Brave Origin is a minimalist Brave edition that costs $59.99 on other platforms but is free for Linux users.
Recently, Brave introduced Brave Origin, a minimalist version of its browser whose main appeal lies in what it removes rather than what it adds. The new edition strips out many optional Brave services, including AI, crypto, VPN, Rewards, Tor, and several telemetry mechanisms, while remaining free for Linux users.
According to Brave, Origin is designed for users who want the browser's core privacy and security protections without the wider set of features included in the standard Brave browser. It keeps Brave Shields, ad and tracker blocking, frequent software updates, Chromium security patches, and ongoing security and privacy improvements.
The difference is that Brave Origin removes or disables a long list of extras. These include Leo AI, Brave News, Playlist, Rewards and browser-based Brave Ads, Speedreader, Talk, Tor, VPN, Wallet and Web3 domains, Wayback Machine, Web Discovery Project, email aliases, daily usage ping, crash logs, and privacy-preserving product analytics, known as P3A.
That makes Origin an unusual browser release. Brave frames it as a premium experience, but its main value is a smaller feature set. But what's even more interesting is that on Windows and macOS, Brave Origin is a one-time purchase priced at $59.99. On Linux, users can access Origin for free.
The browser is available in two forms. The first is a standalone desktop browser, available through a separate download. The second is an upgrade mode for the existing Brave browser on desktop and mobile devices.
There is an important technical distinction between the two. In the standalone Brave Origin app, the affected features are compiled out of the build. In upgrade mode, the features appear in a new Settings panel and are off by default.
According to Brave, future features outside the core Brave Shields experience will also be disabled by default in Origin.
For Linux users, Origin can be used as a standalone browser or as an upgrade to an existing Brave installation. The upgrade option requires Brave 1.91 or later. Linux users installing the standalone version can skip the purchase process during setup, while those upgrading an existing installation can proceed from the Brave Origin section in the browser's settings.
The regular Brave browser remains unchanged. Brave says the existing browser will continue to be free and fully supported for users who want the full feature set or do not want to use Origin. The company also notes that users can already hide or disable many Brave features manually, although doing so does not remove those components from the browser executable.
And finally, the idea behind all of this. Brave says Origin was created in response to users who wanted a more minimal browser while still supporting Brave's privacy and ad-blocking work. The company also says Origin uses a blind token protocol based on Privacy Pass to verify purchases without linking payment identity to browser use.
You can find instructions here on how Linux users can install it for free, depending on their distribution.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Thursday June 25, @05:23AM
The 1990s called. They want their $60 Netscape Communicator/Navigator price point back!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by KritonK on Thursday June 25, @06:14AM
Sounds like a browser that does everything one would want from a browser, and doesn't do any of the things one would not want. The fact that they charge money for this, and not the other way round, rather proves it.
Of all the things that they've removed, integration with the Wayback machine is the only thing that I'd be interested, and there's an extension [archive.org] for that (check the links at the left).
(Score: 4, Disagree) by Bentonite on Thursday June 25, @08:28AM (7 children)
Brave is proprietary software - it is incorrect to describe it as "free".
After all, chromium is proprietary software (how the trick works is that google makes people think chrome is proprietary and chromium is free, but of course both are proprietary).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25, @09:24AM
3..2..1.. beer vs. speech comment
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Thursday June 25, @09:26AM (3 children)
I'm obviously one that have been tricked: how is chromium non-FOSS? My main browser is firefox, but as a backup for broken sites or when performance matters, chromium is on the table.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Bentonite on Thursday June 25, @09:58AM
It's full of proprietary stuff like unrar, widevine and prebuilt binaries that don't seem to correspond to the claimed sources.
It's also incredibly bloated (it's far more complicated that all the software you need to fly you to the moon and back) and takes 8+ hours to compile on fast hardware - realistically by design, only google can make nontrivial changes to it.
There's the ungoogled-chroium project, but that has only managed to make trivial changes, such as disabling "Google Safe Browsing", blocking google domains and replacing prebuilt binaries and adding a few dozen configuration options.
With free software, you or a reasonably sized group of people are capable of changing the software to do your computing as you wish - you don't run into issues like google going and disabling MV2 and then running into issues with sites if an old version of chromium is used and also how the codebase being so bloated that it's almost impossible to add MV2 back.
I just don't use chromium.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Username on Thursday June 25, @04:14PM (1 child)
Blink is the open source rendering engine from the chromium project. Chrome, opera, Vivaldi all run on blink.
(Score: 2) by Bentonite on Friday June 26, @01:51AM
Chromium is not just the Blink rendering image - there's many more components.
(Score: 2) by Deep Blue on Thursday June 25, @06:15PM (1 child)
Free means pricewise to the rest of the population. I don't know why e.g. you think it's only for descriping a type of license. I'd rather use "liberty" instead of "freedom" anyway, but english is not my main language, so there could be nuances i miss.
