Did you know that when you install Brave browser for Windows, a firewall and VPN are also installed?
The article contains an advertising link.
Maybe that’s smarter
Services aren’t activated until the user pays, but for a browser that prides itself on privacy and transparency, this isn’t the luckiest of tricks. The company may have realized this and mentioned on GitHub that it’s best to activate after you make a trade, not just during installation:
“The ideal is to move these services to be installed when you first use the VPN (after purchase) and not at the time of installation.”
These are the services that are installed
Brave explains that there are two VPN services that install as silent services in Windows, “Brave Vpn Service” and “Brave Vpn Wireguard Service.” Both can be seen at services.msc and as the company points out: “Both are set to manual and are not used until 1) a person uses Brave, 2) purchases a Brave VPN and then 3) connects to the Brave VPN.”
If you want to use Brave without installing these services, you can install without administrator rights: the program is not allowed to install Windows services.
“Web specialist. Lifelong zombie maven. Coffee ninja. Hipster-friendly analyst.”
