Mastodawn

The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training

https://lemmy.world/post/1520219

The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training - Lemmy.world

From the article: "I know for a fact that Wikipedia operates under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, which explicitly states that if you’re going to use the data, you must give attribution. As far as search engines go, they can get away with it because linking back to a Wikipedia article on the same page as the search results is considered attribution. But in the case of Brave, not only are they disregarding the license - they’re also charging money for the data and then giving third parties “rights” to that data."

Xæris Jul 15, 2023

TIL; stay away from Brave.

Not only because of this article, but merely an hour ago I have read also this post (numerous links provided in the post) about the dubious Brendan Eich.

What are some of your favorite Linux FOSS replacements for WIndows software? - Lemmy.world

Hi everyone! So I’ve recently switched to Linux and I’m having a lot of fun downloading software and replacing my old stuff with it. I’m wondering what you all use? My switched softwares: Obsidian -> Logseq - Obsidian is great and all but I think Logseq is also competent in its own way even without plugins. I am currently exploring templates to create my own daily journal/habit tracker like I did in Obsidian. Word/Notepad -> LibreOffice - Seems to have a lot of options. Currently using the writer software for quick notes. Canva -> Inkscape - I am aware that Canva is a website/android app, but I decided to switch from it to Inkscape by utilizing open source illustrations such as Undraw for graphics needs. I still need to look up tutorials on how to use it properly, though! Clip Studio Paint -> Krita - I actually made this switch a month or two ago, but I’m really enjoying Krita a lot more than I ever did Clip Studio Paint. Less things to get distracted by, giving you more chances to learn how to utilize the essentials. Things I’d like to explore in more detail: - Thunderbird as a calendar/email/task software - Whether or not I should stick with Calibre for book management - Kdenlive as a video creating program. I haven’t created videos before, but it seems fun. How about you? What do you enjoy?

Monologue Jul 15, 2023

i don’t get why people choose to use brave, firefox is great and if you really need that chromium base ungoogled chromium exists

SmugBedBug Jul 15, 2023

Firefox has always been my go-to. In my opinion more people should use it.

azron Jul 15, 2023

Librewolf is starting to replace Firefox for me. Either way birds of a feather!

Jarmer Jul 15, 2023

I think LW is better out of the box. It has both UBO and Containers built in. Which is just awesome. I still use FF as my daily just because I have customized it beyond belief, but if I were to start over again I think I'd start with LW.

Matt Jul 15, 2023

Brave is great for less techy people because it’s defaults are good enough. It’s not necessary to tweak settings and install add-ons to get basic privacy. I definitely prefer Firefox, but it takes some knowledge to get it to surpass Brave’s defaults.

TheButtonJustSpins Jul 15, 2023

I don’t like installing add-ons. I’d rather have it baked into the browser.

RvTV95XBeo Jul 15, 2023

Add-ons give you a lot more choice and control than baked in options.

What’s stopping Brave’s blocker from just allowing ads from Brave’s services? Can you see under the hood to tell if it’s blocking everything or just surface level stuff?

A proprietary built in blocker is only as trustworthy as the people that made it, and as the links in this discussion suggest, Brave isn’t earning much trust.

Monologue Jul 15, 2023

you are right about choice and more control but brave’s ad blocker is not proprietary here is the github link, ublock origin is still the king though

GitHub - brave/adblock-rust: Brave's Rust-based adblock engine

Brave's Rust-based adblock engine. Contribute to brave/adblock-rust development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

Melpomene Jul 15, 2023

Of course, using add-ons also requires diligence, as each add-on from each source requires one to both trust the source and vet each source regularly. An add-on is also as trustworthy as the people that made it, and one must be willing to do the work the verify that those add-ons continue to be safe.

frequency Jul 15, 2023

I think Brave did some aggressive marketing, including social media posts and comments. I did buy their narrative at first too - a browser that already tuned to block ads and trackers. But later I’ve noticed that it constantly connects back to brave server and it looked suspicious. Firefox is the best.

CrypticCoffee Jul 15, 2023

Agreed, a lot of Reddit comments felt very shilly. Firefox is king and helps prevent Google dictate web standards.

oblique_strategies Jul 16, 2023

Yeah, exactly. If every browser is chromium based the web will be an unhealthy monoculture. Easy for a single player to dictate standards. Haven’t seen this mentioned as much, but its really important

Syakaizin Jul 16, 2023

For me, Firefox is an inferior product in terms of security feature implementation

…github.io/firefox-chromium.html

Firefox and Chromium | Madaidan's Insecurities

HughJanus Jul 16, 2023

Stock Firefox has very limited privacy protections.

dngray Jul 28, 2023

ungoogled chromium exists

The reason is they have proper build infrastructure managed by the Brave. With Ungoogled Chromium the binaries are produced by third parties, vary in version etc. People claim they would only use “open source software” but they do download binary versions nevertheless and don’t compile that code themselves. This increases the risk of a supply chain attack, where a malicious binary is submitted and nobody has really knows until it is too late. The other issue is they disable CRLSets because of “google hate” which we think actually increases the likelihood of a MiTM attack occurring because rogue certificates are not detected and invalidated as quickly as they could have been.

