Brave’s browser now blocks Microsoft Recall, but you can do it too
Image: Foundry
The niche, privacy-focused Brave browser will now block Microsoft’s controversial Recall function by default, the company said this week. But you really don’t need Brave to do it yourself, either.
Microsoft Recall is Microsoft’s otherwise useful tool for taking snapshots (or screenshots) of your Copilot+ PC, and using them as a way to hunt down scraps of information that may have been shared in chat tools, Word documents, or other places. But, paired with Windows Hello in an increasingly authoritarian world, it represents a privacy risk.
Brave, as it turns out, agrees. This week, Brave said that version 1.81 and above of the Brave browser will block Recall’s ability to save snapshots of what you view in it, by default.
Microsoft did revise Recall to try to secure it further, locking it down using a combination of BitLocker and Recall, and Brave’s blog post announcing the new program notes this. But Brave also adds that Recall is still in preview, and it’s unknown what it will look like when formally released.
“Given Brave’s focus on privacy-maximizing defaults and what is at stake here (your entire browsing history), we have proactively disabled Recall for all Brave tabs,” the Brave blog post says. “We think it’s vital that your browsing activity on Brave does not accidentally end up in a persistent database, which is especially ripe for abuse in highly privacy-sensitive cases such as intimate partner violence.”
What this means is that, if you browse the web using Brave, Recall will not record what you’re looking at and will not index it, either. However, you can toggle Recall’s ability to archive what you’re viewing in Brave via a toggle switch in the browser’s settings.
(For more on Brave, read our original Brave browser review, as well as our article on one of its killer features that swayed a PCWorld reporter.)
Brave ensures Recall isn’t watching you
In May, the communication app Signal essentially blocked Recall’s snapshot functionality. Brave takes a more standardized approach, essentially using Recall’s ability to exclude apps and websites from being recorded. (Right now, even on Copilot+ PCs, you must agree to use Recall before the feature is enabled, and Microsoft uses Windows Hello to lock down snapshots and settings.)
Mark Hachman / Foundry
In other words, you can do the same thing without Brave. Recall includes numerous settings to filter snapshots, including the ability to turn them off entirely. But you can also tell Recall to stop taking snapshots of various apps, including Google Chrome. (Microsoft Edge does not seem to be included in a list of apps that can be excluded, however.)
This means that Recall should allow you to exclude a third-party browser from being recorded by Recall. Microsoft also explicitly supports filtering websites on certain browsers (Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome) and won’t capture sites that you browse in a private mode.
Put another way, Recall already allows you to prevent Recall from taking snapshots of Brave browsing, and allows you to filter websites and private browsing while in Brave, too. But Recall stores snapshots by default. Brave automatically turns them off, another safeguard for those concerned about their online privacy.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers’ News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.
