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Brave blocks Microsoft Recall by default
- jadamson 1y agoI'm curious about the last paragraph relating to Signal. How, exactly, have Brave managed this without also blocking screenshots? Is there a flag Signal missed?
- Svip 1y agoAccording to the same paragraph, it's because Signal isn't a "browser app": > Given that Windows doesn’t let non-browser apps granularly disable Recall, Signal cleverly uses the DRM flag on their app to disable all screenshots. (emphasis mine) Apparently, Microsoft consider browsers special: > While it’s heartening that Microsoft recognizes that Web browsers are especially privacy-sensitive applications, we hope they offer the same granular ability to turn off Recall to all privacy-minded application developers.
- jadamson 1y agoOops. Yeah, I shouldn't have missed that. Still, does this mean Microsoft maintains an approved browser list for this? Would the various other less-known Chromium/Firefox forks be unable to take advantage of the same thing? Edit: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai/recall/recall-web-browsers https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai/recall/recall-w... > To make sure that Recall doesn't save your user's browsing history while in modes like this, your app can use the SetInputScope function, setting the input scope to IS_PASSWORD. > Your app must also have a http or https protocol handler registered before SetInputScope will support the behavior described in this article. I now wonder if you can register a handler that never gets used since you won't be the default browser (and if you do end up as the default somehow, warn the user when called).
- robin_reala 1y agoMicrosoft specifically allows software in the category “browsers” to disable Recall.
- eviks 1y agoHow is this category defined? Can an app resister itself as a browser?
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago> Microsoft specifically allows software in the category “browsers” to disable Recall. 1. "Browser" does not mean "web browser": many kinds of applications can be considered a browser. 2. Even if you identify "browser" with "web browser": Electron apps are basically (web) browsers (though not fully functional ones). Nobody claimed said for a software to be in the "browser" category, it has to be a fully functional web browser.
- dotancohen 1y agoHow does the OS know that foobar application is a [[fully functional] web] browser?
- delfinom 1y agoIt doesn't. Windows is just checking if there's a protocol handler entry in the registry for http/https. In theory you don't abuse that because it will come up as a possible browser option for users. :shrug:
- skaul 1y ago(disclaimer: I lead privacy at Brave and wrote the article) Windows lets browser apps (more technically, apps that have an `http` or `https` protocol handler registered) to use `SetInputScope` function to set `IS_PRIVATE` for a window. We were able to use that and have it apply for all Brave windows, and thus granularly turn off Recall without affecting non-Recall screen readers or screenshot capabilities. Signal doesn't have protocol handlers for `http` and `https`, so it can't do the same.
- LooseMarmoset 1y agoWho, exactly, is clamoring for Recall in the first place? And who is to say that Microsoft will honor the toggle, “for analytic and performance metric” purposes? EDIT: the rant above shouldn’t cast aspersions on Brave, good on them for trying.
- firesteelrain 1y agoIt seems it enables Copilot to assist the user in finding things on their PC. Somehow find . -iname has worked for years in Linux without AI
- crinkly 1y agoThey are where I put them. Never used a search function once like this. Perhaps it’s because I lived in the days before search was even a thing.
- hunter-gatherer 1y agoThere definitely is a sort of pseudo generational gap of how peole interact with computers. I was having a conversation with a 20ish year old the other day about computer for storage and they didn't understand the filing cabinet analogy. Like, for then everything had to be in the desktop folder, but the concept that C:\Users\User\Desktop was like having a folder in a filing cabinet, where C: was the actual cabinet, was so alien to them.
- chrisweekly 1y agoWindows seems to make this deliberately confusing, eg displaying "Desktop" as the root of the hierarchy in the default Explorer window makes no sense (Desktop > Home > Desktop?). Then layer in typical corporate MS software like OneDrive, and it gets even weirder and harder to determine what's where on the local fs.
- CamperBob2 1y ago
- ritenuto 1y agoInterestingly, the linked Recall docs[1] mention a way to filter apps and/or websites from being saved; however: > This setting applies only to Enterprise and Education editions of Windows. That limitation looks extremely impractical. [1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/manage-recall#app-and-website-filtering-policies https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/...
