Just got a Windows notification like “Brave VPN has been configured to automatically start on login”. WTF? I already have a VPN running and did not install Brave VPN.
No announcement, no opt in, this is borderline malware!
One of the downsides of automatic silent (background) updates, anything might happen whether due to a mistake by Brave, bugs in their tools, and/or their update servers being sufficiently exploited. Hopefully Brave will announce which soon.
Also, happy cake day /u/TimeForASystemChange.
Yeah it’s pretty scummy. I just did the usual of going to brave : // settings/help and clicking update and when it re-launched i had a new icon on the taskbar.
No-Prompting for permission to install or when the browser restarted no mention of a vpn client being installed without “Your” permission.
I have un-installed Brave as i have had enough of recent update changes done to the Browser both desktop / mobile / tablet.
For instance when you disable certain “Telementry” things it still pings the servers and does upload/send encrypted content.
Also if you manually remove the “Vpn” on each desktop restart and browser re-launch it re-enables the “Spyware” VPN service that is installed without “Your” permission.
If you run a network sniffer etc for instance and monitor network traffic the Browser on launch while left open not being used with say only google open periodically sends “Pings” and sends encrypted data and recieves an encrypted response from Brave operated servers.
Same for android devices. And i would assume the same for Apple devices that have brave installed.
I was just about to post the same. Brave updated and suddenly there’s a notification that Brave VPN WireGuard Service has been activated with startup apps (Win11).
How is this going to work if you’re already behind a VPN?
If you enable the Brave VPN button in settings, you can see that this is a free trial of a paid option. But you have to click to start the free trial. So Brave WireGuard is active on a non-existent Brave VPN account? WTF?
I also just got this notification on windows 11, disabled it in task manager. Tf is going here?
can anyone help how to get rid of this? Uninstalled brave and it’s still there.
Edit.
deleted it at Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
and
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartupApproved\Run
Sorry Brave, I trust in you, but no more, unistaled.
6 days and no comment from /u/brave_support? Time to start sending this to news sites, maybe they’ll respond to that and stop this crap.
I just found this new entry in the startup menu of Windows 10 as well. When I check the settngs in Brave I see under System an option to disable wireguard-protocol (it is now on). I just turned it off and the browser has to restart. I assume this will remove the entry in the startup menu of Windows 10 as well, but not sure since I am still in my current session.
Yeah I like just have brave installed I dont even use it and it auto-enabled on the startup. I disabled it for now…
Same here!
F*U Brave!
Not just me. Thought my internet was a bit slower than normal, checked startup apps and see that.
Back to chrome for me.
same here, it’s time to say goodbye Brave
I’ve been going mad the last few days with random laggyness of my games… troubleshooting everything, restarting the router many times, but the connection was fine. Then I discovered this in startup without ever enabling it. What the actual fuck? Uninstalled this straight away and removed all files and updaters that were running in the background. This is a serious issue.
Sure this is not malware, but installing some service, not connected to the browser into startup without asking during silent autoupdate is kind of bad practice. Hope to get some explanation from the team.
It’s sad for Brave to go down this way.
They took our BAT rewards and now forcefully installing their VPN services in the background.
And they still want us to believe they do not use our data after this? I liked this browser and was using it for over 5 years.
And…. I’m back on firefox. Can’t trust a service that installs well “technically malware” without any consent/notification.
Thanks guys, my startup apps started crawling so I went looking for any changes and found Brave VPN had installed itself and activated (I don’t even use Brave browser regularly) I have now uninstalled the browser and am just looking into how I can remove the “Brave updater” services.
Damn, i didn’t notice that. I was looking for a fix for brave crashing when i attempt to open settings. Been like this for a few days so i suppose it has to do with the last update as well.