Revisiting Brave Browser - Is it Better?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Support me by checking out my awesome merch! shop.thelinuxcast.org ==== Time Stamps ==== 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:38 My Brave 00:01:49 Tab Groups 00:06:38 Vertical Tabs 00:08:59 Leo 00:09:58 Brave Search 00:11:13 Crypto-Nonsense 00:12:40 Brave Sync 00:14:34 Sidebar 00:16:14 Conclusion 00:19:00 Wrapping Up

[@vladimir_fomin90]

Brave duplicates bookmarks and this bug is already a couple of years old

[@infinitivez]

You really should check out the group settings under the brave flags. I can open/close my groups and they restore without issue. There's also a NEW vertical tab layout experiment, I haven't had a chance to play with just yet. But now that you mention it, I'm gonna go check it out. (I don't generally even use tabs anymore, because they get too small- I just hit the drop down and select what I want from there)

[@equinøx984]

Lol, today after months of using Brave I switched to Zen Browser

[@epixerty]

i did that too but im considering going back to brave, there's no way to organize tabs in zen which is kinda annoying to me because it's hard to find tabs when it's just a bunch of stacked icons, and when they fill the entire sidebar and you have to scroll it's even worse. great browser overall but I just need some sort of tab group feature

[@ThePhenoix504FI3D1]

@@epixertyyou can adjust the tabs to show as words icons instead of icons only. Scrolling tabs might be annoying but i'm not that type of the guy who opens more than 16 tabs in one session. There is also zen mods where it groups tabs together, I didn't stick with it but might be useful.

[@firestormjupiter]

Tab folders are a planned feature

[@marcelparvu931]

@@epixerty try to use it with side berry it recently got good support on zen

[@nicoleking772]

Zen looks interesting. Maybe it's download time?

[@KoopstaKlicca]

Brave is probably my favorite browser but I don't do anything super advanced or require a ton from browsers. I use firefox on ideological grounds however to signal support for gecko. Something I wish that's in every browser though is Vivaldi's command prompt. I don't care about the commands so much as being able to search and navigate tabs, bookmarks, and everything from one place. It's so convenient Edit: You didn't ask for all of this but viewer engagement is good for the algorithm

[@AnkitSharma-qg2dc]

We got Matt coming back to Brave before GTA 6!!!

[@RoboKestrel]

I've been a longtime Brave user on all my devices but, like Windows, it has been increasingly shoving things in my face I didn't ask for. I really just want a streamlined, no-bullshit browser. May switch to Waterfox, though I don't see Firefox-based browsers as having a bright future.

[@ericv738]

I never understood the tab hoarding. Just use bookmarks?

[@ActionGamerAaron]

I use both, but the tabs open act like a to-do. Bookmarks can be viewed later without consequence or remembering to do something with them.

[@kirangeorge8]

Brave: "You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me."

[@MarkGast]

Once you get Brave configured its a decent browser.

[@referralacc1033]

Brave started as a nice browser with focus on privacy. Now it has become a bloatware with its ai,wallet,sponsored news etc. I still use it sometimes.

[@sysadmin1350]

Its gotta make money somehow but at least its open with it unlike Firefox which instead lies to its users and makes underhand deals with Google and Microsoft.

[@vintagewander]

@@referralacc1033 that's the way they make money 😂 because they rely on blockchain crypto projects and fighting sports to make money, so that they can just straight up block all sorts of ads for you (well it's just ublock origin baked into the core)

[@PeterHonig.]

It's only bloatware if you specifically choose to install those options, otherwise it's "lean and mean". As such, I only use Brave and Tor.

[@referralacc1033]

@@PeterHonig. Choose to install those options ? Bruh Brave never gave option to "install" ai,crypto wallet, sponsored news etc. Neither can you "uninstall" those from brave. You can only disable them.

[@davidsouzmr]

@@referralacc1033 you can easily turn it off, just like you turn off an browser extension

[@ytchannel6569]

I use Ubuntu, Firefox and Chromium. I'm the most boring linux user.

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

Please don't end up being a "Linux poseur" by defining yourself as "boring". If what you use fits in with your workflow then good for you - it's not anyone else's business to tell you how you should do things and there are already too many new entrants into the Linux community who only use it so as to pose around on social media about how "l33t" they are - but ask them to sit down and learn Linux properly and they start whining.

[@maxron6514]

Its okay to be boring!

[@alexstone691]

Boring is comfy, nothing wrong with being comfy

[@johanb.7869]

You're not alone😉

[@SirChristoferus]

To Ubuntu’s credit, its management of Snap Apps is noticeably improved in the recent 24.10 interim release - and it’s looking like the next LTS will be greatly enhanced in that area.

[@benderbg]

I always wondered why you have 64GB of RAM and having 200 opened browser tabs explains it.

[@ivank6486]

You can actually close the group without destroing it, but this feature is called 'hide group' - it will be gone from tabs row, but still will be visible in front of bookmarks

[@EriKantGame]

I use Vivaldi for similar reasons...just me and my 18 tab stacks against the world 😔 It does make it hard to make to other browsers, for sure. It's become such a crucial part of my daily workflow

[@KapitanMokraFaja]

Now?! Really? This is the time to abandon chromium as one.

[@nikunjkhangwal]

Brave has ublock integrated

[@KapitanMokraFaja]

@@nikunjkhangwal So it means it will not work with V3 or am I wrong?

[@nikunjkhangwal]

@@KapitanMokraFaja As far as i know they're doing extra work to keep ublock working regardless

[@lefteris.p]

I was using brave for about 2 years. I tried again after a lot of years Firefox and I decided to switch to librewolf for about a year. The last two weeks I am trying Zen and I have to say for an alpha it is almost, for me at least, ready for my main use. And in the meantime I'm hyped for ladybird's alpha.

[@mattpobursky850]

Vivaldi user here. Also a confirmed tab hoarder. Love Workspaces in Vivaldi, it was a life changer for me. Also like the fact Vivaldi hibernates inactive tabs. I have tried Brave a bunch of times but always come back to Vivaldi.

[@omarashraf27]

All what you did was making me consider using vivaldi

[@_vilepenguin]

I love Brave. Few reasons, main one being TOR being built in without having to use a second browser. I also like to that it blocks most evil elements. The quality of life features are secondary to my privacy.

[@sysadmin1350]

And before any Firefox shills complain about crypto and AI in brave. At least Brave has never been caught lying to users and making underhand deals with Microsoft.

[@noodlery7034]

This is great for when books get taken down from Z lib

[@deathcare]

@@sysadmin1350 This is such a bad argument. Just because Mozilla did something bad doesn't make the retarded shitty stuff that Brave does somehow better. You should just by principle be skeptical of a tool that supposedly is all about your privacy but is constantly forcing AI and crypto shit in your face, especially AI in that regard.

[@anieziisandezzlas]

And it is free software

[@madness1931]

Just a note: While the Tor feature works, using that feature makes you stick out like a sore thumb. The Tor browser works so well because the fingerprint is exactly the same as everyone else, making you blend in. With Brave, and it's different anti-fingerprinting it makes you stand out.

[@Leahi84]

I wanted to use Brave at one point but the crypto and web3 stuff put me off so I passed on it. I'm currently really, really happy with Zen browser.

[@seapanda-117]

Why keep a ton of tabs open instead of keeping and organizing bookmarks? With the new features that put tabs to rest in background, is there any difference?

[@dsouth7754]

That was interesting timing on seeing that trackball post; I'm glad I saw it because I'm redoing the ergonomics of my work area. I switched to a split keyboard, which has been excellent, and I'm learning that trackballs are a very underserved market; I desperately wish Corsair had made some. And this is the umpteenth time I've heard of QA issues with Elecom products, so I'm sort of left pondering. Guess I'll look into the Logitech MX Ergo.

[@naul06]

About the sidebar, there's actually a button just like you described, but it's in the top bar, probably hidden for you.