- diggan 1y agoI think what's only available in Enterprise/Education editions is the users ability to configure that filter themselves, while what Brave is doing should be available everywhere, where the application itself registers as a browser + what specific window is "sensitive" (which Brave registers all windows as, when the toggle is active). That's my understanding at least.
- contextfree 1y agoThe linked document is about how IT admins can manage the filter via policy, which is exclusive to Enterprise/Education. Users can set up filters through the settings UI (on all editions).
- skaul 1y ago(disclaimer: I lead privacy at Brave and wrote the article) See the blog post for how we implemented this: https://brave.com/privacy-updates/35-block-recall/#how-we-implemented-this https://brave.com/privacy-updates/35-block-recall/#how-we-im.... We took Recall's guidance for web browsers and extended it to apply for ALL windows, not just Private Browsing: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai/recall/recall-web-browsers https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai/recall/recall-w...
- maven29 1y ago[flagged]
- delichon 1y ago> We tell the operating system that every Brave tab is ‘private’, so Recall never captures it. Without this loophole Recall could take pix of password managers and other such sensitive windows. So it doesn't seem closeable without per app exceptions. But privacy is a bug on a school laptop used by a child. Brave could have a toggle on the feature if it wants to serve that market.
- fidotron 1y ago> But privacy is a bug on a school laptop used by a child. What you're going to learn is how many people that think like this consider you to be in the same position as the child.
- delichon 1y ago"The whole principle (censorship) is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.” ― Robert A. Heinlein The opposite is true too. Infants shouldn't be handed knives because grown men need to cut their steak.
- CamperBob2 1y agoIt's more like, "Only licensed chefs need pointy knives, so the logical thing to do is ban pointy knives for everyone else."
- fidotron 1y agohttps://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2019/03/14/yes-a-politician-really-did-suggest-all-knives-should-have-gps-trackers-built-in/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2019/03/14/yes-a-poli...
- teddyh 1y agoCigarette lighters and matches would probably be banned, or at least heavily restricted, if smoking had never been a thing.
- diggan 1y agoThere was a flurry of FOSS and local-first alternatives appearing when Recall was first announced (and more afterwards too), did anyone here end up using any of them and found them good enough? I remember trying one or two but most were basically hacks/prototypes at that point, I'm guessing at this point at least one of them developed enough to actually work well for daily use?
- varbhat 1y agoUntil the time when Microsoft realises this and creates a privileged API just for Microsoft Recall so that It can see the screen. Better switch to Linux. It's not perfect but I am sure that you will be fine using Linux(Unless you want to use Adobe Suite or Few Corporate applications which won't be used by many)
- glimshe 1y agoOr most professional audio applications...
- louthy 1y agoBitwig works on Linux, but the problem I had was that my pro-audio soundcard [1] didn’t have supported drivers and I couldn’t get the open source drivers to work. I tried switching to a Dante based solution: none of the Dante based apps worked, so I tried AES67 (open source Dante), still no joy — I just could not get my Dante/AES67 AD/DA converters (which attach to everything in my studio) to be ‘seen’ on Linux. So after weeks trying to get a high-channel count I/O solution working, I gave in, I found the best thing to do was to just get a M4 Mac Mini for my audio/studio work. And leave Linux for everything else. I was setup within an hour on macOS. There’s unfortunately still too much resistance and it can cost $1000s trying to get to a working solution or ultimately in my case: a non-working solution. It cost me about $6000 trying various options — not all wasted, but still, not cheap to find out that nothing works. [1] https://rme-audio.de/hdspe-madi-fx.html https://rme-audio.de/hdspe-madi-fx.html
- glimshe 1y ago"It works BUT" summarizes my experience with running my top applications on Linux, unfortunately :(
- dotancohen 1y agoWhich apps are those?
- pandemic_region 1y agoMan I'm so hoping for Ladybird to get us out of this browser-as-a-trojan-horse world we live in today.
