Program: Brave (Browser)
License: Mozilla Public License Version 2.0 https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/blob/master/LICENSE.txt (Same as Firefox, which does have a portable version here.)
Description:
Brave is an open source web browser, announced by the co-founder of the Mozilla Project, Brendan Eich. It aims to block website trackers and remove intrusive internet advertisements, replacing them with ads sold by Eich's company. The browser also strives to improve online privacy by sharing less data with advertising customers, instead targeting web ads through analysis of users' anonymized browsing history. Brave intends to keep 15% of ad revenue for itself, pay content publishers 55%, ad partners 15% and also give 15% to the browser users, who can in turn donate to bloggers and other providers of web content through micropayments. As of 2016, it is currently in version 0.8, and is in beta testing for iOS, Android, Windows, OS X, and Linux.
Website: https://brave.com
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on BlueSky
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on Twitter
Nobody, nothing?
I'm interested as well, seems to have a lot of potential.
I'm not personally interested in portablizing at the moment. First, this is another Chromium-based browser. Second, Chromium/Chrome-based browsers are awful at portablization. Passwords are locked to a single PC, extensions routinely get lost, it doesn't fully work from Unicode paths, etc. They're only just barely kinda portable and only held together with duct tape. And this is entirely due to the Chrome/Chromium code underneath. Firefox, for instance, is *wonderfully* portable and, in terms of portability, is a Ferrari compared to Chrome/Chromium's Yugo. Third, Brave's speed improvement claims are vs a Chromium browser without adblocking. If you use Chrome with uBlock or AdBlockPlus, you'll get the same performance as Brave which negates its only current advantage since the publisher-based micropayment system isn't a thing yet.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Publisher micropayment and Ad-Platform are active, would love this as an addition.
You said: "Passwords are locked to a single PC, extensions routinely get lost" So I put Chromium and just for kicks Opera on a USB stick and tried them on three different computers. What you said isn't correct. Passwords are not locked to a single computer and extensions do not get lost. You also said Brave is not fast. Brave is faster than Firefox or Chromium. I didn't do a test but it is so markedly different I didn't bother. Also it also doesn't use up resources. Using a simple process monitor such as task manager you can see that Brave uses less resources than Firefox or Chromium even when it has more windows open and even when those windows have multi media content on them. No comparison. It is beta but never-less it hasn't crashed or stalled on my computers. It never freezes or causes the O.S. to freeze as Firefox often does. It runs on Android, Linux, Microsoft and Mac. The Android version is just like the Microsoft and Linux version. With Firefox on Android version there is a lot be desired. It doesn't look or behave the same as their Microsoft version. Come to think of it their Linux version is a bit different from their MS version. I'm impressed with Brave. I would never have known it was beta if it didn't tell me. It's a fantastic browser and it has a modern approach. You are dumping on it so much it seems like a personal vendetta. Why?
I just setup the current releases of Opera Portable and Chrome Portable as clean installs on a Windows 7 machine. Saved a single login/password to each. Installed a single note taking extension in each with a single note. On moving paths on the same machine, both Opera and Chrome preserved passwords, extensions, and extension data.
I then moved this to a Windows 10 machine. The saved password was lost within both Opera and Chrome. Opera preserved the extension and single note saved. Chrome trashed the extension and extension data.
Unlike Chrome/Chromium/Opera, Brave has no extension support, so there's nothing to test there.
For passwords, I installed Brave on a Windows 7 machine as a clean install. I saved a single login/password then closed brave. I then installed Brave on a Windows 10 machine under the same username (so the same C:\Users\Username\... paths). I moved the Brave data from AppData\Local and AppData\Roaming from the old machine to the new one. I then launched Brave. As with Opera and Chrome, the username was still there but the password was removed. This is due to the fact that Chrome et al encrypt the passwords within the password store per PC.
As to speed, my original point stands. Brave is no faster than Chrome, Chromium, Opera, etc when those browsers have uBlock Origin installed. This was confirmed by independent testing in unbiased reviews of Brave. Brave's entire speed claim is due to adblocking, which everyone can have in their favorite browser and get the exact same 50%-ish speed boost to ad-heavy page browsing.
So, 2 of my original 3 points stand. Brave loses all your passwords as you move PCs and is no faster than Chrome, Opera, etc. As Brave has no extension support, that point is a bit moot.
