Brave is a scam and not security or privacy
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
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Free on Linux. But you should just use Firefox or its forks.
It’s free on Linux. Still, I find it difficult to justify paying for a browser unless you want to directly support it.
The fact that they have to charge $60 to not have all that crap in there should tell you everything about why they have that crap in there. Taking it out kills their revenue stream from their “free” fully-featured version.
Unless you absolutely want to contribute to the chromium monopoly, Firefox is right there and still free. If you're concerned about the telemetry, LibreWolf is worth looking at.
Firefox has implemented many of the same features that Chrome has recently (groups, split tabs, vertical tabs, reading mode etc.) but has also consistently been implementing them earlier and better. There are just so many small annoyances with these features on Chrome that aren't there in Firefox, and Chrome is always late to the party.
The golden era of Chrome is long gone, probably because the most competent people working at Google have moved on.
This is just my opinion but, no one using chrome should complain about telemetry in FF.
Mandatory note: you cannot contribute a dime towards Firefox. Google contributes, not you. Money given to Mozilla will find its way into AI experiments (https://www.mozilla.ai/) and AI grants (https://mozilla.vc/).
Clarification: You can disable all the AI stuff with one switch.
Furthermore, the hardened forks of Firefox don't have it.
Still better than contributing to the chromium monopoly.
Gonna call it now: that 60 quid 'one time' purchase is not gonna be the end of it.
In, at most, a couple of years, one of these things will happen:
- the model will be switched to a monthly subscription
- features will be cut and sold separately
- 'limited, non-targeted' ads 'from trusted partners' will be introduced
- the thing will be buried completely because it's not financially viable
That's what one gets for installing US-tech. They invented enshittification and here we go.
Knew I was right to never even check brave out.
Don't forget the "major" version increment that breaks "lifetime".
- Oh, you're mistaken. The license is for the lifetime of version 32. To use version 33 you must upgrade. But no rush, you have until version 33.1 before we activate the kill switch.
Or they rebrand it, and pull the "lifetime is only to the end of the product lifetime" trick.
Oh shit. Someone finally called my "I'd pay not to have to use AI" bluff.
Brave, and Brandon Eck are shit anyway, with or without AI.
Thanks, but I'll just stick to Firefox
Firefox+Betterfox is whatever brave is trying to do here, but free and open. Fuck brave and their scummy practices. Module isn't perfect, but in comparison is clear.
That's what you get for using a broader called brave. We all knew we'd end up here.
They are endorsing linux, what a good company asking users to indirectly move to linux for their browser.
Huh, funnily enough, Ive introduced my own $60 fee if they want me to read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy agreements that come along with their browser.
Good news for me! I don't have to pay since I don't use brave at all. Yay me!
Brave is something I never wanted in the first place.
Donate to LadyBird.
The idea behind ladybird is great. I just just wish someone else was at the helm. Kling seems to be kind of a huge douche.
Yeah I really don't care about that. There's another part to this story and people just want to hate.
Care to elaborate? I personally wouldn't "cancel" Ladybird as a project, but I do think it's worth pointing out when shitty prople do shitty things.
They didn't do a shitty thing. Somebody raised a PR for a useless change regarding a developer document.
You can go into the settings and manually disable (nearly?) all the features that are removed in the paid version without paying anything. That’s what I did. They aren’t paywalling the ability disable the features.
It doesn’t matter to me whether someone uses Brave or not, but the headline is misleading, though pedantically accurate.