Brave browser quietly slips a VPN service onto your Windows PC
Brave browser quietly slips a VPN service onto your Windows PC
When you download Brave for Windows, you are also downloading the company's VPN service, for better or worse.
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Why is this news?
This community has some of the worst biased tech readers.
Yea i donāt get the hate boner for brave. I get it's sketchy and donāt use it myself, but they arenāt sneakily installing some VPN to redirect all your web traffic without you knowing. They tell you about it right up front because it's a service they want to sell.
If you donāt like the browser, donāt use it. There isnāt a need to go on some crusade to smear them with bullshit.
It's a bunch of people upset with the company's CEO or whatever over personal views. The browser itself wasn't that bad after you disabled the ad and crypto stuff, which they heavily pushed on you.
I had switched to it from Chrome last year but ended up not caring for it, so I went to Firefox and Librewolf. People can use whatever the hell they want, idgaf. But for those who will eventually end up complaining about YouTube ads and continue to use Chrome, I have no sympathy for if you can't take the few minutes to download and install a new browser and move your favorites over.
Because it's Brave and people like to jump on bandwagons. This is like the 6th time I've seen this article posted in lemmybin also.
And since we have the reddit-minded folk here, no, I do not support Brave and never will and I would much rather they disappear from the internet, but using ragebait to complain about the browser installing the necessary files to have one of their advertised services working, like pretty much every other software does, is not the way to move forward.
Because these idiots don't know how software works.
They'd shit their pants if they paid attention to the services on their computer.
It's good users are now aware that Brave includes redundant features that you have to pay extra for to activate. Users browser will update everytime the browser or the VPN software needs an update.
For example Firefox VPN from Mozilla is separate software. They don't force millions of users to download it even if they don't want it.
This is yet another example why people should not be using Brave and should be skeptical of its intentions.
Brave is shit but calling this a reason to be skeptical is fucking stupid. Almost every piece of software includes features that some subset of users will never touch. That isn't a reason not to include it.
"Oh no, Firefox includes a bookmark toolbar! I don't use bookmarks so they need to get rid of this!"
brave is basically installing a future minefield with system-wide access waiting to be triggered by them, or an exploitable bug by others, on all brave users' pcs and not just those who sub to their vpn service.
You may want to work on your literacy.
Permanently Deleted
Whats pocket? And why is it bad that its on the browser?
Permanently Deleted
But its not active unless you turn it on right? Just preinstalled so if you decide to use it its already there?
Cause that does sound like a little bloatware but if thats the only bloat they have and thats its only issue Im not sure Im bothered by it.
that's exactly what people are complaining in this thread, just about different browser
Just imagine: using Windows and being concerned about privacy. Big lol.
Haha, you're so fucking hilarious. Maybe if you'd spend as much time being big brain comedy boy and masturbating over the next Debian point release you'd know how to lock down a Windows system.
But you don't. Because you don't.
Why would someone who uses Debian care about Windows?
I use Debian. And somehow I still know how to use Windows and MacOS. Because I'm competent.
I don't, because I have better use of my time than to learn to use someone else's computer
"Sorry boss, I can't be arsed to reimage Steve's hard drive. It's Windows and fuck that shit."
Hope you don't want to work in IT.
But you don't. Because you don't.
Nobody does. Windows is closed source and its inner working is a trade secret. This means you cannot know how to lock down windows. Of course there are best practices based on info from microsoft or people who know a thing or two about info sec but it's all guess work and/or trusting the developer by its blue eyes.
There's no fucking guesswork. Everything in and out of the system can be monitored. If you knew anything about Windows you'd know that, but your entire Windows knowledge comes from shit-tier memes and snarky stories from The Register.
Thats something Ive never understood about closed source.
The OS, in its entirety, is on your computer. Why are you not able to open it up and root around within it? Is it just encrypted to a degree it cant be cracked? Or is the legal ramifications of unraveling it just not worth unraveling it?
They have a point though.
Windows automatically means you don't have privacy and you cannot have privacy.
On Linux you at least may or may not, depending on configuration.
You know nothing.
I do know.
You're living in a fantasy world if you think Windows is private and that a proprietary OS can be considered secure.
You know nothing.
You very obviously do not monitor your own network traffic.
I suggest you shut the fuck up before a future employer sees how incompetent you are.
I do.
You need to wind your neck in, little man. You're getting aggressive over something you know nothing about.
If you can't inspect source code, it cannot be treated as truly safe. Ever. In any capacity.
And if you checked your network traffic you'd know that MS does a metric shitload of data harvesting.
As if you've ever inspected source code in your life.
Can't harvest data that goes to null, fuckboi.
But you don't. Because you don't
Exactly, that's the point he was trying to make.
You can't harden windows to the point of an acceptable level of security. That is the inherent nature of proprietary software.
And yet there are people that do that every single day, and it's pretty much trivial to do.
It's fucking hilarious how many high horses Linux users ride on while knowing absolutely nothing about any other system. You just repeat shit that The Register or Slashdot told you was true.
How do you harden windows?
Prove to me that your windows system is actually "hardened" and that you have no backdoors or telemetry broadcasting at all. At the very least, Microsoft still knows what you are doing, you cannot trust your 3rd party firewall because windows can still sidestep it.
I don't even know who the fuck those people are, all I can tell you is that there is a reason that any professional application that requires legitimate security, runs on foss systems, or at the very least source available. If you are too stupid to realize that, then you really don't have any say in this matter whatsoever. It doesn't even just include baremetal Linux either.
I don't know who you've been arguing with on this, but I actually make a living working on Linux machines, I'm not even coming at you from a freetard perspective, solely work experience.
"Windows just ignores firewall rules" - CITATION FUCKING NEEDED
You know nothing.
EDIT
Oh, to be fucking clear you know nothing about Windows. I don't give a shit how much experience you have with Linux. You very obviously do not know how to administer Windows systems.you very obviously do not know how to administer windows systems
ahem
Active directory, Azure, Windows Server. Those three things are on my resume. I have extensive systems administration experience, being a good systems administrator requires you to be able to administrate more than one operating system.
Yes, windows will ignore your firewalls rules if you try to block certain applications from broadcasting telemetry. I don't need a citation because you can very easily test this for yourself. The fact that you need a citation tells me you don't know shit about what you are talking about because it is incredibly easy to reproduce.
You can rip these components out at the expense of usability, to the point where you could potentially have a secure windows system that is so useless, that you might as well just run desktop Linux or BSD. You will never see patches to potential backdoors, you will never see any bugfixes, hell to even begin the process of hardening windows, windows update is the very first thing you have to disable. Even windows AME's team says that their spin of windows is not as secure as the average Linux distro for these very reasons.
So you don't know how to use a firewall is what I'm seeing here. Weird flex but shut the fuck up.
don't know how to use a firewall
So you don't have basic reading English comprehension is what I'm seeing here. Weird flex but shut the fuck up.
Imagine claiming to be technically competent and using Windows, being obliged to "lock it down" to made it a "non spyware". Take your meds, dude.
Imagine being such a dink you know nothing yet you open your mouth.
Oh wait, you don't need to imagine.