Give More Options For Brave Shields

Brave Feature Requests Desktop Requests
1

Given all the problems so many Brave users are facing with the Brave Shields in YouTube, it’s past time for Brave to give us more control over how we use the Brave Shields. I propose we are given more options then just “on” or “off” which either turns EVERYTHING on or EVERYTHING off, all at once, with no middle ground.

I’ve had many cases where this all or nothing approach breaks a site and the biggest right now is with YouTube, and I assume other Google sites will have these same problems roll out over the coming years and months, which could outright kill Brave as a viable browser.

I propose a solution of making each individual component of the Brave Shields be capable of being turned on or off individually, so each user can fine tune their Brave Experience to each website, turning components on or off as needed to fix broken sites, while still keeping what protections still DO work on that site.

For the example of YouTube, I’d rather have playback working by turning off ad blockers but keep the privacy shields up and running, so I can get what protection will work on that website, which still contains well over 99% of the video content I watch, with it being YouTube exclusive for almost all video producers even still.

This would also help more advanced Brave users self fix websites broken by the Brave shields by being able to turn components on or off one at a time until finding the offending components. Internally, this would help your developers troubleshoot issues faster as users could help by turning components on or off one at a time until they reproduce the problem and can report on you with exact components were the cause(s).

I’ve had privacy plugin I used to use when I still used Firefox that worked like that and it was a Godsend in being able to self troubleshoot broken websites and allow the components normally blocked that are required for the site to work, while still keeping shields up for those the site can work without. I could do this on a case by case basis for each individual website and each individual URL serving a tracker or ad or popup or other normally blocked content.

The problems with YouTube are proof positive that a more nuanced approach to how we use the Brave shields beyond the basic “Turn everything on or turn everything off with no in between” approach must go. It is time for Brave to evolve and stay user friendly and relevant on the world’s largest websites.

3

What I mean is the ability to block or unblock sources of trackers, ads, etc being blocked based on source URL. As well as major features.

Also, to clarify for you

It’s not Block Ads, it’s “Block Trackers AND ads”

I can’t turn trackers and/or ads off each individually, it’s all group options that lump everything together. I am an advanced user and I do understand scripting, as I’m a web developer with over 9 years experience, but what I’m talking about does not necessarily need to be that detailed as enabling/disabling individual scrips. I know that’s a bit much.

I’m more talking about finding a middle ground between having 1000s of settings too complex to manage, or a blanked all or nothing setting. I’m also talking about making these available in the UI, and not some hidden feature you have to know and memorize the precise URL to access. Your average user will never figure that out, and advanced users like me would still prefer an in UI option as it’s faster and easier to access then navigating obscure URLs with long lists of features.