Evaluating Brave VPN

Misc
1

I don’t know enough to be a Brave evangelist, but I am getting there. In other words, I am comfortable assuming that Brave has user interests at heart. The world being what it is, I feel pretty sure that someday I will discover that assumption is about at true as another assumption I used to make, regarding the government of the United States having the citizens’ interests at heart. Till then…

I finally figured out I need a VPN. I am considering the Brave VPN. I did a search for reviews on VPNs, and find Brave is not mentioned in articles identifying leading VPNs.

Can you help me understand why Brave VPN would be a good choice?

2

Off the top of my head.

Brave vpn is already built-in in the browser. You don’t need to install anything more therefore could be said to be more convenient.

3

I will talk about Nightly and what is being developed for the future of VPN.

First, they are making changes to the VPN to use WireGuard instead of inbuilt OS APIs for the VPN, that will allow better VPN, and be able to use even without Brave being opened.

In Nightly they are installing also a Service, and today for example they merged a PR to allow the Service to stay connected when you restart the computer. That shows you it won’t depend on Brave Browser completely.

The problem with using OS APIs was that it was not good, Windows doesn’t do it well, so using WireGuard will allow better integration and cross platform, etc etc. Mobile already uses WireGuard for it, so it only makes sense to use that as well.

So all these will make the VPN better, but only when they land, you could test it on Nightly, but not many are going to do that.
Also I doubt people know you can use the VPN outside Brave, they think it is like Opera (proxy) and done.

The problem with Brave’s VPN is the pricing.

Block trackers on every app, on every device, even outside the browser. One VPN subscription protects 5 devices across desktop, Android, and iOS. Traveling? On public Wi-Fi? Don’t trust your ISP? It’s time for Brave Firewall + VPN.

The question is also, do 5 devices for $10 is good enough compared to other VPN services?

Some people don’t care about companies, they just want the cheaper deal:

  • NordVPN for example is a 6 devices deal, and they also include password manager and cloud storage and all that for like $5 a month.

  • ExpressVPN 8 devices for $8 a year.

  • ProtoVPN even has the ultimate bundle for $10, which includes password manager, drive, mail and all that with 10 devices. So that’s like the best deal even if I don’t trust Proto, they are the fishiest company, but it’s cheap and has tons of features.

So I guess that’s the problem with Brave, the pricing, of course, unless you want to help Brave company grow financially 5 devices is not enough.

And then saying how the VPN is still WIP which might give a bad impression especially on Windows, until WireGuard gets to the stable point where it will be turned on by default. (brave://flags/#brave-vpn-wireguard has to be enabled to be used)

If they had like a bundle with Brave talk, Search Premium and VPN for the $10, it would be fine, but not yet.

1 Like
4

The coverage outside brave caught my eye. It’s working for me. Here is how I tested it.

Using Brave Nightly

  1. Checked my public ip

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  2. Signed up for the Brave VPN free trail

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    image806×1093 135 KB

  3. Turned the VPN on by clicking the icon in the upper right

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  4. Verified my public ip changed

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  5. Opened another browser, verified public ip is not the one I had without Brave VPN

  6. Opened another app that uses the internet, and verified its public IP also has been changed by the Brave VPN
    image

5

**

REGARDING PRICE

**
Regarding price, I am so pleased that you stated the situation how it is with Brave and price of this VPN. Gmail is free, but I don’t trust it. Google’s was started with US government subsidies, and now we are paying a hell of a price. Maybe there is an honest company that has a way to charge less for their VPN. I am willing to spring the extra money to support Brave. I have learned over time by asking challenging questions in this community, Brave at least knows the right answers to things. Brave is awesome. I am in on the VPN.

Thank you.

1 Like
6

Rule of thumb: Windows always sucks.

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@anon57438784 thanks man! You really do a good job of explaining stuff to people like me lol. Didn’t know how all that worked

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@SmartyAadi You can read here https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/29253 the better explanation from Brave team.
About the limitations in the OS APIs it applies to both, but seems like Windows is worst and is a little more buggy, so opting to use WireGuard will not only overcome the limitations but also make it available to Linux users, because let’s remember Linux doesn’t have VPN support, but since WireGuard is meant as a cross-platform solution just like OpenVPN, it is the best way to go anyway.
There are even routers that support making a OpenVPN servers and many will support WireGuard as well, which they say it is faster and better.

