copy and paste. You repeating it does not make it any more true. You have been here for years, promoting the dying spyware called Mozilla Firefox based on “privacy” while impeding user security, stability, performance etc. I am not using it for reasons and when I mention them, that is not “shilling”.
> comment December 31 2018
Cool, 2 years (yay, jubilee today!) is not “for years”, my gal. What you said implies a much longer time span, stop being deliberately misleading. Until a year ago, I was also more or less an irregular commenter. Not that I have to justify my commenting habits before you, just saying…
By the way, how exactly is my commenting (of which I, contrary to you apparently, have no exact protocol) relevant? Do you want to show others that I am a troll with that? I am asking because showing others that I am telling the truth about Firefox, while you don’t, won’t quite achieve that.
> Brave is SHADY AF when it comes to money/funding.
So is Mozilla, misleading people into donating to Firefox when the money can go anywhere else except to Firefox development. Or how about taking money from your competitor cartel-style, stabbing your on users in the back by providing bad privacy by default, so that sugar daddy Google is happy? LOL, again: She who sits in the glass house…
> Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Except when you are the only hypocrite here while accusing others of being hypocrites in order to deflect. “Accuse others of what I do and am myself” is the oldest trick in the world.
I have proof that you are a hypocrite, where is your proof? Your “proof” of my hypocrisy so far was to rip a former quote of mine (“defaults matter”) out of context (which was privacy and security settings), deliberately putting it in a wrong context (random buttons on websites being a default), all while being a total hypocrite about it yourself because “defaults don’t matter in Firefox lol”…
> Did you know that Mr Robot also did not impact any user privacy or security.
Yep, and I never claimed that it did (again, nice attempt at misleading by mixing things up). But you say the browser altering websites is bad, and that’s what Firefox did with the help of the Mr. Robot extension. The privacy invasion happened with Cliqz.
> Just another example of your hypocrisy: seriously dude, go look the word up
LOL, you don’t know when to stop. You are a proven hypocrite for all to see. You blow up non-issues when it comes to Brave while not caring about actual issues when Firefox is concerned. The former is also dishonest since you know that no privacy or security breach happened in Brave, yet you still blow it up as if talking about a legitimate concern…
You failed to answer my question, again, too: What was the bad consequence for the user when the referral is being used? As in privacy and security impact…
I didn’t plan to reply, but your insults and lies and hypocrite deflection tactics forced me to. Just give it a rest, I am sure arkengem needs your unwanted attention more than I do… But whatever you do, get yourself some help. That you obsessively read every single comment of mine and even have a commenting protocol (doing all of this for naught, because the only thing it ultimately proves is that I am bot hiding the truth about FF) is NOT healthy.
@pants At least Brave is not supporting such Censorship like Mozilla does, which wants every Conservative and non-left to be deplatformed
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/
@ironheart quite sad that the Mozilla crowd is actively rooting for a clear non-democratic and anti-free-speech policy. Luckily they pay now the price as the massive Twitter backlash shows
> Making Tips opt-in instead of opt-out is the user-friendly choice; Brave should consider adding an easier opt-out option at the very least to avoid user confusion and irritation.
It is certainly irritating but in the end it is not problematic. It’s just a random button. Perhaps they should only enable that when Brave Rewards is also enabled, otherwise it makes very little sense.
The title “problematic”, as far as I’m concerned, can only go to privacy-violating stuff that is enabled but shouldn’t be – so as long as that is not the case in Brave…
Happy Christmas, everyone :)
That.
:)
One more reason why this Browser cannot be trusted. Changing site content, tracker scandals.
Stories like: “Brave browser CEO apologizes for automatically adding affiliate links to cryptocurrency URLs”
Apologetical rhethorics like “it was a mistake!!1”.
Fool me once, fool me twice, fool me thrice, fool me Brave.
@Drilato
> Changing site content, tracker scandals.
OK, those “tip” batches are really inserted into the website, which is not great but can be turned off. But basically not problematic for the user, an optics issue at the core.
Tracker scandals? Care to post a source?
