How to remove the VPN button in Brave Browser
Brave Software launched a VPN subscription service on the desktop version of the web browser last week. The service was available on Android and iOS previously only, but this has now been expanded to cover all platforms that Brave is available on.
Brave entered a partnership with Guardian, which provides the technology for the VPN and browser firewall. The service is available for $9.99 per month and Brave browser users may use the service on up to five of their devices.
Brave desktop users, who have updated the web browser to the latest version, may have noticed the new VPN button already on the browser's toolbar.
A click on the icon advertises Brave Firewall + VPN, highlighting that the service blocks trackers and apps across all apps on the device, and that it also protects users from unwanted network connections.
There is a buy option, which leads to the Brave Account website, on which users may purchase the subscription, and a "already purchased VPN" link, which existing subscribers may follow to log-in and gain the benefits of the solution.
How to disable the VPN button in Brave
Brave users who are not interested in the solution may hide the VPN button in the interface. All that is required for that is to right-click on the button and select "Hide VPN button in toolbar" to do so.
This removes the button from the toolbar and frees the room for other buttons that may be placed on it.
There is a second option to hide the VPN button. Load brave://settings/appearance in the Brave address bar and scroll down a bit on the page.
The preference "Show VPN button" determines whether the button is displayed or not. Toggle it to off to hide it on the toolbar, or to on to display it again after hiding it earlier.
Closing Words
Guardian Firewall + VPN is a highly rated solution that is available for iOS and Mac OS (beta) only at the time of writing. Brave Browser brings the functionality to other platforms; Android, Windows and Linux.
What about privacy? Brave has a strong focus on privacy, and integration of a third-party service may raise questions by users. According to Brave, privacy is guaranteed when using Guardian's products. The company states that it "stores no log files, and uses no cookies". Browsing data is not collected, and the onboarding process requires just an email address and payment information.
Subscriptions are validated using "unlinkable daily tokens", which ensures that Brave can't link purchase details with product usage.
Now You: what is your take on the offer?
All popular browsers collect information about users. Based on search queries, visited pages, read articles and watched videos, a digital dossier of the user is built, including his personal data and interests. If you want to surf the Internet and remain anonymous, you can use a browser from the Utopia P2P ecosystem. Utopia has a browser with a pre-installed web proxy. This is one of the safest and most reliable ways to start using an anonymous web browser to browse the web.
From the link provided in this article:
https://brave.com/desktop-vpn/
“Brave Firewall + VPN, powered by Guardian, is now available on desktop with the recent 1.49 version of the browser… ”
Sorry, can’t find any VPN under Settings nor does the Search bar find anything remotely resembling VPN, something is missing at least on Snap package for Linux.
Why is an article that is supposed to be about removing a VPN button, instead going into all the details of the service and describing how to buy the VPN service?
This must be an undercover advertisement.
I use Brave on Android. No VPN button on android yet. On other hand there is huge Brave Rewards button I had to remove.
in which would do you live in I use brave and I got three junk option news vpn and that rewards stuff and can’t possibly disable any of the above junk I just said
Thanks, Martin.
But is there a way to remove the software of the button completely from the Brave browser?
Is there also a possibility to ensure that with upgrades the VPN button does not reappear?
Maybe thru a registry edit?
You could try looking for VPN settings in brave://flags/ and see if it can be disabled there. Brave only have a few Brave specific group policy settings, so I don’t think it will be possible to easily disable it properly like you usually can with Edge or Chrome group policies. If you’re an org, lack or group policy settings will obviously be problematic.
Yep, brave://flags/ gives you the huge list and then search for VPN. Worked for me! Thanks!
I stopped using Brave altogether after they decided to ruin sync.
According to them, sync is not meant to a backup! In what universe? :facepalm:
Web browser VPNs are just HTTP proxy anw so nope, no thanks.
If I want to use real VPN I choose Wireguard, OpenVPN, or even Tor.
My take – well it is clear their BAT token crypto scheme isn’t working so that’s something. As for VPN, Guardian partnership is good. However if I was using Brave, I would’ve subsribed to Guardian separately. Don’t want to tie everything in a browser – whether it is Brave or Firefox.
Slowly but surely Brave keep firing rounds in their feet. Here’s how it goes, Brendan: The more you add to Brave, the more users you lose.
IT’S A WEB BROWSER, IT’S SUPPOSED TO SHOW WEBPAGES!!!! NOTHING MORE!!!!!
…goddamn greedy boneheads.
Change the logo to a snake or a weasel and call it BLUFF Browser.
Yeah. Browsers have all got terrible, it’s difficult to recommend any of them.
I agree about that – they are doing the same BS that Vivaldi and Edge are doing. All these things should be separate extensions that upon first launch users are presented with them and can choose whether to install them or not.
What I find weird about Brave is that they keep that revolting orange everywhere in the browser and their Settings page has this orange/purple gradient barf that makes me sick just to look at.
The browser is not bad, but there are a lot of questionable choices with it, especially the choice of colors.