Goodbye! Brave

Final Update (moved old updates to bottom)

Brave supports Chrome extensions. The problem was with the author’s version of Brave; it was roughly a year old. Very old versions of Brave didn’t include service keys (necessary for interacting with Brave’s privacy-preserving proxy-service), whereas modern versions do (which is why you and I are able to install extensions without any issue)

Sampson from Brave

To explain – the place I have installed Brave hasn’t made available any newer versions of the browser since December 2020. So the keys it shipped with have become outdated. Since no-update was available, I didn’t see the usual orange “Update” button on the taskbar.

⚠️ NOTICE: Closing comments as they have moved from discussing the issue to attacking me for not being crypto friendly.

Original Post

I have been using the Brave Browser for almost 2 years I think. @logic introduced it to me at some point and it has been my primary browser both in Desktop and Mobile, home and office computers since then.

I got my first heads up when I came across a post on HackerNews about Brave misbehaving due to the “Brave backend servers” being unreachable. It struck me as strange when a comment on the Github ticket mentioned that Brave servers need to be up for Brave to function.

This is a big design NO-NO for something as essential as a web browser. But then, the inertia of it being a daily driver, its amazing ad-blocking and tracker protection, Chrome extension compatibility, and the fact I haven’t faced any such issues prevented me from doing any changes.

Today I was looking to install an extension to manage the browser tabs and I ran into this

Can’t install any extension

I thought maybe the extension was buggy and tried a couple more and the same result for everything. And searching for the error led me to this Github Ticket, which again describes that it is a “server-side” issue and it was fixed.

Well, it is not fixed for me. But that’s beside the point. This amount of dependency for a browser to have on “backend servers” is ridiculous. For software, as important as a browser, through which I have come to access almost everything digital for me is unacceptable. So with this post being the last thing I will do on Brave, I will bid goodbye.

Exploring options…

  1. An interesting alternate is Vivaldi – It is trying to do what Opera was doing pre-Chrome. It rolls email, calendar, RSS reader, browser all into one and also provides built-in ad-blocking.
  2. Open source Chrome aka Chromium – This used to be my primary dirver before. So I am thinking of going back to it with the usual extensions like Ghostery, AdBlock+..etc., Not sure how much things have changed there.

Update:

Not sure who posted this in HackerNews. Thanks for all the feedback.

  1. I will be trying Firefox. So many people have recommended it. It’s something I have forgotten over the last couple of years and before that it frequently caused issues and was only my secondary browser for testing.
  2. There is nothing sinister about the decision or PR at work. I tried installing extensions, it didn’t work, I uninstalled and made a note of why I am doing it. Interpretations are all yours.

Update 2:

This is for people suggesting I jumped the gun and probably didn’t take the time to understand the real problem. I am an Chrome extension author myself, I had just published a new version of it only 8 hours before and tested installation on Brave and Chrome. So, I understand the issue. And I have linked to GitHub issues where this has been discussed.

Author: Arunmozhi

Arunmozhi is a freelance programmer and an open-source enthusiast.

54 thoughts on “Goodbye! Brave”

    1. Esa noticia es falsa, brave funciona bien, con publicaciones como estas se daña la imagen de una empresa, deben verificar antes de publicar mentiras

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    2. I was using Brave for a good while, until I discovered the existence of Vivaldi. I tried it out and never made the decision to switch browsers faster. I don’t use the calendar, feeds and such, Just the web browsing, translation features, tab features and the web panels. It blocks ads as well as Brave ever did for me and I use FAR fewer extensions in Vivaldi than I required in other Chromium based browsers.

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  5. I haven’t bumped into this myself and have been using brave for years also. I didn’t realize brave was so locked to servers for functionality. This is a big no no for me, I want reliable tools and would much prefer download some files need to direct the browser to being Perma tied to someone else’s servers. Thanks for the article.