> Stories like: “Brave browser CEO apologizes for automatically adding affiliate links to cryptocurrency URLsâ€
That old fake news again…
What they did was to suggest (not “automatically add”, that’s just a lie) a referral link in the address bar when you navigated to select crypto-related websites. Brave identifies as Chrome usually, in order to avoid web compatibility issues caused by websites arbitrarily locking minor browsers out because they will only accept the most common user agent strings. If nothing was changed, Brave would have identified itself as Chrome on those aforementioned crypto-related websites as well. However, the crypto-related websites like Binance were and are partnered with Brave Software (it’s not like they are hiding it, it’s on their website), and are frequently running campaigns involving the Sponsored New Tab Page (showing their logo on it). In order to know how many Brave users those campaigns attract to the websites, you have to identify Brave users as Brave users, not as Chrome users, which is where the referral link comes into play: It allowed those websites to count Brave users as a whole by differentiating them from Chrome users via referral. All Brave users in question, if they navigated to those websites at all (unlikely), and were using the referral link (also unlikely) were using the very same referral link, it didn’t change on a per-user basis, thus making tracking individual users based on the referral impossible. It was just a counter.
One should also take note of the fact that Brave is not the only browser using referrals, e.g. Vivaldi adds a referral whenever you perform a search within the browser, in order to let their search partners know how many Vivaldi users used their search engine (so pretty similar to what Brave did) – curiously enough, you never hear anything about that, even though it’s 100% comparable. Not that one should hear anything about that, it is a privacy-friendly, non-invasive way to fund yourself by getting paid per click.
On a more personal note, I must say that I strongly dislike it when people spread such fake news here, as if anonymously counting(!) Brave users on a few select websites was a big deal (and they don’t even do that anymore, now they have to search for privacy-infringing ways to fund themselves I guess, because that is what the idiotic complainers apparently want…). Firefox is then often advertised, without giving a single thought to the fact that Firefox has actual privacy scandals under its belt, like the Cliqz experiment with which Mozilla hijacked a number of Firefox downloads, collecting the actual browsing history and website interaction data of users with Cliqz, of course without ever having notified them about it. Makes me sick that such things are generously being overlooked while Brave gets flak for letting publicly known partners count Brave users anonymously on their own websites… It’s not even close.
Quotes from the endless serie “Iron Heart explains the internet”:
“Brave identifies as Chrome usually, in order to avoid web compatibility issues caused by websites arbitrarily locking minor browsers out because they will only accept the most common user agent strings. […], Brave would have identified itself as Chrome on those aforementioned crypto-related websites as well.”
… Brave does identify as “Brave Chrome”!
Example:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Brave Chrome/83.0.4103.116 Safari/537.36Source: We’ve got 3,039 Brave User Agents in our database
Quote:
“[…] you have to identify Brave users as Brave users, not as Chrome users, which is where the referral link comes into play: It allowed those websites to count Brave users as a whole by differentiating them from Chrome users via referral.”
Your overlong attempts at explanations are fantasy stories sucked out of your fingers.
@New Brave User Agents
As for fantasy stories getting sucked out of someone’s fingers, this is my native Brave user agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 11_1_0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/87.0.4280.101 Safari/537.36
This matches the Chrome user agent down to the letter. Any Brave user can verify this here:
https://www.whatsmyua.info/
No idea where you get your user agent from, likely from the era of Muon-based Brave.
> Your overlong attempts at explanations are fantasy stories sucked out of your fingers.
It’s a fake news-free explanation of the purpose of the referral. Deal with it.
Please stop lying about Brave, thank you.
Quote:
“No idea where you get your user agent from, likely from the era of Muon-based Brave.”
Via GitHub → Line 358
https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/e4d056d711a2a41d823f0bb481cc787291b0a2c0/browser/brave_content_browser_client.cc#L358
return ChromeContentBrowserClient::GetUserAgent() +" Brave/" + version_info::GetMajorVersionNumber();
No idea if this code is from the era of Moon-based Brave, I leave this question to brave Brave historians …
@New Brave User Agents
Are you serious? Any Brave user can independently verify that what you say isn‘t true, using websites designed to reveal the user agent, like the one I linked to. Brave shows the Chrome user agent these days, down to the letter. The GitHub commit you linked to is linked to Brave‘s internal versioning, not to what user agent Brave would show to websites. And yes, these two differ.
Independent verification will result in them realizing that you are talking out of your ass, no brave Brave historian needed.
Quote:
“Brave shows the Chrome user agent these days, down to the letter.”
It may or it may not show … in case you are using Brave Android.