Seems like Windows added some VPN improvements but to UWP and not Win32 apps.

Seems like Windows has improved some Networking APIs but apparently it was only for UWP and not Win32 apps. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2015/07/02/networking-api-improvements-in-windows-10/

So I guess opting to go OS APIs was just the quick solution while developing the real WireGuard integration, which will make things better compared to other VPN solutions.

But you can see the issue, explains how it will work in the future, because there is still some work to do when it comes to stability and integration, but the experience will be better once it reaches Stable.

1 Like
9

@carla_rogers
Yeah I am honest about pricing, Brave could make the pricing of the VPN better but offering more devices or something.
And that’s something I have seen many people complain about “I could get X VPN for cheaper” “$10 for just the VPN? no” etc.
The more services Brave adds, the more reason for a bundle as well. “Soon” they are going to offer a AI solution ‘Leo’ in the sidebar panel to summarize and ask questions, I know they will offer a limited Free version and the non-free version, so not having a bundle will reduce the reach for some users, especially if they see other VPN companies offering 10000 services bundled.

For example I said Proton is the fishiest company I mentioned but they are the better deal, for years I have read information like this regarding them, and they are like Signal and others that always have something to do with a Gov and 3 letter agencies and all that. So I will never trust them.

(many of the links will go to privacy-watchdog.io the blog doesn’t exists anymore, but that’s the one I used to read years ago, until it disappeared. it provided good info, just like it is easy to find Signal and TOR links to the US Gov/Agencies)

So trusting Brave is easier than trusting other companies only because they say nice things in their websites and all that, at least I know Brave developers. Yesterday I reported a bug, it was fixed today! so you can see they are trying, even if they get crap from a lot of people because of ‘cryptocrap’ or ‘they are just another advertising company’, and all the lies about the ‘selling of data’ and ‘the referrer links’ etc, where dishonest bloggers said a lot of lies, and people who don’t research believed them, and 3 years later, we still get people saying 'buT tHe RefErrEr Links!", or talks against Brendan Eich and lies about him and just topics about him that don’t change Brave at all, etc. So it is always a war against mis and disinformation when it comes to some people against Brave.

It is good if you want to support Brave :+1:I am glad it is working great for you!

2 Likes
10

I have become so cynical… and letting my guard down for Brave. I am going the trust route, but I will be verifying, We all have our ways. Direct contact with developers is good. I gather Brandan Eich is Mr. Brave. I will have to start following him

And for all I know you are a snake too. The only one here I know is not a snake is me. But I am just a schmuck.

I have to verify you too.

If you are a good guy, then thank you for your help understanding Brave. Damn glad to meet you.

If you are a snake, I hope you burn for eternity in a Hell worse than our worst nightmares. I won’t be going there looking for you.

11

Well, you should never trust anyone.
And you shouldn’t go to hell for humans, they are not worth it.

But then, at least Brave is open source unlike Chrome, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi and pretty much all big name Chromium browsers, so they can’t sneak anything.

The problem is past events where people have said Brave has done fishy stuff, are just dumb, like if I thought every security/privacy report I make to Brave is intentional, then I wouldn’t have reported them and just stop using Brave, but I know crap happens, and bugs happen, and some people think every little mistake is a conspiracy, instead of just reporting and wait for the fix.

I am sure Brave is not perfect, have had many disagreements with Brave but in the end came back to using Brave.

About trusting them, well, they can’t be worst than the others, at least Brendan Eich has spoken against WEF and people related to them, like there was even a WEF Brave employee, but he left in 2020.
https://nitter.net/peeeeeeeebs/status/1612539658319331328

So, unless you have a problem with Brendan Eich and his stances on masks and vaccination mandates, WEF, Agendas from Elites and Govs and ‘global organizations’, and the reason he was pretty much kicked from Mozilla, he said it was mutual, but we know that’s just PR talk, and it was about the marriage bill from California, then in 2023 terms, he is the ‘most based CEO Browser around’.
I mean, compared to other CEOs like clown Vivaldi one, that was talking trash about Brave last time, there is also not much to choose from.
Unless you choose one man forks or something small that might die in the future.

You can’t funny trust him, but what can we do, he has been around for many years and he has contributed to many things, like Mozilla, which is crap now, but there was a time when it had a future.

1 Like
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Windows is like the CIA. They dole out good things here and there, but over time, you are more and more screwed. Life without the cia and microsoft better than with them. Just say now