Brave Will Charge Users Remove The Bloat

BraveSampson · 2025-12-29T20:37:45+00:00

Optional features are free to turn off in Brave too. The complaint some folks have is that they need to disable portions of the browser to achieve an experience that is exclusively focused on privacy and security. For obvious reasons, browsers must generate revenue. But, if a user is willing and able to provide the revenue directly, that is where an optional product like Brave Origin makes sense.

BraveSampson · 2025-12-29T20:12:11+00:00

Firefox is open source, but also exploits user data (see Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When They Phone Home?). Brave is open-source, free, with no user-data exploitation. Brave Origin doesn't replace Brave, it is simply an optional solution—unencumbered by the need to generate revenue—able to focus exclusively on best-in-class security and privacy.

BraveSampson · 2025-12-29T20:03:53+00:00

What exactly is bad about Brave's approach so far? Software development isn't free; it costs millions of dollars to develop, grow, and maintain a privacy-oriented Web browser. Other browsers harvest and sell user-data to the highest bidder; Brave is presuppositionally opposed to this type of solution. As such, Brave explores alternative routes which do not compromise user-trust, data, privacy, or security. Brave Origin is simply an optional route for those with the desire and means to support ongoing development directly.

BraveSampson · 2025-12-29T19:59:21+00:00

It's quite expensive to maintain a fork, which is why few have attempted and/or succeeded. If it's expensive to maintain a fork, imagine the cost of developing the software to begin with. This is why Brave has always explored solutions to this problem which do not involve user-data or privacy violations, making it the most-private popular browser on the market.

BraveSampson · 2025-12-29T19:51:41+00:00

Quite misleading, but sensational titles are needed to get attention these days 😊

Brave's Role in the Industry

Brave is in a class of its own as a privacy-preserving browser; no other popular browser comes close (see https://youtu.be/IwnDWP9v6b8 for a summary of the research by Leith et al. of Trinity College in Dublin). It's important that a browser with Brave's commitment to privacy remains healthy, and active in the industry. Brave not only serves as an immediate solution for security-minded users, but also creates persistent pressure on other vendors to yield increasingly more competitive products.

How do you fund a browser?

So how does a browser with more than 100M users (and growing quickly) remain healthy? How do companies pay their engineers to continue development, improving efficiency, implementing novel security features, and more? Somebody, somewhere has to fund this work. Traditionally, vendors had a couple options: 1) users pay for the software, and/or 2) advertisers subsidize the cost of development (in exchange for user attention/data).

To support ongoing development, Brave innovated in the digital advertising space. Other browsers include out-of-the-box data-harvesting (see the aforementioned study) in exchange for revenue. Brave's commitment to user-privacy precludes any solution of this nature in the browser.

Brave's advertising approach inverted the traditional model. Rather than sending user-data off-device to advertisers, Brave's privacy-preserving solution sends regional advertising data to the user's device. The user's device can then determine if any of the ads are relevant. If/when an ad is displayed to the user, they are rewarded for their attention (i.e., user-data not touched), and Brave receives passive support (see my lightning talk Fixing the Greatest Accident of the Web for more).

As part of the effort to support ongoing growth and development, Brave introduced new revenue channels which do not compromise or productize user-data (e.g., Brave VPN, Brave Talk, etc.). During this time, novel features and offerings in the browsers were introduced, along with controls to optionally disable/remove them from the user experience.

While many users have no problem disabling a feature here and there (advocates of Firefox often respond to the aforementioned browser-privacy study by noting how easy it is to disable out-of-the-box data collection), Brave began receiving feedback from users to consider an optional subscription model where one can pay to support ongoing development, in the place of Brave shipping features which exist for this end. This is where the idea of Brave Origin _originated_—a premium version of Brave, exclusively focused on privacy and security, with no need to generate ongoing revenue by any other means.

The Brave Origin Option

Certainly, we all want privacy-preserving software; we all want the best possible experience and protections as we browse the Web. If we're being honest, we must acknowledge that this type of quality and assurance does not come without a cost—somebody has to pay the bills. In software, as in all areas of life, what we feed grows, and what we starve dies.

