Please stop adding bloat

[Bachsau]

Modern browsers have begun integrating more and more bloat. A questionable development that reminds me of the early days of toolbars in Internet Explorer. Sadly Brave seems to have decided to follow this path, which doesn’t go well with the concept of a “privacy browser”.

This thread is especialy in response to the addition of the “Leo” A.I., after all the crypto-things, and I’m asking you to stop it. If I wanted such things, I would be using Edge. Focus on being a browser please, not some sort of desktop environment. To me this feature-creep is just bloatware that I don’t want on my system, and I don’t want to have to disable new built-in bs every other month.

[ArunROG87Razer]

i haven’t used it in my win 11 vm because my feedback about the AI name was overlooked… The name Brave AI would have been good as people have been familiar with summarizer and they could have followed the chat approach done by google where taking users to chat from search results to their AI site but they took Microsoft way and chosen AI name to be a human name. Bard is not human name, Bing aswell…

And as for your problem, Brave should make a simpler version called Brave Lite which will not include Brave wallet, Brave Rewards, Brave vpn, AI integeration…etc so Brave Lite contains only Brave Shields which has Brave essence.

personally, I love Brave Browser as it is now as you have the ability to turn off all of the features which you dont want.

[Bachsau]

Well, I understand the Rewards thing because they need to fund the project, but everything else should be optional extensions. Some section for recommended extensions that the user can install with a single click if they want it would surely be a better approach than a “lite” version. I don’t care for the name of the A.I., but this has simply nothing todo with what a browser should be: A tool to access websites.

[fanboynz]

Note, the added these features don’t make perf any worse. We actually have regular perf tests running to ensure that Brave isn’t slower than previous versions.

If there is features you don’t need aka “Bloat”, it can be disabled. But even if you didn’t disable, it still won’t make Brave any slower.

[kotitonttu]

Came here to say this. I’m seriously considering switching browsers at this point.

I wanted a privacy-centric Chrome fork with less Google involvement.

I didn’t want “a wallet”. I didn’t want a worse TOR browser. I didn’t want a torrent client. I didn’t want “Sync”. I didn’t want “rewards”. I certainly didn’t want an “AI assistant”.

With every update there are more boxes to untick when installing the browser. It’s seriously the worst case of “engineer’s dilemma” I’ve come across in a while. Have to add features just to do something. To stay “innovative” while the core functionality suffers.

I believe I speak for a large portion of the userbase when I say that all we want is a basic browser that works well and respects privacy. If we need to add functionality, the extension feature is there.

@fanboynz

Note, the added these features don’t make perf any worse. We actually have regular perf tests running to ensure that Brave isn’t slower than previous versions.

If there is features you don’t need aka “Bloat”, it can be disabled. But even if you didn’t disable, it still won’t make Brave any slower.

I don’t believe you. Every dev says “the new features don’t impact performance”. When have you EVER seen “decreased performance” in patch notes?

“Free” features with literally zero performance impact don’t exist.

[openrange]

One person’s “bloat” is another person’s desirable feature. If you don’t want bloat then use bare-bones Chromium, though I’m sure some will consider hat to have bloat as well.

[kotitonttu]

@openrange

One person’s “bloat” is another person’s desirable feature. If you don’t want bloat then use bare-bones Chromium, though I’m sure some will consider hat to have bloat as well.

If only there was a way users could add features they consider desirable without pre-installing them onto everyone’s browser.

[vrsce]

I kind of like it?
I really like having a team that I respect on the case for all the upgrades that life insists are “Mandatory”.

There is no way to know how much to trust whatever service you end up siding with for your needs, I like that I know I cant trust a brave native option.

That being said it is a slippery slope, good on yall for calling it out before things get out of hand.

[satchlj]

I agree. Please at least make a parallel build with just the core browser with Brave Shields. No AI, no crypto. As an option.

[ArunROG87Razer]

i think you are wrong here about what you say as “Extensions” support because regardless of a feature is enabled/disabled , Running/not running, if it has been compiled into the build, then it would be considered as Bloat for many.

It’s not just you, i myself have recently seen many youtube videos on the recommendations to be comprising Anti-Brave theme in the video which means people are starting to hate it

The Best Web Browser

watch the intro

People are mainly upset due to brave keeps pushing crypto… I dont see this as an issue and will continue to use brave as i can turn off all the features which i dont want and performance has always been Great on both Windows 8.1 Host OS and Win 11 Supernova VM.

But just because myself and brave developers team have this view, it doesn’t necessarily mean other users will also feel the same, brave team should think outside of the box from other users points of view rather than sticking with their own point of view about what they think as right.

If the Introduction of more features which are currently introduced and many more yet to come in the future will be considered as bloat regardless of how useful they could be and they seem to upset more people, the users will just find themselves a new browser companion and with the advancements of AI, there will be many more new browsers released in the future making the switch to be easier for the end users who are upset with Brave.

