Brave Launches Paid, "Minimalist" Brave Origin Browser

Brave has officially released Brave Origin, a minimal version of the regular Brave browser without a lot of the optional features such as Rewards, Leo AI, and Brave's VPN, for a one-time fee.

The browser is $60 on Windows and Mac, and free for Linux users.

The regular Brave browser will continue to be available with no changes.

The full list of removed features are as follows:

• Leo AI
• 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
• Email aliases (currently in Nightly release for desktop)

When downloading Brave Origin as a standalone app, the features above will be compiled out of the app, saving space and ensuring none of them can be enabled accidentally.

You can already disable these features in standard Brave, but they won't be compiled out of the binary so they will still take up space.

You can also upgrade your existing Brave browser, in which case a new settings panel will appear allowing you to disable each feature individually:

Many of the disabled features are part of Brave's business model, with the $60 fee essentially allowing you to support Brave while ignoring them all. Brave's CTO, Brian Bondy, stated

Origin gives our users the ad and tracker blocking they want coupled with the ability to manage which features appear in the browser, for a one-time fee across all their devices (and free on Linux). By supporting Brave as a business, users get the browser they asked for in order to manage their Web experience.

Brave says that "any new revenue-generating features we release (outside the core of Brave Shields) would not appear in the standalone Origin app."

Brave protects your privacy when you make your purchase via their privacy-preserving subscription credentials, based on the open Privacy Pass standard. Using this, they're able to decouple your payment identity from service usage, maintaining unlinkability.

The availability of the browser is a bit mixed on each platform for now. On Android and iOS, you can only get it as an upgrade for existing Brave. On macOS and Windows, you can buy the standalone app or upgrade. It's the same on Linux, but you can optionally waive the fee (or pay anyway to support them).

Brave will also offer a full refund within 30 days of your purchase if you decide you don't like it, you just need to contact their support.