- blindriver 1y agoThis is why I’m not moving off Windows 10. I’d rather move to MacOS than Windows 11 and if they force me I’ll do it.
- deadbabe 1y agoWhy not Linux?
- ubermonkey 1y agoI'm not who you asked, but the reason I migrated to Macs years ago, and the reason I stay, is that I don't want my computer to be a maintenance hobby unto itself. I need to do actual work. I also enjoy the polish Apple provides in other ways -- the platform features you get if you're on a Mac, use an iPhone, have a Watch, etc, are all pretty great. Cobbling together something like that on my own under Linux probably isn't possible.
- Zardoz84 1y agoUsing a sane distribution Linux just works without needing to do anything special or needing to do a "maintenance hobby".
- Moomoomoo309 1y agoLinux isn't a maintenance hobby unto itself if you don't make it one. After the initial migration struggles (which you'll get on MacOS too), if you choose a boring distro like Debian, the maintenance burden is similar to Windows. Lots of Linux users love customizing the crap out of their stuff, so it becomes one, but it isn't inherently like that if you keep your configuration somewhat close to stock on whatever distro you use. (I've also heard good things about immutable distros for that, since if something doesn't work, you can just rollback and it will work again)
- nicoburns 1y agoIt isn't until you need something like Microsoft Office or Photoshop. At which point you're either using FOSS alternatives (and dealing with it's incompatibilities with the proprietary file formats) or dealing with a very fragile wine setup. If you don't need that kind of thing then Linux is indeed pretty good these days. But especially in a business context, a lot of people do.
- ur-whale 1y agoThe real question is: can recall be forcibly torn out of your system, not if a specific application tries to "block" it.
- chasing0entropy 1y agoProbably no more than explorer.exe (i.e. internet explorer integration) can be torn out of windows.
- ziml77 1y agoexplorer.exe is the graphical shell and file browser...
- keyringlight 1y agoWith windows I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to helpfully 'repair' it after any given update, similar with a lot of the privacy tweakers you can find. Then it becomes a monthly task after patch Tuesday to confirm your system is how you want it.
- TiredOfLife 1y agoBy not turning it ON.
- partiallypro 1y agoRecall is off by default, it's no more enabled on a clean install than Hyper-V. I think the idea is actually very good, but obviously the privacy concerns are not great. Microsoft has made a lot of changes from what I've seen to allow you to block it on x, y, z, etc.
- contextfree 1y agoIt's off by default but still present on the system. You can remove it entirely via the "Turn Windows features on and off" dialog.
- fsflover 1y ago
- CommenterPerson 1y agoAnother way to use up disk space and push cloudification. In addition to all the concerns already listed.
- dsego 1y agoYou would think a trillion-dollar company could use its resources to build something useful and move the technology forward with something like a new file system with versioning or a global file system, or updates that don't require a restart, maybe immutability of some sort, something useful for a change. Instead their breakthrough feature is a tool that takes a screenshot every few seconds and fills up the drive space, sigh. And they even couldn't get that right on the first try, the first version was a privacy nightmare.
- Aerroon 1y agoI think Recall could very easily be useful. The problem is that Microsoft has trampled on people's trust so much that they don't trust this new tool and probably never will. Microsoft has poisoned the well.
- timpera 1y agoPretty cool move, it's great to give users the choice. I'm personally very excited for Recall, but unfortunately it's still not available in the EU.
- whilenot-dev 1y ago...unfortunately? I consider it privacy nightmare, especially since Windows is so widespread in the enterprise space in Europe. What is exciting about it for you?
- timpera 1y agoI think it's going to be really useful for me, but I get that it's not for everyone! If it's opt-in, on-device, and encrypted, I don't see it as a problem.
- r33b33 1y agoGood, fuck that infection.
- IG_Semmelweiss 1y agoI'm on Brave 1.80.122 (Official Build) (64-bit) Chromium: 138.0.7204.157 I can't find this option under brave://settings/privacy Why is that ?
