Brave has engaged the services of Cloudflare, and that includes Cloudflare’s (infamous?) hCAPTCHA plus other routines that can frustrate and obstruct:
- access to
- proceeding thru
Brave Search Engine usage, in addition to some other brave.com webpages / websites.
IF I use a Brave Search Engine Operator such as site:ie in addition to a search criteria of news . . . when searching for news in Ireland (country code: ie), the infernal Cloudflare Robot Cops intervene; example:
Basically, Brave-Cloudflare “thinks” that:
using Brave Browser + using Brave Search + using Brave Search Engine Operators = ROBOT
Also, I am not at all satisfied that Cloudflare’s “VERIFYING” is NOT an invasion of privacy.
Given that, my primary purpose for using Brave Browser, is Brave’s much-proclaimed “Privacy & Security”.
UPDATE 20250516 Friday
A tip from the Brave Community, that relaxing Site-Specific Brave Shields → Trackers &Ads, to “Standard”, or “Block” (but not Aggressive blocking), when encountering the Brave-Cloudflare Robot Cops (“BCRC” ?) conundrum may, or will, “help” the BCRC to allow the browser to proceed to Brave Search results.
Re the Trackers & Ads “Standard” setting:
Despite what still shows (“Standard”) for Brave Browser (iOS), apparently the Brave Browser (Windows OS - Desktop) “Trackers & Ads” setting label has changed.
Previous “Trackers & Ads” setting of “Standard”, is apparently now “Block trackers & ads”
-https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022806212-How-do-I-use-Shields-while-browsing