Personally, Locking the users into the Brave Ecosystem by having a Brave Lite version despite its ending up not yielding them any profits is still a wise move only because it increases the Brand’s name, strength, overall userbase and makes the product to be known to even more people and encourages the end user to “try” it due to the Good opinions around it… By Now Brave should have more than 500 million users for it’s capabilities but here we are still below 100 million users.

Not for me, But according to other users who are upset about new features which are being compiled into the stable build, To cater to those userbase & keep them,->Brave should do this because if they don’t, it gives the company a bad image for not listening and once someone decided that you are a bad guy, you’ll be forever seen as bad guy regardless of what you say as you are willing to change and even if you have actually changed. You will never be able to remove that stigma away from someone’s mind once they decided that you are bad and the hatred has been grown up towards you.

What you say as Extension switch are all not the way to consider something as debloated, if it’s compiled in the final build release, then its considered as bloat, period. So Basically to have a truly debloated version of brave, ->>> Brave team should isolate the new brave lite build by recompiling it all over again from scratch without the addition of Brave wallet, rewards, crypto, vpn., brave news…etc

It doesn’t have to completely free, the Brave lite version can still have New tab sponsored images turned on all times without the brave rewards integeration and user interaction with these new tab ads money goes directly to brave team.

[Bachsau]

@ArunROG87Razer

i think you are wrong here about what you say as “Extensions” support because regardless of a feature is enabled/disabled , Running/not running, if it has been compiled into the build, then it would be considered as Bloat for many.

Well, I wouldn’t mind a settings page with some buttons to install specific extensions. I just don’t like all these things being built-in and auto-enabled whenever something new comes around that many people won’t use. Crypto, for example, is still a niche thing for people with special interessts and AI/GPT is just another web service that has nothing todo with a browser. The thing is: I want a multi-platform synced privace browser, not an application suite that I have to install and of which I’m using only a single part, and I wished Brave would honor the KISS principle.

Anyway, I voiced my opinion on this. Developers can do with it whatever they want. But I also think there are much more browser-related things that development efforts should go into. Some of the Brave-specific settings aren’t synced, settings and search engines aren’t synced with mobile devices, deleted search engines are always added back, adding new ones is a PІTA, especialy on mobile devices. Handling of cookie overlays still isn’t right on many pages. But instead the team is working on crypto wallets and AI, and selling that as a browser.

[openrange]

The trouble is, when you look at the history of software since at least the emergence of Microsoft Windows, there are arguments both ways and also periodic attempts at creating a new “slimline” version of product X.

Windows used to be criticised for not bundling X, Y, Z. I remember reading the articles - “it’s disgraceful that Windows does not come with X, Y, Z.” Then they get added and people moan about bloat or attack Microsoft for unfair competition!

When Firefox first appeared it was advertised as slimline but you could extend it with extensions. After a while Firefox got criticised for being slow and bloaty.

Then Chrome came along. “Why do we need another browser?” said some. It was bare-bones. No support for extensions. It didn’t even have Print Preview if I recall. It eventually added extensions and eventually became bloaty and slow according to many.

Then there is another set of users who don’t like extensions, thinking they are a security hazard, and would prefer many features they consider desirable to be built in…

At the end of the day, no browser is going to satisfy all users. Over the years with browsers I’ve gotten to a configuration with a browser that I’ve been happy with and then there comes a tipping point when I judge that some particular feature(s) has decreased its usability and I decide to investigate an alternative.

However, I’ve also found that no one browser is better than all others in all respects. For me, at any time, it’s what’s best overall. On desktop I currently have five browsers installed. Brave is actually one of them, though it’s not my default. The reason is that it does not have enough of the features that I care about. So your sensibilities are kind of the opposite of mine. But we’re all different.

[PDC]

@fanboynz

Note, the added these features don’t make perf any worse. We actually have regular perf tests running to ensure that Brave isn’t slower than previous versions.

If there is features you don’t need aka “Bloat”, it can be disabled. But even if you didn’t disable, it still won’t make Brave any slower.

Some of us switched browsers from Microsoft Edge to Brave not long ago precisely because we got fed up with all the pointless features (bloat) Microsoft continuously kept adding to Edge.

The problem isn’t about performance, the problem is having to continuously check the browser every few weeks to see what additional bloat has been added and needs to be disabled – which becomes exhausting after a while. For those of us who manage browsers on other people’s machines, it becomes really frustrating having to constantly keep on top of it; and in the case of BraveVPN for example, initially Brave didn’t even provide a Group Policy setting to disable it.