[@Skelterbane69]

I have 2000 tabs open and brave crashed after I opened, like, 30 of them. Even with the setting to unload unused tabs. Firefox forks never have this problem.

[@ActionGamerAaron]

8:33 "And if you don't have a middle scroll wheel on your mouse, what do you do?" ... Upgrade your 30 year old mouse?

[@Komatik_]

Tab groups unusable with vertical tabs feels like a weird take, especially since you say Edge does them well. Brave's implementation looks different, but is functionally near identical to Edge's. They use space the same way etc, the only real difference is that Edge has an arrow box at the root of a tab group in collapsed mode instead of a blank space with the group's color. It's just appearance, functionality is the same as in Edge. I'm a tab hoarder as well, and tab groups + vertical tabs is the way to use a browser, IMO. Keep the vertical tab list expanded so you see the tab and tab group titles. Also keep in mind that vertical tabs are scrollable by default. Brave does have a button to show the sidebar, check appearance settings.

[@iduran]

Brave also has split tabs in the nightly version and enabling the corresponding flag. It is a nice addition.

[@isthisrumo]

Arc Browser implements vertical tabs quite well. But it's currently only available for MacOS and Windows.

[@Sqwert-g6h]

Brave has always remained my main browser. You don't have to use the ai, wallet, or sponsored news at all, and you can completely disable it and remove it from your view. I'd like to see a firefox edition of Brave.

[@IoannesPetrvs]

When i need Chromium (daily), i use Brave. When i need Firefox, i use Librewolf. When i need productivity, i use Vivaldi.

[@winstonb990]

Why Firefox's top tabs so thick and wide and haven't changed since years ago?

[@oalfodr]

I hate big paddings but at least Firefox UI is easy to modify. Since I have only several tabs open at one time, I have even placed tab and address bars in the same line

[@axthd]

Right Click on the empty area beside the tab column, remove the title bar tick.

[@necuz]

They're pretending like being touch-friendly on PC matters.

[@HannoImmelman]

I always wonder why my phone is so slow when browsing then I realise I have 50+ tabs open in my browser 😂

[@frankbacon1002]

Honestly Zen browser is peak browser

[@johanb.7869]

Switched to Brave from Firefox because Fx has issues with Viaplay which I use to watch the Premier League and Formula 1 live sports. It freezes regularly and when it plays again, it replays the frozen part/parts again. Sometimes multiple times after another. With or without extensions, clean profile. Doesn't happen on Brave. Libre Wolf has the same issues. So it must be Firefox. And sometimes when I want to copy a line of text or a command copy is grayed out. Doesn't happen on Brave either. Been a Fx user for almost 20 years, but it had to go. Always the same 15 tabs open that I visit every day. If I do this with Firefox it crashes after a while because it uses to much memory. Doesn't happen on Brave either.

[@JgdYmbGtsiGGGASDXCASDASD]

I used to use Brave, but Firefox + Sideberry is just too good for a tab hoarder like me (750+ across 6 windows). Sideberry tabs are also tree like, which makes them all the more useful. Brave has vertical tabs now (it didn't when I switched to Firefox) but Brave's implementation is incredibly basic. Sideberry takes snapshots of all tabs and saves them automatically (off by default, but it's just a click to enable setting). If something goes wrong I can simply export all my tabs manually. I can reopen any number of tabs from auto-saved snapshots if I accidentally close down a window or something. Want to transfer to a new profile (for troubleshooting)? Easy. All tab management is incredibly smooth and easy with Sideberry. I cannot fathom using a browser nowadays without vertical tree style tabs and snapshot support. It's the _only_ reason I'm still using Firefox, despite its rapid deterioration. I have to use something Chromium based (Brave in this case) for online shopping; some of my regular local websites do not even support payments with Firefox anymore.

[@lofgren007]

@TheLinuxCast - Are you using a touchpad/trackball? Why no scroll wheel?

