Funny - are there any other known instances in the history of software where you have to pay extra to remove actual features?
Also, don't use Brave.
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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Who is the target audience for this? Without those features isn't Brave just like any other Chromium browser?
It being free on Linux is pretty interesting.
Lmao it's like the play store tax
Isn’t that just helium browser
In the sense that they are both Chromium? In that case it's just Vivaldi as well.
a couple minutes to click through vivaldi's settings will turn off all the annoying stuff (similar to firefox, but firefox is quicker to 'set up'). i've never seen it re-enable things like microsoft loves to do.
vivaldi is what i use for a chromium-based browser when i need to check web client 'compatibility'; and i like that you can customize the toolbar (like you can in firefox).. i move the back-forward stuff to the right side of the address box, and add the separate search box (so suggestions can be enabled in it but off for searches in address bar).
Afaik Helium is unbraved Brave
Not really, it has some patches from ungoogled-chromium, brave, and others. But it doesn't use Brave's ad blocker, bundles uBlock Origin instead.
Is Brave not FOSS? How come nobody has already made a debloated fork of the browser?
It already is a bloated FOSS fork of chromium.
i actually work in software security.
grapheneos has talked about integrating shields into vanadium (and by extension, trivalent) which i would love. shields imo is a very top notch implementation of an ad blocker and is better than ublock origin in every way due to how it blocks in ram with rust rather than in userspace like ublock. brave does pretty well at integrating many things into the browser so that the user isnt tempted to install extensions, which reduces attack surface. i consider email aliases, automatic darkmode (can be enabled via chrome flags) on sites, and a built in adblocker (not an extension, it must also work on videos) to be critical for user experience, and ideally via no extensions. currently only brave offers each of these stock, which is very unfortunate. plus it has better sandboxing, there are many exploits to harvest fingerprints on many corporate sites that circumvent sandboxing in firefox and read other tab data. basically, the only options are brave with minimal changes, mullvad browser with no changes, or tor browser with no changes, and you should not open more than one tab on any firefox browser. the last two are not great for usability every day due to no automatic darkmode, among other features.
i think the best way for brave to improve would be maybe to include something like sponsorblock in the browser as well and then work hard to cut off providing extensions altogether, as extensions are a main source of fingerprints becoming unique and data leaks. and of course remove all the crypto garbage.
There was a fork, it was called braver. I think it got sued and then shut down? Not too sure.
What browser should I use then thats not brave or Firefox?
Why not Firefox?
Waterfox, librewolf
you should use firefox and turn off the 'ai' crap (one toggle) if you don't want it. a few more clicks turns off the 'sponsored' stuff and 'telemetry'. if that's too much for you, then librewolf. zen, perhaps, if you want something a lil' different.
I use Librewolf so I don't have to worry about Mozilla adding things and enabling them by default
Konform, Zen, Floorp are solid ones to check out
+1 to Zen and Floorp. Haven't come across Konform before, thanks!
Safari/Epiphany.
Vivaldi
I use Vivaldi, european and against the AI (and also crypto) hype
Most of those features are opt-in anyway, so there's really little to "remove". That's just a way for them to fund the development without resorting to deals with Google and the likes or selling users's data.