Quote:
“using websites designed to reveal the user agent”
What about this one → https://jsbin.com/sexawix/edit?html,js,console
Never mind their mess with UA, it was allways technically easy to detect Brave, no matter the masquerades as Google Chrome.
We are already exposing JavaScript which identifies you as a Brave user
The discussion is not about
Quote “you have to identify Brave users as Brave users, not as Chrome users,”
and that is why
Quote “the referral link comes into play: It allowed those websites to count Brave users as a whole by differentiating them from Chrome users via referral.”
The “differentiating” is about visitors taking part of affiliate marketing or NOT and that is when “the referral link comes in to play”. Typing ‘binance.us’ in address bar and Brave default autocompletes verbatim to add an affiliate code is hijacking the user! to gain a few more $$$
… Sunday Puzzle Special for ghacks-reader …
Copy&paste “binance[.]us/en?ref=35089877” in Firefox adressbar and hit Enter.
Do I get identified as Brave disguised as Chrome? $$$ are gained!
Does Brave get the $$$ despite Firefox is not disguised as Chrome clone???
Any bets please in Basic Attention Token (BAT)
@New Brave User Agents
> It may or it may not show … in case you are using Brave Android.
I am using Brave on macOS and it’s still the Chrome user agent. Is it so hard to admit for you that you were just wrong? I mean, seriously?
> Never mind their mess with UA, it was allways technically easy to detect Brave, no matter the masquerades as Google Chrome.
Yes, you can detect Brave’s adblocker for example, and identify it that way. However, would the fingerprinting of Brave users (that’s what you suggest) be preferable compared to an anonymous referral, I think not… Are there alternate ways of detecting Brave? Yes. Were they used here? No.
> The “differentiating†is about visitors taking part of affiliate marketing or NOT and that is when “the referral link comes in to playâ€.
Huh? I did not dispute that Brave gets paid per click. Clearly the referral link was a means of funding. However:
– An anonymous referral identifying Brave is preferable to the fingerprinting you suggest, which could also be used to identify it. An anonymous referral does not hurt privacy, fingerprinting individual users does.
– Other browsers do the very same thing all the time, e.g. Vivaldi attaches a referral whenever you perform a search within the browser, thus identifying Vivaldi users as Vivaldi users in relation to their search partners. That is perfectly acceptable, but what Brave is doing (the very same thing), is suddenly wrong and evil? Please explain. Every single browser I know of does that at least in relation to searches!
– It is a legitimate way of funding preferable over collecting and selling user data. Serious question: Do you think Brave should be forbidden to be partnered with Binance? Would turning the user data to gold be preferable?
> Typing ‘binance.us’ in address bar and Brave default autocompletes verbatim to add an affiliate code is hijacking the user!
Again, it was not “hijacking”. “Hijacking” implies that users had no other choice, but they had the choice not to use the referral link. Regardless of that, the negative impact on the user IF the user was indeed using the referral link was absolutely zero. It is not you who has to pay any money here, it is Binance who agreed to pay money to Brave Software (just like search engines agree to pay money to other browsers based on the number of searches). Please tell me what the negative impact in the user is here? That he / she financially supports the makers of his own browser, not even out of his / her own pocket? Pretty please, you have to come up with a better disadvantage, because that isn’t one… And if it is one, all other browsers would also have to plead guilty, so why are you picking Brave?
I suppose Vivaldi and most other browsers also “hijack” the user when adding their referral whenever you perform a search within the browser, that would be a consequence of your argument.
> Copy&paste “binance[.]us/en?ref=35089877†in Firefox adressbar and hit Enter.
You are not supposed to do that. I can do the same the other way around, I copy a Firefox Google search link to Brave and Google pays $$$ to Mozilla based on the number of people using the default search engine (supposedly). But no, you would not get identified as Brave, because Firefox could be identified as Firefox by Binance (probably through checking the user agent), so it would be clear that you are not using Brave.
> Chrome clone
The real reason why this Firefox fanboy hates Brave, despite his own browser doing the same fucking thing with Google Search.
To keep it short:
Anyone can create a binance referral and his own link!
https://www.binance.com/en/activity/referral
Binance gives a shit, if that referral is delivered via Brave, Chrome, Firefox, sitting on your horse or Iron Heart walking backwarts with flip flops straight in their headquarter as long as you make a trade!