[@thedeemon]

I've been using Brave daily for the last few years, it is great, both on desktop Linux and Android. However, at least on my main Linux box, I noticed it's kinda bad at parallelism: if one tab does something CPU or GPU heavy, even when it's not active, other tabs start being sluggish and slow to react. So for youtube, for example, I use Firefox. I wonder if anyone also had this problem with Brave.

[@eliinthewolverinestate6729]

I like brave because the adblockers and when I close the window it wipes the cookies on the computer. I hate when it groups tabs. Yes it opens to duck duck go as home page. On the phone I like that it keeps playing videos. So I am not killing the music at work when I use the phone. Personally I think using browser wallets are hacker bait. I would like a stripped down version of brave.

[@F_Around_and_find_out]

I use any browsers that offer the option to erase all histories and cookies when the browser is closed. Security and privacy means there are no dangling strings. Strangely enough Edge offers this, in the settings, 1 kudo to Microsoft.

[@cheako91155]

I miss dictionary lookup... I used to highlight a word and a tooltip would popup with a dictionary lookup.

[@HerozTech]

0:37 even without watching entire video I know you won't be using for long not because it is bad but because coming from Vavaldi there might be some features you would be expecting but maybe not see or it might not be intuitive as Vavaldi

[@TrustJesusToday]

I use Brave on Android devices, but on my Linux PCs...Zen browser does the job well.

[@theproftiago]

Man is it possible to have your setup? Like wm you use and dotfiles?

[@TheLinuxCast]

It's qtile. Dots are linked in the description.

[@theproftiago]

@@TheLinuxCast man you fast. Thanks. Thanks for your channel. Came back to Linux because of you. If you come to Rio de Janeiro let me know, it would be a pleasure to show you the city

[@rikhardfsoss]

cool cool would be if Brave implemented containers like Firefox.

[@pitape1822]

Brave will continue supporting manifest v2 extensions such as NoScript or ublock origin installable outside Chrome store . For that alone it is better than Vivaldi.

[@darkchoclate]

Been using brave, testing zen rn alongside brave, few bugs remains, then will fully switch.

[@thingsiplay]

Tabs Hi Matt. I know for a long time that you are an extensive tab user. Nothing wrong with it, if it works for you. But I don't understand why you don't use bookmarks instead, if those tabs are "open" for a long time?

[@robinsonrom]

I've been using firefox for so long that I just can't bring myself to use anything else in a serious way.

[@newplayer7743]

I'm about to says bad words, but I use Brave the entire time. I simply want 0 effort regarding the browser. Brave simply just work if you ignore the bloats. Firefox doesn't appealing to me at all. Or I just be a ignorant, because occasionally I use Tor Browser which configured Firefox (also 0 effort).

[@theclassicalhomeopath]

so you're not a privacy fanatic? cause vivaldi's adblocker is not as strong as brave's or ublock

[@TheLinuxCast]

No. Not really. I like privacy, but I like my tab groups better.

[@cultist7931]

>calls himself a tab hoarder i have 682 tabs open in brave right now that is, only in brave (the normal one, not nightly or my other firefox based browsers)

[@zenmaster24]

i moved from chrome on to vivaldi on ubuntu - i enjoyed it until some updated broke gpu acceleration. after that, i moved to brave and havent looked back.

[@NiladriSarkar047]

Your desktop, is it qtile? Can we get a link to your dots?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Yes it is qtile. Link in the description

[@Ralphunreal]

Firefox 🔥🦊 the goat 🐐

[@no_name4796]

Mozilla is pretty shitty But i do agree firefox is the 🐐 If anything, ublock works best on firefox (not kidding, they had an entire list of reasons why ublock worked worse on chromium, when it still worked)

[@sysadmin1350]

Yep, GOAT of telemetry.

[@owlmostdead9492]

I don’t want to attack you or any other stranger who is using Vivaldi but every Vivaldi user I have personally met had no idea of how to do any work effectively

[@TheLinuxCast]

Well you and I haven't met.

