And if you don't want the JS that Eich created to run in your browser, you can turn it off... most people like to run sandboxed code instead of installing native programs.

Mozilla makes most of their money from Google Search referrals.

Chrome was entirely built to put more eyeballs on Google ads and track you.

There's a lot more privacy features built into Brave than there are in other browsers. It's user oriented, not adtech oriented.

Of Brave, Chrome, and Firefox, who has the built in ad blocker?

That's a pretty confidently wrong statement.

You're aware of Wikipedia, right? More directly relevant: Konqueror?

And as is typical of HN, you seem to be unaware that people might be motivated by things other than money. Browsers are a large enough undertaking that you need some money to make one sustainably, but when money isn't your primary motivation it turns out you can do quite a bit with less.

> There's a lot more privacy features built into Brave than there are in other browsers. It's user oriented, not adtech oriented.

Brave is literally adtech. They sell ads.

To take a step back, which browser do you use? Did it come with an ad blocker?

Do you apply these same standards to all browsers and fiercely challenge them like Brave, let's say... Firefox?

> Do you apply these same standards to all browsers and fiercely challenge them like Brave, let's say... Firefox?

Firefox doesn't claim that they're trying to address the problem of ads on the internet, so no, I don't challenge Firefox's false claims. See how that works?

"Power and privacy to the people. No need to dig into your security settings. Fierce privacy is our default."

- Firefox on a recent update. You know, a browser that defaults to Google search and having search suggestions on. I know I'd have a couple privacy settings to change.

I don't want my browser to be a "product". If we didn't have people pushing for exponentially increasing complexity because they want the web to be an app platform then we could have browsers developed by individuals or groups in their free time.

But even if you insist on full time developers, there are alternative funding methods. Donations & grants being the most appropriate for something that benefits the general public.

> And if you don't want the JS that Eich created to run in your browser, you can turn it off... most people like to run sandboxed code instead of installing native programs.

The problem isn't being able to run sandboxed programs vs. native programs, the problem is that things that are supposed to be documents can run "sandboxed" programs where the sandbox is leaky and getting more leaks addded because perfect sandboxing is not what you want for applications that are supposed to be usable and therefore need to interact with the outside world.

Pointing at other browsers and pretending that them being ad-funded and/or also doing bad things makes any thing Brave does better is ridiculous.

Brave private ads system is off by default. Users enable it voluntarily and get 70% of the gross without any data on our servers. Ad matching is done via a pushed ad catalog and local-to-browser machines learning. Impression counting for revshare payments uses a Chaumian blind signature protocol (same crypto as Privacy Pass). If I cold-read your comment here, I get the impression you think Brave's ads are on by default, or you want to leave that impression on readers. It's false.

We also do not inject ads into pages. The opt-in private ads go in your ad slots (notifications, new tab pages), not in any publisher slots.

Your last paragraph (a few other HN regulars do this too) uses dishonest language: "links" mean hyperlinks in pages, and we never added any affiliate code to those. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31088549

Unbelievable. Now we're to be angry at (or at least, suspicious of) Eich for inventing Javascript? Because... it can used for evil? Is that really a path we should be going down? Is Tim Berners-Lee next? Come on.

>They started, right off the bat, by getting in bed with advertisers. That's their revenue stream. That's not how you fund a browser that serves users, that's how you fund a browser that serves advertisers.

This is similarly disingenuous. They started trying to solve the problem of facilitating an advertising model that respects privacy and rewarding creators (users) with revenue in the form of BAT tokens.

Say what you want about the execution, or the idea in general — but it's a noble goal.

I'm no fan of Eich's politics but your overall framing here is grossly misleading.

There is literally no good case for JavaScript. It's literally malware: code that runs on your machine without your explicitly installing it and does things that serves the website, not the user. The fact that it's in a sandbox to limit the harm it can cause is nice, but it doesn't really solve the fundamental problem.

Formats such as social media profiles, recipes, etc., would have been better served as document formats separate from or included in HTML.

More complex things like Google Maps could have been done as native apps--and still are, because the web app simply can't provide the same level of experience as a native app.

> They started trying to solve the problem of facilitating an advertising model that respects privacy and rewarding creators (users) with revenue in the form of BAT tokens.

If I want to reward a creator I can pay them without a middle man: BAT complicates that rather than simplifying it.

Advertising is a social harm. An advertising model that respects privacy, still disrespects attention, bandwidth, power usage, etc.

It should be clear that content creators aren't browser's target users, but since you brought it up: advertising generally creates a race to the bottom which incentivizes low-quality, low-effort content creation which creates a filtering problem: now it's hard to find the high-quality content amid the half-assed AI-generated nonsense. Publications which are high enough quality to be paid for, such as the NYT, have obviously been harmed by ad-based business models becoming the norm.

> Say what you want about the execution, or the idea in general — but it's a noble goal.

Their goal is to make money, and they've set it up so that their goal of making money is dependent on pleasing advertisers, not users.

The noble goals you're claiming simply are not true.

It's one thing to say that Javascript is massively over-relied on (I might even agree) but this is not anywhere close to a serious, well-considered argument. It's a joke.

I'm not interested in engaging further because extremist positions like this indicate that the speaker is not interested in meaningful debate.

> It's one thing to say that Javascript is massively over-relied on (I might even agree) but this is not anywhere close to a serious, well-considered argument.

Perhaps if you quoted past the first sentence you'd find the serious, well-considered argument you're looking for.

> I'm not interested in engaging further because extremist positions like this indicate that the speaker is not interested in meaningful debate.

Quoting a sentence out of context, calling it extremist, and then exiting without responding to any of the substance of my post makes it look awfully like you aren't interested in whatever you think "meaningful debate" means.

The extremist position is that visiting a website implies consent to the website running arbitrary code on my hardware. The only reason this has become accepted is that it's profitable to powerful people.

I didn't see anything you wrote that provides extra nuance to the statement. That is - nothing you wrote softens or modifies the quote. Am I right, or did I miss something? You were pretty clear. You even used "literally".

Sure... you went on to say why you see it like that, but that's not what being "quoted out of context" means. Is there some caveat, exception or nuance you were trying to express that modifies what you meant?

As for why I didn't engage further, let me ask you this — what if I tell you JS provides several good use cases for me and people I know? Will you then agree that some people do find good uses cases for JS or will you try to tell me I'm wrong? My impression so far is the latter.

You see what I mean? There doesn't seem to be any point in engaging.

As for the rest - I have no interest in debating BAT, or the advertising world. We largely agree. My point was simply that you misrepresented their value proposition by insisting there was never even a theoretical benefit to users and creators. It's a non-starter for having a useful conversation IMHO.