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    1. Ohh now I get why I was facing challenges with this browser but it has been the best
      Let me pray that I may get the other option

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  8. The comment you found on GitHub is not from a team member, and does not reflect reality. Adding a Chrome extension doesn’t rely on Brave’s back-end servers or services being up and running (they aren’t involved in the process). What you’re seeing here appears to be an error on the Chrome Web Store itself, perhaps a limitation of whatever account you’ve used to sign-in.
    I just navigated to https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/toby-for-chrome/hddnkoipeenegfoeaoibdmnaalmgkpip in Brave (not signed-in to the Chrome Web Store) and added the extension without any issue. You might try signing-out of your Google account and see if the problem persists.
    All the best,
    Sampson
    Brave Developer Relations

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  9. Correction to my previous comment: I was able to reproduce this screenshot and issue by returning a 401 Unauthorized response from go-updater.brave.com (a Brave proxy to prevent users from making direct, unintended contact with Google). I’m not sure if this response was served in your case, but it certainly would yield the observed behavior. If you can share with me dates/times for when you saw the issue, I can check with our team to see if there were any known issues.

    Apologies for any confusion.

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    1. Thank you for proactively looking into it. The screenshot I took says “Monday 06 December 2021 08∶29∶42 AM” as the timestamp. This it UTC+0530. My issues were probably in the window of 1 hour preceding this. I hope it helps.

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      1. Thank you; I’ve relayed this to the appropriate teammates. This error could have come from Brave (the proxy), or Google. Given the size and resources, I would assume it’s less likely that Google returned such a message unintentionally. And it seems unlikely the extension author would have momentarily locked-out all users. This leaves the most plausible explanation being an unintended, transient 4XX response from Brave’s proxy. Double-checking with our team now. Thanks again!

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      2. Do you recall which version of Brave you were using, and on which OS? We recently deployed changes to a proxy-server which might have caused a similar issue for users on certain out-of-date builds of Brave.

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      5. I have installed it using `apt`. While I have uninstalled the software, thankfully all the files in my home directory `~/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser` are still there. I can pull out all the information you need from there if you let me know where to look. I tried a naive `grep version *` and it returned too much for me to make any sense.

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      7. Oh my, that would likely explain it then. Version 1.18.77 is from December of 2020. Your Brave instance was roughly a year out of date. I suspect that too explains the lack of service key in the proxy-request during extension-install. It may be a big favor to ask, but would you mind noting this in your post for others who may experience this issue themselves?

        Liked by 1 person

      8. I will add an update tomorrow morning on top. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of attention this post has been getting. It would be wrong not to post the diagnosis and resolution.

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    1. Brave wasn’t “caught”; the behavior wasn’t to spec. The intended behavior was to suggest affiliate links when the user types certain keywords into the address bar. The mistake was matching fully-qualified URLs in addition to search input. This is what caused the unintended behavior, and it was promptly fixed. No data or privacy was impacted in any way. We blogged about it in greater detail here: https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/. Firefox literally sends your keystrokes directly to Google (far more egregious behavior than was unintentionally exhibited by Brave).

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  11. I’ve been on Firefox for a few years, now, frequently trying out new browsers (like Brave and Vivaldi), and I haven’t quite met one that could beat it in total user experience, yet. Master password, built-in privacy and shortcuts really speed things up tremendously for me. (shortcuts like typing dd for drive, fb for facebook, etc.)

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  12. Using vivaldi for a couple years now. It’s amazing how much they do with the number of people on their team. The customization is excellent as well

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  13. This article is frustrating. The author was searching for software to install and when there was a glitch they assert that the use of servers is a fundamental design flaw.
    Think about that for a moment. Where is your new software supposed to come from if not a server?
    This is a gross way of making a bug report, but fortunately the Brave authors are on the case.

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    1. Agreed, this reminds me of a little kid who can’t figure out hiw to tie his shoes and is blaming the shoe. This dude is either an idiot or he’s just lazy

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      1. The problem here wound up being with the version of Brave the user had installed; it was nearly a year old. I doubt the user is to blame here either; Linux distros often have various different package managers and repositories for downloading software. Sadly, these endpoints often do not always have the latest updates available. It may be the case that this user installed Brave more than a year ago, and their OS simply never found an update since. As a result, their out-dated build of Brave failed to send service keys along with proxied requests, which prevented extension installation.

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  14. Exactly what I’ve been warning people about for years regarding this browser. I’m glad someone capable finally took the time to write an article about it.
    Thanks!

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    1. What exactly have you been warning people about for years? The issue here was with an extremely out-of-date build of Brave (from December of 2020) failing to have service keys, and thus failing to communicate with the privacy-preserving proxy-layer offered by the browser (to keep you from making direct, unintended contact with Google). The important lesson here is to keep your software relatively up-to-date; unfortunately that is somewhat difficult in some Linux environments.

