Brave appears to install VPN Services without user consent

Topic

New Reply

If you have the Brave Browser installed on your Windows devices, then you may also have Brave VPN services installed on the machine. Brave installs these services without user consent on Windows devices.

Brave Firewall + VPN is an extra service that Brave users may subscribe to for a monthly fee. Launched in mid-2022, it is a cooperation between Brave Software, maker of Brave Browser, and Guardian, the company that operates the VPN and the firewall solution. The firewall and VPN solution is available for $9.99 per month.

https://www.ghacks.net/2023/10/18/brave-is-installing-vpn-services-without-user-consent/

Brave has become Malware

1 user thanked author for this post.

NaNoNyMouse

Reply | Quote

Replies

Not long ago I first learned of this issue. I checked my system and learned it was true. Brave had “slipped” VPN services into my system.

I immediately uninstalled Brave and went to LibreWolf. Some may consider this an overreaction, but I will not entertain any program that violates my trust with underhanded tactics such as this. And I can only imagine that if everyone used such a zero tolerance policy, perhaps developers would act more honorably and show more respect for its customers.

1 user thanked author for this post.

NaNoNyMouse

Reply | Quote

Brave is working on a fix

1 user thanked author for this post.

TechTango

Reply | Quote

From that Brave Community discussion:

However disabling services is notreally for the faint of heart, and being consumer focused, [they] shouldn’t be pushing bloat at you, then saying well i you don’t want it…go learn about task manager and services starting and you can “easily” disable what you don’t want. How about giving us an option TO allow something BEFORE it’s installed.

Sound familiar, anyone? 🙂

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

1 user thanked author for this post.

cyberSAR

Reply | Quote

How about giving us an option TO allow something BEFORE it’s installed.

YES!

Reply | Quote

Hello, Windows.
Hello, Edge.
Sounds REAL familiar!

3 users thanked author for this post.

satrow, Cybertooth, cyberSAR

Reply | Quote

PKCano wrote:

Hello, Windows.
Hello, Edge.
Sounds REAL familiar!

What subscription services does Microsoft install without asking?

Reply | Quote

How about giving us an option TO allow something BEFORE it’s installed.

“something” is not necessarily a subscription. Quote does not say “subscription.”

Reply | Quote

PKCano wrote:

Hello, Windows.
Hello, Edge.
Sounds REAL familiar!

Microsoft Edge may be using your browsing history to inform Bing Chat AI

..As well as adding AI to Windows 11 with Copilot, Microsoft has also brought a generous dose of it to its Edge browser courtesy of Bing Chat. What users of this feature may not be aware of is that their browsing data is being used to personalize Copilot, meaning that a huge amount of potentially revealing information is being shared with the artificial intelligence tool…

1 user thanked author for this post.

Cybertooth

Reply | Quote

Alex5723 wrote:

What users of this feature may not be aware of is that their browsing data is being used to personalize Copilot,

Because they missed the big, bold box where they clicked, “Confirm …”?

consent is asked for before this setting is enabled,

Data and consent used by Bing Chat in Edge sidebar

Microsoft Edge determines what data to send to Bing Chat based on the user’s query and their consent to share data with Microsoft. For questions that don’t need browsing context, such as “Help me plan a trip to Cannon Beach”, Microsoft Edge shares the URL, page title, user’s query, and previous conversation history to help Bing Chat answer their query effectively.

For questions that need browsing context, [e.g. when the user asks Bing Chat to summarize a large page of text], Microsoft Edge will seek permission from the user to access page information. When the user gives permission to share page information, Microsoft Edge will send the full browsing context in addition to the users’ query and previous conversation history to Bing Chat to help generate a meaningful response.

Here’s an example of what the permission screen looks like to gain access to the browsing context:

The user can modify this permission anytime by going to Microsoft Edge > Settings > Sidebar > App and notification settings > App specific settings > Bing Chat and then turning on or off the Allow access to any webpage or PDF toggle.

Bing Chat in Microsoft Edge sidebar

Alex5723 wrote:

Microsoft Edge may be using your browsing history to inform Bing Chat AI

browsing history is NOT accessed.

Reply | Quote

b wrote:

consent is asked for before this setting is enabled

Users of Brave similarly need to take positive action for the browser’s VPN to be enabled:

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

Reply | Quote

Just peeked in

• Control Panel > Programs and Features,
• Settings > App
• Services.msc

… and all I have is Brave, no additional Brave-branded VPN software.  Was this “fixed”?  Brave says it’s up-to-date:

Brave is up to date

Version 1.59.120 Chromium: 118.0.5993.88 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Reply | Quote