Brave Browser - Ready for Prime Time?

[krs]

Since this is a thread about Brave - I have given up on Brave as well.
Just too many things that don't work.

 

[pm-r]

Since this is a thread about Brave - I have given up on Brave as well.
Just too many things that don't work.

Actually, I'm a bit surprised that it took you that long to decide.


- Patrick
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[chscag]

Actually, I'm a bit surprised that it took you that long to decide.


- Patrick
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LOL, it only took me one day trying it out. I said then that it was not ready for prime time; apparently it's still not.

I guess you can always switch to Microsoft Edge for the Mac.

 

[Rod]

Honestly I didn't/haven't found that to be too arduous. As I need one I open it in Firefox, copy an paste it into Cliqz then save it to the menu bar. Obviously I'm still using 3 browsers, often simultaneously on seperate desktops, so it's no big issue to cut an paste between them.
I have rid my MBP of all things Google now and I would like to be rid of Firefox. I would ideally like to have an ad free, tracker free browser without the need for extensions like Ghostery or AdGuard. Safari for the things it does well and the ever improving Vivaldi for the things it does well.
I'm using DuckDuck Go on Safari and Vivaldi but Bing on Cliqz.
I don't mind ads on Safari and Vivaldi but I don't want to be tracked whereas Ckiqz gets rid of the trackers on Bing.
That's it so far.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac-Forums

 

[Rod]

Oh, yes I didn't mention that I too have kinda put brave on the back burner for now. Just a lot of odd behaviour, nothing specific just kinda *** moments that I could not explain, although I did not have the autofill problems mentioned by some other members. As for the Startpage.com search engine I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet, too much other stuff going on and it just adds an extra variable.

 

[krs]

Actually, I'm a bit surprised that it took you that long to decide.


- Patrick
======

Ha, ha - took me that long to post this on the forum.
Decision was made a while back.

 

[krs]

Honestly I didn't/haven't found that to be too arduous.

The biggest problem I have with Brave is that I have come across a couple of commercial websites where Brave ends up giving me the wrong information as to availability of product.
And the issue is that this is not obvious - on another website, the rendering of the page ends up as a mess, but that is obvious and prompts one to try a different browser.
But on the websites where I get the wrong information, there is no indication that the information Brave presents is wrong - so that is a "definitely can't use" browser.
I put in a trouble report to Brave 10 days ago - no reply, not even an aknowledgement other than I see a few dozen people have read it.
All other browsers I tried with the websites where Brave provides the wrong information, work fine including Cliqz.

 

[pm-r]

But on the websites where I get the wrong information, there is no indication that the information Brave presents is wrong - so that is a "definitely can't use" browser.

Hmmm...??? I thought the browser just rendered the webpage that is supplied by the server. Wouldn't that be up to the server and the site to have the correct web page available?

And how could a browser actually display an "incorrect" webpage? Not doubting, just curious...



- Patrick
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[Rod]

That is kind of weird, are you saying that Brave is displaying different content on a web page to what is disayed on another browser? That would imply that there is more than one version of the same web page online. Could it be a case of an earlier version or one not showing current/recent changes?
One odd thing Brave was doing for me was when doing a search on a different browser clicking on a search result occasionally caused Brave to launch and open said link. Yes I did have Brave as my default at the time but this has never happened with any other browser I have used.

 

[krs]

Hmmm...??? I thought the browser just rendered the webpage that is supplied by the server. Wouldn't that be up to the server and the site to have the correct web page available?

And how could a browser actually display an "incorrect" webpage? Not doubting, just curious...

Patrick,

I explained that in post #59 and the following posts in this thread.

What I wanted to do is to find out if Virgin high speed internet is available at my address.
So for browsers other than Brave, one starts to type in ones address and as you type, addresses pop up underneath the field where you type with suggestions based on the characters you have already typed.
At some point your address shows up - I think the addresses that are suggested are pulled from Canada Post - and you select your address from these suggestions that come up.
That address is then populated on the next page in a somewhat different format and when you click "check address" (or words to that effect), Virgin will come up with either Yeah or Nay - in my case it was "Yeah"

If I do the same thing on Brave, I don't get any suggestions at all, I then get to the end of typing in my address and the message is "Address can't be found"
It then takes me to the second page (same as the other browsers), but there is nothing pre-filled and I type in my address into the various fields.
Once that is done and I click on "check address", the answer will come back "Sorry, high speed internet is not available at that address"

But I knew it was because I'm already using it - I was just trying to change providers.
If that hadn't been the case, I would have taken Virgin Internets feedback using the Brave browser as correct and not checked any further.

What is happening is that the Virgin database of addresses and what internet service is available at that address is set up using the Canada Post address database.
So if the address is not a 100% match, the Virgin website will come back and say it's not available.

The first step on the Virgin website is to select the Canada Post version of my address - for some reason the Brave browser ignores that bit of code of the Virgin website.
I initially thought this was a by-product (or by-problem) because of the tracker and ad blocking provided by Brave, but when I tried the same procedure with Cliqz, it worked fine.

There were other issues with Brave as well, the most severe ones I mentioned earlier in this thread.

