Brave Browser - Why it doesn't care about your privacy

[Bttzed03]

This is very funny. At first, they marketed themselves as a browser that would never spy on you or gather your details and monetize them like Google Chrome

They aren't forcing anyone to perform KYC and users still has the option to opt-out of their reward program don't they?
They won't gather anything from you unless you let them by allowing yourself get paid from ads or is that not true anymore?

[bitmover]

They aren't forcing anyone to perform KYC and users still has the option to opt-out of their reward program don't they?
They won't gather anything from you unless you let them by allowing yourself get paid from ads or is that not true anymore?

Once you do kyc, your browser activity and browser fingerprint are going to be linked to your Id forever .
There is no opt-out, give my docs backs. You sent them online, you can't make them "forget " you sent them

[TryNinja]

Once you do kyc, your browser activity and browser fingerprint are going to be linked to your Id forever .
There is no opt-out, give my docs backs. You sent them online, you can't make them "forget " you sent them

Are you saying that Brave has access and logs your browser activity and browser fingerprints to link it to your KYC-verified account? Do you have a source on that?

The opt-out is not participating in the BAT reward system. I'm using Brave just fine without having to worry about BAT, KYC or Uphold. No one has to do KYC to use the browser.

[bitmover]

Are you saying that Brave has access and logs your browser activity and browser fingerprints to link it to your KYC-verified account? Do you have a source on that?

Sorry, don't have source of that... I am probably wrong. I will search more about it. But something about our account they must have, because they need to track how many ads and where we see them to pay. Right?

[TryNinja]

Sorry, don't have source of that... I am probably wrong. I will search more about it. But something about our account they must have, because they need to track how many ads and where we see them to pay. Right?

Well, tracking how many ads you have seen is very different from logging your activity. That would be a major issue and I'm sure no one would use it if that was the case. Numbering ads shown is as easy as using a numberOfAds += 1 in their back-end code when an ad is sent to you.

Also, the point of the browser is that ads aren't shown based on your activity or profile, so tracking you would be literally the contrary of their business model.

[nakamura12]

This is not fair. They should not let anyone deposit in the first place if users can't withdraw without completing KYC.

They should have let people know that they need KYC to withdraw instead of letting them know that KYC is required right after you withdraw the rewards you get and in that case users won't deposit because of KYC. It is really not fair to most but what can we do but complain.

[nelson4lov]

It's sad to see crypto/blockchain service providers and startups bending the knees to regulatory bodies. Brave paraded itself as giving power/privacy back to the people and now they're going against their own principles. I wouldn't put much blame on Brave. Even exchanges are subjected to regulatory rules and laws. That said, this moves goes to sjow that brave isn't entirely decentralized as they originally claimed.

[Velkro]

I wouldn't go through KYC for 1 USD a month. The money is a joke even without KYC but with it it's just not worth it. There are services that give you $20 if you do full KYC with them. You'd have to use brave for over a year to earn that.

Not saying that your data is worth $20 because it's much more valuable but selling it for much less is stupid.

Wise words sir.
Remember people, your privacy is valuable asset. Dont throw it away for nothing.
Future will punish people for their mistakes or mistakes of their parents in terms of privacy (social media mostly).

[adjed]

People tend to abuse things, just take a look at the Keybase airdrop where over 95,000 fake registrations were disqualified and you would know what I am talking about, for this to be sustainable, it has to be a fair distribution to everyone and that includes real users only so I have to admit that I wasn't really surprised when j saw this because if the KYC wasn't implemented, people would always find a way to exploit the system, you have to see it from this point of view as well.