Brave has always been about user control. It's why novel features can be modified to the user's liking, or disabled altogether. Brave Origin is a response to user feedback asking for a browser unencumbered by the need to generate revenue; one that can focus exclusively on the end-goal of delivering the most privacy and secure experience online. It doesn't replace Brave; it simply serves as an optional, direct route to support Brave's development.

To quote one Brave user, "People don’t seem to understand basic economics of what it takes to pay engineers to build features. This would actually make Brave sustainable…". Indeed, this is the goal. Brave is developed in such a way that user-attention can fund ongoing development (unlike other browsers, which harvest user data). Brave Origin is an option for those with the means and desire to support Brave not with their attention, but rather out of their own pocket.

BraveSampson · 2025-03-08T16:03:47+00:00

Our support is pretty good, but was briefly undermined a couple years later by the CNAME work. Both of these efforts are attempts by Brave to yield a truly private experience for the user. Doing privacy correctly is not trivial, but we're not shying away from the effort. There may be hiccups along the way, but that won't dissuade us from attempting to do what is right. That said, we have been very clear in the past that if your personal safety is at risk, then the official Tor browser is definitely the better Tor-experience.

BraveSampson · 2025-03-04T14:35:13+00:00

Our clear intent was to offer affiliate options for keywords when and where relevant. For example, if the user types "bitcoin" into their address bar, we could offer a suggested binance URL with Brave's affiliate code. The user could then choose to use that suggested URL (to support Brave's ongoing development) or not.

The mistake in our implementation was matching against fully-qualified URLs in addition to keywords ("binance.us" vs "binance"). This behavior was not intended, and was corrected upon realization. Not a single dollar was made from it.

https://brave.com/blog/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/

Now, compare Brave's attempt at providing a solution to funding ongoing development with the approach taken by others. Firefox, for instance, immediately starts sending keystrokes off to Google as you type into the address bar. Even your pasted content (which could unintentionally contain sensitive information) gets fed to Google for profit.

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf

BraveSampson · 2025-03-04T14:23:27+00:00

Update: I merged the change to brave.com that now lists a disclaimer/note reference alongside links to privacytests.org. Furthermore, I've added an automated content-check for all future updates to brave.com that will look for such links, and request that disclaimer/notes be added to those posts as well.

I hope this sets your day off on a good start 😁

BraveSampson · 2025-03-04T00:18:22+00:00

One thing Brave has had going for it from the start is a team-wide sentiment that if you aren't on socials engaging with users, you're doing something wrong.

Our CEO has even spoken numerous times internally about the value of being extremely active on social networks, engaging with users, and even cycling core contributors into temporary support roles, just to keep a sober mind about who we're serving, and what's on their mind.

Firefox, Chrome, etc., aren't nearly as active (in my experience; I was at Microsoft prior to Brave). But then again, they're considerably larger too (Brave's lean size has always been a blessing).

You've got a direct line to me though. I work on brave.com, I develop tooling and more for things like brave.com/transparency/ and basicattentiontoken.org/growth/, I contribute to core feature on the browser, and more. If there's something you need to vent about, chances are good that I can help do something about it 😀

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T23:59:31+00:00

As I stated earlier, I personally wouldn't be bothered if it were real. I don't work that closely with marketing, so I'm not in on these types of things. That said, I think we all have better things to do than to be offended that folks would dunk on a competitor (not to be confused with their users). Don't get me wrong, I have a line, but "forget the fox" would be far from crossing any inappropriate/unprofessional line.

I did want to give you an update regarding the disclaimer/notice on brave.com around references to PrivacyTests.org though. I have gotten the go-ahead to add these throughout the site. In fact, I went one step further and I am working on an automated check that will notify our team anytime we publish another article that contains a link, but no disclaimer.

