Comment on Brave appears to install VPN Services without user consent
Vincent@kbin.social 8 months ago
Well, there's a way to frame this as malicious. I'm not a fan of Brave, but it also installs, say, a spell checker without consent, or a Tor client. Sure, the code is there even if you don't use it, but... What's the actual harm?
glad_cat@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
The harm is that it’s installed. There is no reason for doing this. It can be done on demand in one second if the user subscribes to their VPN.
It also shows once once again that they keep on doing their shady shit and still cannot be trusted (or at least that they are a bunch of incompetent developers).
DarkenLM@kbin.social 8 months ago
You know Firefox installs a bunch of stuff by default as well, right?
Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org 8 months ago
Such as?
DarkenLM@kbin.social 8 months ago
Firefox also installs telemetry and data reporting functions like most browsers, also libraries like libwebp, which are prone to critical vulnerabilities (as seen), encryption systems like Encrypted Client Hello, and software like Pocket, which some users never use, but it's still there.
Any browser will install many features that probably won't be used. Saying that a browser that installs a feature like Tor or VPN (which aren't even hidden, Brave publicly present those features) is automatically bad doesn't sound reasonable to me.
dukethorion@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They don’t want to hear that.
Vincent@kbin.social 8 months ago
I mean, yes, it could've been differently, and as I understand it they're going to. But as a user, how is your life worse with this than without this? What's the impact of something being installed but not running?