[Mike Mayor]

KYC pisses me off. I am pirate and pirates don't do KYC argh!! Anyway I never got around to using brave beyond installing ait and looking at it for a few minutes. They do not support ads here. Now I never will use it sine KYC is the work of witch craft and from satan himself. xP Some mysterious weirdo online wants to know where I live? Why? Will they promise to visit? My ID number? Wow, that's just rude. don't you know it's rude to ask a woman her age? Ok, I am not a woman but they didn't know that. They also have my IP as well. A picture of me too? Wow, we are good friends. I mean... Who here would tell someone they have just met on IG where they live?? Noone.... Why should this be any different? This is worse infact. I am not even that paranoid since I have given my exact GPS location of where I live to friends I trust online. But that is to someone I really care about and are actual friends I trust. Not some mysterious wierdo who wants to pay me for my personal info. It makes me think of some shady dude in the street walking up to you and offering you some weird black market deal.
I don't know about anyone else but I do not sleep well a night knowing people have my personal info. I mean... Will they tell us who they are or where they live? Not a damn chance. This is why the exchange I use for fiat I know the actual owner. He in in artiles and has an actual full and real name and is an actualy real person you can get hold of if you really want to. So foe this I make an exepction. They also very helpful and treat me well. The dchange is called valr.com It is South African. Here we have good laws. We don't go ape crazy like the USA does with taxes and restrictions and shit but if you are planning on scamming people you will face harsh penalty.
Bascially here you have your freedom but if you screw it up and abuse it you are going to pay dearly. So few people are aware of the laws in my country and oftten think we live in a sham. It is not true. We embrace crypto with open arms here and we encourage freedom and discourage KYC like prceedures. The goverment here warns traders of KYC and that they cannot protect you if something bad happens so they tell you it is up to you. As I say freedom is important and we have some of the best laws in the world here. So when your goverment warns you not to do KYC you should really listen. Valr.com KYC is offially done through proper prosudures and my data is legally protected by south african law.

People tend to abuse things, just take a look at the Keybase airdrop where over 95,000 fake registrations were disqualified and you would know what I am talking about, for this to be sustainable, it has to be a fair distribution to everyone and that includes real users only so I have to admit that I wasn't really surprised when j saw this because if the KYC wasn't implemented, people would always find a way to exploit the system, you have to see it from this point of view as well.

Very interesting that you would tell us to think of it from a different point when you doing the exact same thing. You can't really cheap them by creating multiple account because you get paid to watch ads not to have more registrations. It doesn't matter how many accounts you have you can only watch a certain amount of ads at the same time. If you create VM for each account it wont matter because you have to be actively at the screen and active. YOu can't just leave it for 24 hours and think it will work. New ads show and load with interaction.

[dkbit98]

I agree with you regarding Brave browser, BUT I guess they had to do this to avoid legal trouble as people use Brave worldwide.
I will NOT do KYC just so I can receive few bucks.
They can simply add option for users to move BAT tokens to built in Metamask wallet.

[CucakRowo]

There are a few things that (maybe) caused the brave team to ask KYC (although i don't like it):
- Because brave team plans to hold an ICO? (Source : Web Browser Brave to Launch ICO for Ethereum Ad Token) | Executed : ICO period has been implemented
- Brave team company location is in USA (Location : Brave San Francisco 512 Second St., Floor 2, San Francisco, CA 94107)

a brief conclusion, based on the company's location, statement issued by the SEC (Statement on Cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings) and rules ( ), brave team finally applied KYC procedure.

No lunch is free i guess.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Brave team company location is in USA

So move your company's location. There are plenty of exchanges, services, etc. which allow users to buy, sell, trade, send, receive, deposit, withdrawal altcoins without KYC, as long as no fiat is involved. There is no reason Brave couldn't do the same. But they have prioritized keeping a close business relationships with third party advertisers over the privacy of their users.

If they want to go down the KYC route, that's entirely their prerogative, but they can't still claim to be this amazing privacy focused browser at the same time.

Even if someone offered to pay me $50 a month (which is 10x what they claim you can earn by using Brave full-time) with no strings attached to send my KYC documents to an unknown third party, I would say no. I'm definitely not going to do it to for a couple of bucks and fill my browser with ads at the same time. Your personal details are worth a lot more than, and it will cost you a lot more than that to recover from identity theft.

[Jaspion]

I hope someone else, maybe firefox, could just implement their business model paying users with BTC without kyc.

