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Brave Browser Introduces 'Origin', a Pay-Once 'Minimalist' Browser (nerds.xyz) 65

Posted by EditorDavid from the back-to-basics dept.
The Brave browser "has introduced Brave Origin, a stripped-down version of its browser that removes built-in monetization features like Rewards and other extras tied to its business model," writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli" The stripped-down browser is available either as a separate browser download or as an upgrade to the existing Brave install, unlocked through a one-time purchase that can be activated across multiple devices. The idea is simple on paper: pay once, and you get a cleaner, more minimal browsing experience without the add-ons that fund Brave's ecosystem. What makes the move unusual is the pricing model itself. While paying to support a browser is not controversial, charging users specifically to remove features raises questions about whether those additions are seen as value or clutter.

The situation gets even stranger on Linux, where Brave Origin is reportedly available at no cost, creating an uneven experience across platforms and leaving some users wondering why they are being asked to pay for something others get for free.

Brave Browser Introduces 'Origin', a Pay-Once 'Minimalist' Browser More | Reply

Brave Browser Introduces 'Origin', a Pay-Once 'Minimalist' Browser

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  • What? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by coaxial ( 28297 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @12:43AM (#66102312) Homepage

    Why would anyone pay for a web browser? Seriously, why? In 35 years of web browsers, only dopes paid for them.

    • Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)

      by sizzlinkitty ( 1199479 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @01:32AM (#66102370)

      Netscape wasn't free

      • I don't think I ever heard of an end-user paying for it, even once...

        • Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)

          by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @01:55AM (#66102378)

          Back in the day lots of people did. Because there was no built in browser to use before IE came out. And pirating it would require getting a cd from someone else, and cd burners weren't a thing yet. Your options were use AOL with whatever they had built in on their cds, or use Netscape which you'd need to buy.

          • Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)

            by pjt33 ( 739471 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @02:24AM (#66102400)

            NCSA Mosaic predated Netscape Navigator and was free for non-commercial use.

          • I know lots of people who used Netscape (and Mosaic before it), but I don't know anyone who paid for it back in the day. To be completely upfront, I don't remember how I received a copy, whether it was from a swap-meet, from my ISP, or from my circle of friends, but it certainly wasn't from a shop. That was just how things were back in those days.

            • Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)

              by sinkskinkshrieks ( 6952954 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @03:44AM (#66102446)
              DoN't CoPy ThAt FlOpPy!
            • I can't remember either. I'm pretty sure I had access to NN on the university SPARCs, and I suspect I must have downloaded the Windows version from there and saved it on a diskette. I somehow think that the browser was free but you had to pay for the email client extension, but I could be wrong. Trumpet Winsock was definitely shareware, but it was the only way to do proper TCP/IP at the time.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Malc ( 1751 )

                IIRC, both Netscape Navigator and Netscape Communicator were free for personal use and at a cost for commercial use. I don't remember paying for it or having trouble acquiring it, whether it was the browser with the pulsing N at university or Communicator at my first job. Maybe it was an honesty thing at download or install time?

          • It wasn't that hard - Netscape came on floppies, too.

        • Me either because there were so many ways to get it for free. I recall the Netcom dial-up ISP came with Navigator for free as a new customer perk.
        • Okkkay..Well now you have. Adjust your memory correctly. Browsers weren't free initially. Yes, people paid for them. That was the whole juice behind the Netscape IPO. It was as you may well know, Microsoft who started giving away the inferior, but free internet explorer which caused Netscape to do so and basically lose their main revenue stream.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by SumDog ( 466607 )
          Companies did. I worked for a company that had a boxed copy of Netscape and licenses.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Paid for IBrowse and I think AWeb back in the day too. But that was two decades ago.

        There is Firefox Focus, which is minimal and free.

      • Netscape wasn't free

        And look what happened to them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by praxis ( 19962 )

          You might be misremembering why Netscape became irrelevant. Microsoft using their operating system monopoly to release an inferior but free browser was one element. Companies then making webpages work for IE, which didn't follow web standards was another. Netscape throwing out their perfectly good source code and starting from scratch was another. Netscape losing their revenue stream was another, since Microsoft could subsidize IE costs with Windows. Yes, money was a factor, but it wasn't the sole factor, a

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ScottDB ( 158711 )
        It was for me. I was invited to download a beta-version of Netscape back in 1994, and continued to use it for (IIRC) about a year. Then used newer versions for several years until Firefox/Mozilla was released. Oh - and I never paid any money for any browsers.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Kartu ( 1490911 )
        Nor Opera.

    • Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)

      by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @02:40AM (#66102420)
      Note that it is free for Linux users. Seems fair to have users pay for a superior browser since they pay for an inferior OS.

    • Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Presence Eternal ( 56763 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @04:09AM (#66102482)

      Opera provided enough functionality that I do not regret buying it circa 2000. If memory serves me correctly, it offered a clean and fast UI, a local email client that allowed you to block tracking pixels, and their implementation of RSS is something I got a lot of use out of.

      The major alternatives were as I recall, IE 6, which was about 5 years old at the time and would gladly allow websites to open browser windows when you closed browser windows, and Netscape, which was somehow MORE abandoned than IE. I feel like that was AOL's doing, same as Winamp, but I've never researched it.

    • I rather like the idea of a straight forward transaction. I pay for what I want, and I get it. No strings, not agendas, no gatchas. Not even a subscription.

      I think its precisely 35 years of browsers, and eventually paying in ways that aren't cash, is why this is such an appealing proposition.

      • Agreed. I use and like the browser and would rather just pay for it so they can afford to keep producing it. Not interested in the various other funding schemes theyâ(TM)ve tried over the years.

    • Because they spend 1/4 of their waking hours in a web browser and want to use one programmed by people with aligned incentives. What did you think user-agent meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays?
    • This is the exact method of thinking that got us into this 'advertisement as a service' mess. But hey, everything looks free to you!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You may want to support development. So that it, you know, does not go away. Obviously, that idea is altruistic and not everybody understands that concept.

    • Why would anyone pay for a web browser? Seriously, why? In 35 years of web browsers, only dopes paid for them.

      This particular offer is not my cup of tea at this time; however, I am willing to pay to get what I want. Why would you waste time denigrating someone else's decisions?

    • What you should be asking is who believes this is a pay once? Now it doesn't work like that. You'll be asked to pay again even if they have to disguise it as something new

      Watch.

  • Whether they charge something or give it away, what Brave should do is have customers enter a list of e-mails and phone numbers that get covered by that purchase, so that one can use the same subscription on various devices

    • Whether they charge something or give it away, what Brave should do is have customers enter a list of e-mails and phone numbers that get covered by that purchase, so that one can use the same subscription on various devices

      I can't tell whether you're being serious or you're joking. Assuming that you're being serious, I'd like to point out that giving a browser provider your phone number and email address - never mind multiples thereof - is kinda like bending over to pick up the soap in a prison shower.

      • Except that Brave is a completely privacy focused browser, which is why they are doing this. If they are selling something and protecting your privacy and securing your devices, then trusting them is nowhere in the league of trusting Google, Microsoft, Mozilla or even Apple

  • apple will now remove from the app store unless they get that 30%

  • One time purchase (Score:3)

    by geekbelief ( 2039836 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @01:00AM (#66102334)
    One time purchase meant something else twenty years ago. Now a 'lifetime' license tends to mean the lifetime of the current version number or even the lifetime of the product (look up '4kdownloader bait and switch'). At this stage, offers like that need to be very clear what they mean, upfront.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by T34L ( 10503334 )

      right, not to mention that right now the regular-sized-text terms as they're written state

      One-time purchase, covers up to 10 activations per license, across all your devices

      so that's one-time-until-you-reinstall-OS-11th-time, isn't it? And some chucklefuck was just telling me that my ailing Windows 11 are simply ripe for reinstall because that's what Windows apparently regularly need to this day.

      One-time-purchase really doesn't mean anything unless it's also at the very least "lifetime" to me as a person but I guess it's still more appealing wording than calling it a ten-install-license.

      • I have never personally reinstalled Windows because it "needs" it. Only when reformatting a laptop for another user etc. Manage your OS properly and these things don't happen. It's not Windows's fault if you click "yes" to every installation popup and enable web notifications from every website your visit.
    • Eh, no it does not. I bought a lifetime subscription to Musicmatch Jukebox. Where the hell is that now, Yahoo? I want a version that works on windows 11, dang it.

    • Fraud from corporations is not prosecuted nearly enough. I wouldn't expect any accountability here. Just don't participate at all. Spend your money elsewhere.

  • I won't pay for this because of the activation limit. I don't have a problem supporting a good browser like brave and would happily pay that price for a lifetime license. I use Brave a lot because of google endpoint verification when I can't use Firefox.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ack154 ( 591432 )

      Based on what I was reading in one of the reddit threads yesterday about this, if you message them when you reach the limit, they'll add more. Not sure what the point of a limit is if that's what you're going to do anyway, but that was called out by someone that supposedly formats their computer "often". I think it was in /r/browsers...

