Brave Launches Paid, Bloat-Free "Brave Origin"

Brave has announced a new minimalist version of their popular browser, dubbed "Brave Origin."

The new browser will require a one-time license purchase of $60 (except on Linux where the product will be free), and a single license can be used across 10 devices. Brave uses a "blind token based on Privacy Pass, which decouples payment identity from service usage."

Brave Origin disables or impacts the following features:

• Leo
• News
• Playlist (currently iOS only)
• Rewards (which also disables browser-based Brave Ads)
• Speedreader
• Stats like the daily usage ping, crash logs, and privacy-preserving product analytics (P3A)
• Talk
• Tor
• VPN
• Wallet (which also disables Web3 domains)
• Wayback Machine
• Web Discovery Project

It's worth noting that users can "upgrade" from an existing Brave install to Brave Origin, which will disable the listed features without removing them entirely, allowing a user to re-enable features as desired. This might be useful to do if you're interested in Brave Origin, as some of the affected features (like Speedreader and Wayback Machine) are actually useful and arguably not "bloat."

Brave is currently one of our recommendations at Privacy Guides for both desktop and mobile due to it's user friendly, "out of the box" nature and high-quality privacy protection features. The Tor Browser still remains our top recommendation for maximum privacy and anonymity.

Brave Origin has been met with mixed reactions. Some wonder why anyone would bother paying for a browser, especially since many of Brave's more controversial features (like Leo and Rewards) can be easily disabled or safely ignored. Others tout this as another positive step toward ethical monetization and a sustainable business model. Some have questioned why it's free on Linux but not other operating systems, and some have noted the irony of paying to remove features, particularly features that are relatively unpopular or unrequested.