The worst part is that, like other Chrome browsers, Brave as a portable browser would lose all your passwords as you move PCs. Unlike Opera and Chrome, though, you don't have an option to sync them to a cloud repository, so they'd just be gone instead of being re-synced at browser startup. Now, I could adapt our kind of clunky Chrome password handling code for Brave so that it would encrypt your password store to the specific PC on launch and decrypt it on exit. This would require you to set a browser-level password as with Chrome to handle it otherwise you'd be carrying your passwords around insecurely. It gets a bit messy in cases where a crash may occur and you still lose your passwords, though.
All that said, if the Brave devs want an official portable version and asked us to do one that they'd also make available to their users, I'd still do it. But I have no interest in maintaining an unofficial version.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Brave portable is available here if you are interested : [link to illegal software site removed by mod JTH]
Unfortunately, this uses symlinks which you are likely to not have access to on PCs that aren't your own. The code doesn't appear to handle passwords, so you'd lose all your passwords as you move PCs.
Again, I'm willing to build it based on the Google Chrome launcher with the password portablization if the publisher is interested in having an official portable version.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Not anymore in the latest release : [link to illegal software site removed by mod JTH]
You've got some seriously ignorant responses here. Let's just start from ground zero, m'kay?
Brave browser is a chromium based browser. It was built by some of the best browser engineers in the business.
Brave removes all of the 'Google' privacy violations, adware and internal data hijacking from the chromium browser.
Brave automatically blocks all adware, third party tracking, cookies, social media trackers, etc.
Brave GIVES YOU THE OPPORTUNITY to sign up for paid ads, that pay YOU. (I personally don't want that opportunity.)
Brave allows you to install any Chrome extension that you want. I currently have 13 extensions installed to give me rock solid blocking and security.
Brave is stupid fast with all of the adware and tracking crap blocked.
Brave is stupid fast with all of the adware and tracking crap blocked.
Brave has an open forum for bug reporting, where end users can get personally involved to make sure that bugs are repaired correctly.
Brave is the best browser since Firefox 3.2.
I keep Chrome installed to run all of my Google / Fakebook / Amazon related third party ad-tracking crap on. I run everything else in Brave.
Brave allows me to have a secure browser that runs efficiently and quickly.
Why in the HELL WOULDN"T YOU WANT A PORTABLE VERSION OF BRAVE??!!
I'd be tickled pink to see it happen, devs! Please, please, please, please???
Forgive me if this is the link you guys keep blocking. I did my own search and it led me to a discussion on GitHub, which led to this guy, and I found his current project here:
[link to illegal software site removed by mod JTH]
It looks like he's already done all of the legwork to make a portable Brave browser. Is there any reason we couldn't give the code a quick once over, and use it here? Again, forgive me if that's a link to a bad site, I dunno if it's trustworthy myself.
The Brave publisher does not want a portable version of their browser and has refused all overtures. Anyone packaging Brave portably is doing so illegally. Please don't link to illegal software sites again.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Well that makes no damn sense. Thanks for the heads up John. I thought Brave was open source, except for their proprietary paid ad stuff? How do they get off locking up their open source software? That's a head scratcher right there.
Can we get Waterfox or Pale Moon in the system? Some sort of clean browser to base something fast and secure on? I just checked your current Firefox, I see its still got the adware on the home page, so it's obviously not clean. I was using Seamonkey before I turned to brave, but I hear that that project is stagnating these days. Any other clean chromium or mozilla packages that you're aware of?
Any clean portable packages that I can install alongside PortableApps? (I won't bother downloading the app you said is illegal, if it is indeed illegal.)
Thanks so much!
Good Lord! I just took a quick look at Firefox's privacy page. Apparently since I ditched them they've gone from a few privacy violations to 'Full Blown Cluster-F***"
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/
Unbelievable. Almost everything on that page I want to block, I can't. We really need a package in here that we can trust.
Yeah, yeah.. Brave is very definitely open source.
https://github.com/brave
In fact, it appears that there is now an OFFICIAL Brave Portable version, so can we move forward now?
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/10928
Quote:
angelog0 commented Sep 3, 2020
@rebron, where can I find the standalone installer? Is there some .zip/portable package for Brave?
rebron commented Sep 4, 2020
@angelog0 from the link I gave you here https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.13.82 scroll down and grab BraveBrowserStandaloneSetup.exe
The standalone installer is not an official portable version - it is just an installer that bundles the entire program instead of downloading during installation. The only portable version available is the unofficial one linked from a different site, that is infringing on Brave's trademarks.
As previously discussed in this thread Brave is another Chromium-based browser, including all of the portability issues of typical Chromium browsers. We have approached the Brave devs to see if they were interested in working with us, but they were not interested.
Yeah, and there's the rub.. Brave is open source. WTH? Request a pull and go with it.