- mminer237 1y agoIt's starting in 1.81.
- Vinnl 1y agoRelated: By Default, Signal Doesn't Recall https://signal.org/blog/signal-doesnt-recall/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-doesnt-recall/
- 5350-uiop-1130 1y agomaybe they are already doing recall quietly for years. wikileaks was 15 years ago. tech has come long way.
- csmantle 1y agoA side note: there's a group policy "Allow Recall Enablement" that, it claims, when disabled "the Recall component will be in disabled state and the bits for Recall will be removed from the device". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/manage-recall#allow-recall-and-snapshots-policies https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/...
- stainablesteel 1y agomicrosoft is just malware at this point, it's intelligence gathering to spy on people how is this even legal?
- arunc 1y agoIt is about investors vs users. Microsoft chose you know who.
- throwawayoldie 1y agoThey have shitloads of money, which they use to bri--sorry, "lobby" politicians.
- constantcrying 1y agoI am so glad that every time Microsoft comes up with another insane thing to make their users hate them I do not need to care, as I am running Linux on my Desktop and Laptop. Good on Brave for doing this, but having to continually deal with these absurd Microsoft manufactured problems has to get exhausting.
- jksflkjl3jk3 1y agoI can never understand how anyone with an interest in tech hasn't switched to Linux for their personal desktop/laptop at some point in the last 20+ years. Why would you want to use a closed source OS controlled by a corporation with a past as checkered as Microsoft's?
- giancarlostoro 1y agoPersonally I still hold that if Microsoft made an OS that is stripped down with only true essentials, I would go back to Windows. Until then, Linux is my home, outside of work or my dedicated Windows device (a Surface laptop) which I rarely if ever need to bust out to do something. My last hurdle which I kind of sucked up was Discord, I was holding off on it for ages, till I got irritated enough with Windows to ignore it. It didn't let me stream with audio, but when they switched from 32-bit to 64-bit it seems Linux finally got streaming with audio.
- shevis 1y agoGaming. Linux gaming has come a long way (especially thanks to the steam deck) but the vast majority of games are still only released on Windows.
- freeone3000 1y agoRight, but thanks to Proton that’s just not relevant? Blue Prince, Clair Obscure, Lost Records, The Alters, Doom: The Dark Ages, Oblivion Remastered, South of Midnight… all run just fine on Steam on linux.
- trashface 1y agoIf you have older hardware and play older games, Proton often doesn't run those as well as windows on the same hardware. On my laptop (win10/ubuntu dual boot, about 6 years old) windows is significantly faster in every game I have tried. I also had to do a futzy ad-hoc binary search to find a proton version that works with one game (either fallout 3 or fallout new vegas, can't remember which). And proton generally crashes more.
- account-5 1y agoWhat are the prerequisites hardware-wise for Recall? If it's the case you need certain hardware for it to run properly then not having that hardware is a good migration.
- Weryj 1y agoIt's wild that applications now need to defend themselves against OS 'features'.
- mmcnl 1y agoThey don't need to. It's performative virtue signalling. Recall is encrypted, opt-in and on-device. Apple Intelligence sends your personal data to the cloud and claims it's a feature and no one bats an eye.
- Yolopix 1y agoI'm tired of all these apps using Recall as a lazy way to create pointless "privacy improving" features. This is pure marketing and there is absolutely no actual intention of improving user privacy. As far as I know, Recall has never been enabled by default on any Windows-PC, even the new "Copilot+ PCs", so this should not be a concern as users have to explicitely opt-in to enable this privacy-invading feature. First it was Signal which pretended being "forced" to create such a feature. I love Signal but I found this absolutely ridiculous. Preventing a Window to be seen by other programs has the side-effect of making it completely invisible when using Windows remotely with tools such as Sunshine. How am I supposed to use Brave or Signal if the setting to disable this feature is not accessible because I can't even see the settings screen first? HN really loves making Microsoft (especially Windows) appear even worse as it already is...
- Eggpants 1y agoCool story bruh. It was initially enabled by default and by design had intern level security. Microsoft has earned, many times over, its hate.
