I saw an icon in the Brave address bar which had the screentext “Install Password Manager”.
it looked similar to this:
Having looked at brave.com/glossary/password-manager
and support.brave.com/…/articles/…How-do-I-use-the-built-in-password-manager
and some Brave Community posts I could not tell what that was.
I clicked the button, trusting Brave’s security and privacy reputation.
The icon disappeared and I was asked if I wanted to pin Password Manager to the Taskbar, which I did as I saw no other way to investigate what had happened.
It simply placed a link directly to Brave’s Password Manage page on my Taskbar.
There was no further explanation. It didn’t look different and I find no documentation or change to Extensions.
The icon had gone hence showing a different one.
Similarly on a different tab I then saw the same Icon but this time with the screentext “Install Brave Community” in the same place in the address bar.
Again I clicked the icon to see what it did.
Again it simply placed a link directly to the particular Brave Community page on my Taskbar.
The menu item to open the password manager changed to open externally instead of within Brave.
I unpinned the Taskbar icon and the menu item to open the password manager reverted to opening as a new tab not a new window/instance of Brave.
I haven’t investigated the particular Brave Community page I’d “installed” as Brave is only showing my browsing history up to last night, not this morning.
Firstly I want to know what it was if anyone can advise me - the icon no longer appears in the address bar when I go to the Brave password manager.
Did I actually “install” something?
If so, does it belong to Brave or have my passwords been compromised?
If it does belong to Brave, and I am not the first person to see and click on the icon, why is it not clearly documented both in Help Center and at point of use?
It didn’t provide any different functionality - I was hoping I might be able to sort the passwords by something other than alphabetical order.
How do I undo whatever it did? Or
If all it does is open it in a separate window and pin that window to the taskbar then why does it say “Install”?
Why is it no longer visible?
I can’t get it to appear on any sites/ Brave-specific pages I’ve been to.
I hope I’m doing the right thing reporting suspicious behaviour as the primary reason most discussion I’ve been party to regarding using Brave has been related to supporting a privacy/security-savvy community-minded movement to uphold better practises and systems - which would be poorly served by letting this type of … not overt, explicit behaviour go without mention.
I hope this is simply a peculiarity as documentation must surely be somewhere IF it has actually been implemented by Brave and not what appears in hindsight might have been a stealthy theft of my passwords.
This of all topics should not be left to guessing and all users who become used to guessing and clicking on things because they seem to be associated with Brave would incubate a culture that would compromise the principles and technological features that most people who have advocated for Brave espouse.
Brave Version 1.64.122 Chromium: 123.0.6312.122 (Official Build) (64-bit)