All that fuss
Quote “you have to identify Brave users as Brave users, not as Chrome users,â€
and that is why
Quote “the referral link comes into play: It allowed those websites to count Brave users as a whole by differentiating them from Chrome users via referral.â€
is just “Iron Heart explains the Internet” BS misleading ghacks readers about Brave`s hijacking of a typed URL!
@New Brave User Agents
Who ever claimed that you cannot create Binance referral links? After all, Brave Software had to get their Binance referral from somewhere, too.
But Brave was using ONE specific referral and if you create another, completely different referral yourself, then this referral of yours is not in any way, shape, or form related to Brave Software!
The referral Brave used was to identify Brave users on Binance who would be the only ones using that specific referral!
Boy, this is getting tiresome, all because you can’t admit that you were wrong on basically all accounts. “Iron Heart explains the Internet” is not the title I would use here, it’s more or less “Iron Heart debunks bullshit brought up by tech illiterates”, and has been for a while now.
I am not surprised ;~)
Quote:
“But Brave was using ONE specific referral […]”
… Iron Heart Tuesday Specific Puzzle …
Who told you that?
a) Your supervisor at the trollfactory in Санкт-Петербург?
b) Brendan Eich at the your private pokerparty last night?
or
c) is this the latest visionary elaborate out of your by hand turnable octagonal Confusius-Machine?
Hear here, quel debunk:
Quote
“[…] and if you create another, completely different referral yourself, then this referral of yours is not in any way, shape, or form related to Brave Software!”
How trivial … that’s the sole nature of a referral code!
and NOT
Iron Heart said on December 25, 2020 at 1:29 pm
“It allowed those websites to count Brave users as a whole by differentiating them from Chrome users via referral.
It was just a counter[sic!].”
FYI
It is common knowlegde, that a slew of technical hurdles make it difficult to count Brave’s user base, so no one has shared any market share analysis numbers that include Brave.
But, my dear debunker … binance[.]com isn’t known for browser stats, their buisness is “Buy & sell Crypto in minutes”.
Dont believe me? …Ask @pants
Quote:
>>> It’s not about the “browser†– it’s about tracking the “dealâ€
… and who get’s the commission when someone completes a trade!
@New Brave User Agents
Your last comment did not even have a single argument in it. :D
The fact is: There was one referral used by Brave Software, and it served as a identifier of Brave users for Binance so that Brave Software could get paid per visit (nobody denies that Brave Software got paid, in case you haven’t noticed). Brave Software getting paid and the referral being a user counter in relation to this is not mutually exclusive! There is no difference between the “browser” and the “deal” here, Brave Software got paid by Binance based on the number of Brave users visiting the Binance website, and that specific referral served as their identifier. Which again, is a legitimate and legal means of funding, preferable over being Google’s slave like Mozilla is. Please stop making bullshit up just because you can, thank you.
Pants is not a source for anything related to Brave (as far as I’m concerned, she is not a source for anything as long as she keeps lying), she is a pro-Firefox troll, as are you. The “Chrome clone” claim gave it away in your case. Perhaps you two should team up, you would be superb bullshit bingo team.
I’m impressed!
It seems, you have more insider knowledge than the CEO of Brave Software …
Quote:
“Brave Software got paid by Binance based on the number of Brave users visiting the Binance website […]”
… but I bet, you terrible messed it up again.
Quote:
“Pants is not a source for anything related to Brave”
I see! I leave that question to the ghacks historians, who is a reliable source or not …
@New Brave User Agents
So you think there is a vital difference between a “campaign referral assigned only to Brave” (= “tracking the deal”) and this referral identifying the browser Brave (you know, the browser the referral was assigned to). LOL, OK. Nobody denies that Brave Software got paid and that this is a “deal” to fund the browser. It lacks any impact on user security and user privacy, which is why all of your dribble is frankly irrelevant.
And asking Pants… Sure, next time I’ll ask the guys and gals at r/firefox what they think about Brave-related topics, amounts to roughly the same thing. Speaking of which, would you kindly consider moving back there?
@New Brave User Agent
And you are still not stopping the bullshit:
> hijacking of a typed URL
They didn’t hijack anything. Giving users a choice between a referral and the ordinary address isn’t hijacking. Hijacking would be forcefully redirecting users, possibly to a totally different destination domain than what was intended by the user, e.g. to malware distribution websites. There’s malware that does actual “hijacking”, you should look up what that term means before using it cluelessly.