[@alexstone691]

I wish someone would just build in ublock origin and be done with it

[@donnie4645]

It is

[@tom-hy1kn]

70 to 200 tabs open? I hope you are exaggerating.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Nope

[@ytbone9430]

I have 2200+ tabs open right now in 1 of 3 browsers I use at the same time - 98% of the tabs are hibernated of course. o) I need to take a day off and close some I guess?! o) These tabs, they just add up, if you mis-use regular tabs as temporary bookmarks. It's not that I need all of the tabs at the same time, but often it's easier to leave the tab open for later reference, than to archive that specific page and sort it into some other note taking application or whatever. Vivaldi get's slower with that many tabs though, but it's still perfectly usable, which wasn't always the case, they really enhanced on the memory and performance in recent years. I just use an old i5-6400 - 4 core CPU and 16GB of memory. I also currently run 2 VMs on this machine, MS Teams, several RDP connection, editors, chat client etc.. My Windows swap-file is 32GB in size. The system still works flawlessly with this heavy memory load even though I only use a regular SATA SSD. I can even do Standby with the VMs running and be right back with the actual machines and the VMs after a Resume - Windows is awesome.. o) Using only 16GB of physical memory and having the page file grow to 32GB in size makes clear, the system wants more physical memory. Because it does not have it, you can basically see how the swapped memory "eats" away lifetime of my SSD. It is only 1 year old and down to 76% with 32TB already written, uuffz - not good! o)

[@xgui4-studios]

rip the Linux cast computer ram

[@daleholden]

Sorry Matt you need to do a little more research mine hide and i can open and close any time the browser is open.

[@TheLinuxCast]

IDK what this means

[@Komatik_]

@@TheLinuxCast I think what he means is when you save a tab group, it adds an option to that group that says "Hide Group". Pressing that removes the tab group from your tab bar and makes it so it only shows in the bookmarks bar.

[@mattkwarren]

After trying Brave (for more than one year), it's mostly just a more complicated Chromium plus a few extensions. It has more bugs and more bloat. The coolest thing to me is how it syncs between devices. I have it in my tool kit, but that was just my impression. Still mostly using Firefox.

[@Kaz-qz2oq]

In a twist of fate, I love the crypto and BAT features, we use web3 stuff at work that Brave is useful for, and there are some creators that take BAT as a way support them Brave is good because it had all the stuff needed to traverse different networks seamlessly, and if you don't want something, you can turn it off

[@tobeqz7065]

Brave browser is malware. It overrides my mime types every time I open it

[@nuldorvamoysenor2091]

08:20 Who doesn't have a middle click on their mouse?? It's 2024!! Dude...

[@xgui4-studios]

Firefox For The Win !

[@esra_erimez]

Watching on Brave on KDE Neon

[@Sameer.dhiman]

Using Chrome because Brave doesn't support 60hz+ displays if I turn off hardware acceleration, disconnects charging and there is no fix for it.

[@vladimir_fomin90]

Vivaldi is better in everything!

[@TheLinuxCast]

Truth

[@Tall_Order]

I love Brave, but I abandoned it for Librewolf due to the future of ad blockers being uncertain. Sure, they plan to keep supporting them, but for how long? My only real complaint with Brave was no support for native desktop environment (default system title bars). At least with FF browsers, you can still toggle it. For now, anyway. It seems like every browser right now wants to have its own title bar skin and buttons. Totally destroys uniformity among programs/apps.

[@KoopstaKlicca]

Why pre-empt an uncertain future for a browser when it doesn't cost anything to make the change later?

[@Tall_Order]

@@KoopstaKlicca I still have it installed at least. And I do occasionally use it and update its bookmarks to match those in librewolf. I also find it to be way more stable than librewolf, so anytime something looks broken I open it in brave instead. I'm never going to give up on brave. Who knows, maybe I'll come back full time once I know there is a plan in place to keep using my ad blocker. Either that or I'll just get tired of how buggy librewolf is and return. lol

[@ZolaKluke]

Brave does have an option to use the titlebar from your DE

[@KoopstaKlicca]

@@Tall_Order I think you misunderstood my question. I was asking why switch now when switching later is trivial? What's the disadvantage to waiting for Brave to actually drop ad blockers and then switching?

