The browser ‘Brave’ that was launched back in 2019, is reported
to have been automatically adding VPN services to some users’ computers without
their permission.
It has been revealed that any time a user has downloaded Brave since 2020, its VPN services, namely Brave VPN and Brave Wireguard, came along with it too, whether the user intentionally wanted it or not. The services are an added, paid integration, which means that they would be active only if a user subscribes to them.
Following the confusion and criticism over potential problem
related to privacy, Brave has clarified that it is working to make changes to
the process in the upcoming version of the browser. However, Brave hasn’t been
transparent about the process with its users at any time before, which certainly
raises doubts on the browser’s claim to be privacy focused.
One of the VPs of engineering at GitHub has explained in a post that
one solution to secure privacy is to uninstall Brave and reinstall it without
admin rights. This would disable any additional services including VPN, from
being installed. Attempting to remove these services while the browser is
installed on one’s computer, however, does not work.