I guess, going by your definition, Vivaldi also “hijacks” user’s searches by adding their own referral to the resulting URL. Same rules for everyone, if you think Brave isn’t allowed to do it, then neither is any other browser (which would reduce your browser options to zero very quickly, because all browsers do that). That you don’t react to me pointing out the inherent unfairness shows that this is about bashing Brave more than anything else.
It’s OK, you dislike Brave, and you are free to do that all you like, but please do not longer waste my time with non-arguments and the thoroughly misguided use of words you don’t understand.
> Please stop lying about Brave, thank you
Yes. Please do stop lying about Brave, Iron Heart.
Your user agent excuse is purely made-up garbage in your incessant desire to be a Brave apologist. Nowhere has the Dark Insect Overlord Eich or anyone else said it was needed because of user agent spoofing. That’s not how affiliate referrals work: key word: referral – i.e something is sent, like a code or id. These codes/ids are unique (per campaign/deal or whatever you want to call them)
I’m sure you can google it: quote: So when you are using the brave browser and type in “binance[.]us” you end up getting redirected to “binance[.]us/en?ref=35089877”
See that reference number … that’s all you need to identify that it’s Brave
https://decrypt.co/31522/crypto-brave-browser-redirect
> [quoting Eich] Of the Binance redirect, he said: “That code identifies us, it’s a Binance affiliate code”
Let me repeat that slowly for you… THAT. CODE. IDENTIFIES. US. … “us” being Brave. Look up the word “identify” if you have to.
They could just as easily have used “binance[.]us/en?ref=brave-shady-shit-number-525”
@Pants
> Yes. Please do stop lying about Brave, Iron Heart.
How am I lying about Brave? The Eich quote you yourself posted proves that the referral served as a Brave identifier for e.g. Binance, differentiating it from Chrome (which is what I am saying here the entire time):
“Of the Binance redirect, he said: “That code identifies us, it’s a Binance affiliate codeâ€
> Your user agent excuse is purely made-up garbage in your incessant desire to be a Brave apologist.
How is it made up? You have not disproven it yet and what I said is literally what Eich alsom says. If you call Eich a liar, you’d have to show me what else an anonymous identifier would be for, if it isn’t an identifier identifying the Brave Browser when it enters e.g. the Binance website. Can’t be the tracking of individual users, as the referral didn’t change, so what else do you think it is? Pretty much expecting a total nonsense reply to that question already, or no reply at all.
> That’s not how affiliate referrals work: key word: referral – i.e something is sent, like a code or id. These codes/ids are unique (per campaign/deal or whatever you want to call them)
And? Of course that is how a referral works, and it is meant to show that you are using Brave when you go to e.g. Binance, they attach the identifier behind the Binance URL. That they get paid per click should be obvious, but the technical purpose of the referral is to identify Brave as Brave, plain and simple. You have yet to come up with an alternate (more likely alternate reality – sorry I couldn’t resist) purpose of the referral.
> So when you are using the brave browser and type in “binance[.]us†you end up getting redirected to “binance[.]us/en?ref=35089877â€
Yes, and? The “ref=35089877” is a static (not per-user) Brave identifier, showing that you enter the website from Brave, so that Brave Software, as a partner of Binance, can get paid per click. The user doesn’t lose money, and privacy is not hurt because the referral is the same for everyone, unique identification based on it is impossible. As I said, I have no problem with Brave funding itself that way, and Firefox does the very same thing with Google Search if I may remind you, Miss Hypocrite. There is no bad effect for the user in either case.
> THAT. CODE. IDENTIFIES. US. … “us†being Brave
That’s what I am saying the entire time, do you possess the ability to read? Of course that referral identifies Brave users as Brave users, so that Brave Software can get paid per click by Binance. The technical necessity for the referral arises because without it, Brave would simply identify itself as Chrome. All other browsers do that as well on search pages, by the way (boy, this gets repetitive)…
> They could just as easily have used “binance[.]us/en?ref=brave-shady-shit-number-525â€
Yeah, and? There is no technical difference between your earlier mentioned “ref=35089877” and “ref=brave-shady-shit-number-525â€, both would identify Brave to e.g. Binance (Binance knows which referral belongs to Brave, whether or not that is a combination of numbers or some random shit with Pants’ snark added on top of it, is totally secondary).
