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Are there any downsides to using Homebrew as a package manager on Linux? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm especially concerned about it being somehow broken, unwieldy, insecure or privacy-invasive.

Case in point; at times I have to rely on a Chromium-based browser if a website decides to misbehave on a Firefox-based browser. Out of the available options I gravitate towards Brave as it seems like the least bad out of the bunch.

Unfortunately, their RPM-package leaves a lot to be desired and has multiple times just been awful to deal with. So much so that I have been using another Chromium-based browser instead that's available directly from my distro's repos. But..., I would still switch to Brave in an instant if Brave was found in my distro's repos. A quick search on repology.org reveals that an up-to-date Brave is packaged in the AUR (unsurprisingly), Manjaro and Homebrew. I don't feel like changing distros for the sake of a single program, but adding Homebrew to my arsenal of universal package managers doesn't sound that bad. But, not all universal package managers are created equal, therefore I was interested to know how Homebrew fares compared to the others and if it handles the packaging of the browser without blemishing the capabilities of the browser's sandbox.

P.S. I expect people to recommend me Distrobox instead. Don't worry, I have been a staunch user of Distrobox for quite a while now. I have also run Brave through an Arch-distrobox in the past. But due to some concerns I've had, I chose to discontinue this. Btw, its Flatpak package ain't bad either. But unfortunately it's not official, so I choose to not make use of it for that reason.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

What does Brave give you what the other Chromium based browser doesn’t have?

Brave is known to take privacy (and security) more seriously than its contenders. It's therefore unsurprising to find it recommended by Privacy Guides. Some of its unique features related to privacy can be found here.

Maybe you can install add-ons instead?

Excellent extensions like uBlock Origin heavily rely on Manifest v2 in order to do their bidding. Unfortunately, Chromium intends to stop supporting it. Which will inevitably lead to many Chromium-based browsers to follow the lead and stop supporting it as well. At least Brave has confirmed multiple times to support Manifest v2 longer. Furthermore, I'm not aware of any extension that does an equally excellent job at spoofing your fingerprint randomly. Though, I'd love to be corrected on that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Brave is known to take privacy (and security) more seriously than its contenders. It's therefore unsurprising to find it recommended by Privacy Guides.

At least in the privacy community, Brave isn’t super popular. It feels more geared towards the "hyped crypto early adopters". Brave inclusion in privacy guides has always been controversial.

Brave is ultimately an advertising company, they base their business model in ads. And everyone knows how bad that can turn.

Ungoogled Chromium on the other hand takes patches from brave and other Chromium based browsers, removing every bit of telemetry and giving you the cleanest experience you can get on Chromium, without relying on a shady company.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago

Brave is ultimately an advertising company, they base their business model in ads. And everyone knows how bad that can turn.

Seems more like FUD, but sure.

Ungoogled Chromium on the other hand takes patches from brave and other Chromium based browsers

In the past it was simply dismissed due to reasons mentioned here. I don't have any qualms against Ungoogled Chromium, so I'm not opposed to using it if the stated reasons have been cleared since. But I've never got any confirmation on that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Brave is known to take privacy (and security) more seriously than its contenders.

Nice, their marketing works. If you really cared about privacy you'd probably use something like Librewolf, which is not proprietary.

Excellent extensions like uBlock Origin heavily rely on Manifest v2 in order to do their bidding. Unfortunately, Chromium intends to stop supporting it.

It works without issues in Firefox and similar browsers like Librewolf.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice, their marketing works.

You can't deny its merits. At best you can question their integrity based on bad business-practices in the past. Their CEO being "X" and doing "Y" does not inherently make the software bad.

If you really cared about privacy you’d probably use something like Librewolf, which is not proprietary.

From OP: "at times I have to rely on a Chromium-based browser if a website decides to misbehave on a Firefox-based browser"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can’t deny its merits.

Yes, yes I can. It's proprietary and doesn't do anything better than Firefox or Librewolf. The latter even has an active community on Lemmy.

Their CEO being “X” and doing “Y” does not inherently make the software bad.

I didn't even mention the CEO, you must have confused my reply. It's the product being X and doing Y which I don't like.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

doesn’t do anything better than Firefox or Librewolf.

Besides the fact that some sites misbehave on Firefox(-based browsers), it does if you're actually security sensitive; Chromium's sandbox is simply superior to Firefox'.

I didn’t even mention the CEO, you must have confused my reply. It’s the product being X and doing Y which I don’t like.

It's true that you didn't mention anything regarding its CEO, but I assumed your comment might be related to it. It seems not to be the case; my bad for assuming and mentioning it and thank you for clearing yourself from that 'allegation'!

Would it be fair to assume that your primary gripe with Brave is its (at best) controversial stance regarding the 'open' source nature of their product?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, and the business practices of the company making it which broke my trust to the point of me assuming they wouldn't be above breaking the law in compiling spyware or other malware into their closed source product for profit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks for clarifying!

they wouldn’t be above breaking the law in compiling spyware or other malware into their closed source product for profit.

I might misremember this, but wasn't it only something like a key (or something similar) that they held to themselves? And if so, is it even sensible that spyware can be put in their 'key'?