Brave is presenting its novelty in terms of privacy and security for its web browser for both desktop and Android, being a pioneering function since up to now no other well-known web browser on the market has this protection mechanism.
Starting with version 1.54, the Brave browser will allow advanced users to determine which websites can access local network resources and for how long, noting that major web browsers allow websites access to local network resources. local network without any type of protection or restriction, exposing the privacy and security of users at risk.
To prevent network port scans and other unwanted access
This is something that comes from afar, from times in which there was not the level of interest in protecting the privacy of users as it is now, so that web browsers have not come to make distinctions between their own resources. of the web and third-party resources belonging to other public websites with respect to local resources.
This has led to the appearance of a list of websites that came to perform port scans and searches for other locally hosted items on users’ devices even without warning or even asking permission.
And it is that, as indicated from Brave:
Many popular websites query your local network, often as a fingerprinting technique; others do it to observe and possibly exploit information from other software running on your machine.
From Brave, some of the benign uses stand out, such as its use by cryptocurrency wallets or security software, but also malignant ones, giving as examples the fingerprinting scripts to carry unique patterns to other software that run locally or the scripts looking for vulnerable software.
The controls come initially for advanced users
In this way, with the Brave browser in its new version, websites will no longer have it as easy to access local resources as they do with the resources available throughout the web, arriving by default for all users, with advanced users being the ones who will be able to control these aspects from now on, keeping other users protected.
Brave is also working to implement a new approach to protect users from websites that abuse local network resources, which will be divided into several parts, and will also be implemented soon.
And also, they will do pedagogy about local host resources so that other users can understand it in a simple way before taking the controls to them so that they can use them without the need for them to be advanced users.
More information: Brave