I don't think we need that at all. I don't mind being not paid for browsing the internet. If I want to make money there are better ways to do it. Paying for browsing brings unnecessary conflicts of interest, abuse etc.

All I want is software that let's me see nicely rendered HTML and doesn't spy on me.

I opened the thread only to make sure that there is someone with same position as I have.
I understand why someone appreciates idea of making money with surfing net.
But at the end of the day my security and private data worth more than Brave can give me.

[CucakRowo]

So move your company's location. There are plenty of exchanges, services, etc. which allow users to buy, sell, trade, send, receive, deposit, withdrawal altcoins without KYC, as long as no fiat is involved

More specifically, do not accept investments from investors who have US citizenship.
Question is, is it possible?

..as long as no fiat is involved

For USA. One of my friends once said. "In USA you are taxed when you have crypto".
Am surprised. So, i did browsing and found this (some summary) ;

- For tax purposes in the U.S., cryptocurrency is treated as property
- A wallet-to-wallet transfer (where for example Bitcoin is sent from one Bitcoin wallet to another) is not a taxable event, but you do have to account for it.

Source : The Tax Rules for Crypto in the U.S. Simplified

I still don't fully understand. Afaik, Why are most companies oriented in crypto, most of their location is in USA & UK? Is it because of easiness about company licensing? tax light? Bonafide? More legit? more legitimate?
well, nevermind. topic is about BAT KYC.

[Annisa_crypto]

I personally don't like the brave browser. Because the browser has a problem itself as the browser blocks ads and website trackers.

[seandiumx20]

I personally don't like the brave browser. Because the browser has a problem itself as the browser blocks ads and website trackers.

Brave browser has good advantages like having low requirement of ram storage unlike google that almost eat all of your ram.

If you are a normal browser then brave is a thing we need. Maybe some are not in favor with brave due to ads which is a great feature for me.

btw, i'm using brave browser now and it's really amazing and convenient to user. ,,

[finaleshot2016]

I personally don't like the brave browser. Because the browser has a problem itself as the browser blocks ads and website trackers.

Brave browser has good advantages like having low requirement of ram storage unlike google that almost eat all of your ram.

If you are a normal browser then brave is a thing we need. Maybe some are not in favor with brave due to ads which is a great feature for me.

btw, i'm using brave browser now and it's really amazing and convenient to user. ,,

Confirmed. The brave browser has 33 to 66% memory reduction than the google chrome, therefore, using Brave when multitasking is way more efficient than our default browsers now. The brave browser also have adblocks that lessen media such as gif or images that require memory and Brave Browser don't have many extensions and features where chrome has a lot of it.

My theory to this is brave browser was made to defeat google chrome, brave browser was good at this moment and continuously upgrading its performances.

[bitmover]

My theory to this is brave browser was made to defeat google chrome, brave browser was good at this moment and continuously upgrading its performances.

I think it is very hard to defeat chrome, as it come pre installed in all androids devices, and it integrates nicely with google products. So, most users will automatically chose chrome.

Brave is chromium based, so it is somehow closer to chrome than to firefox.

However, it focus in firefox market: Both firefox and brave focus in a " free web" and "privacy" propaganda (although firefox is performing better in that, imo)

[finaleshot2016]

My theory to this is brave browser was made to defeat google chrome, brave browser was good at this moment and continuously upgrading its performances.

I think it is very hard to defeat chrome, as it come pre installed in all androids devices, and it integrates nicely with google products. So, most users will automatically chose chrome.

Brave is chromium based, so it is somehow closer to chrome than to firefox.

However, it focus in firefox market: Both firefox and brave focus in a " free web" and "privacy" propaganda (although firefox is performing better in that, imo)

yes, chrome has a bigger company that can dominate all which is an advantage for them but if the people are notified and informed that this browser was 100% better then people will adapt to it.

There are built-in apps in android but still, some people download the apps that are more efficient to them. So if they found out that brave was really a thing regarding adblocks they will install it.