> Dark Insect Overlord Eich
At least his hair style doesn’t look like a long-dead fox, unlike the hair of another CEO…
You seem to have very much time on your hands, enough time to bash Brave on Christmas and to waste my time in a fairly outrageous manner. Please stop, nothing of what you said holds any water, or has any impact on any user.
Brave uses referrals as identifiers on some website, the same thing every other browser also does at least in relation to searches? Cool, don’t care. Brave adds a random button to websites that has no point to it if you don’t use Brave Rewards? Cool, don’t care. Brave violates my privacy, impedes my security? I would certainly care, but you have not brought anything like that up yet, instead choosing to ride non-issues to death like pretty much always. It gets quite tiresome over time, give it a rest.
> How am I lying about Brave?
DrItalo: Stories like: “Brave browser CEO apologizes for automatically adding affiliate links to cryptocurrency URLsâ€
IH: (quotes DrItalo and then says) That old fake news again… What they did was to suggest (not “automatically addâ€, that’s just a lie) a referral link in the address bar when you navigated to select crypto-related websites
Dude, they TOTALLY, 100% VERIFIED, ADDED a referral id to typed URLs (and suggestions etc)
– e.g. binance[.]us became binance[.]us?/en?ref=35089877
In what fantasy world is that not an addition (and you not lying)?
—
YOU are the one who brought up userAgents. YOUR massive quote from “Brave identifies as Chrome … which is where the referral link comes into play” is to claim that they used a referral id BECAUSE of the userAgent, as some sort of bogus attempt to misdirect, deflect, add noise, make excuses, and lay the blame elsewhere. This is absolute bollocks. They used it because that’s what it is designed to do: using the right tool for the job
– no-one has complained about the method (i.e using referral ids, you know, like in search engine deals)
– no-one has claimed it was a unique id per user. I explicitly added that it wasn’t unique per user for two reasons a) for the readers benefit and qualifying statements is always a good thing and b) so you wouldn’t need to add useless commentary about things no-one has claimed. So instead, you then quote that line and attack me as being unable to read
What people were upset with was lack of transparency and that it altered typed URLS. Even Eich can differentiate between a query and an actual URL, and admit that it crossed a line, and apologize.
—
> The Eich quote you yourself posted proves that the referral served as a Brave identifier for e.g. Binance, differentiating it from Chrome (which is what I am saying here the entire time)
It’s differentiating it from EVERYTHING a) NOT Brave and b) NOT via that ID. That’s it’s fucking purpose: to attribute the right source (i.e the campaign/deal).
It has nothing to do with browsers (except as a symptom of doing it’s job in this case). Referral IDs do not have to be browser/fork dependent and they don’t have to be so limited or broad either: e.g. multiple campaigns over time for Brave with one site. It’s not about the “browser” – it’s about tracking the “deal”
userAgents have nothing to do with any of this: they’re not reliable and they’re too narrow .. and no-one in their right mind would even consider using them when there is money on the table
@Pants
> Dude, they TOTALLY, 100% VERIFIED, ADDED a referral id to typed URLs (and suggestions etc) – e.g. binance[.]us became binance[.]us?/en?ref=35089877 In what fantasy world is that not an addition (and you not lying)?
It is an addition, but it did NOT get added no matter what, as you like to imply. It appeared as a suggestion in the drop-down of the address bar and you had the ability to CHOOSE between the referral link and ordinarily going to binance.us. You act like Brave users had no option to “ordinarily” go to Binance, that is not true. If you specifically choose the referral link only to cry about it later, that’s your “problem”. I put the word “problem” in quotation marks because it is a problem that only exists in your fantasy, as there was no bad effect for users even if the referral link was chosen.
> as some sort of bogus attempt to misdirect, deflect, add noise, make excuses, and lay the blame elsewhere.
We are talking about the same thing in a different manner, you know?
Me: Brave is partnered with Binance, via the referral link Brave users are identified as Brave users so that Binance can pay Brave per visit.
You: It’s a campaign, the referral is assigned to Brave as part of such a campaign!
There is a difference of wording, not any material difference. You just choose to ride the “issue” to death regardless.
You seem to see a trumped up “differentiation” in users being able to copy a campaign link clearly meant for Brave (serving as an identifier) into e.g. Firefox, which is something I can only laugh about because no one ever realistically does that (more on that later on).
