Brave VPN Wireguard Service

[Pez]

I used the Search feature for this forum and have seen that other users have posted about this (Brave VPN). I also performed a general search on the 'Net, and the top result was a link to a Reddit forum from just 3 days ago, asking the very same thing.

My OS is Windows 11. Through previous versions of Windows, not just Win 11, I am in the habit of launching Task Manager and checking on things in there. Now, when I launch Task Manager and click the Startup Apps tab, the item at the very top of the list is:

brave_vpn_wireguard_service

I did not remember installing, “turning on”, or Allowing this feature. On the Brave browser’s top-right corner/ 3 horizontal lines, I selected Settings and then clicked on System: In here is “Brave VPN” and “Use Wireguard protocol in Brave VPN Requires browser restart” and a little slider control (to the right, ON; to the left, OFF). This was in the ON position, to the right, so I slid it to the left/ OFF.

Yes, I’ve restarted the browser, and, since then, on multiple occasions, I’ve even shut down my system & rebooted. But upon checking Task Manager again on the Startup Apps tab, brave_vpn_wireguard_service is still there and its Status is Enabled. This feature, when disabled within the browser’s Settings, should have had this show up as Disabled in Task Manager.

And yes, I know: In Task Manager, I can always right-click on an item and select “Disable”, but I’d rather do it through the program itself the proper way.

Anyone know what’s going on with this Brave VPN feature? I take it that it’s relatively new? As I mentioned, that Reddit post I came across is only a few days old.

I happen to already have & subscribe to a VPN service and don’t need this additional one in the Brave browser; it makes me think Brave’s VPN and the service that I already use could come into conflict with each other

How do I get this brave_vpn_wireguard_service to not show up in Task Manager/ Startup Apps. I’d appreciate any help, tips, or suggestions.
Thanks,
Pez

[revanmj]

I also don’t like that Brave installs system services for VPN that I don’t use without even asking.

You can fortunately remove them manually in admin command line with those commands:

sc delete “BraveElevationService”
sc delete “BraveVpnService”
sc delete “BraveVpnWireguardService”

[Pez]

I have no idea what you mean in your reply. Remove them manually in “admin command line”? What’s that?

In my post, I mentioned the Task Manager, so by your reply, I thought you were referring to something inside of Task Manager, so I went and took a look inside of it again (and its tabs on the left-hand Menu: Processes, Performance, App History…), but I see nothing in there regarding “admin command line”.

Is this a program that is part of the Windows 11 OS? I clicked Start/ All Apps but don’t see it.

And now, besides the " brave_vpn_wireguard_service" in my Startup Apps tab, I now have another issue with the Brave browser:

This only seems to be happening on YouTube’s web site: It’s almost subliminal, but I see these flashes on-screen of black vertical bars. I thought at first that it was some kind of video error from my graphics card, liker artifacts. But no: I tried the Edge browser on YouTube and also the Google Chrome browser; no black bars flashing on-screen. It only happens on YouTube when I use the Brave browser.

Pez

[anon57438784]

Brave is aware of this and will correct it, it will only be installed when users actually will use VPN.
The thing is they added it because you installed Brave with admin rights. Why do people install the browser with admin rights? I have no idea. Unless you share your computer with other people and there are more Windows users who use Brave, there is no reason to.

But the VPN was installed because of admin rights, if you did a per-user install, this wouldn’t be installed.

You could easily uninstall Brave, go to task scheduler and make sure the tasks and the updater are gone, if not, having two updaters will create a mess.

Reinstall Brave and when it asks for Admin rights, say NO, then you will be asked if you want to install it without admin rights.

Now, the updater, Brave and the user data will be in the same place %localappdata%\BraveSoftware

Brave can’t install services anymore, which means, the ‘auto updating’ mechanism when Windows starts, will be an easy to disable startup process, no VPN and only thing is the Task Schedulers which now will mention the name of the User that installed Brave.

Just make sure to uninstall and the updater is gone and the task schedulers if you want to do this.

