Brave Browser Discussion & Update Thread

Brave Browser v0.23.73 Released (July 29, 2018)
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Spoiler: Changelog v0.23.73

0.23.73

• Fixed extension popups appearing transparent on first click after Brave restart. (#13633)
• Fixed Tor process not terminating when Brave crashes on macOS. (#14636)
• Fixed Tor crash when opening a link summary embedded in a tweet on Twitter. (#14392)
• Fixed file access bug. (#14642)
• Fixed minimum browsing activity message in Payments being retained even after minimum criteria has been met. (#14767)
• Fixed "Save As" dialog still appearing after disabling "Always ask me where to save files" (#14625)
• Fixed URLs ending with .pdf causes Brave to ignore Content-Type and fails to load the document. (#10554)
• Changed crossOrigin policy to anonymous when fetching favicons (#14742)
• Optimized startup time by removing referral promo check at initial startup. (#14615)
• Upgraded to muon to 8.0.3. (#14885)
• Upgraded to Chromium 68.0.3440.75. (#14886)

 

Brave Browser v0.23.77 Released (August 02, 2018)
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Spoiler: Changelog v0.23.77

0.23.77

• Fixed local file reading security issue, credit to Vladimir Metnew. (#14936)
• Disabled FTP in Brave. (#14712)
• Disabled non-chrome-extension origins from navigating to chrome-extension. (#14772)
• Fixed crash when visiting certain URLs. (#14893)
• Fixed JavaScript errors in developer tools on each page load. (#14890)
• Fixed LastPass Vault not displaying passwords. (#11624)
• Fixed Brave becoming unresponsive when the delete button under downloads is clicked. (#14805)
• Fixed external protocol prompt not being displayed on "about:" pages. (#14679)
• Upgraded to muon 8.0.6. (#14911)
• Upgraded to Chromium 68.0.3440.84. (#14910)

 

Brave browser will let you cash in on tweets and Reddit posts
That is, if you can persuade people to pay you with tips through the ad-blocking web browser.
August 08, 2018
https://www.cnet.com/news/brave-browser-will-let-you-cash-in-on-tweets-and-reddit-posts/

 

Brave Browser v0.23.79 Released (August 09, 2018)
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Brave Browser v0.23.104 Released (August 24, 2018)
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Spoiler: Changelog v0.23.104

• Added support for window.prompt. (#94)
• Fixed loading of chrome://brave URLs. (#15074)
• Fixed certain promotional tabs not appearing right after startup. (#15067)
• Fixed chrome:// new tab issue. (#15045)
• Fixed security issue with brave://. (#14967)
• Fixed publisher data file not being removed when wallet is deleted using preferences. (#14758)
• Fixed permission prompt with window.open. (#14681)
• Fixed visited links not being reset when closing Brave. (#14667)
• Fixed issues where file can be opened in new tab. (#14522)
• Fixed downloads not working when right clicking and opening in new tab. (#14409)
• Fixed issue where cookie is unintentionally sent. (#14250)
• Fixed URL-like strings can cause empty autocomplete results. (#13718)
• Fixed Flash permission notification being displayed when clicking the Adobe test page via search results. (#13500)
• Upgraded to muon 8.0.8. (#15018)

 

Brave Browser v0.23.105 Released (August 29, 2018)
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Brave Browser v0.23.107 Released (September 10, 2018)
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Fast and Private Brave Browser Chooses Qwant as its Default Search Engine in France and Germany
September 13, 2018
https://brave.com/brave-qwant-partnership/

 

I have been testing out the latest dev version of Brave Version 0.55.3 which is based on Chromium 70.0.3538.12 and I really like it a lot. Tabs are on top and there is a black color option that has even the address bar dark. Faster than previous versions and it uses Chrome extensions.

 

Then I guess I will check it out again. Hopefully I can install it "sandboxed" with the help of Sandboxie, Chrome didn't give me any problems.

 

It works great with Sandboxie.

 

Brave Browser v0.24.0 Released (September 18, 2018)
Changelog
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Spoiler: Changelog v0.24.0

0.24.0

• Fixed back and forward navigation buttons animating when scrolling on macOS. (#14785)
• Fixed back navigation button animating when attempting to scroll up while the page is already at the top on macOS. (#14829)
• Disabled swipe navigation when content is horizontally scrollable. (#14871)
• Fixed notifications not being displayed on certain websites. (https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/15124))
• Fixed about:blank tabs being opened when Brave configured to start with home page address. (#15125)
• Fixed opening local files creates about:blank tabs. (#15134)
• Fixed opening tabs when there is no windows opened creates about:blank tabs on macOS. (#15162)
• Fixed opening local files via drag and drop creates about:blank tabs. (#15203)
• Upgraded to Tor 0.3.4 series. (#15179)
• Upgraded to muon 8.1.6. (#15101)
• Upgraded to Chromium 69.0.3497.100. (#15102)

 

I do think it's weird that the download size is way bigger than with Chrome and Vivaldi, I wonder what that's about. But I think it's kinda cool that Brave is trying to fix the broken advertising system.