> no-one has complained about the method
No, you also complain about “hijacking”, as if having a choice to use the referral link or not in a drop-down menu is “hijacking”. Hijacking is what Mozilla did to a number of Firefox downloads, by inserting the Cliqz spyware experiment. It got silently added, without users noticing it or having any ability whatsoever to opt out. That’s some real “hijacking” for you, hypocrite.
> They used it because that’s what it is designed to do: using the right tool for the job
Yep, and that job was to IDENTIFY BRAVE. Nobody denies that Brave Software got paid, but since it has no bad effect on any user, you have yet to give me a single reason to care.
> What people were upset with was lack of transparency and that it altered typed URLS.
Wha wha “lack of transparency”, she who sits in the glass house should not throw with stones:
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/jybx2w/uh_why_is_firefox_showing_me_sponsored_links_in/
This was never in the release notes of St. Firefox, either. So much for “transparency”. Also, “lack of transparency” is not a MATERIAL loss for the user, it is an EMOTIONAL sentiment (like pretty much all else you come up with), relying on users supposedly feeling betrayed by helping a Brave partner fund Brave Software (in reality, the most bashing came from Firefox fanboys who do not use Brave anyway). I want to know from you which bad consequence MATERIALIZED for the user here. That I help Brave in getting funding from Binance? Need I care about that? It’s not my money, so I don’t. So, what bad consequence was there for me?
> it altered typed URLS
If you CHOSE the referral link, yes (Does that even still qualify as “altered”, when you specifically choose the link out of at least two suggestions? Anyway, let’s give you the benefit of the doubt here and stick with “altered” here…). But even then, did the user have a real and not just emotional Pants-reason to care? Nope.
> Even Eich can differentiate between a query and an actual URL, and admit that it crossed a line, and apologize.
There is not a single material difference between the URL produced by a search and any other URL, this is mere deflection on your part. And you can keep all that “Eich apologized, Eich apologized, Eich apologized…” blah blah dribble to yourself. There was an angry mob besieging his Twitter account who thought that Brave facilitated the tracking of individual users(!) with the referral, and despite this being proven totally wrong in the aftermath, the fake news stuck. In the initial wave of criticism, Eich’s Twitter account got pretty much shitstormed to death by Captain Obvious Firefox trolls. When your accounts are being viciously attacked, just like Eich’s was, I hope you can maintain your cool, Miss Hypocrite. Because otherwise you shouldn’t try to throw dirt at him for not being a robot.
Anyway, whatever an overwhelmed Eich says in some random Tweet (and even there, he said that all other browsers also do it, so why should he even bother) ranks below what the company itself says (in case you don’t realize it, Eich is not the plain equivalent of Brave Software), and this doesn’t ring any “apology” bells with me:
https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/
And then again, why SHOULD they apologize really, when the bad effect on users was basically nil? Apologize for something all other browsers also do at least in relation to searches? Pretty please…
By the way, even while getting attacked by an angry mob of mostly Firefox fans, I wouldn’t have apologized for something their browser also does, if I had been in Eich’s shoes.
> It’s not about the “browser†– it’s about tracking the “dealâ€
So you copy that referral link from Brave to Firefox to open it there, so that you can take part in a campaign meant to identify Brave users (because Binance clearly only advertises itself in Brave, and is partnered with Brave, not Firefox)? Is that what I am reading here? If so, LOL. Implausibility has just reached new heights. If you insist on taking part in campaigns meant for Brave, be my guest. That’s all I have to say to such dribble.
You still refuse to see the difference between a typed (or pasted) URL vs a search QUERY. They’re called search queries not search urls. They have a difference function and purpose (and most importantly a different expectation). Of course they end up _AT_ an URL, pointing this out is just a waste of space
All those who complained + all the articles outlining the problem, and even Eich: typed urls are not search queries, changing typed urls by default is new and unexpected, we hear you, we reverted it: an admission of crossing a line
IH: eh, a search is the same as a typed url
Guess who is right and who is wrong
> But even then, did the user have a real and not just emotional Pants-reason to care? Nope
Yes they did. Because clearly users complained and the change was reverted
> If you specifically choose the referral link [snip] when you specifically choose the link
Dude, the referral link is automatically chosen for you by default … (caps mine) “when he typed “binance.us†into the Brave search bar, and the browser AUTOCOMPLETED it to “binance[.]us/en?ref=35089877.â€
> It is an addition, but it did NOT get added no matter what
Who said it did? In a default Brave (at the time) type binance[.]us and hit enter/return – referral is ADDED. As you so often say, defaults matter .. except when they don’t and it suits your argument. Personally I don’t give a shit about defaults – I only care about what the browser can actually do.
