Brave Browser 1.46 launches with Brave News improvements
Brave Software released a new version of its desktop browser, Brave 1.46 on December 1, 2022. The new version of Brave browser includes a number of changes, many of them improving Brave News.
Brave 1.46 is available already and the browser should be updated on most desktop devices automatically. Users of the browser may verify the version that they run by loading brave://settings/help or by selecting Menu > Help > About Brave.
The browser runs an update scan when the page is opened and will download and install any new update that is found.
Brave News improvements
Brave Software calls the improvements that it made to the news component Brave News 2.0. The company highlighted the main improvements in a blog post on the official website.
Besides being available in different regions, including Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Spain and the UK, Brave News may now make personal suggestions to the user. The algorithm runs locally on the device and no data leaves the browser at any point, according to Brave
Brave News uses the browsing history to personalize content. It bases these recommendations on the visited sites and sites that users follow already. New users of Brave News follow "top content" automatically, which they may disable using the customize option.
Brave News ranks content you follow highest in your feed, and helps you discover new sources to Follow based on your browsing history and sources you already Follow. Brave identifies sources that are similar to each other and recommends suggestions privately in Settings, where you can choose to Follow and add them to your feed.
Other new News-related features include improved source management and a new follow button that makes it easier for users to subscribe to channels. This follow button will be released later this month. It is shown on websites that have an RSS feed to make the following in Brave News easier.
Brave added new content channels to the browser, including a gaming channel that accumulates gaming news from a variety of sources. Note that advertisement may be displayed in the news feed and that there does not appear to be an option to disable those.
While Brave News does support RSS, it is not an alternative for RSS news readers at this point. The browser lacks display options of any kind, import or export functionality, support for folders, and many other features that most RSS readers, including QuiteRSS or RSS Guard support.
Other changes in Brave 1.46
Brave Software lists all changes in the official release notes. Apart from plenty of crypto-related changes, the following improvements stand out:
- Support for multiple custom background images added to the New Tab Page.
- Windows users may pin the browser to the Task, and Mac users may enable the "keep in Dock" option.
- Brave Shields settings are accessible under brave://settings/content.
- Right-side display support for the sidebar added.
- HTTPS-only mode for private windows with TOR enabled.
- Font appearance of non-English characters improved.
- Debouncing updated to apply only to cross-site navigations.
- Adblock components updated to use plaintext lists.
- Side-panel display settings enabled again under brave://settings/appearance.
- Upgraded to Chromium 108.0.5359.71.
Now You: have you tried Brave News? What is your take on the feature?
“Brave News uses the browsing history to personalize content. It bases these recommendations on the visited sites and sites that users follow already.”
+ from https://brave.com/privacy/browser/#brave-news
“Brave News is a […] ad-supported content news reader integrated into the Brave browser. It provides […] Brave offers, display advertising, and promoted content.”
In other words, similarly to Firefox Pocket, it’s a machine to monetize private browsing history for personalized ads, or worse here, those personalized ads possibly including sponsored “news”.
“Brave privacy browser ‘mistake’ added affiliate links to crypto URLs”
When someone shows you who they are. believe them.
Yeah, referrals are so evil that basically all browsers make use of them for their search engine deals. Also, a generic referral can totally be used to spy on you, that’s what the term “generic” implies after all. /s
gHacks comment section used to be a place for good discussions, today it is populated by people who don’t even understand what a referral is or can do.
100% agree !
This is the essence of Brave … You didn’t understand anything from the beginning. I don’t advise you to buy new anti-leak diapers, for fear of choking on them!
Brave news is okay, the new v2 is so much better than before, it looks nice but also make things easier to subscribe and all that, which is what matters mostly, since the default sources are going to be the popular ones but it doesn’t mean I would read them.
Nightly has so many new features, these list is just nothing, Brave is quickly improving in the last months, so the future is bright, of course, I am using Nightly so it has so many new features and improvements, that will not hit Stable until much later so people will not be aware of them or many improvements and features not being mentioned in this changelog either.
Finally a positive review! What happened to my beloved Ghacks.net, only grumpy people, it’s becoming an unpleasant experience to read and/or answer comments… Maybe there is a reason for this? The comments on this article as on the last 2 on W11 are the work of people who did not take the time to test. No more and no less. I wish you a successful career in IT where Microsoft undoubtedly prevails. And if this firm really leaves you by the eyes bah move to nux and do not come to pour your torrents of resentment!