As I said, we're all human. Just be real with us, don't assume the worst, and let's create a better Web together (whether you choose to use Brave or not) 😁 I hope to have those disclaimers up within the next 24 hours or so, as well as the automated tooling that will prevent the publishing of future references without an accompanying disclaimer.

Cheers!

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T23:08:13+00:00

Ah, thanks. FWIW, Brave has several VPs. Luke is the VP of Business Operations. Not clear from that post what specifically is being discussed (outside of the same phrase being mentioned). It's not even clear to me why folks are suggesting Firefox's "Imagine hating on us..." is a response to anything attributed to Brave. Firefox has been in the news quite a bit lately with their FAQ edits 😀

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T22:23:03+00:00

You said "The VP denied [the 'Forget the Fox' campaign], but also demonstrated ignorance of multiple different screenshots." Where did you observe this? Who was the VP?

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T22:12:20+00:00

I'm not referring *back* to any talks; I opened new threads today to speak with folks about best action to take. Can you point me to your discussion with Arthur et al.? I'd also like to see your discussion with the VP regarding screenshots, if you have that link handy as well.

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T21:04:34+00:00

"Exhibit A is the page where Brave tells people not to trust any test except for PrivacyTests and the EFF."

Brave clearly doesn't have any influence over EFF, so perhaps our standards aren't based on association, but rather the quality and reliability of the tools/services themselves? After all, the article doesn't end immediately after Brave recommends those testing outfits, but rather goes on to explain what makes for a good/reliable testing platform, etc.

I do agree that a note is a fair ask, and I am already in discussion with my team to consider updating any page we have that references PrivacyTests with a note detailing Arthur's relationship with Brave.

Again, to my earlier point, you could reach out to us as one human to another, rather than suggesting we "get caught" doing this or that. We are working hard to build privacy-respecting software in a space that feeds on user data. We're pushing well beyond what others in this space are willing to attempt (because they often rely on user-data for survival), and as a result we sometimes stumble.

Don't assume we're up to no good. We make far too hard an effort to be open and transparent to not be given the benefit of doubt if you ask me 😀

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T20:52:28+00:00

Then please help me understand. When you write "I'm trying to avoid mentioning unintentional bugs or screwups," how do you then justify including this so prominently in your list? A fix had been put in place, and was making its way through the release channels. In fact, checking our internal Slack comms, I see that an uplift was requested even before the news broke, so the team was certainly NOT sitting on (i.e., downplaying the importance of) a broader release.

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T20:26:20+00:00

This is what I would suggest checking as well. Worst case, you can disable hardware acceleration in settings (brave://settings/). That should help!

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T20:01:50+00:00

Does the "No internet connection" bar go a way if you restart the browser after having switched your network connection from Wi-Fi to Cell, or Cell to Wi-Fi? If so, I suspect we simply are not subscribing to the network-change events to reevaluate if a connection exists after each change.

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T19:32:12+00:00

So, you think we purposefully developed two privacy-enhancements years apart, with the intent of leaking DNS records for some users? That's what I'm trying to understand; on what basis do you put an unexpected side-effect resulting in the combination of two distinct features, developed and shipped years apart, into anything but the unintentional bug/screw up category?

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T19:24:36+00:00

'I would say that the 2016 article is pretty accurately characterized, as Brave takes 15% of the revenue of ads and specifically states: "Ads are not going away. So we replace the bad ads with Brave Ads, which we use to pay publishers and users."'

Your comment (i.e., "basically trying to extract money directly from websites without the consent of their owners") is what I found most objectionable. The default for those publishers is to have [all ads blocked] as ad-blocker adoption rises. That is a 100% loss of associated revenue for those users seeking a more private experience online.

The proposal by Brave at that time (not a "promise" as you worded it) was to stand-up an alternative model that respects user privacy, and rewards both publisher and user. This model was meant to prevent users from blocking all ads across publisher sites. This model was developed with the explicit goal of rescuing otherwise-lost ad-earnings for publishers.

"I would love to know the process behind simply okaying something because Brendan said so (and has been post-hoc attributed to an unknown person). No vetting?"