- mmcnl 1y agoIn a beta that was never released to the public.
- skaul 1y ago(disclaimer: I lead privacy at Brave and wrote the article) > How am I supposed to use Brave or Signal if the setting to disable this feature is not accessible because I can't even see the settings screen first? Brave's implementation shouldn't block screen readers or screenshot tools. It only blocks Recall. See the blog post: https://brave.com/privacy-updates/35-block-recall#disabling-recall-without-disabling-all-screenshots https://brave.com/privacy-updates/35-block-recall#disabling-...
- mmcnl 1y agoYou are absolutely right. Most people here are probably commenting from their MacBooks while their personal information is being sent to the cloud by Apple Intelligence and somehow that's fine. Both Brave and Signal are seeking attention by doing performative active that do absolutely nothing to increase the privacy of the end user. Recall is already opt-in. It's fully on-device, nothing gets sent to the cloud (unlike Apple Intelligence which gets no hate at all but is worse because it sends your data to the cloud). You can disable Recall for specific apps at the OS level. Both Brave and Signal add a feature that already exists at the OS level and then write ludicrous attention-seeking blog posts about it. Why? If you don't trust the OS to honor your settings and not spy on you, then you should consider the device compromised and you shouldn't be using it anyway. And if you're somehow still using it, why would you enable Recall on a device that you don't trust? That scenario simply doesn't exist, yet both Brave and Signal fail to mention that in their blog posts they write to gain internet points on communities like HN.
- RankingMember 1y agoI hope Brave considers eventually removing the crypto aspect from their product, because once all that crap is turned off it's my preferred browser. Just hard to recommend to anyone not savvy enough to turn all the goofy stuff on their "new tab" page off.
- modzu 1y agojust get a better new tab page: https://github.com/conceptualspace/yet-another-speed-dial https://github.com/conceptualspace/yet-another-speed-dial
- RankingMember 1y agoThe problem is that needing to direct a non-techie to do this to "fix" something that shouldn't be broken immediately makes it fail the "grandma test".
- modzu 1y agoif someone cant click "install" they probably dont need a computer
- mzajc 1y agoI'd argue that blindly clicking "install", especially for extensions, is one of the reasons you shouldn't use a computer. It takes knowledge and effort to find or even invent solutions to problems.
- modzu 1y agothats my point. its a skill everyone should have or develop, like reading or writing
- hbn 1y agoThis is only tangentially related, but I just started using Brave (on Windows) in the past couple weeks in preparation for uBlock Origin being blocked in Chrome. Once I disabled all the weird service integrations/upsells it's been a decent enough experience. But the one bizarre thing I've found is typing in the YouTube comment box is laggy as hell for some reason. No other text field that I've found has this issue, just the YouTube comment box in particular is super laggy in Brave. Has anyone else experienced this?
- ConceptJunkie 1y agoI've been using Brave since forever and comment on YouTube a fair bit and have never experienced this. There are a few instances where I had to go to another browser to make a website work, but even those have become vanishingly small. Could it be an extension?
- hbn 1y agoYeah, I suppose I'll have to play the disable-one-extension-at-a-time game. It's one of those issues that's so infrequent and just tolerable enough because it's not like I'm writing essays in youtube comments, it's easier to just tolerate it for 10 seconds than to put the effort into figuring it out!
- mp3geek 1y agoFirst I heard of this. do you have any other extensions installed? Is HW acceleration enabled?
- isomorphic- 1y agoObligatory reminder that Brave has been caught doing nefarious things such as 1) injecting cryptocurrency affiliate links into your pages; 2) installing paid VPN software without consent; 3) injecting their own ads into pages; 4) scraping and reselling data; 5) their website taunts browsers that use Mozilla user-agents; 6) and more. With that sort of immoral development team, I wouldn't trust their browser or products.
- gloosx 1y agoAn important feature of the Microsoft corporation – weak respect for customers and greed.
- meatjuice 1y agoGood, now block Windows entirely.