Enfin un avis positif ! Qu’est ‘il arrivé à mon adoré Ghacks.net, que des grincheux, ça devient une expérience désagréable de lire et/ou répondre aux commentaires… Peut être une raison voulue ? Les commentaires sur cet article comme sur les 2 derniers sur W11 sont l’oeuvre de personnes qui n’ont pas pris le temps de tester. Ni plus ni moins. Je vous souhaite une fructueuse carrière dans l’IT ou prévaut indiscutablement Microsoft. Et si vraiment cette firme vous sort par les yeux bah passez à nux et venez pas déverser vos torrents de rancœur !
Maybe an article on what settings and flags to disable in Brave to get a somewhat lean/clean browser could be a good idea? Unless Brave has already paid you not to do that, of course… Right now, out of the box, Brave is complete garbage. A hot, intrusive mess is what a new user sees. Just like Microsoft Edge. User-hostile experience of note.
Just RTFM ?
I guess that people criticizing Brave for the forced ads have never tried it. I don’t care, for me it has replaced Opera used since its creation because of serious malfunctioning (Linux and Windows)
J’imagine que les gens critiquant Brave pour la pub forcée ne l’ont jamais essayé. Peut m’importe, pour moi il a remplacé Opera utilisé depuis sa création pour causes de dysfonctionnement sérieux (Linux et Windows)
They’re both good browsers but Brave is miles ahead privacy wise. Finally Martin is giving more attention to Brave.
Not sure who haves more bloatware; Edge of Brave.
That’s because you obviously don’t know the definition of bloat and ware and bloatware.
But I will just say this, News, which can be disabled, can be ignored or you can set the whole NTP as a blank page, is not bloat… if people want to use their NTP to read news they can, even so, the News are not even visible unless you scrolldown… I mean, you would know if you used Brave, but clearly you don’t and then you are just another person with access to the internet who barely know anything.
A 3rd nick and the same choice of words and tone. I guess the Brave VPN is working excellent sir!
So basically Brave blocks ads on websites, then bombards users with native ads in the browser instead.
Try using Brave so you have the right answer!
The concept of “opt-in” seems to go way over the head of some gHacks readers and the comment I reply to is proof.
wonder why the portable versions are lagging so behind
Watch out Brave Fanboy on the loose….
Why would anyone use Brave now, given the revelations from yesterday?
Because it’s the one of lightest browser? I need different browser to open a ticket page, I use other browser for real browsing.
@DontBeEvil
Do you understand Brave is a company to make money? also, tell me which relevant browser which is done by a company (not 3 guys forking anything) don’t have partnerships and ways to make money?
Most browsers usually have a partnership for default search engines, search engines have the ad business networks as partners, you know, like almost all search engines display an ad, only because you can’t see it for your adblocker doesn’t mean it is not there.
Brave is trying to be independent and trying to make a serious company, like what Brendan did with Mozilla, but without all the BS that grew year after year at Mozilla.
The point is Brave has its own search engine so they don’t get money like a normal search engine would, and since Brave has its own search engine, most countries have it as default, so they are not getting much money from that either like Vivaldi does with Bing and Opera does with Yandex for example.
Seems like you are just clueless about how the real world works, it’s Brave ads, in Brave services like news and search, it is Brave ads/rewards that can be opt-in, they are as Private as they can get, if you don’t believe that, then don’t, it doesn’t mean Brave will just exist out of thin air, they have to generate money somehow, to expand Brave team and company and services.
I wonder if people like you talking trash even use Brave or are just more Mozilla fanboys complaining at every mention of Brave, instead of looking in the mirror and realize the only reason Mozilla exists is because of Google billions, the only reason Vivaldi exists is because of Bing/Microsoft, the only reason Opera exists is because of Yandex in Russia and whatever other partnerships they have in other regions (reason why they don’t let you have your own default search engine), Waterfox was bashed for having a partnership with Bing at the time, now they are owned by System1 same as startpage, even DDG has a partnership with Microsoft and I remember they having affiliate links on every ebay or amazon links you clicked on, so they got money for every product you purchased through it.
Sure… Brave is so evil for trying to be more independent from having their own search engine with an independent indexer (unlike most 97% of other search engines) and having their own Brave ads which are mostly privacy oriented unlike Google’s business.
You don’t need to opt-in, or even use Brave search or ads to use Brave Browser anyway, it’s not like they are forcing anyone to do anything.
“Brave is trying to be independent” // “Seems like you are just clueless about how the real world works”
Is that why they took in a bunch of venture capital? Surely that money has no strings attached, nor do any of those investors have, say, vested interests in data mining…
Is Gilmore your new nick? The posting style is very familiar.
Please elaborate what do you mean
Revelations? You mean a paid tier for their search engine? Or the free tier having ads now? The free tier is now like DuckDuckGo and StartPage.
Also, Brave Search is not the Brave Browser and vice versa.
It does display ads on an empty tab? It literally says (Ad) in the chess image’s corner.
Well this is not the browser people told me it was. Looks more like a store front.