      Liked by 1 person

  15. Man, I wish I knew what y’all were talking about!!! Lol, I just use Brave and Chrome and deal with it (of course, I’m not trying to do anything special). Thanks

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  18. Ja mam najnowsze Brave i wszystko mogę zainstalować z rozszerzeń jestem z tej przeglądarki najbardziej zadowolony

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  19. The picture you posted as you described having an issue downloading an extension for brave: that clearly says it is for Chrome.
    Perhaps that is your issue?
    Brave has been working fine for me, but then again I don’t use any extensions for it.

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    1. Brave supports Chrome extensions. The problem was with the author’s version of Brave; it was roughly a year old. Very old versions of Brave didn’t include service keys (necessary for interacting with Brave’s privacy-preserving proxy-service), whereas modern versions do (which is why you and I are able to install extensions without any issue).

      Like

  20. Stay away from Firefox and duckduckgo.
    They do block the Influx of spam emails however the Influx of spam emails is because your using their browser. Never got any of these spam emails using chrome, edge or brave. They are scam browsers.

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  21. Just suggestion, next time try installing the same extension on other chromium based browsers and see if you can replicate the same issues. Doing this will help you narrow down to the issue you raised above, if it is only a brave issue or not.

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  23. Sounds like a user error to me. I’ve never had a single issue with Brave, ever, no matter what extension I’ve tried installing. Not to mention, it’s very new and is advancing its capabilities every day AND they themselves make it very clear right from the beginning that some things aren’t compatible with it yet. And you’re completely missing the point in using Brave in the first place, which the benefits FAR outweigh any slight deficiencies you may encounter. I literally get paid to use Brave. Do you get paid to use Firefox? Have fun moving backward and living in the past. While the rest of us move forward.

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    1. The problem was with an out-of-date build of Brave; the user’s instance hadn’t been updated since December of 2020. Unfortunately this is not entirely uncommon in some Linux environments, as the repository from which the user installed Brave in the first place may not have been kept up-to-date by its owner (Brave doesn’t manage those repositories). This resulted in the user being left with an ever-aging instance of the browser, lacking service keys for the privacy-preserving proxy-service built into Brave. Recent key-requirement changes revealed the problem. Ideal solution is to keep your software up-to-date, for reliability of functionality as well as for security reasons.

      Liked by 1 person

  24. Funny to see people defending Brave like if it was their children. No matter if it’s good or bad, it is not acceptable to have a browser depending from backend servers. Even slightly. It can call servers but should work without them.
    Also, link affiliation in search result is a joke. No one should support this behavior.

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    1. The problem here was with the author’s installed-version of Brave; it was roughly a year old. Older versions of Brave didn’t include a service key for the privacy-preserving proxy service built-into Brave. As a result of using the out-dated build, the proxy service couldn’t be utilized (invalid requests, those having a missing or malformed service key, are rejected) and the extension-installation process failed. Running a 1-year-old build of Chromium/Brave is dangerous anyway as there would be several unpatched components of the browser; best to always keep your software up-to-date.

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  26. You can give a try to LibreWolf, a fork of Firefox Build which comes with in built blockers and stops telemetry which is enabled by default in Firefox

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  27. I tried Vivaldi before Brave & my biggest problem was bookmarking, it was clumsy. I love how Brave manages book marks, it’s so easy for me.
    Since I only use Brave as a basic browser & don’t really need extensions, Brave is my go-to browser.
    I also used Firefox for a time, but I had some issues with it.
    Good luck on your browser search.

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  29. Okay this is going to sound crazy but….have you considered Edge. I was using brave for years and has similar experiences with different oddities in how Brave works and once Edge switched to using Chromium and I experienced side nav tabs and collections I wont go back.

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  30. Who knows who is stealing data or not stealing data. If you think your data is precious then just buy an ipod and store your own songs and enjoy the life. You can’t stop the tech.
    I have no issue with the brave and it works great always.

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    1. I think you misunderstood. My concern in this post is not data harvesting. My concern is Brave depends on its servers for its functionality making it a single point of failure, defeating the purpose of a browser.

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