> I don't fully trust it to make the same exact decisions in that area that I might want
This is a very reasonable desire, but Brave also seems clear that their service does something different. Where other tools focus on blocking ads, Brave is more about their hybrid blocking of 'bad' ads (whatever that means) and replacing those ads with theirs.
Are you saying that you feel like Brave is deceptive in describing how their service works or that the entire idea of a tool that blocks some subset of ads that the user cannot configure and replaces them is fundamentally unethical?
> Are you saying that you feel like Brave is deceptive in describing how their service works or that the entire idea of a tool that blocks some subset of ads that the user cannot configure and replaces them is fundamentally unethical?
My personal issue is that Brave is an advertising company which is blocking competitor ads where content-creators are getting paid (the company which the content-creators chose to partner with), and replacing them with ads of their own (regardless of the format of them).
It's a great business model - but IMO it's just stealing or subverting ad revenue from the people who actually generate the content you are reading and maintain the infrastructure.
Hate ads? Get Firefox and block them.
Don't mind ads and are happy for the revenue to go to the content creator? Get Firefox, it blocks most tracking anyway.
Don't mind ads but hate the idea that the revenue will go to the content creator, and you would rather give it to some random shady company that might give you a cut of their subverted/stolen revenue in crypto? Get Brave!
Just in case there's any confusion, I've been speaking broadly about browsers in general, not Brave specifically.
I genuinely don't have an opinion regarding whether or not I think Brave is being deceptive. Rather, I've always been generally untrusting of bodies such as Brave making "it's cool, trust us" claims. It could be that they're being 100% honest and that's great, but I just can't get my own pessimism to get on board, particularly when there's money/profit involved.
Ultimately, yeah, I would say that the idea of a tool that doesn't allow me to eliminate ads entirely as it substitutes ads it says are "OK" is unethical (for/to me - if others are fine with it, cool, use Brave!). Going back to my lack of trust, I can't trust that they won't make a user-hostile decision around ads in the interest of their own bottom line down the road.
This is a very reasonable desire, but Brave also seems clear that their service does something different. Where other tools focus on blocking ads, Brave is more about their hybrid blocking of 'bad' ads (whatever that means) and replacing those ads with theirs.
Are you saying that you feel like Brave is deceptive in describing how their service works or that the entire idea of a tool that blocks some subset of ads that the user cannot configure and replaces them is fundamentally unethical?