There is quite a lot of costs associated with running a browser (at scale). Brave is looking to offer something that does what you mention called Brave-origin.

Brendan talks about this a bit more here: https://x.com/BrendanEich/status/2006412918783619455

This is good news, but I am confused by the following:

"""

Brave Origin is:

1/ new, optional, separate build (stripped down, no telemetry/rewards/wallet/vpn/ai);

2/ free on Linux, one time buy elsewhere.

"""

So the stripped down version (at least the non-Linux one) will not be open source?

Open source software can be sold for money. For example redhat selling cds with rhel on them, for quite a big sticker price. Free if you build it yourself but you have to pay to get a ready to use version.

or figure out how to build it yourself from source. But you can count on the lazy tax - esp. for windows (as building from source on linux is likely to be much more convenient).

Maybe that's why it is free on Linux!

open-source ≠ gratis binaries

Rules that require the distribution of source code don't require the distribution of binaries.

That seems pretty reasonable proposition IMO.

As other people have mentioned you can resell open source software. I have a big box Linux distro on my shelf here.

I’d pay a monthly fee for a browser where I’m not the product anymore and it respects my privacy.

You can hide bat with one click as soon as you install brave

Linux distros won't host the code for the commercial bits. It doesn't matter if you can hide it, it's the fact that it's there at all

Yet they have no issue with Mozilla?

Mozilla does not have commercial bits. They do receive money from Google to be the default search engine, and the binaries they build report telemetry, but the versions found in Linux repos often either patch out the telemetry or disable it.

Most distros have a way of installing proprietary software via enabling additional repos after install.

And you can do that if you want with Brave

For technical users who are in the know, yes. I would not recommend Brave to less-technical friends and family knowing that they would surely be duped by some dark patterns in Brave's UI/UX.

Even Firefox, which is the best we have currently, surprises us a few times a year with questionable decisions. Still, it's what I recommend to people.

It's annoying, but Brave makes it pretty easy to remove, so you only have to do it once per installation.

As far as I am concerned, this is more about Brave going through a vetting process and an independent build than only turning off annoyances.

Indeed. It's basically like trying to get them into Debian main repo. If it works, then it's truly free.

Isn't this what Helium is doing? I have been using it as daily driver for half a year, works a charm. Only would like better 1Password integration.

Helium is based on ungoogled-chromium. It enables manifest v2 by simply reverting some code changes made by google. So, if google decides to remove manifest v2 wholly, helium will also lost its ublock original support.

Removing all manifest v2 support is also a code change that can be reverted. Of course, the larger the change, the more work it's likely to require to maintain it in the future.

This. I use Brave because it has a great, fast adblocker and is fast generally. Unticking all the wallet/AI crap upon install is an acceptable price, but if somebody is going to release Braveium I'm going to use it right away.

Is its adblocker as good as uBlock Origin?

You can add the same lists as in uBlock. I haven't seen any ads in years, so yes.

It is better (especially than the Manifest V3 version) because it has first party access / integration.

In general, of 3rd party blockers, uBlock Origin isn't even the best, AdGuard is.

> In general, of 3rd party blockers, uBlock Origin isn't even the best, AdGuard is.

Why? I thought uBlock Origin on Firefox was the most effective combination available (assuming that you use the same filter lists).

The main reason for people repeating "uBlock Origin + Firefox is best" is because CNAME uncloaking didn't work on most Chromium browsers, even on Manifest V2. It does on Brave.

AdGuard works better simply because there's a bunch of people being paid to work on it. There's more optimization and less bugs. The UI is a whole lot more polished. Blocklists have improved syntax, and the lists themselves are updated more frequently to catch site breakage. EasyList often has breakage on their lists for months even after being reported on their Github, but reporting the same breakage to AdGuard results in the breakage being fixed in days if not hours. And they do adjacent projects like AdGuard Home (sort of a commercial Pi-Hole) too.

FWIW, big names in adblocking work for these companies too. AFAIK, FanBoy (EasyList + EasyPrivacy + his own lists) gets paid by Brave to maintain the lists. So in a way, Brave is funding adblocking for everyone :)

You can disable all of that within seconds. There's no reason for it not to be included because of that, as all the code running on the client is open-source. If distros only shipped software without commercial interests (why even..?), it'd be an unusable mess of barely maintained hobby projects.

And you should really be using https://flathub.org/en/apps/com.brave.Browser