When it comes to browsers, most Internet users expect them to be free. Many times, this means that the developer has found other means of generating revenue to keep the business running. This can mean selling default search engine slots, putting sponsored icons on the new tab page, or using user data for all kinds of things.
Paid browsers are rare and most of the time, they do not seem to work overly well. However, the idea of introducing a free and paid version of a browser is something that Internet users know from other apps and services.
So, Brave Software, maker of the Brave Browser, has introduced Brave Origin. This is a “minimalist version” of the browser that cuts all revenue-generating features and can be purchased by making a one-time payment. There is one exception to that: a Linux version of Brave Origin is available for free.
The features that Brave Origin does not support:
- Leo
- News
- Playlist (currently iOS only)
- Rewards (which also disables browser-based Brave Ads)
- Speedreader
- Stats like the daily usage ping, crash logs, and privacy-preserving product analytics (P3A)
- Talk
- Tor
- VPN
- Wallet (which also disables Web3 domains)
- Wayback Machine
- Web Discovery Project
Some of these were discussed controversially in the past, but others including Tor or the Wayback Machine, not so much.
Note: Brave Origin is available as a standalone deskop app or an upgrade. On mobile, the browser is only available as an upgrade. In other words, you can replace Brave with Brave Origin on all supported systems, but install it next to Brave only on desktop systems.
Once you have downloaded and installed the Brave Origin browser, you need to purchase it, unless you opted-in to use the free version on Linux. The price at the time of writing is $60.
Brave says that this is a one-time purchase that is good for up to 10 activations per license across devices.
Closing Words
Launching a paid version is an interesting approach to diversifying revenue. Users can support development of the browser by making this purchase and may also get some of the features removed from it that they do not use or find problematic. At its core, it is still Brave browser, built on Chromium, with a good integrated content blocker.
It probably won’t convince most critics of the browser, or its founder, but it is still an interesting experiment to look at, as it could be an option for other organizations as well.
This is great and all but its still but I have no interest in a google based browser with that said this is huge for people that love Brave and what they are doing. I feel as though this will cast a shadow over their mainline browser though that many people have championed over the years as the most privacy oriented and clean browser there is as this browser clearly in my opinion demonstrates that it was not.
As far as the price & license goes I feel as though this is the correct way to go about it if you were going to price a browser. Lifetime licenses are my weakness and always get my attention. The question remains is if they are going to continue to maintain it though. I cannot see why not given that all they are really doing is stripping out a few things mentioned in the article.
I have said this in the past and I will say it again. Brave need to maintain their own extension repository to keep out the trash and offer what google refuses to offer on their own web store for obvious reason which have nothing to do with the security and more to do with it being a conflict of interest. Youtube downloaders are just one of the many examples here.
With all this being said as much as I am not invested into Brave this is a good thing for those that can afford it and for those that cannot I would like to see how long this lasts before it is leaked or cracked.
With the license being somewhat reasonable I would like to hope that people would consider paying for it but it is some what of a conundrum as it presents a path back to pay for browsing.
It’s nice to know the Linux version of Brave Origin is free as it is perhaps the future of many of us here in terms of an OS with freedom and security at its heart something Windows/Microsoft is drifting further and further from by the day. It remains to be seen if the Linux version will continue to be offered for free but I imagine there are reasons for that.
Somebody has to pay for privacy.
1) Get the stock browser, but maybe it will not have optimal performance because of bloat. But there are people who need that bloat, and they are paying for continuous browser development. This is very similar to free games where 10% of the user base (whales) are paying for all the bells and whistles, but the rest can play the game for free with few annoyances.
2) Get optimal browser modification but pay for it.
So Brave is using both models because they have to pay developers, and doing everything for free will not get their bill paid.
3) Keeping its own extension web store with all Chromium extensions is not an optimal idea. Brave is not going to be one of the top players in this market any time soon. Just keep a few essential security extensions (NoScript, Bitwarden, and so on) modified for Brave.
I’m buying this.
On the principle of paying for a software: yes if no freeware alternative, yes if the paid version brings substantial enhancements. When it comes to browsers, the ‘substantial enhancements’ as I see it is less on what is added than what is removed: the ongoing fashion is to add, to bloat, whilst the stripped-off approach has always been mine, in particular when what is removed corresponds IMO to unnecessary features I qualify as parasitical gadgets, but especially if what is removed concerns privacy and built-in tracking.
A browser (non-chromium based, why is another topic), with top-notch fundamentals, free of gadgets, not phoning home together with basic native protection (or built-in extensions such as uBlock Origin) would meet my criteria of a modern, strong and hnest browser, and from there on, for a lifetime price, I’d be ready to spare more than 100$. Now, remains to be seen as @Mystique above pointed out: “The question remains is if they are going to continue to maintain it though.”. Several decades ago I had bought a license for the ‘Opera’ browser, to find out a few weeks later that the browser had been shifted to freeware.
Nowadays more than ever, everywhere and not only in the digital area, conservatism no longer includes business models, these being always conservative in their dogmas yet increasingly liberal in their practices; things come’n’go, commercial estate as well, companies buy an opportunity as a financial investment (when marketing suggests commitment of a valuable humanly driven acquisition) … and so on. Where are the values of now ancient time? Gone with the winds of consumerism.
Maybe MS will follow–a stripped down version of Windows?