BTW- this address versification is done by Amazon as well; I just noticed that yesterday when I placed an Amazon order.
There is brings up the address they pull up from somewhere (I assume it's Canada Post) and they then give one the choice of using the address you typed in or the one they brought up.
What basically happens is

 

[krs]

That is kind of weird, are you saying that Brave is displaying different content on a web page to what is disayed on another browser? That would imply that there is more than one version of the same web page online. Could it be a case of an earlier version or one not showing current/recent changes?
One odd thing Brave was doing for me was when doing a search on a different browser clicking on a search result occasionally caused Brave to launch and open said link. Yes I did have Brave as my default at the time but this has never happened with any other browser I have used.

I explained the problem in reply to Patrick's post.
I also explained it earlier in this thread.
It's not that there is more than one version of a particular web page online - Brave just seems to ignore part of the website code which in the end provides the wrong information - just like coming to a fork in the road and one takes a wrong turn.

 

[pm-r]

I explained the problem in reply to Patrick's post.

That post was some time ago and besides I don't see any sort of connection other than the Brave browser didn't seem to have any autofill information setup that it could use, or just didn't work.

Bottom line I'd say, regardless of the problem that didn't work for you, so why even bother with it???


- Patrick
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[krs]

Bottom line I'd say, regardless of the problem that didn't work for you, so why even bother with it???

I like the idea with Brave of blocking ads and blocking tracking built in instead of some add-on.
But for now I will shelve it and maybe look at it again next year.

In the meantime I added ghostery to Firefox, but now I have websites complaining that I use an ad blocker and to please disable it.

Which makes me wonder - since websites can detect that you have an ad blocker active, do they then restrict what one has access to on their website?

 

[pm-r]

Which makes me wonder - since websites can detect that you have an ad blocker active, do they then restrict what one has access to on their website?

I've wondered the same thing myself.

Or is there an actual difference between a web browser with an ad blocker, or a normal browser with an ad blocker plug-in???

Can they tell if there is a difference and what one is using???


- Patrick
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[MacInWin]

What the ad merchants probably do is tuck a bit of javascript, or other code, into the ad they want you to see. When the ad is displayed, the javascript or code runs, reporting back success. If they don't get the success response, the know the ad didn't run. I have seen a lot more sites using this mechanism to block access. And they are getting more aggressive about simply not showing anything unless the ad runs, effectively preventing any non-ad access. So far, I just ignore the plea to turn of ad blocking and don't bother with the site. I don't need to go there, anyway, is the rationale.

 

[pm-r]

What the ad merchants probably do is tuck a bit of javascript, or other code, into the ad they want you to see.

Here are some work arounds for those wanting to try:
Is There an Undetectable Ad Block?
Is There an Undetectable Ad Block?

Personally I don't always really mind cookies and ads, especially when I'm looking to buy something and get a good buy.

Even when browsing online and including a lot of the local stores we have, they will often provide feedback and an ad for the item I have been looking for and often on sale.

They've saved me a lot of money over the last few year's.

Some other sites are just pure annoying and of no benefit to me!!!! Those are easily just skipped and bypassed.


- Patrick
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[Rod]

Just a little addit; I added toolbar bookmarks to Cliqz by simply copying them from the Toolbar Bookmarks Folder in Firefox to the same Folder in Cliqz.

 

[krs]

Just a little addit; I added toolbar bookmarks to Cliqz by simply copying them from the Toolbar Bookmarks Folder in Firefox to the same Folder in Cliqz.

I have tried that, but this only works with individual bookmarks.
All my bookmarks in the Bookmark Bar are folders, for instance, I have one as a "Mac" folder and in that folder I have Mac related bookmarks that access more or less regularly. The bookmarks in that folder are sorted by priority, ie how often I access them.
That priority sometimes changes and then I just reshuffle the order - right now this forum is right at the very top of that Mac folder.

To do a copy and paste, I would have to do that with every bookmark in every folder which would take hours.

The odd thing is that my Firefox bookmark Bar was actually imported to Cliqz, but one needs four steps each time to get to it - and then it's a vertical dropdown.
Cliqz works better in some areas than Brave, but I found that Brave was better in importing user names and passwords from FireFox.

However neither Brave nor Cliqz (or any other browser I tried so far) offers the option of taking a screen shot of the complete web page.
I find that so useful that I'm going back to FireFox and for now added Ghostery - but I may remove Ghostery again.
I don't mind the ads as much as I mind tracking - so I'm looking for some plug-in for Firefox that blocks tracking but where I don't keep getting the "Please disable your ad blocker" over and over again.

 

[Rod]

Ah, well I don't have any folders in the Toolbar Bookmarks folder but there is a Sidebar view for that, you must put a lot of bookmarks in the toolbar folder, I only have the around twenty I use almost daily.

 

[krs]

We all organize out Macs differently.
On the browser bookmark bar I have 15 folders that are immediately accessible with the size of window I normally use.
Folders like 'News', 'Shopping', 'Travel', 'Financial', 'Hobby-Forum'. 'Hobby Database', 'Mac', 'Electronics' etc. and each folder has at least 20 bookmarks in it.
It's a set up that I wouldn't want to do without.