Brave on Windows stops force-installing VPN, admins can now disable Leo AI

The Brave logo on an orange and black background

Brave's latest update, version 1.64.109, brings a major change that many will appreciate. The company has confirmed that it has stopped auto-installing its VPN services when you install the browser.

Back in September, it was discovered that Brave was installing two VPN services, Brave VPN Service and Brave VPN Wireguard Service, inside Windows services. This caused a bit of a backlash once the media caught a hint of the matter.

Back then, Brave promised that this would not be the case for longer and that the services would only be installed if a user purchased its VPN subscription.

The firm has kept its word, and as such, the latest update no longer does this. The changelog states, "Fixed Brave VPN to not install VPN services until VPN is purchased or enabled."

With this update, the Brave team has also added a way to disable Leo, the Brave AI assistant via admin policy. The company launched it in November last year.

Aside from these, there are several other changes and improvements. You can view the full changelog below:

Release Notes v1.64.109 (Mar 20, 2024)

Web3

Added support for SNS V2 Records. (#35958)

[Security] Added support for Trezor Safe 3 and updated Trezor Connect to v9. (#35584)

Enabled Zcash support by default. (#36613)

Updated the “Portfolio” modal button styles. (#35925)

Updated the border radius of the card header buttons. (#35780)

Updated the percent change bubble colors. (#35768)

Updated “Portfolio” background under the Brave Wallet panel. (#35745)

Updated the “DApp Connection Settings” button’s border radius. (#35730)

Updated the “Asset” group container styles. (#35709)

Updated the “Deposit” icon to be the same in all locations. (#35653)

Updated the “Line Chart Controls” style. (#35621)

Updated the border radius for the “Portfolio” action buttons. (#35592)

Updated the border radius for the “Buy”, “Send”, “Swap”, and “Deposit” buttons. (#35583)

Updated “Segmented Control” style to have border radius. (#35582)

Updated “Send” and “Swap” token screens to have a dynamic token background. (#35559)

Updated Brave Wallet to display Solana preflight and retry options in the “Details” tab of the “Confirm Transaction” panel. (#35454)

Updated default Brave Wallet panel display priority when actions or requests are pending. (#35449)

Updated wallet navigation and card body to be center aligned. (#34471)

Updated the display of the “Learn more about Brave Wallet” text under brave://wallet/crypto/onboarding/welcome. (#25201)

Removed background of the icon stack on the “Accounts” page. (#35877)

Fixed gas estimation for Scroll and Telos transactions. (#36370)

Fixed Brave Wallet to update gas estimates anytime gas fields are changed. (#35518)

Fixed auto-load via IPFS notification not being sticky when loading an IPFS or IPNS page. (#36347)

Fixed inability to view asset details of auto-discovered token on first page load. (#35673)

Fixed token display order on the “Buy” and “Deposit” screens. (#35575)

Fixed “Buy” and “Deposit” buttons not pre-selecting the asset. (#35060)

Fixed space between the “Reject” and “Continue” buttons on the “Transaction Confirmation” screen. (#35570)

Rewards

Updated generic linking error text. (#33955)

General

Added Brave Leo right-click quick actions. (#36159)

Added the ability to disable Brave Leo via Admin policy. (#31461)

Added a “Bring All Tabs to This Window” option to the tab context menu. (#27022)

Added “Show scrollbar” setting for vertical tabs under brave://settings/appearance. (#35207)

Added “Fullscreen” and “Next” buttons to Picture-in-Picture (PiP). (#15416)

[Security] Implemented stream isolation for third-party subresources in Private Windows with Tor. (#35464)

Improved Chromium storage partitioning by making it compatible with Brave’s ephemeral storage implementation. (#26165)

Updated Brave Leo to specify user role and rephrase system messages for Mixtral. (#35698)

Updated the sidebar button to open Brave Leo by default. (#32601)

Updated Omaha installer version for Windows to v1.3.361.149 for new users. (#35684)

Updated the text for P3A and usage ping settings under brave://settings/privacy. (#35871)

Updated download protection override flag to apply to “.dll” file downloads. (#35561)

Updated version information color under brave://settings/help to orange. (#26040)

Fixed Brave VPN to not install VPN services until VPN is purchased or enabled. (#33726)

Fixed Brave Leo so that if a content node isn’t found the root content node is used. (#35371)

Fixed crash on macOS when logging into https://account.brave.com. (#35395)

Fixed inconsistent horizontal tab group heights on macOS. (#35956)

Fixed bookmarks bar flash when opening a new tab. (#25834)

Fixed inability to select the left edge of the browser to activate the leftmost horizontal tab when the browser is full screen. (#35932)

Fixed “Add current tab” button not being active when the Bookmarks panel is opened. (#35563)

Fixed non-clickable padding on horizontal tabs on Linux. (#35965)

Fixed issue where a webpage’s content security policy could block Speedreader mode stylesheet. (#24577)

Upgraded Chromium to 123.0.6312.58. (#36938) (Changelog for 123.0.6312.58)