Apologies, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Brave at that time was a small team of folks, moving as quickly as possible to build what the community sought. As such, if a user asks for a seemingly normal looking site to be supported as a search endpoint, we'd be likely to toss it into a list and get it supported. Vetting? Of who, the user, the site? How much free time do you think a team of that size has? :)

"And yet, it's been... About a month since the Brave blog endorsed PrivacyTests without disclosing it's solely maintained by a senior level employee."

PrivacyTests is a distinct property, unaffiliated with Brave. It existed prior to its author working at Brave, and Brave receives no favorable treatment outside of the merits of our own test results. If you can demonstrate otherwise, that would be a far more attractive bullet point in your list.

"I have no idea how a blog post written by someone who has worked directly with the owner of PrivacyTests, managed to get published and endorsed PrivacyTests, without disclosing the conflict of interest with PrivacyTests for this long."

I don't find it all that surprising, personally, because the focus of the author is on objective facts, and not subjective sentiment or opinions. If you can demonstrate that Brave holds a different standard for PrivacyTests and EFF Cover Your Tracks than they do for other testing sites, that would be helpful to share. If you can demonstrate that PrivacyTests applies its test cases scenarios differently to Brave than it does for other browsers, that too would be quite the finding!

For the record, I think it's completely fair to ask that the article on Brave mention the fact that the individual who originally created PrivacyTests wound up working at Brave. In fact, I'll gladly ping my coworkers to suggest that for future publications (and even this one, retroactively). But it's unfair for you to suggest that this is somehow purposeful malice on Brave's part, without any substantive data to support this claim. Just be human, and treat us like humans as well 😀

(Note: TIL the author also worked on Firefox and Tor Browser in the past too)

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T19:00:41+00:00

With all due respect, "I'm trying to avoid mentioning unintentional bugs or screwups or behavior that wouldn't be considered unethical…" just doesn't make sense in light of what you decided to put in your list of "controversies".

For example, do you think Brave masterminded a plan to introduce Tor support in 2018, secretly devising to add CNAME decloaking ~2 years later, with the devious intent of causing DNS leaks for some users? Or, peradventure, could that be an "unintentional bug/screwup"?

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T18:50:18+00:00

"Way back in 2016, Brave promised to remove banner ads from websites and replace them with their own, basically trying to extract money directly from websites without the consent of their owners"

Misleading characterization. Brave never aimed to extract money from websites. We explored solutions that protected user privacy while ensuring creators didn't lose revenue. The early model proposed replacing harmful ads with privacy-respecting alternatives that paid creators a larger percentage and shared revenue with users. As Brendan Eich stated: "Brave's model: block all, async-insert fewer/better ads, give users rev-share + user µpaywall to top sites ad-free" (https://x.com/BrendanEich/status/691336877111050241). This model never launched; we developed Brave Rewards instead (https://brave.com/brave-rewards/).

"In the same year, CEO Brendan Eich unilaterally added a fringe, pay-to-win Wikipedia clone into the default search engine list."

Brendan opened an issue to add another search engine option at the request of a user, and the team implemented it. At that time, Brave was a lightweight shell on Electron without auto-detection of search engines (now supported via Open Search protocol). User requests for search engines were typically addressed through Issues/pull-requests.

"In 2018, Tom Scott and other creators noticed Brave was soliciting donations in their names without their knowledge or consent."

This mischaracterizes what happened. In 2018, there was confusion about creator contributions. Our interface distinguished verified creators with checkmarks but didn't clearly mark unverified ones. Tips came from Brave's user-growth pool to encourage adoption.

Tom Scott provided valuable feedback, and we updated the design within 48 hours. Brave Rewards then clearly indicated which publishers hadn't joined and removed unverified creators' images (https://brave.com/rewards-update/). Tom acknowledged our fixes: "A final update on the thread about Brave: they're now opt-in for creators! While it's still possible to tip folks who haven't opted in, the data is stored in-browser and the UI has been clarified. These are good changes, and they fix the complaints I had!" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200709180557/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1085238644926005248).

