Just a reminder, one of the largest investors in Brave is a right-wing billionaire who runs a corporate espionage agency that contracts with the US Department of Defense to spy on people.
Brave appears to install VPN Services without user consent
Submitted 8 months ago by argo_yamato@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/10/18/brave-is-installing-vpn-services-without-user-consent/
Comments
AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
mitrosus@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Source of the info?
Pfosten@feddit.de 8 months ago
Well, it’s about Peter Thiel. As a source for his involvement, Wikipedia cites this TechCrunch article, which mentions funding from Thiel’s “Founders Fund”.
I’d rather criticize Brave for other reasons though, like being led by Brendan Eich or supporting crypto.
Fades@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Wow, I actually had no idea. I haven’t used Brave in awhile now but they’ve been making some strange decisions lately. This makes the picture a little clearer
Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I love it when I talked shit about this browser and get acused of wearing a tin foil hat.
DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Just a reminder, Brave was using people’s likenesses to solicit donations without their consent, and without necessarily give those people the donations.
Pxtl@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Uh I’ll stick to Firefox thanks.
seedd@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Even better, librewolf.
rurutheguru@lemmings.world 8 months ago
What on earth is that? And in what sense is it better than Firefox?
MagneticFusion@lemm.ee 8 months ago
And people will still shill brave
ZeroCool@feddit.ch 8 months ago
Update: Brave plans to address the issue in a future release. The VPN service will only be installed after a user purchases the VPN.
“Oh jee whiz did we do that?! Woopsie doodle!”
Furthermore, no data is sent to Brave from the VPN services. End
Press [x] to doubt
If you’re still using Brave at this point you’re a fool.
rckclmbr@lemm.ee 8 months ago
They’ll either evil or incompetent. Neither of which I want on my computer
IdealShrew@lemmy.world 8 months ago
when did people start hating on Brave? last I heard it was the best browser for privacy.
Fades@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Damn the negative stories just keep coming in regards to Brave. It’s a shame, I liked using their iOS app but I said fuck it awhile ago already. Firefox is my main b ^rowser^
LukeMedia@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m still not sure what to use on my iPad for adblocking. Someone please tell me what to use instead on iPad! Everything else is Firefox + uBlock Origin, of course.
sir_reginald@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Apple makes it quite difficult. Honestly, I don’t think there’s a good option. Maybe try DNS based adblocking, by either setting your DNS to one that blocks ads or by setting up a Pihole, which gives you more control.
paranoia@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I use Wipr with no complaints so far. If you need free, AdGuard is popular and has a free mode that seems to cover the basics.
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 8 months ago
Stop using Brave, jfc. Please use Firefox, it’s not the best, but it’s better than this trash my goodness how many more scandals do people need to get rid of this crap?
Zacryon@feddit.de 8 months ago
Firefox is the best.
phx@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah the first time I tried Brave it the a bunch of ads for their services - and asking about providing info to their partners - at me constantly. I don’t understand why people use that PoS
lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
Checkmate, Brave shills.
ours@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Like built-in crypto shenanigans weren’t enough.
IdealShrew@lemmy.world 8 months ago
tbf the BAT thing is cool
elscallr@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I used to be a Brave user. I loved it. It worked well, it blocked ads without me asking, whatever. Then Google said they’re gonna bake ad blocker blocking into the API and, knowing Brave was Chromium based, I went back to Mozilla after like 100 years.
Two observations:
-
I was kinda deluded
-
Mozilla got their shit together, Firefox is as awesome again, by comparison, as it was when they unseated Internet Explorer.
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Engywuck@lemm.ee 8 months ago
The usual anti-Brave hate wagon. They’re already working on it:
github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/33726
Mozilla did far worse (pocket , Cliqz, Mr. Robot, deal with the worst privacy offenders on the Earth such as Google Facebook, Amazon… and so on) but they somehow always get a free pass.
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Mozilla have some immunity because they do the hard work and actually develop a browser, while for Brave everything that matters is leeched from Google’s Chromium.
Tick_Dracy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Hey sir, I think you’re on the wrong side of the lane. The Brave Cult highway is this way ↗️ lemmy.ml/c/bravebrowser
CommunityLinkFixer@lemmings.world [bot] 8 months ago
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !bravebrowser@lemmy.ml
the_q@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Lol look at your downvotes. You don’t even know why we’re all against brave.
Engywuck@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Only stupid people care about downvotes.
downpunxx@kbin.social 8 months ago
the brave experience was less than ideal for me, the brave search is unusable, i switched back to firefox, which i had moved to from chrome
Pat@kbin.run 8 months ago
Vivaldi is a better brave. You get built in ad blocking and tracking prevention along with not having built in crypto
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
And mouse gestures! Configurable tab stacking! Workspaces! Notes and pinned tabs! Tab tiling! Web apps in the sidebar! I love Vivaldi.
clegko@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Remember when Opera had all of these things a literal decade+ ago? I remember.
dangblingus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
There’s no built in crypto anything except for the odd ad on the homepage to buy crypto. Which, sure, is kinda lame, but they don’t mine crypto in the background or anything like that.
gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
it has a built in wallet. Nobody said it was mining anything.