When I qualify a statement for your (and readers’) benefit, you repeat it and/or attack it, and you almost never qualify your own claims. Why should I bother anymore when I point out your BS. Hijacking .. oooh, you don’t like that word – it makes you angry. You like to call telemetry “spyware”. So pedantic bro. You don’t like it when others use descriptive language.
If it’s automatically completing my typing with an added referral then I’m calling it HIJACKING: it jumped in my urlbar, modified the contents, and went down slim-shady alley. Feel free to call it “helpful url massage for making of prodigious moneys for glorious brave” or something if you want.
> So you copy that referral link from Brave to Firefox…
lulz .. more crap and noise. Who said to do anything like that? Would you like me to draw you a Venn diagram of how the browser is a subset of the ID? IF (big if) anyone wanted to do that, it would only ever be a net gain: i.e zero loss.
@Pants
My last reply to you in this thread can be found above. No reason to discuss your dribble in more than one place, waste of space.
It is becoming a bit of a pain the amount of things you want to turn off if you’re not interested in BAT etc. Opt-in is becoming a thing of the past. Still at least the options are there and not hidden away in a config file.
ubloock filters for brave ads.
I am afraid the list is only to get bigger.
http://www.reddit.com##.action-brave-tip
twitter.com##.action-brave-tip
github.com##.action-brave-tip
That’s bad and I mean REALLY bad.
Honestly I had to stop suggesting Brave to my less techy friends/parents because of this type of things. Every couple updates there’s something new you have to opt-out of. At some point you can genuinely start calling this adware imo.
Btw I started suggesting Vivaldi instead (for Android phones). Desktop-style tabs are a pretty cool features and you can even add custom filters to the Adblocker (not just a line by line thing like Brave) which isn’t a bad thing either.
I remember them saying, at least our ads are not inserted in the pages…
I remember Google once famously said: “Don’t be evil”. The fact of the matter is you just can’t trust an advertising company.
Brave is always running some extensions processes in for Rewards, even if Rewards is not enabled.
With the command line switch mentioned in https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/3436#issuecomment-471389211 at least one of them can be disabled.
@Ph
The GitHub issue you point to also shows that it is fixed now. It also no longer initiates the BAT Ledger and BAT Ads processes if you don’t have Brave Rewards enabled, another bug that they fixed. Bugs happen.
If you don’t want those processes, don’t enable Brave Rewards.
@Iron Heart
Well it is not fully fixed. There are still processes running which can’t be disabled.
See https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/5429
@Ph
Can’t confirm on macOS. The “Bat Ads Service”, “BAT Ledger Service” and “Extension: Brave Rewards” processes are not in my task manager as long as I don’t have Brave Rewards enabled (tested both with and without). Go to the triangle in the address bar (restore it with Brave’s settings if you hid it), then to Brave Rewards settings, then disable Brave Rewards there.
This confirms that it is fixed:
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/6972#issuecomment-555074764
Yeah, whatever. SOS conversational comprehension issues. Ready, Fire, Aim. Scream at the wind.
Browsers are free, use whatever you want. Learn to play the ever evolving game of Beat the Privacy Police or you’ll be perpetually pissed whenever the opposition (with a combined market capitalization that puts them near Japan’s GDP) implements another trick.
Sucks but that’s where we are.
Here’s another brave browser issue:
lbry://@SandmanMGTOW#c/â£The-Brave-Browser-Won’t-Pay-Me-My–10,000-Dollars—MGTOW#8
@Anonymous
That is not a Brave issue, that is Brave’s fraud detection mechanisms working correctly.
it’s so f*king creepy that they add buttons into other sites.
I’m uninstalling Brave purely for this reason, nasty af. And taking it off my gf’s devices also. I thought Brave was a better option for privacy than Chrome. Going to back to Apple. Brave are dickheads, inserting yourself into other sites??? wankers
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/14917