  • So it's pay once, then pay again if you need to reinstall 11 times.

  • Im fine with supporting Brave and do not particularly care whether those features are present and active or not, I can disable plenty of them in the Settings already.

    What seems weird, apparently these activations are per installation! So, if you setup a new OS on the same machine it eats up one more activation, unless you haggle with their support about it.
    This seems like a stupid and impractical model, especially for something titled lifetime.

    They should rather give you a fixed amount of active devices/lic

    • "I can disable plenty of them in the Settings". This. As far as I know, I've shut down all the ad-like features in the browser and it wasn't all that difficult. When I get a new device, it's just a few clicks to clean up the UI. If there's anything left, it's not annoying enough for me to even notice it.

      • Honestly, so far none of the features were intrusive or annoying even in their default state. I hope it stays that way and they do not go the Amazon/Netflix/Youtube route of annoying the hell out of users until they cough up more money...

  • Pay to remove what we added model (Score:3)

    by Cley Faye ( 1123605 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @02:36AM (#66102412) Homepage

    This kinda reminds me of youtube, getting paid to show ads on one side, then getting paid to not show ads on the other side. Except this time, they skipped the firsts part.

    I can see the appeal though, make something, then make it annoying, then get paid to remove the annoyance. Seems like an easy path to get some money from fools. Thankfully, brave is already known for being scummy all around; I hope people will not fall for this too much.

    • I suppose you wanted someone to give you something completely for free? How does that put food on the table for anyone? Youtube didn't invent that business model, that model has existed since businesses have existed.

      • There's this novel idea of making a good product and selling that they could explore, instead of making a product, crippling it, then asking for money to remove the damages.
  • ive payed for opera before back in the day but why oh why would they call it origin ea already ruined that name with a worthless unwanted service
    • I also paid for Opera 3.x ... and we got screwed when Opera did not update us freely to the 4.x version. I would not trust BRAVE either ... and yes, I DO send checks for "free" software  to Linux devs .

    • In classic EA fashion, Origin was discontinued in 2022 and replaced with something called "the EA app," so the name's up for grabs. Maybe they can bring it back!

  • They're going to enshittify Brave with unremovable ads to sell Origin like Economy Plus.
  • Brave is a crypto-bloat browser by a seriously shady company: https://thelibre.news/no-reall... [thelibre.news]

    If you're on desktop, definitely recommend using Helium [helium.computer] instead.

    • Thanks for the sketchy blog post link. I must say that I had almost no knowledge of Brave and no clue who Brandon Eich was.

      But, after reading that blog post, I came away feeling that Brandon Eich sounds like a great guy that has contributed a LOT to the internet. Certainly he has contributed far more than the whiny bitch-ass blog poster ever will.

      The leaking Tor DNS stuff was unfortunate. But bugs happen and it seems to have been corrected. I did not get the feeling that it was in anyway intentional or mali

      • What, you mean you're not convinced to grab the no-name alpha-release "privacy browser" that cripples yourself if you don't let them MITM you?

  • Activation limit makes this a no sale. I use brave and would pay for a lifetime kicense, but not a limitedone like this.

  • remove 'features' (Score:3)

    by Njovich ( 553857 ) on Monday April 20, 2026 @08:03AM (#66102734)

    While paying to support a browser is not controversial, charging users specifically to remove features raises questions about whether those additions are seen as value or clutter.

    Those features are largely either revenue generating or straight up advertisements. You essentially pay one time to remove ads which is a pretty common thing in apps.

  • Instead of 10 activations limit it to n number of sync chains.

    Pair the activation authorization to the hash of a chain code or whatever on the Brave activation server.

    Reduce the number to 5, that's fine.

    A good number of privacy folks have extra devices to run certain apps. You might trust Brave and have them all synced but not some odd banking apps or dating apps or stuff work makes you have.

    A decent used phone can be had for $50; keeping all those apps on one device seems nuts.

    5 sync chains would effective

  • make browser that blocks adds fill it with bloat nobody wants then charge for the version with nonsense removed.

  • "[U]sers [are] wondering why they are being asked to pay for something others get for free."

    Windows users tend not to ask that question.

  • Hexchat did this for ages. Free on most OS, commercial on Windows because building for Windows is more annoying.

  • Wow, I thought this was going to be like $5. It’s $59.99! Obscene.

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