Also, the conversation I quoted from the Brave Github was somebody SPECIFICALLY asking for a portable version.
So, yeah.. why can't we just bottle that as a PortableApp and call it done? I mean, I'm not an idiot, and sure there's more legwork to be done than just that.. but I don't see any huge roadblock. Perhaps they've changed their mind? Perhaps if I ask? Where was the inquiry made last time? Do you want me to go ahead and make my own pull request?
OH!! ..and where do you get off saying that some other guy with a Brave build is automagically illegal? If he's got a legitimate pull, he's totally LEGIT! So yeah, I'd like that answered as well.
SOMETHING. Smells fishy. I don't know what it is, yet. ..but something isn't adding up.
Source code licenses are for source code only. Trademarks on logos, brand names etc. mean those same assets are not redistributable, even if the code is.
So yes, while Brave's code is open source, their logos and brand name are not legally redistributable without permission, and pull requests have nothing to do with permission as far as trademarks go. Just look at what happened with a forked browser that was initially named "Braver" - Brave's legal team sent them a cease & desist pretty quickly because they were infringing on Brave's trademark.
And again there is the issue of the common Chromium portability issues. They are hell to manage as far as portability goes, and we are not interested in maintaining yet another Chromium browser without a very good reason.
And please, you are probably thinking I am a Brave hater, but that is farthest from the truth. Brave is my everyday browser on 5+ different devices and I am a huge supporter of them on their Reddit support channels. I am posting this comment from Brave. But I also happen to agree with the decision here that yet another Chromium browser is not worth the time for us to maintain when the Brave devs themselves have told us they are not interested in helping us to provide a more portable version of Brave.
Well nobody said you had to name it Brave Portable.
You're blowing my mind. You work with Portable Apps, use Brave, and can't see the benefits of a portable brave browser. Hell, I use 4 different browsers right now. If I had a Brave Portable, that would be my ONLY browser, because I could keep ALL of my tabs and shortcuts and passwords all securely in one place forever. Well. 'forever'.
It would be like Firefox 3.2 all over again. Game changer. I think your nuts for not jumping in feet first.
Whatever, I'll sort it out myself. There's no license saying I can't make my own damned portable version for my own damned use.
You are more than welcome to make it portable for your own use. Redistribution is where things get difficult.
But again, Chromium browsers have inherent portability issues that are already working against us. Unless things change in Chromium to make these browsers more portable (and that is unlikely given how Google are interested in locking things to a single PC), then we likely will not pick up any more Chromium-based browsers. And if portability gets worse (which is likely), we may have to drop even those we already make portable.
It looks like the current last stable release is here:
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.16.76
..but it looks like their 1.17 is set to be final any minute now.
I did some simple testing and switches --disable-machine-id and --disable-encryption-win allows some portability. But you will have passwords and other user data unencrypted. Password will be stored in plain txt, I think.
Extensions and their settings are working but as I said I did only simple testing hence there might be other issues with cookies and other setting.
There are some online resources with some descriptive text about how to make Brave portable:
[link to illegal site removed by mod JTH]
You may want to try this above...!
Thanks for your nice work!
> [link to illegal site removed by mod JTH]
Sorry, but which part of GitHub is illegal?
And: you did not like competitors like Portapps?
Please give some clarifications...!
The project you linked illegally packages apps without publisher permission. Including closed source apps that specifically prohibit modifications. They've been cease and desisted more than once. We only allow discussions of legal apps here.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I have been a long time brave browser user and I would like this software to be available on portable apps. The links mentioned earlier aren't working at times or yet don't exist. But I am having trouble updating the software to its latest version. It will be convenient for us to have Brave browser readily installed paf.exe file.
As discussed earlier in this thread Chromium-based browsers are horrible for portability because of Google's decisions to lock as much they can to a single PC. While Brave does de-Google a lot of stuff in the code their changes don't really fix any of the portability issues.
We likely won't add another Chromium-based browser until one of those browsers fix some of the portability issues.
I know a few people at Brave, and I know they don't have the developer time to allocate for major things outside of their main focus like portability, because every change they make on top of Chromium code is something that needs to be tested and potentially fixed with every new Chromium version.
Could you please integrate Brave browser into the standard app list?
After this weekend's purge of extension my whole family and all my friends stopped using Chrome.
Sadly Brave is not yet in the Portable Apps standard package for auto updates. Please help.
Nothing has changed since I wrote it. I am a Brave user myself, but Brave is even less portable than Chrome, and we have no plans to add any more Chromium-based browsers unless one fits some very specific criteria.