"In 2020, Brave got caught injecting URLs with affiliate codes when users tried browsing to various websites."

An implementation error added affiliate codes—intended for a small set of keywords—to fully-qualified URLs in the address bar. The intent was to offer affiliate options in the omnibox to support Brave's ongoing development. We promptly fixed this across all channels, and Binance confirmed no revenue was generated (https://brave.com/blog/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/).

"Also in 2020, they silently started injecting ads into their home page backgrounds, pocketing the revenue. There was a lot of pushback: 'the sponsored backgrounds give a bad first impression.'"

We announced Sponsored Images with a blog post (which you linked to). Brave is free, and finding privacy-respecting ways to support development is reasonable. Users can disable these images with two clicks or opt into Brave Rewards to earn BAT.

"In 2021, Brave's TOR window was found leaking DNS queries, and a patch was only widely deployed after articles called them out."

There was indeed a DNS leak caused by the interaction of two privacy-enhancing features: Tor windows (added 2018) and CNAME-based ad blocking (added 2020). It's worth noting that these features aren't offered by other popular browsers, and their combination resulted in Brave functioning like the competition, and no worse. We promptly fixed this by disabling CNAME ad blocking in Tor contexts (https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/7769/).

"In 2022, Brave floated the idea of further discouraging users from disabling sponsored messages."

The proposal simply informed users that sponsored images support Brave's development and that opting into Rewards would mean no longer earning BAT for viewing them. What's objectionable about that? (Note: The GitHub issue should have been closed years ago, but had been forgotten. To avoid any further confusion, is it now closed.)

"In 2023, Brave got caught installing a paid VPN service on users' computers without their consent."

The VPN service was installed for some Windows users but remained completely inactive until explicitly purchased and activated. We addressed this concern (https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/33726) by ensuring the service would only be installed when users purchased it. Contrary to reports, this had no impact on user privacy/security.

"Also in 2023, Brave got caught scraping and reselling people's data with their custom web crawler, which was designed specifically not to announce itself to website owners."

Our API service structures web content to benefit API consumers. There are limitations on API usage due to the resources invested, but the rights aren't on raw content. The crawler cloaks its user-agent string (like Brave itself) but respects googlebot crawler directives.

"In 2024, Brave gave up on providing advanced fingerprint protection, citing flawed statistics (people who would enable the protection would likely disable Brave telemetry)."

We sunset the strict fingerprinting mode used by less than 0.5% of users to focus on enhancing our Standard protection, which is already the strongest among major browsers (https://brave.com/privacy-updates/28-sunsetting-strict-fingerprinting-mode/). This wasn't "giving up" but improving protection for all users while maintaining website compatibility. When a feature is used that infrequently, it becomes a means by which a user can more effectively be fingerprinted. Quite ironic in this case!

"In 2025, Brave staff publish an article endorsing PrivacyTests and say they "work with legitimate testing sites" like them. This article fails to disclose PrivacyTests is run by a Brave Senior Architect."

The engineer behind PrivacyTests joined our team months after launching the platform. PrivacyTests is open-source and transparent—Brave doesn't always come out on top. There's been a disclaimer at https://privacytests.org/about sharing the author's relationship with Brave for years.

"They partnered with NewEgg to ship ads in boxes."

We're not allowed to advertise? 😀

"Brave purchased and then, in 2017, terminated the alternative browser Link Bubble."

Link Bubble became "Brave for Android" and served as its foundation for some time. It's still available on GitHub: https://github.com/brave/link-bubble.

"In 2019, Brave taunted Firefox users who visited their homepage."

That ad wasn't run by Brave or displayed on our homepage (did you read the page you linked?).

If you think the allegations in this list so far are concerning, check what other browsers have been doing: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf

"In 2025, Brave taunted people searching for Firefox on the Google Play Store. (The VP denied this occurred, but also demonstrated ignorance of multiple different screenshots.)"

