I'm an old C programmer that cut my teeth on Unix system 3 back in the early eighties, so I'm with ya. I LOVE Unix/Linux and I HATE windows. However, we're still screwed from a security standpoint no matter what browser we use. The 3 letter agency dickheads infiltrated Intel shortly after the Pentium chip set was released and AMD was infiltrated shortly after. They have back doors to EVERYTHING. So, yea, we can hide behind VPN's and use non-google stuff, but they still got a back door that we don't have the ability to close. Huawai learned from us ironically. Glad Trump closed the door on those a-holes and I hope Biden is too stupid to recognize it. We, however, gotta start paying attention to the technology we're employing.
I want to make that distinction. For instance, if I am using Chrome, I do suffer directly - because my privacy will be at the mercy of Google. Just making sure that this is not the case with Brave.
As for for analytics trackers, I have to verify that it shows up as Chromium since I would have thought they would use their own User-Agent. But even if we assume this is the case - it should be fairly easy for the user to change the User-Agent and ensure Brave does not show up as Chromium.
As for market share - I would not look at using Brave that is a Chromium derivitive as giving Google the market share. As long as User-Agent is different, and there are no inbuilt connections to any Google servers, its like pirated software/movies. You are taking advantage of the evil company without providing them any benefits.
A person could go a step further and consider the hardware itself could be compromised.
How many major hardware manufacturers exist? In which case even using a linux box would still be compromised to an extent that non software can really access.
Not shitting on your point, but Google owns android OS as well, I know it's a bastardized linux, but who knows just how tainted it is. I still prefer android over iPhone (aside the 2-3 things that apple legitimately handles better, even a jail broken iPhone is far more constrained than a locked android).
The hardest part about converting is that all business effectively requires windows, so it becomes redundant to have to learn alternative software for nearly only personal reasons. Which is doubly annoying because I can factually name 2 examples where freeware software works as well as software that is used by business in 1000$+ per box per year level. One example being Blender, which is as powerful as the software used by Disney, but free.
I have a Chromebook. I have bills to pay and cant afford a new PC or laptop. This was cheap. Can the Linux system be used successfully with the USB u/NessInOnett suggest, or must I get a different system meaning not a Notebook but a PC, laptop?
Thank you for this post. I only recall Linux from years ago and to me it was not doable. Glad to read this.
You do know Widevine DRM is merely a security layer for digital media distributions and is actually very easy to bypass, right? The source file the digital stream draws upon is not encrypted at all.
The trick isn't to defeat the DRM but to actually get the site to divulge where it is actually drawing its source data from. ;)
The bigger of the streaming services just have more technical ways of obfuscating where that file is but they all will answer the same in the end, if you know how to ask the site the right questions.
I'm an old C programmer that cut my teeth on Unix system 3 back in the early eighties, so I'm with ya. I LOVE Unix/Linux and I HATE windows. However, we're still screwed from a security standpoint no matter what browser we use. The 3 letter agency dickheads infiltrated Intel shortly after the Pentium chip set was released and AMD was infiltrated shortly after. They have back doors to EVERYTHING. So, yea, we can hide behind VPN's and use non-google stuff, but they still got a back door that we don't have the ability to close. Huawai learned from us ironically. Glad Trump closed the door on those a-holes and I hope Biden is too stupid to recognize it. We, however, gotta start paying attention to the technology we're employing.
I want to explore the idea that using chrome derivatives such as Brave is as bad as using Chrome itself.
Is this just an ideological stand? Can you provide concrete ways in which a user of Brave will suffer ?
Out of Boredom, I changed my waterfox user agent to say “TrumpOS” and “TrumpBrowser.v1.7.7.6”
I want to make that distinction. For instance, if I am using Chrome, I do suffer directly - because my privacy will be at the mercy of Google. Just making sure that this is not the case with Brave.
As for for analytics trackers, I have to verify that it shows up as Chromium since I would have thought they would use their own User-Agent. But even if we assume this is the case - it should be fairly easy for the user to change the User-Agent and ensure Brave does not show up as Chromium.
As for market share - I would not look at using Brave that is a Chromium derivitive as giving Google the market share. As long as User-Agent is different, and there are no inbuilt connections to any Google servers, its like pirated software/movies. You are taking advantage of the evil company without providing them any benefits.
Thanks for the clarifications. Its helpful.
BTW, how did you get your name to blink like that??
FOSS for the win!
https://m.imgur.com/r/linux/eeq6han (For those that don't know)
A person could go a step further and consider the hardware itself could be compromised.
How many major hardware manufacturers exist? In which case even using a linux box would still be compromised to an extent that non software can really access.
Not shitting on your point, but Google owns android OS as well, I know it's a bastardized linux, but who knows just how tainted it is. I still prefer android over iPhone (aside the 2-3 things that apple legitimately handles better, even a jail broken iPhone is far more constrained than a locked android).
The hardest part about converting is that all business effectively requires windows, so it becomes redundant to have to learn alternative software for nearly only personal reasons. Which is doubly annoying because I can factually name 2 examples where freeware software works as well as software that is used by business in 1000$+ per box per year level. One example being Blender, which is as powerful as the software used by Disney, but free.
I have a Chromebook. I have bills to pay and cant afford a new PC or laptop. This was cheap. Can the Linux system be used successfully with the USB u/NessInOnett suggest, or must I get a different system meaning not a Notebook but a PC, laptop?
Thank you for this post. I only recall Linux from years ago and to me it was not doable. Glad to read this.
You do know Widevine DRM is merely a security layer for digital media distributions and is actually very easy to bypass, right? The source file the digital stream draws upon is not encrypted at all.
The trick isn't to defeat the DRM but to actually get the site to divulge where it is actually drawing its source data from. ;)
The bigger of the streaming services just have more technical ways of obfuscating where that file is but they all will answer the same in the end, if you know how to ask the site the right questions.
I built my near-perfect environment in Arch once. And I will probably never do it again. Fun experiment though!