[@Tall_Order]

​@@KoopstaKlicca I could have waited, sure. The reason I left early is that tons of KZbinrs were doom-saying about it, so I decided to make the jump early. I know it's a poor reason, but I'd rather not put it off to the last minute, because then I'd have to scramble to make another browser have all the addons and settings I need to get by. At least I was able to slowly build librewolf over the course of 2 months, to be 'good enough'. I just don't like to scramble at the last minute.

[@xperience-evolution]

Since I discovered Brave around 3 years ago I don't use anything else and don't plan to

[@_BLANK_BLANK]

The crypto stuff is genuinely way better than how Google makes money. Which is by taking peoples data, selling it to people for advertising. If brave wants to do the crypto thing I don't mind at all. I don't use any of that stuff so I just disable it right away. So its not like it matters for me.

[@ActionGamerAaron]

You feel you are neutral on this situation yet just proved how useless their advertising scheme is. They are all in on crypto when it's failing and no one wants money this volatile other than countries in hyperinflation where cryptocurrencies aren't crashing as hard as their own local currency. This is a failing business model they've invested in and that's a huge problem for their long term viability.

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

Tab Groups: Vivaldi does better. Vertical Tabs: Why needed? Leo: It will pass. Brave Search: My search engine by default and never disappointed. Crypto: I support the project. Brave Sync: 👍 Sidebar: Useful for me.

[@rafaburdzy449]

I use Brave and I like use Brave.

[@l33thax0r2]

Aren't people worry about Vivaldi/Google data collection?

[@cultist7931]

also, a few of vilvaldi's code is proprietary

[@AlexanderAddams]

Only vivladis wrapper is proprietary and they don't do data collection without you expressly giving it. And even then, they don't resell it like Google.

[@l33thax0r2]

@@AlexanderAddams While I agree google is worse, it's known that vivaldi, every 24h or so, will send a message with the ID, version, CPU architecture and screen resolution to their servers in Iceland. These are enough to fingerprint someone. Also, their privacy policy is kinda shady, they say they don't collect data but they also say they could disclose data to "legitimate law agencies with a court order". How can they disclose something that they say they don't have?

[@l33thax0r2]

@@cultist7931 That and also i forgot to add that in 2020 they were caught using a third-party service to track user behavior

[@eleah2665]

I like Brave.

[@TeleviseGuy]

The browsers I currently use are Vivaldi, Firefox and Chrome. Why Chrome? Because the only bad thing about it is the privacy, and I don't always want to compromise stability or speed just for a bit of extra privacy that isn't even that significant if what I do is go on KZbin and other social media.

[@alexstone691]

Mind me asking why you need 3 browsers, also vivaldi IMO is better than chrome and can completely replace it

[@LocovsworldNL]

I’d rather die then to use brave who promotes crypto and uses embedded affiliate links over their users to profit from them. I also hate using Firefox because of some woke comments 2 years ago but atm there is no better alternative.

[@xperience-evolution]

You can turn that off in Brave and also the Brave Tab. I have it and turned on Paid Background to support them a little. I see them 0.00001% of the time I am using Brave

[@ActionGamerAaron]

"I also hate using Firefox because of some woke comments 2 years ago" lmao, chud problems

[@normieeliminator]

It is a malware.

[@sysadmin1350]

You mean Firefox?

[@normieeliminator]

@@sysadmin1350 cope. You can remove those unwanted experiments/ "malwares" on firefox except for 'pocket' thingy, but you cannot remove malwares from chromium re-skin called brave. As you can literally see in this video. Also by using any form of Chromium product, even if it is a fork, you are enabling google to take over the internet. You my friend, are literally the part of the problem.

[@Cyco_Nix]

@@sysadmin1350 Well, Firefox is allowed in highly secure environments. Brave is not.