If Brave are going to continue down this route, then the question becomes whether we may as well just use Edge, because at least the features that Edge has do work better than Brave. For example, the translate feature works properly without regularly throwing errors and also allows translating selected text, the screenshot tools allow full page screenshots, the share menu allows sharing to email clients, bookmarks are a lot more user friendly for average users, Edge has the ability to disable JavaScript JIT without breaking websites that use WebAssembly (due to the Microsoft DrumBrake WebAssembly Interpreter), etc…

So, instead of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks and rushing to push out the latest nonsense fad (including overhyped trends like AI), we would rather a more calculated approach. We would prefer Brave allowed their developers to prioritize working on useful features that Brave is lagging behind on, such as the subpar Brave Translate feature for example, rather than some AI nonsense. At the moment, Brave seems to be prioritizing monetizable and fad-like features no one asked for over competitive functional features other browsers already have.

[GrandStar]

Interestingly, you can disable all of this “bloat”

Yes, its a hassle to disable and i want it disabled on install so you have to manually enable it.

The only thing im worried about is its “premium” stuff, premium stuff can take away from FOSS and make it more dictating. NOW i absolutely understand Brave needs money to operate, however, since Brave is a for-profit company, im worried it may only be a matter of time before Brave corrupts over money! So be aware of that.

[Bachsau]

@openrange

Windows used to be criticised for not bundling X, Y, Z. I remember reading the articles - “it’s disgraceful that Windows does not come with X, Y, Z.” Then they get added and people moan about bloat or attack Microsoft for unfair competition!

Windows is an operating system and thus by definition a package. But it also has a component system. Features like Hyper-V and the Linux subsystem are part of the product yet still need to be installed manually on request.

@openrange

When Firefox first appeared it was advertised as slimline but you could extend it with extensions. After a while Firefox got criticised for being slow and bloaty.

Firefox was slow because it had old crusty code written by incapable developers. They also added 3rd party bloat because they were desperately trying to raise money.

@openrange

It eventually added extensions and eventually became bloaty and slow according to many.

It supports extensions, but neither do you have to use them nor does it install new ones with updates. What’s bundled can be uninstalled and won’t come back. Chrome is still almost perfect if it weren’t for the missing privacy protections, ad-blocking and it generally being spyware.

@openrange

Then there is another set of users who don’t like extensions, thinking they are a security hazard

Which they are. That’s why I’m using only the most essential ones, but building them in doesn’t help with security. Quite the opposite. What isn’t running can’t be attacked. If everything comes from a single source, it doesn’t matter if it’s an extension or not. The thing is, you would lose nothing if non-browser-related features had to be installed manually instead of built-in and auto-enabled.

[fanboynz]

Some of us switched browsers from Microsoft Edge to Brave not long ago precisely because we got fed up with all the pointless features (bloat) Microsoft continuously kept adding to Edge.

Maybe using Edge as an example isn’t a good idea. Edge has so much bloat (additional features to just rendering a webpage), a shopping widget (so much privacy issues), using adobe pdf (again privacy) rather than the native pdf renderer and all its Microsoft trackers (even if you’re using an adblocker, it won’t stop it).

Probably more I missed, but Edge isn’t a lightweight browser. Isn’t privacy focused.

Unrelated;
We should see a nice performance bump on websites in https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.60.114 Blocking more 1st-party trackers and elements by default.

[Bachsau]

@fanboynz

Maybe using Edge as an example isn’t a good idea. Edge has so much bloat (additional features to just rendering a webpage)

Beware the beginnings. Brave isn’t anywhere near that but clearly going in the same direction.

[fanboynz]

But as it stands, we’re still fine. We’re mindful of perfomance, and making sure Brave performs well on low end hardware too. We run automated perf tests to make sure any Brave releases won’t cause issues (and if they do, we can find out the issue and roll a fix or revert).

[Bachsau]

Like I said, it’s not so much about performance as about having to constantly watch for the next useless thing that activated itself. It takes up space in the settings or appears in my search bar, like “Leo” did. On iOS “Playlist” and “Wallet” are on top of the menu, so I have to scroll down to the really important items, like “Add to Bookmarks”, “Search in page” and “Send to device”. It’s annoying. Then there’s “Talk”, another feature nobody uses. Messengers and video call apps – there are more than enough of them. We don’t need another one built into a browser.

No, you’re not still fine. You should focus on

@fanboynz

rendering a webpage

related things now!

[ArunROG87Razer]

The Simplest Solution is having a Lite version. Building a lite version of brave isnt the same as asking brave to build the browser again with a new browser engine… Brave Lite is core browser + brave shields which gives additional protection… it doesnt necessarily need to have rewards, wallet, vpn, video call, news and other additional tech which brave offers… Lite build is for people who wants the brave core + shields and full featured stabled builds are for people who actually likes to see new extra features from brave and enjoys using it

Google chrome had something similar for phones but they discontinued

But, Brave can do it if needed… Additionally, lite version also means less ram consumption and lesser storage space.