Number1SummerJam@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It has an easy to find option to turn off everything related to Crypto
Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 8 months ago
Software installs services to make its features operate, including optional default off ones. More news at 10.
Either it does it at install time, or when you try to turn on the VPN after subscribing to it, it pops an UAC prompt to finish installing optional components. That’s standard practice, and it’s good for security because it means they can flag the browser itself as not capable of elevating privileges. They’re not going to put a gaping security hole in their software so that idiots don’t write articles about “installing things without your concent”. You already consented to installing Brave, you can’t be surprised Brave is installed.
As long as it deletes them when you uninstall, this is a complete non-issue.
Goronmon@kbin.social 8 months ago
I guess it depends on how much you trust a company (both now and in the future) to do something they shouldn't with this kind of setup, whether on purpose or though incompetence.
Personally, I don't software silently installing unrelated services to my machine just in case the company decides they want to have it running on my machine in the future.
Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 8 months ago
It is an advertised feature though. It can and will use those services if you enable them.
Should it also not come with the binaries for the VPN feature at all? That has downsides: maybe you’re on a laptop trying to bypass a network block that also blocks the download of the VPN software but the VPN would work.
So if it’s to come with the binaries, why can’t it install the service too, that defaults to off and manual launch? On Linux that’d be a systemd unit, on Windows it’s probably an API call of some sort but they basically contain the same information: some metadata, an executable and the privileges to launch it as.
I’d never seen a Linux user complain about <1kb systemd unit file being installed that’s disabled by default and only started on demand when the feature is requested as part of a package they install. It just is and doesn’t hurt anyone. Don’t want it, don’t use it.
When I download software, I expect all its built-in features to be installed and usable even if I don’t use them, nor want them. It’s part of the package.
It’s kind of borderline because the VPN really could and should be a separate product entirely, I don’t want to launch a browser just to then on a VPN. But they made it a built-in feature that’s advertised as such, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Especially given its proprietary software. If you’re that privacy and security conscious, why are you using proprietary software and not Firefox or Chromium or whatever the latest flavor of degoogled Chromium fork du jour is. The service is nothing compared to all the other crap they could be running in the browser completely hidden from you. That service is super transparent and upfront, if they wanted to hide it they could easily hide it. If you really don’t want it to run, you can even set it to disabled entirely, and Brave won’t even be able to start it.
If you’re that paranoid, you really should be running Linux or at least avoid as much closed source software as possible.
Tick_Dracy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
How many cryptos did they pay you to write that? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Chronographs@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Yeah I mean there’s a lot wrong with brave but this is like getting mad at software for installing an autoupdate service
notannpc@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The only chrome variant that doesn’t seem sketchy to install is chromium. The built from open source chromium. And that’s just because some sites barely function unless you’re using chrome’s rendering.
For everything else, Firefox.
AstralPath@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
What about Thorium? Thoughts?
notannpc@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I haven’t heard of it before today! Definitely going to check it out.
pastermil@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Would qtwebengine count, or is it a bit of a stretch?
notannpc@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I don’t know that I’d call that a chromium browser but I’ve only looked at its docs for 10 minutes. Hard to say where chromium integration begins and ends there without digging into the code. Seems like, at most, it’s using the web rendering engine from the chromium project. But it also seems to suggest it has its own modules for executing/rendering js/css/html.
Probably not included in the “should be avoided” category.
Now I’m curious what it’s used for.
hal_5700X@lemmy.world 8 months ago
If you need a Chromium browser use Ungoogled-Chromium, Windows version.
ripcord@kbin.social 8 months ago
Very few people do. Better to just get Firefox.
Aatube@kbin.social 8 months ago
Or some variant of it as Firefox also has its owned bundled stuff; I recommend Waterfox
redditReallySucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
On android I prefer cromite. Dont know how it compares with ungoogled chromium on windows though. Firefox is the superior choice on desktop
tabular@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Librewolf
fubo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
As a reminder, Brave was created by the guy who brought you JavaScript and was later fired from Mozilla for donating to hate groups. Brave also profits from multiple forms of fraud including NFTs and affiliate hijacking.
hagelslager@feddit.nl 8 months ago
If folk want to have a chromium-based browser made by a company, take a look at Vivaldi instead (which will keep the old plugin architecture, so adblockers work).
Ganbat@lemmyonline.com 8 months ago
Vivaldi is what I use, and it’s absolutely the best Chromium browser I’ve ever tried.
That said, I’d switch to Firefox in a heartbeat if it could duplicate that sidebar. I use that thing all the time, and it’s the only thing keeping me on Chromium.
chepox@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
I have Vivaldi on my android but I do not know how to get adblock working. Is it even possible?
Firefox mobile has Ublock Origin and works great. Even on YouTube.
Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Will they? All I remember was them saying that their built-in adblock (which is very barebones) would still work after Manifest v3, nothing much else.
IanAtCambio@lemm.ee 8 months ago
This is misleading. The BAT was a reasonable idea not really a scam.
fubo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Brave also supports NFTs, which are even more unambiguously a scam.