This had two results for me -- the first is that my employer has forcibly uninstalled all brave installations in our company and has forbidden its use, and the second is that I have voluntarily uninstalled brave from my personal machines.
I use Brave and I'm not super disturbed by this. The Windows Service isn't even running, it's just installed (presumably to reduce friction in the case I were to start using their VPN I wouldn't have to go through an additional installation process). Sure, it's a little bit more intrusive than is ideal for people who like to keep a close on what gets installed into Services, but at the end of the day, is there a real problem here?
I know we like to get the pitchforks out, but, it appears to be accidental:<p><a href="https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/33726">https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/33726</a>
Brave is crapware and always has been.<p>If you actually care about privacy rather than want to pay lip service to some marketing, then there are better options.
It looks like, on Windows, Brave installs their VPN service in a state that requires them to be started manually. They aren’t disabled, but they also aren’t running. It’s not great, but also doesn’t seem like a pitchforkable offense. Maybe I’m too much of a Brave fan, though. I probably use it 50% of the time and FF the other 50%.
I don't use Brave, but software updates install new stuff all the time. I don't see why this is news.<p>Now if they start routing all of your traffic through their VPN, that would be news.<p>I don't think every new feature an application depends on needs user consent to install.
Yep, they did this drive by installation to me.<p>Very disappointed.<p>Not yet uninstalled, I mean, I still have Firefox (but have finally got around to moving my data away from their sync).<p>Really? Unsolicited bundling is not okay.
Windows service entries are more like systemd unit files aren't they. I don't think brave starts a vpn or downloads any separate binary onto your pc without asking you.
So I was really disappointed in Firefox as my second browser (first is Safari; yeah it's the platform lock; Apple should be forced to open it up). So few days back I decided to set up on my new (2020) MacBook Air and this time I installed Brave.<p>Goodness! It's a dumpster fire. Wallets, crypto, and what not - all over. I scrambled around and disabled, fixed some and all that but then things kept happening and I panicked and immediately uninstalled it clean and then installed Firefox. I will keep cursing Mozilla for actively and consistently ruining Firefox but this really is the better browser out there, even now. Unless there are others that I have not tried. Vivaldi, Opera? Are they good now?<p>Is Camino living in shape or form even now? I would not mind a Mozilla blessed theme/extension pack that turns Firefox into Camino of olden times. But the best would be forcing Apple to open the OS' browser gates.
At first sniff this felt dodgy to me, but then when I thought about it: a software update pushes arbitrary code to your machine that you willingly execute. You either take the risk and live with it or don’t.
My main is Firefox but I have to occasionally use a Chromium based browser. Used to use Edge before it went to shit and have been using Brave ever since. Is there a better alternative?