Users cant install Brave Browser and Extensions in Brave in countries where Brave.com is blocked by Govt/ISP

NaaeemMalik commented 2 years ago

Description

brave.com is blocked in Pakistan by dictators to not allow freedom of speech or anything, and it might be blocked in some other countries as well, but those people can open github.com, and not even people on reddit know that it can be downloaded from https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/ and they are suggesting third party websites which can have malware in them. so should I mention that link in downloads section?

people here are also unable to install extensions in Brave since I think brave needs to make connection to brave.com to get proxy data but it cant receive that so it says extension failed to install so to fix that I think we can make brave use no proxy if it cant access brave.com and this check is made every time when brave is started so if user changes ISP or country he can access it using proxy again. also nor Brave News neither any other feature works that depends on brave.com .

Brave Browser automatic Updates work thought. so it updates version number whenever updates are released.

Steps to Reproduce

set a system proxy that blocks brave.com and related sites
search Brave on google, like most people do, you are unable to open brave.com to install browser.
open Brave, try to install chrome extensions and you wont be able to. unless you download extension from other browser and install in Brave or maybe like reddit user suggested use a VPN

Expected result:

user can install brave if he opens GitHub repo and install extensions without VPN or downloading from other browser

Reproduces how often:

big problem.

Brave version (brave://version info)

all versions I have tried since 2 years. currently on Version 1.44.112 Chromium: 106.0.5249.119 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Version/Channel Information:

all channels probably

Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? YES
Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel? Not Sure
Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel? Not Sure

Other Additional Information:

Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome? NO, these features work in chrome and other browsers.

NaaeemMalik commented 1 year ago

@bsclifton I don't know who to tag here so I'm tagging you guys @bridiver @kim0 @mattmcalister @pes10k

pes10k commented 1 year ago

I think thats a fine idea, as long as we link to the corresponding release in github (i.e., we dont want someone trying to download stable downloading the nightly release off github).

Including @diracdeltas too, since we've had discussions on reducing the number of places you can download brave from, to make it easier to know which sources are legit and trusted, and which are possibly malicious

NaaeemMalik commented 1 year ago

yes, we can do that, if you guys are maintaining a version on your website, you can maintain one on github as well probably :)

we also need to figure out chrome extension support as well bcz after installing Brave people would still not be able to download extensions bcz your VPN doesnt work as well

NaaeemMalik commented 1 year ago

if we only change version in this url we can probably keep one url for every platform on GitHub https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/v1.46.144

NaaeemMalik commented 1 year ago

@rebron @mattmcalister @bridiver

brave / brave-browser