Both VPN services are set to Manual which means they will never start, so yeah, in a way I don’t get the drama, but also, Brave should have been careful about this, the problem is no Nightly or Beta user reported this, I didn’t because I only use Brave without admin rights, so didn’t know this to report it. (yeah nice Nightly and beta users who can’t report this stuff…), but it will be corrected eventually. Still, I don’t get why single Windows users install the browser with admin rights, which would avoid most of the drama people usually bring about Chromium services and the updaters and now the Brave VPN.

I mean, this is better than what people suggest about deleting the services and really non-sense steps to ‘solve’ this.

[Pez]

Hi Emi; thanks for your reply.

It sounds like you think that the developers at Brave are going to take steps to “fix” this in the future, in a future update of the browser (that it will only be installed when a user selects/ chooses to use the VPN feature). Still, I think it’s a bit strange, presumptuous & aggressive to just install this VPN feature without the user’s permission, and especially to have it show up in the Task Manager/ Startup Apps tab.

And I did not realize that I originally installed it with Admin rights. When left-clicking on the .EXE installer file, yes, that message pops up that says “Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your devices?”, and I click Yes to allow the program to be installed.

There have been times in the past where, when I deliberately want a program to be installed with Admin rights, I will right-click on the .EXE installer file, and from the pop-up Menu, I will select “Run as Administrator”. But I did not realize that Brave was automatically installing with Admin rights.

So first I tried this: I un-installed Brave from my computer. Then just to check - because I have experienced programs in the past that have faulty uninstallers and leave traces behind - I went to Task Manager/ Startup Apps tab, and checked to see if brave_vpn_wireguard_service was truly gone; yes, it was. I then re-installed Brave using the most recent release on the .EXE installer file.

But when I checked Task Manager/ Startup Apps tab, brave_vpn_wireguard_service was back. But, from your reply, I tried uninstalling again, and then, upon reinstalling once more, when the message shows up of “Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your devices?”, I chose “No”, and then, right behind this…was a tiny little alternate pop-up that says “Brave-release can be installed without administrator privileges. Continue?” So I clicked “Yes”, and continued with the installation.

After it was installed, I went to Task Manager/ Startup Apps tab, and… brave_vpn_wireguard_service was gone. But…

You knew there was a “But” coming, didn’t you

There is now another Brave entry in Startup Apps: BraveUpdateCore.

So, I got rid of one - the VPN - but now it’s just replaced with another Brave item, this Core Updater. So is this what you meant in your reply with “…the ‘auto updating’ mechanism when Windows starts, will be an easy to disable startup process”? I can Disable this feature in Startup Apps?

I’ll tell ya, though: Before the Brave VPN thing showed up in Startup Apps, there was no entry at all in Startup Apps for Brave. So first it was the VPN thing, then after uninstalling then reinstalling (without Admin rights), it’s now this BraveUpdateCore.

Do you remember in my previous reply I mentioned about YouTube’s site and those flashes on-screen of black vertical bars? Well, when I got to this forum just now to post this, I saw a recent post by nostromo021 regarding “Fan throttling (w11) for no reason” And by “throttling”, I take it to mean “throttle”, as in an accelerator, and something speeding up (like the handlebar throttle on a motorcycle). Yup, same here: In my desktop tower unit, I can hear my CPU’s fan speed up when I have the Brave browser launched and I’m on YouTube’s site.

I can’t remember exactly how long I’ve had & been using Brave’s browser, but what prompted me at the time to try it out was because of aggravation and disillusionment with the Edge browser and the Google Chrome browser. Both of these browsers can be too invasive with privacy issues. And specifically the Google company? Waaaay to pushy and invasive, especially with their biased algorithms for their search engine, and also their censoring/ banning of material they disagree with. Early on when Google first arrived on the scene, the company had a little mission statement, a motto: Don’t Be Evil. They have now become the very thing they used to denounce.