(Score: 2) by Bentonite on Friday June 26, @02:03AM
Free means freedom, which most people seem to understand, while at the same time doublethinking that it only means gratis due to too much advertising brainrot.
You can easily construct; "free of charge" to mean gratis, which can be shorted by removing the important text to "free", which is very popular with advertisers, as well it gives the feeling that the product is gratis and/or gives freedom, when the product is not gratis and/or the product takes freedom.
When you pay with part of your freedom, something being gratis is clearly of little relevance.
Liberty is a fine synonym to use.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday June 25, @10:00AM (3 children)
I find this somewhat odd. That it's free for one but costs for the others. Do they think they can attain market share on Linux by giving it away, or that nobody with Linux would ever buy a browser for $60? What makes them think that someone running Windows or MacOS would? After all they have to many options of "free" to fork over $60. I think they would have great success as a browser if they gave that away for Windows and MacOS to. But I doubt a lot of people are going to be paying $60 for it on either OS. Perhaps the market have shifted and people are used to paying for all their apps and crap. But I don't see going back to the Netscape Navigator days and having people pay for a browser, something they these days expect to be free. It seems like somewhat of an odd choice.
Somewhat interesting tho that $60 for the browser where they removed options, compared to adding options. Pay for the scaled back minimum version, the one with all the (bloated) features is the free one.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday June 25, @10:39AM (1 child)
I think it comes down to the fact that Windows and MacOS users are used to paying for software, while Linux users expect some equivalent of "package manager, gimme _____ for free". Also, given the number of competitors that Brave has, I agree it's a bit surprising that they're expecting to get anywhere by charging anything, but of course the for-profit model demands that they charge somebody something.
That said, I do wonder whether they expect Linux users to pay in other ways, e.g. with their data. Since there's a black-box aspect to this, it's hard to prove one way or another if that's going on.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25, @12:14PM
No, they're used to the concept of paying for software, a visit to the nearest decent torrent search engine however shows that a fair number of them regard it as such a quaint concept...
Even back in the day when one of the warez groups found a misconfigured and little used ftp server at my then place of employ and started filling it with their software, I was orded by the PHB to keep the thing up and unpatched until they'd finished uploading the several patched copies of very expensive packages that he wanted for his wife, and it wasn't as if they couldn't afford to purchase them.
So yes, used to the concept of paying, but will avoid like the plague doing so if the opportunity presents itself.
(Score: 2) by cereal_burpist on Friday June 26, @03:34AM
.
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=67269&page=1&cid=1444507#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by UncleSlacky on Thursday June 25, @11:45AM
Obligatory reminders:
https://www.spacebar.news/stop-using-brave-browser/ [spacebar.news]
https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/ [thelibre.news]
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday June 25, @12:23PM (14 children)
There is a lot of political objection to this browser, some of it based on Brendan Eich and his sexuality. That is, IMO, irrelevant so I am ignoring it.
There are several other claims made in the links provided by UncleSlacky [soylentnews.org]. So I have installed it and will test it.
Installation is straight forward (I'm testing it on a Debian system). It installs without problem, and it will use the information transferred over from Firefox to configure itself. I have also installed a couple of extensions: Tampermonkey (so that I can run the scripts written by Takyon which are extremely useful for site editors), UBlock origin, and a video downloader. They all seem to work. Essentially, the things that have been removed I have never used and it works just as a browser should.
Some of the claims that it places advertising on its home pages, or is doing things that you might not want it to do, are all optional and can be switched off in the settings.
There is an issue with TOR but it doesn't appear to stop TOR from functioning. It seems that it uses a specific 'gateway' and the gateway uses what appears to be a subset of available TOR nodes, the result of which is that things are secured but essentially often hit this site from a small subset of exit nodes. This problem has been known for years. Users are still protected but do not show the true randomness of IPs when compared to other TOR configurations. The links provided by UncleSlacky go into other claimed weaknesses of Brave, and if you are really paranoid perhaps you shouldn't be on the internet at all. If there are other TOR issues they are not immediately apparent to me.
I will continue to use it for a while to give it a fair test but the long and the short of it is that, for now, it does what you expect it to do. For most people it is entirely suitable and if you are relying on ANY browser to provide 100% security you will never achieve it. UncleSlacky's warnings are worth reading and heeding, but make your decision based on your own requirements
(Score: 2) by Ingar on Thursday June 25, @12:43PM (2 children)
Did you just run an unverified binary without source available on a production machine?
Love is a three-edged sword: heart, soul, and reality.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Thursday June 25, @12:47PM (1 child)
On one of my 18 machines which is isolated so, no, I didn't. :)
But I also run Firefox, Brave, and LibreWolf with source code too.
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Thursday June 25, @12:48PM
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25, @01:03PM (1 child)
Nope, not his sexuality, but his efforts to oppress people whose sexuality differs from his.
I don't know how you'd react to being told you're not allowed to participate in society, but I bet you'd think that politics weren't ignoreable any more. I know, you just wanna get stuff done and play with the shiny, but fascists will not allow you to live a politics-free life.
Fascism has always had an element of "help us throw this group under the bus, or YOU'RE NEXT." Problem is, soon as they run low on an outgroup, you're next anywasy. You cannot be immune, because there's always another criteria that can be applied to put you in a new out-group.
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Thursday June 25, @01:11PM
Which has nothing to do with a browser. He has nothing to do with the software that I have just installed. He did not write it. He has not been involved for years. Take your political views elsewhere please. You have been moderated by 2 people now...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25, @01:12PM (4 children)
> [...] some of it based on Brendan Eich and his sexuality. That is, IMO, irrelevant so I am ignoring it
Eich was thrown under the bus because he opposed infecting the official web standards with DRM. The noise made about his private life is an intentional distraction from that. Once he was moved out of the way, Baker could then back including DRM in the web standards while handing control over Mozilla to Google one piece at a time.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday June 25, @01:20PM (2 children)
It has nothing to do with the software I have just downloaded. You have probably worked in places with people whose personal views you would not have agreed with had you known them. It didn't stop you from working there.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25, @01:30PM
DRM has everything to do with the question. Eich would have remained head of Mozilla had he not opposed DRM.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140519031947/http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-brendan-eich-had-to-go.html [archive.org]
Had the trolls not ousted him, he would not have started Brave nor have based it on Chromium.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday June 29, @03:01AM
If I avoided everything created by people I disagree with, or even actively think are idiots, the world would be a smaller place.
Me, I don't use Brave because the interface changes annoy me.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by janrinok on Thursday June 25, @01:28PM
I may have moderated you in haste - I apologise.
(Score: 2) by helel on Friday June 26, @01:28PM (3 children)
Do you actually consider 'bigot' to be a sexuality or are you just lying about why people dislike Eich because you do, in fact, consider it relevant to projects he's worked on?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Friday June 26, @02:02PM (2 children)
When I used to review code in the 1980s (I am now long retired), I didn't ask about the political belief, sexual likes or dislikes, or any other personal details of the person who wrote it. In fact it would have been quite improper at that time to even seek that information.
I see no reason why I should be concerned about it today.
I use Linux. I have no wish to know the personal details of any of the contributors to that operating system.
I don't care why other people might dislike Eich, and I am aware of what he has done in the past. He wasn't involved in writing the code that I am running today.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by day of the dalek on Friday June 26, @07:49PM (1 child)
I strongly disagree with you. In this instance, I believe the political activity of Brave's leadership is very relevant.
Brave has a history of modifying the URLs that users request as well as replacing content on websites. This included injecting affiliate IDs into URLs typed by users, meaning that the browser requests a different URL than what the user wants. Their business model at one point relied on removing ads displayed by websites and replacing them with other ads that Brave claims respected privacy.
Those referral IDs could be used to raise money for Brave, but they could just as easily be used to raise money for other organizations and causes that the user might not support. And these could include political causes. The same issues occur with ads. For example, what would prevent Brave from removing ads for left-wing candidates and replacing them with ads for right-wing candidates? The political actions of Brave's leadership matters when their browser has previously used functionality that covertly monetized the browsing of users and could be used to directly raise money for political causes, and also functionality that would also allow them to modify and replace political ads. If this functionality was active in 2024, what's to say they wouldn't have replaced ads for Kamala Harris with ads for Donald Trump, using a pretext that the Trump ads they showed were more respecting of privacy? And yes, the reverse would also be wrong, if a browser covertly replaced Trump ads with Harris ads.
The underlying issue is, of course, that Brave has repeatedly violated the trust of its users by adding anti-features. But the politics are relevant when those anti-features could realistically be weaponized for political gain. The difference with Linux is that I'm not aware of any reason to believe that anti-features are baked into the Kernel or other components of the OS that could be weaponized to promote political causes. If people are going to use software that has a history of including such anti-features, they should at least be aware of how those anti-features might be exploited and for what ends. If a user is aware of those risks and chooses to proceed anyway, that's their right. But they at least should be aware of those risks so they can make an informed decision before proceeding.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
Leviticus 19:33-34
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Friday June 26, @08:11PM
I intentionally wrote that UncleSlacky's links should be heeded.
The ads can be switched off. The other extensions that I mentioned as being installed take care of anything that I do not wish to see on my screen. I have never experienced a URL that I have input being changed. For my purposes, the Brave Origin browser does what it claims to do, as do Firefox, TOR Browser, LibreWolf or any of the other browsers that I have installed. I test my software on as many browsers as I can and I get the same response from each one.
There might be lots of reasons why individuals would not want to use Brave Origin. None of them are of interest to me. They are not what I am testing. People are free to ignore the software if it gives them a warm fuzzy feeling.
I am NOT testing anything related to the political activity of the Brave leadership, let alone the politics or opinions of someone who is no longer connected to the project.
That's OK - it is what makes discussion sites interesting. I do not have to agree with you either, and in this instance I do not.