This article describes a few other things qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/

GitHub - ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium: Google Chromium, sans integration with Google

Google Chromium, sans integration with Google. Contribute to ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

BeeCoffee Jul 15, 2023

Everything is a process and personally thats no excuse to not criticize the bad actions of a project like brave, but in the topic of personal opinions like those from Brandon Eich’s, i think is completely emotional the reactions of the brave users, he has awful opinions with the same sex mariage thing and covid but that does not mean the damn product/service he’s part of is bad or have censorship. He better shut up and dont ruin a good project because he wants to “speak up” about his stupid rant about insane opinions that makes bad PR.

Acetanilide Jul 15, 2023

Well fuck. Thank you. Guess i need to change browsers. Any recs or is firefox best?

goji Jul 15, 2023

Ungoogled Chromium is my current favourite

Previously was using Firefox Developer’s edition which is also decent. But I like a minimalist browser that acts more like a framework to which I can just add what I want, and doesn’t come with a lot of bullshit I don’t need.

dngray Jul 28, 2023

Ungoogled Chromium is my current favourite

The reason we don’t recommend Ungoogled Chromium and instead recommend Brave on the privacyguides.org website is because they have proper build infrastructure managed by the Brave. With Ungoogled Chromium the binaries are produced by third parties, vary in version etc. People claim they would only use “open source software” but they do download binary versions nevertheless and don’t compile that code themselves. This increases the risk of a supply chain attack, where a malicious binary is submitted and nobody has really knows until it is too late. The other issue is they disable CRLSets because of “google hate” which we think actually increases the likelihood of a MiTM attack occurring because rogue certificates are not detected and invalidated as quickly as they could have been.

This article describes a few other things qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/

GitHub - ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium: Google Chromium, sans integration with Google

Google Chromium, sans integration with Google. Contribute to ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

Xæris Jul 15, 2023

You can try Librewolf. It is a firefox fork with focus on privacy. You do not need to go through many settings when setting it up, as you need to do with firefox standalone.

echo Jul 15, 2023

the shady world of brave

federal_explorer Jul 15, 2023

This not exclusive to brave, AI copyright is still not clear. Bing and others like Bard are doing the same.

Leraje Jul 15, 2023

Yeah and I expect it from those companies. I guess I was naive enough to think Brave would be better than this.

But then I didn’t know about Eich’s homophobia, antivaxx beliefs and basic awfulness either (as mentioned in the link u/Xaeris mentions.)

NightOwl Jul 15, 2023

I guess the crypto stuff along with the ads just made me not at all shocked by this. Not that I think it’s a bad browser, since I’ve had people I tried to explain addons too who found it too confusing so needed an out the box built in solution. But, Firefox continues to be my go to for years and years.

fishos Jul 15, 2023

You linked to the Alexandrite app, not lemmy itself.

fishos Jul 15, 2023

Dunno if you edited it, but now it links to the sidebar rules.

Leraje Jul 15, 2023

Whoops - sorry, fixed it now.

fishos Jul 15, 2023

Better :) Use "copy URL" not "copy fediverse URL" next time though and it will keep the person in their same instance and they won't have to login.

federal_explorer Jul 15, 2023

Honestly I don’t care about his political beliefs, and Brave search is the only competitve independent search engine out there, it’s genuinely a joy to use. Until AI crawling gets banned they aren’t doing anything wrong.

Leraje Jul 15, 2023

You don’t think there’s anything wrong with selling you the ‘rights’ to other people’s content?

federal_explorer Jul 15, 2023

You are being sold access to their AI model, not just content. OpenAI is doing the same thing, and until the court bans that, it’s legally ok, if you are asking morally, then that differs from person to person, and for companies any competitve edge is worth it.

I personally stopped caring as its going to happen anyway, the only way to stop it is the courts to get involved, as any search engine won’t be competitve without AI assists.

And even that isn’t clear, we don’t know if AI learning is fair use or not, they are many arguments on both side, with big names like the EFF siding with the fair use.

Leraje Jul 15, 2023

I guess I am asking morally. I expect this sort of thing from Bing and Google but it surprised me to see a company that is privacy focused basically trampling over someone elses IP to the point they feel they can offer rights to someone elses content and make money from it.

Obviously, this was before I learned what sort of person Eich is. Now I’m not surprised. I guess we all have to decide if something goes against our own principles enough to use/not use something.

federal_explorer Jul 16, 2023

It’s nothing privacy invasive. It’s a way to improve their search engine, these hit pieces against brave always get over amplified for no reason.