But with the Brave browser, and recently this:

• brave_vpn_wireguard_service
• BraveUpdateCore
• Flashes of vertical black bars when on YouTube’s site
• Speeding up of CPU fan (throttling) when on YouTube’s site

Well, it may have me drop using Brave entirely and go back to an alternate browser I used to use: Firefox. This is the way the free market works

Pez

[anon57438784]

I am sorry but people like you are annoying. You write a full 300000 million words post, with nothing to offer.

Yes, Brave is aware of this issue, they have done a lot for the VPN service, but Windows is Windows, and they can’t see every situation unless they get feedback from Nightly users which they didn’t.

Go back to Firefox, which is worst than Chromium if you want. I really can care nothing about that, but don’t make dumb stuff up if you don’t know even that 1. Brave is open Source 2. brave has a github 3. Therefore you could have gone to Github and search the issue yourself to see if it is true or not.

That’s how Open Source works, and Close Source… crap happens, and they need feedback from users, Open source let users be testers, and nobody reported this… so what you and others expect?
Why aren’t you a nightly tester?

Why am I one of the few ones who have to report every single issue that happens in Brave?

Do you think the 30 or so Bugs and problems I have reported, I do it because I like it? no, I do it because even if I don’t care, I know I am still a Nightly users who has to report issues regardless if it affects me or not.

Next time make your homework of searching for the Github issue, or don’t even bother mention my name.

Windows should not install VPN services until VPN is purchased/enabled

Also fixes happen and take time to be added to the browser, Brave is a small team, especially when it comes to adding external processes outside the browser, they need to think about it, and they will probably do what they do with Tor and IPFS based on this https://github.com/brave/brave-core/commit/f2270d56635519f10900c2a0aa6c2a964b8979a9

But yeah… brave is not going to fix it /s…

[Pez]

Good lord, Emi.

People like me are annoying? And your sarcastic comment of “You write a full 300000 million words post, with nothing to offer”? I used the Search feature on this forum and looked up your username, and the results that came back? You do not exactly type short posts. Not that I myself have a problem with that; I don’t mind lengthy posts, as hopefully they are full of useful information and don’t skimp on the details.

But have you ever heard of the psychological phenomenon known as “projection”? Yup, that’s you. I don’t need to give you the links on this forum to your own posts, I’m sure you know what they are. But yes, they’re very wordy, somewhere around 300000 million words.

In your first reply to my post that you wrote (the one that you began with “Brave is aware of this and will correct it…”), I was reading it and thought perhaps that you worked for Brave, that you were something like a Forum Moderator/ Administrator. And yes, a lengthy, detailed answer and I appreciated the info. But…even with that reply, I picked up on an undertone of technology-informed elitism, an arrogance like you were above the rest of us peons, as if to say, “Why can’t you plebs figure this stuff out?!”

Still thinking you were a forum moderator of some sort, I clicked on the hyperlink of your username of Emi, but what comes back is “This user’s public profile is hidden.” I take it you’re not a moderator.

You mention things in your replies that I have no idea what they are, like Nightly, Beta, and Github.

It turns out (though I know you already know this) that Github has message forums. And boy, this Brave VPN thing shows up over there a lot. And I’m noticing right here in this forum that more recent posts than mine are posting messages about… … Brave’s VPN Wireguard Service, and how it installs - without permission - a Startup service. What’s with these people!!! Complaining like that with nothing to offer.

I would imagine that many of the users that come here to post on this Brave forum are just average Joe’s/ Jane’s, not necessarily tech overlords. Those people, like myself, put up their posts with the issues they’re experiencing, and hope for a useful reply. For my part, when I posted, I try to front-load it and post as much info as possible instead of just posting something vague, and that would likely result in replies with lots of follow-up questions like “What did you mean by THIS”, or, “Have you tried THAT”, etc. I just try to be proactive with as much information up-front as possible.

You may not work for Brave, but your elitist, condescending attitude in your posts has convinced me to completely uninstall the Brave browser and not use it at all now; I’m typing this from within the Firefox browser Consider that an accomplishment and a feather in your cap!!

Pez