Categories on Dan Arel

Why I don't trust the Brave browser

Chris Wiegman — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 04:18:21 +0000

Why I don’t trust the Brave browser

This will be a rather controversial technology take, especially from someone who has been working on privacy and security for so long, but I do not trust the Brave browser or their search engine.

This isn’t to say they aren’t “private” or make any actual accusations, but privacy is to a degree about trust. You have to trust the software companies that they will always do the right thing, and I don’t trust that Brave will.

First, they had a rocky start.

In 2020, it was found that Brave was injecting affiliate links into code to profit off crypto sites.

Later, it was running a donations program for creators, except they were collecting donations for creators who had not even signed up for the program and keepint it.

And it’s also not really browser focused, it’s just a “privacy Google” in the sense that is essentially an ad company selling its own ads and displaying them, and selling its own crypto, BAT.

They use privacy as a gimmic to get you in and then profit the crap out of you.

Lastly, I don’t trust their CEO, Brendan Eich. Not even a little. Politically he’s a slimy anti-LGBTQ bigot who donated to try and marriage equality in California, he’s also an anti-vaccine lunatic.

Look, most CEOs are bad, but when it comes to browsers, I have options and I chose not to use Brave because I don’t trust their CEO and I sure as hell don’t trust their business practices.

Back to Tech

Chris Wiegman — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 01:29:39 +0000

Back to Tech

Over the years, this blog and my work have taken many forms. And so has my love or extended interest in technology.

For those who don’t know, I was the founder of ThinkPrivacy_ and a former member of PrivacyGuides, when it was still called PrivacyTools. I was a contributing writer for Startpage.

In those days, I was a big Linux user, and loved jumping distros but mainly an Arch user, and still love my Linux system, but have since switched to a Macbook Air, and a Macbook Pro at work. Yet, with my busy life as a dad, hockey coach, and day job, I fell out of the day to day tech life, something I have missed.

So here I am, jumping back in and customizing my mac’s getting new software and jumping back into the love of all things tech. For those interested in what I am using, I created a What I Use page to discuss the tech I use in my everyday life.

I coded ThinkPrivacy_ in Jekyll, but I have moved away from that and built this site in Hugo.

I work full time in labor as a communications director and am also exploring tools and methods to do that job even better all the time, and plan to write and share experiences there. I want to do faster work, without AI use, and create speeches, content, social media, you name it.

I will, however, explore AI and its uses and faults, and which ones respect your rights, privacy, knowing that they are brutal on our envirornment, but is also relativly inescapable in today’s tech world. So whatever work we can do to harness its power and control it for workers the better.

This site will share more about me, more about my fun in tech journey, and how I modify and use my Mac and just finding fun in the tech world again.

]]>

Welcome to the new site!

Chris Wiegman — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 12:24:35 -0700

Welcome to my new blog!

I don’t expect to actually write here a lot, but I like to have a place to come if I have some thoughts to share. This page will be rather static and just a landing page to meet and learn more about me, some of the things I am into, and really, why not just have a site up if I own the domain?

I will eventually write a little more about myself and some of the journey I have been on to get here, but until then, welcome to the new site!

]]>