Leraje Jul 16, 2023

Privacy invasive or not, it’s not right what they’re doing and, in my opinion, speaks to their ethics as a company. That in turn leads me to mistrust choices they might make in the future, including regarding privacy.

arcturus Jul 15, 2023

you know that this “I don’t care that this person holds bigoted beliefs and thinks that some people shouldn’t have rights, they make the good computer program so who cares” attitude is why so many people think that tech guys are reactionary, right?

federal_explorer Jul 16, 2023

Well I am already used to using software from people who I don’t agree with in politics.

We are using one right now, Lemmy’s devs are AFAIK tankies, and that doesn’t really matter.

Also not all people share your political opinions.

arcturus Jul 16, 2023

Also not all people share your political opinions.

how are you going to call “this group shouldn’t have the rights that everyone else has” something as quaint as a “political opinion”

federal_explorer Jul 16, 2023

They are not the same rights.

arcturus Jul 16, 2023

you know, it’s really funny that every time someone goes “I don’t care about <XYZ>'s open political opinions, only that they keep doing/making the thing I want” they invariably end up being some kind of right-winger

federal_explorer Jul 16, 2023

You know it’s funny that everytime someone says something you don’t like they are immediately right wingers.

I don’t even live in the west to have anything to do with left-right politics. And its fine the many don’t agree with your view points, aren’t the myriad of companies putting LGBTQ flags enough for you?

nostalgicgamerz Jul 15, 2023

Whelp that’s it I’m going to Firefox. That’s all I needed to see

ImmaculateTaint Jul 15, 2023

Is this only referring to the Brave search engine?

Leraje Jul 15, 2023

It’s their Search API.

Brave Search API | Brave

Power your search and AI apps with the fastest growing independent search engine since Bing. Access an index of billions of pages with a single call.

Brave

TheButtonJustSpins Jul 15, 2023

Looks like yes

CrypticCoffee Jul 15, 2023

But it is designed by their company. Their products represent their leadership.

Firefox and DDG for me.

utopianrevolt Jul 15, 2023

I honestly just started cracking up after seeing DDG mentioned after those initial 2 sentences.

DuckDuckGo does not care about your privacy. Switch to SearX, StartPage, or Kagi.

glacier Jul 15, 2023

What makes you say DDG does not care about privacy?

CrypticCoffee Jul 15, 2023

Didn’t start page get taken over by an advertising company?

LinkOpensChest.wav Jul 15, 2023

System1. Here’s a discussion about it.

I still fluctuate between using Startpage and public SearXNG instances myself, but I have mixed feelings about Startpage.

Remove Startpage

They also recently sponsored a Techlore video.

Privacy Guides Community

CrypticCoffee Jul 15, 2023

Thanks for the links. It looks like they engaged, but it is a little waffley, and it doesn’t exactly explain why they purchased them and where they see the ROI. If they are investing capital, they would need a return to make it profitable. It didn’t touch of whether they were after ad space without data (non targetted which isn’t worth a lot less, but may guarantee real estate), or a paid for service where Startpage will generate it’s own profits from services. Without further clarification, it doesn’t sit comfortably.

LinkOpensChest.wav Jul 16, 2023

I have the same concerns. There’s got to be some reason they invested, and no matter how much they claim it doesn’t impact privacy, I don’t trust any ad agency whatsoever. Their whole business is deception and lies.

Black_Gulaman Jul 16, 2023

What instance of searx are you using? Is ononoki a good instance, please don’t tell me to host my own, because I don’t have the budget for it.

LinkOpensChest.wav Jul 16, 2023

I haven’t tried ononoki, but the one I use is searx.tiekoetter.com

SearXNG @ searx.tiekoetter.com

SearXNG — a privacy-respecting, open metasearch engine

Black_Gulaman Jul 16, 2023

Thanks for the link, I’ll try this one.

JshKlsn Jul 15, 2023

I’ve been telling people for over a year to not use brave after they did that crypto referral injection thing lol

Hemingways_Shotgun Jul 15, 2023

I liked Brave for a while. But slowly things just started to feel sketchy to me. Their weird insistence on putting their crypto bullshit and wallet services in your face. I just felt like, “I want a browser. Can’t you just be a fucking browser?” At a certain point adding all these other ‘services’ they just end up just a weird-ass money making scheme, like they’re two steps away from using my computer for crypto mining.

Poob Jul 15, 2023

Well fuck, what am I supposed to use? I use bitwarden for passwords, so that shit works everywhere, but I want a mobile browser and a desktop browser that share history. Being able to share tabs between devices is a nice bonus.

Firefox on mobile is hot garbage with infuriating UI bugs. I keep trying to switch to it, and keep switching away after a few days.

I’m sure as shit not going to Chrome.

zingo Jul 15, 2023

Librewolf

gobbling871 Jul 15, 2023

May not be as ideal as it requires manual selection but Chromium has a visible share button for QR on the address bar. Or you can use Pushbullet/Join/KDE Connect to share links with your phone.