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Ask HN: Brave Instead of Firefox?

4 points by chris_st ↗ HN
I'm curious about everyone's experience with Brave instead of Firefox. For all the various reasons [0] I don't use chrome any more.

I just downloaded Brave for my main web-development browser (...via finding the latest release on their GitHub page, since they insist on doing an admin-only install on the mac, grr...) in hopes that it's actually faster than Firefox, and uses less memory (so they claim).

After startup, Firefox (that I'd been doing a day's dev on, so this is totally unfair, but I'll keep an eye on Brave) was using ~450M, and Brave ~140M.

Has the chrome-style dev tools, so that's nice. Don't care about the "rewards" thing, since it won't be my main browser.

Do you use it? What do you think?

I'm not affiliated with the Brave folks in any way, just curious.

Thanks!

[0]: https://chromeisbad.com

11 comments

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verdverm
fwiw, it's based on Chromium like Chrome and Edge
stakkur
I've tried both; I find Firefox dev tools to be much better (I like them better than Chrome, too). And in a venn diagram of privacy features, I think Firefox and Brave mostly overlap.
chris_st
Interesting -- what do you prefer about the Firefox dev tools? I know the chrome ones pretty well (which is nice, since Brave is chromium-based).
[deleted]
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Bakary
I use both. In fact I've distributed my various projects over multiple browsers. The languages I'm learning are distributed across two Edge profiles because its inbuilt TTS software is amazing. Job seeking and other projects involving frequent video calls are done on separate Brave profiles. Personal browsing is done on Firefox.

It sounds burdensome but it's been the opposite for me actually. Each project has its own bookmarks and mindset, and just having the precise settings, add-ons and information you need avoids confusion and distractions. Obviously, this will not work for different personality types.

To give a small but significant example, there are some Firefox settings I block because of a VPN vulnerability that I leave on on Brave since they are necessary for video calls.

chris_st
Wow, interesting use-case! Wouldn't have thought of that.
gls2ro
Super nice to find someone doing the same thing.

I use Safari and Firefox for the main work and Safari Technology Preview for a small learning project. Even if they share history, I like to open the browser and all previews links are open already.

I also use Brave and Vivaldi and Opera and Chrome for various tasks like:

- Opera for reading papers and articles as I never sign in there on any account

- Chrome for Google Meet as it is directly open by a toolbar widget I connected to the calendar

- Brave for some hobbies including small research when I (rarely) write something on my blog.

- Vivaldi for all things related to parenting :)

Now I installed Edge and playing around with it thinking to move there al things related to blog and social media.

yen223
The fact that Brave the browser shows me ads for cryptocurrency exchanges when I open a new tab makes it really hard for me to trust it.
speedgoose
I have no trust in a company pushing weird crypto currency features. I prefer to use Vivaldi or Edge.
dshep
I replaced Chrome with Brave more than a year ago and I recommend it as basically a better version of Chrome. The script blocking feature is especially useful for nytimes, and other paywall sites. The one problem I have had was my computer crashed at one point and Brave completely lost my session (4 windows, probably ~100 tabs in total). So now using Firefox mostly, even though I like it less, with Brave as a 2nd browser.