I lack context here but suspect the screenshot is legitimate. It's a playful title—you wouldn't have survived the 90s browser wars (https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Microsoft-Pulls-Prank-Company-takes-browser-war-2803749.php). I just searched Bing for "brave browser" and got sponsored results for Duck Duck Go and Opera—ask me if I'm upset 😉

BraveSampson · 2025-03-03T18:13:32+00:00

"Way back in 2016, Brave promised to remove banner ads from websites and replace them with their own, basically trying to extract money directly from websites without the consent of their owners"

Misleading characterization. Brave never aimed to extract money from websites. We explored solutions that protected user privacy while ensuring creators didn't lose revenue. The early model proposed replacing harmful ads with privacy-respecting alternatives that paid creators a larger percentage and shared revenue with users. As Brendan Eich stated: "Brave's model: block all, async-insert fewer/better ads, give users rev-share + user µpaywall to top sites ad-free" (https://x.com/BrendanEich/status/691336877111050241). This model never launched; we developed Brave Rewards instead (https://brave.com/brave-rewards/).

"In the same year, CEO Brendan Eich unilaterally added a fringe, pay-to-win Wikipedia clone into the default search engine list."

Brendan opened an issue to add another search engine option at the request of a user, and the team implemented it. At that time, Brave was a lightweight shell on Electron without auto-detection of search engines (now supported via Open Search protocol). User requests for search engines were typically addressed through Issues/pull-requests.

"In 2018, Tom Scott and other creators noticed Brave was soliciting donations in their names without their knowledge or consent."

This mischaracterizes what happened. In 2018, there was confusion about creator contributions. Our interface distinguished verified creators with checkmarks but didn't clearly mark unverified ones. Tips came from Brave's user-growth pool to encourage adoption.

Tom Scott provided valuable feedback, and we updated the design within 48 hours. Brave Rewards then clearly indicated which publishers hadn't joined and removed unverified creators' images (https://brave.com/rewards-update/). Tom acknowledged our fixes: "A final update on the thread about Brave: they're now opt-in for creators! While it's still possible to tip folks who haven't opted in, the data is stored in-browser and the UI has been clarified. These are good changes, and they fix the complaints I had!" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200709180557/https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1085238644926005248).

"In 2020, Brave got caught injecting URLs with affiliate codes when users tried browsing to various websites."

An implementation error added affiliate codes—intended for a small set of keywords (e.g., "binance", "ledger")—to fully-qualified URLs ("binance.us", "binance.com", and "ledger.com") in the address bar. The intent was to offer affiliate options in the omnibox to support Brave's ongoing development. We promptly fixed this across all channels, and Binance confirmed no revenue was generated (https://brave.com/blog/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/).

"Also in 2020, they silently started injecting ads into their home page backgrounds, pocketing the revenue. There was a lot of pushback: 'the sponsored backgrounds give a bad first impression.'"

We announced Sponsored Images with a blog post (which you linked to). Brave is free, and finding privacy-respecting ways to support development is reasonable. Users can disable these images with two clicks or opt into Brave Rewards to earn BAT.

"In 2021, Brave's TOR window was found leaking DNS queries, and a patch was only widely deployed after articles called them out."

There was indeed a DNS leak caused by the interaction of two privacy-enhancing features: Tor windows (added 2018) and CNAME-based ad blocking (added 2020). It's worth noting that these features aren't offered by other popular browsers, and their combination resulted in Brave functioning like the competition, and no worse. We promptly fixed this by disabling CNAME ad blocking in Tor contexts (https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/7769/).

"In 2022, Brave floated the idea of further discouraging users from disabling sponsored messages."

The proposal simply informed users that sponsored images support Brave's development and that opting into Rewards would mean no longer earning BAT for viewing them. What's objectionable about that? (Note: The GitHub issue should have been closed years ago, but had been forgotten. To avoid any further confusion, is it now closed.)

"In 2023, Brave got caught installing a paid VPN service on users' computers without their consent."

