The NYT currently has a LOT of third party JS and cookies. Enough that I think it is noticeably impacting performance and user experience.

Which hopefully was another motivation to cut it back. I mean, "privacy" should be enough, but when it's making your user experience terrible that should be enough too! (Although could lead to trying to performance optimize it instead of getting rid of it; getting rid of it is the right call).

Yep, I noticed the site loads much faster in Brave Browser which blocks all ads and trackers.

Brave: A browser that blocks ads/tracking so it can integrate its own as a business model.

Why do people use it? I can understand blocking ads with e.g. ublock, but I cannot understand wanting a browser that shows you desktop ads for internet points.

It's almost as if you can opt into it if you want to. Amazing.

That's not an argument for using Brave. If you don't opt into it, why use Brave at all? You're essentially using a glorified Chrome with uBlock.

> If you don't opt into it, why use Brave at all?

Sounds like you compiled a statement like "give me the factors of 26, but you can't use 1, 2, or 13." If you don't opt into it, you definitely aren't using it.

As for why someone would opt into it: some people don't mind being tracked but they care about who's doing the tracking and how their data gets integrated. If Brave shuts down everyone else's tracking but then Brave is building a profile on a user, that's fine for some.

> Sounds like you compiled a statement like "give me the factors of 26, but you can't use 1, 2, or 13." If you don't opt into it, you definitely aren't using it.

Parent comment said that the business model of Brave is opt in, implying that they’re recommending you use brave but not opt in to the crypto/ad business model. I think it’s perfectly fair to ask what is the value prop of Brave if you don’t use their crypto/ad system.

As far as I'm aware, Brave is the only browser that blocks ads by default. Personally I just use uBO/uMatrix on Firefox, but I can certainly understand why some people might prefer a more streamlined default experience.

The fact that so many people get bent out of shape about Brave blocking ads by default is probably also seen as a positive signal by many people who hate ads. If Brave pisses off people who run ad-supported websites, that's a fantastic endorsement.

I guess if you can’t figure out how to install uBO, then Brave makes sense. I suspect that the pool of people who care about blocking ads, can’t figure out uBO, but are willing to install an extra browser is pretty small, but I have no skin in this game.

I’ve never seen anyone angry about Brave blocking ads; what I’ve seen are people angry at Brave blocking ads and adding their own, which is a drastically different complaint.

https://brave.com/improved-ad-blocker-performance/

https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust

Using Chrome+uBO+uMatrix and Brave side by side, Brave just works better. Less knobs to fiddle with, sane defaults. Sure I love the power of uMatrix, but it comes with its own time sink managing it. Brave, out of the box, performs correctly in most situations, and switching from default to blocking all cookies, javascript, and fingerprinting is only a click each (and thats the advanced mode.)