 

Overhauled Brave browser beta gets max privacy with Tor-powered private tabs
The revamped browser blocks ads and ad trackers but will get its own ad system soon
September 27, 2018
https://www.cnet.com/news/brave-browser-beta-gets-privacy-tor-powered-private-tabs/

 

Anyone else seeing high cpu usage with Brave? I am seeing 40% + while idle

 

I don't see high cpu usage with Brave beta or dev.

 

still amazing how many people believe in this bs and its lies about privacy...

 

Brummelchen, I was only giving it a look-see today. It made very few connections and at glance seemed to be doing it's thing, but as I wrote CPU usage was unacceptable. Please point to info that would further enlighten me. Thank you.

 

Questions

1) Is Brave completely ungoogled?
2) I understand Brave has its own Play Store. Is its Play Store piggyback directly to Chrome Web Store or is separate from Chrome Web Store i.e. can download Chrome extensions independently of Chrome Web Store?
3) Brave connects to Piwik analytic on start up. Is this a good thing? Can the analytic be blocked without affecting Brave's performance?

Some comments here

https://malwaretips.com/threads/new-redesigned-brave-desktop-browser-v1-0-beta-released.87077/page-2

Thanks

 

You have evidence that proves otherwise?

 

It's ungoogled. You can get more info here: https://community.brave.com/t/ungoogled-chromium-for-brave/33086
You can ad chrome extension independently from the web store as well.
I also use uBlock Origin as well as Brave's built in ad blocker. And you can add uMatrix if needed. .

 

The link does NOT confirm Brave is ungoogled. The second guy's comment is his own opinion only. Removing all Google code that can phones home (account, sync, etc) does NOT imply Brave is 100% ungoogled. There are still many Google codes that need to be removed. Look to Ungoogled Chromium as an example. This unsyncing thing already in place long time back for non-Chrome browsers imposed by Google.

FYI, Ungoogled Chromium is another browser which I'm using.

As for Chrome extensions, so Brave Play Store is not piggybacking on Chrome Web Store? What I mean is does

Downloading/Updating Chrome Extensions go to ==> Brave Play Store ==> and connects to Chrome Web Store or

Downloading/Updating Chrome Extensions stops at ==> Brave Web Store only

 

there is a discusion at reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/83sa9v/brave_browser_privacy/

i dont speak about using TOR or other mechanisms which are common used, in firefox in chromium, in chrome.

its what the [deleted] guy wrote. its a big lie they dont collect data - how to they perform individual ads?
they analyse users behavior with a unique id (it does not really matter this changes every 3 month)
my concern ist - mozilla do similar with their tiles page - but i have the option to cut that out, to nullify it, either deleting files or settings preferences/prefs.
i cant do that with none of the chromium based browsers if i dont compile the code myself. thats what the "ungoogled chromium" project is about.

you spoke about using ublock - are you sure that brave wont override it?
injecting code after ublock has been finshed work on page?
same question about braves blocking features:
https://operational-security.com/backup-browser-brave-review/
looks promising - but are you sure that there exist nothing like "acceptable ads"?

there exist also some comments on brave starting rolling out ads
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/06/25/brave-browser-starts-feeding-ads-to-willing-guinea-pigs/

 

That deleted guy seems not understanding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof. https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/681.pdf This is the partial answer to his question. All tracking are done on local only and these data themselves never leave your computer.

As to "acceptable ads" there's no guarantee, and their built-in blocking seems to be either a bit permissive or slow-to-update than actual Easylist.
But at least it's full open source and it's not hard to find if it let ads come through. TBH, there's no reason Brave have to implement "acceptable ads" as it has its own innovative ad system and this is no secret from the begining.

Tho I hate all current web ads & tracker, I believe it's too shortsighted to take all ads, tracking, and any kind of info sending (regardless of its contents) as evil. Google analytics and piwik are not the same, but even Google analytics can be configured not to be able to track each user (soem VPN provider do it). Ofc sense of privacy vary on each individual, so you have right to block all of them. But if everyone started to block ads & tracker, what will happen is not the web become walled guarden (tho it's often suggested, it appears to be more of FUD), but ad companies will simply start to bypass or block ad-blocker.
They have more power than ad-blocker devs. Already they use DMCA to remove their ads from blocking list, native ads which won't be blocked as it looks like contents, and anti-adblock. Well, anti-adblock has often been cited as "cat & mouse game", but it's not. The site owner and ad companies have advantage if they're serious (thankfully, most anti-adblock are not so serious so far), there're already some sites where most major filter maintainer gave up.

IMHO, we can be more pragmatic. Rather than just saying no to all ads and being pleased with yourself not seeing ads, we can seek better way to keep our - not as a user but whole society - privacy in realistic way. Brave and BAT is one of such experimental attempt. What really matter is not if it sends some info or not, but WHAT is sent and HOW. The devils in the details. There're framework to ensure certain level of privacy when you send info, such as k-anonimity (this is how HIBP could implement passwd search w/out compromising user privacy). If you really don't wanna any info sent to anywhere, only sure way is not to use computer.

 

I find Brave to be slow and clunky last time I tried it. Even compared to Chrome.

As for ungoogled Chromium it sounds all nice but the build levels are behind that of Google's so you're missing out on important security related updates.

Really wish there were more choices.