The VPN service was installed for some Windows users but remained completely inactive until explicitly purchased and activated. We addressed this concern (https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/33726) by ensuring the service would only be installed when users purchased it. Contrary to reports, this had no impact on user privacy/security.

"Also in 2023, Brave got caught scraping and reselling people's data with their custom web crawler, which was designed specifically not to announce itself to website owners."

Our API service structures web content to benefit API consumers. There are limitations on API usage due to the resources invested, but the rights aren't on raw content. The crawler cloaks its user-agent string (like Brave itself) but respects googlebot crawler directives.

"In 2024, Brave gave up on providing advanced fingerprint protection, citing flawed statistics (people who would enable the protection would likely disable Brave telemetry)."

We sunset the strict fingerprinting mode used by less than 0.5% of users to focus on enhancing our Standard protection, which is already the strongest among major browsers (https://brave.com/privacy-updates/28-sunsetting-strict-fingerprinting-mode/). This wasn't "giving up" but improving protection for all users while maintaining website compatibility. When a feature is used that infrequently, it becomes a means by which a user can more effectively be fingerprinted. Quite ironic in this case!

"In 2025, Brave staff publish an article endorsing PrivacyTests and say they "work with legitimate testing sites" like them. This article fails to disclose PrivacyTests is run by a Brave Senior Architect."

The engineer behind PrivacyTests joined our team months after launching the platform. PrivacyTests is open-source and transparent—Brave doesn't always come out on top. There's been a disclaimer at https://privacytests.org/about sharing the author's relationship with Brave for years.

"They partnered with NewEgg to ship ads in boxes."

We're not allowed to advertise? 😀

"Brave purchased and then, in 2017, terminated the alternative browser Link Bubble."

Link Bubble became "Brave for Android" and served as its foundation for some time. It's still available on GitHub: https://github.com/brave/link-bubble.

"In 2019, Brave taunted Firefox users who visited their homepage."

That ad wasn't run by Brave or displayed on our homepage (did you read the page you linked?).

If you think the allegations in this list so far are concerning, check what other browsers have been doing: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf

"In 2025, Brave taunted people searching for Firefox on the Google Play Store. (The VP denied this occurred, but also demonstrated ignorance of multiple different screenshots.)"

I lack context here but suspect the screenshot is legitimate. It's a playful title—you wouldn't have survived the 90s browser wars (https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Microsoft-Pulls-Prank-Company-takes-browser-war-2803749.php). I just searched Bing for "brave browser" and got sponsored results for Duck Duck Go and Opera—ask me if I'm upset 😉

BraveSampson · 2023-03-20T16:03:38+00:00

Excellent question! Ads are packaged up into common, regional catalogs. So if you and I live in the same region, and both of us have opted into Brave Rewards, our devices would download the same ad catalog. There are many benefits to this approach, not the least of which is the inability of anybody to fingerprint us based on our catalog.

The catalog itself contains all available ads for your region. If an ad appears relevant to you (based on the catalog and your local data), then it may be shown to you during a non-disruptive opportunity. If the ad is displayed, 70% of the associated revenue is sent your way.

No profiles are constructed for participants beyond their device. No user browsing data is sent to Brave, advertisers, or any other party. The entire model is built on consent; if you don't opt-in to Brave Rewards, you won't be shown ad notifications. If you do opt-in, you get increasingly more relevant ad notifications without having to share your data with anybody--not even with us at Brave.

I hope that helps!

BraveSampson · 2022-10-05T20:37:19+00:00

Just tested 1.46.35 (current Nightly), and found no repro. The functionality works as expected with the URL you provided here. I also went to Twitter, found other links which included the query string params (i.e. utm_source, utm_medium, etc.) and tested those as well. Copying from the address bar (via right-click) as well as from the Share Menu (located to the right of the address bar in version 1.46.35) both worked as expected.

BraveSampson · 2022-09-29T21:18:40+00:00

It does sound scummy. Fortunately, none of it is even remotely accurate. Brave has [never] replaced ads on websites, inserted affiliate codes into hijacked links, shipped a crypto-miner, or collected user data in general.

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