Description of the issue:
I noticed that Brave Shield (the icon at the end of address bar) enabled an ad appearing on top of list of emails under inbox tab of outlook.com. By disabling Brave Shield and keeping AdGuard enabled, removed the ad. Using Brave Shield and AdGuard at the same time enables the aforementioned ad.
So, is there a way to disable Brave Shield completely? Not just disabling options under brave://settings/shields. I could not find anything that related under brave://flags.
I suspect that Brave Shield enables some ads i.e. conflicts with Adguard browser extension.
I find disabling Shield by site tedious and Shield being still active after disabling it under it’s settings a fraud from Brave side.
Does the claim Disable Brave shields for good - #2 by Mattches still has relevancy today?
Exact URL of the website in question:
outlook.live.com/mail/0/inbox/
Screenshot of the ad as it appears in Brave:
It is above the list of emails.
Did the issue present with default Shields settings? (yes/no)
Yes
Does the site function as expected when Shields are turned off?
Yes
Does the ad appear when using a Private window as well? (yes/no)
Yes
What OS are you using when you see the ad?
Linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
Brave version (check About Brave):
1.76.74
They might be conflicting, but you likely do not need the AdGuard extension if you have Shields. Have you tried disabling the extension and using only Shields? Does the ad appear there? Additionally, have other ads appeared on other sites that you can point me to so we can take a look or is it just this one site?
Also, as for the ad itself – I’m logged into Outlook right now and do not see any ads anywhere on the page. The closest thing I see to an ad is the area to the right of the page (which I see in other browsers as well) specifically stating that I’m using an ad-blocker. This is using default Shields settings on both Windows 10 and macOS:
Other options you can try:
While you see this as tedious, it is the way in which you can more control over how Shields behave (and is certainly not “fraud”). Site-specific Shields (which are set using the panel in the address bar) settings persist on a per-site basis – this way, you can customize what you do or don’t want to block on that site once and have those settings retained for that site only.
Changing global Shields settings (brave://settings/shields) changes what Shields settings are applied to each site on first visit. If you want to block all fingerprinting for all sites by default, you would toggle Block Fingerprinting on here. When you find a site that you want to allow fingerprinting on, you can toggle it “off” in the Shields panel for that site.
So in your case, you seem to only have an issue with an ad appearing and I would highly recommend choosing some of the other options mentioned above over ditching Shields completely. But if you still want to, just go to brave://settings/shields again and toggle everything “off” or set it to Allow all (depending on the permission). Yes, technically the Shields icon will be on/enabled but none of the protections will be active so it won’t actually be doing anything.
By disabling the extension and using Block ads and trackers protection in Shields, I was able to block the ad in question. Shields with the general Block ads and trackers option enabled do not disable this ad. Ads on other sites seem to be block by fine by Shields and the extension.
As for the ad itselt – here is my screenshot of it:
. It appears just under “Inbox” i.e. “Sisendkaust” as the first item in the email list. On your attached photo, it would be under “Focused” as the first item.
The fact that technically the Shields icon will be on/enabled always produces confusion easily as generally disabled things turn into grey or disappear. I would suggest to remove Shields icon from address bar or turning it into grey if disabled completely generally of for site.
I would still stick to AdGuard as it allows blocking within operating systems for different devices, while Shields allows blocking only within Brave browser.
@Bushido1
This is what happens when you disable Shields completely for a site:
