Brave

New research from Citizen Lab uncovers "AdFection," a zero-click spyware attack delivered through targeted ads — simply viewing an ad can be enough to infect a device. The report implicates Discover-Tech, whose ads appeared across 120,000 websites and 75,000 apps from March to June 2026 and delivered spyware to at least 45 devices at Al Jazeera between 2024 and 2025.

Brave amplified the findings on X, noting the ads can identify or track users whenever they load. Google has since cut off Discover-Tech's access to its ad platforms and IAB Europe suspended it from its vendor list, but Brave argues these actions don't fix the systemic vulnerabilities — third-party code running from ads and data-rich ad auctions — that enabled the spyware to spread.

Brave announced that Leo chats with the open-weight GLM 5.3 Flash model are now end-to-end encrypted and run inside attested, NVIDIA-backed Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) operated by NEAR AI. The browser encrypts each prompt on-device using Oblivious HTTP (OHTTP), so only the attested TEE can decrypt it — neither Brave nor NEAR AI can read chats, and history stays on-device.

• Before any prompt leaves the browser, the TEE must present hardware-signed attestation verifying the hardware, model, and auditable code — cryptographic proof rather than a privacy promise.
• The encrypted prompt travels through Brave's open-source AI Gateway, which also hides the user's IP address from NEAR AI.
• The feature is available in Brave Release, Beta, and Nightly, building on Brave's earlier "Verifiably Private" work from November 2025.
• Brave's senior privacy researcher Ali Shahin Shamsabadi framed the launch as shipping "an answer in production" to proving an AI system is private — describing Leo chats as traveling "like a sealed letter" that only a verified NVIDIA TEE run by NEAR AI can open.
• NEAR Foundation AI director Cameron Dennis celebrated that NEAR AI is now available to Brave's 128M+ monthly active users; Brave also retweeted coverage of the launch from Thurrott alongside messages from NEAR Protocol and co-founder Illia Polosukhin.

Brave v1.96 on Android adds new controls for tab groups under Settings > Tabs and Tab groups. Users who dislike the feature can now disable it entirely, while those who keep it get new customization options in the same menu.

• The new settings are rolling out over the next few days, so some users may not see them yet.
• Brave announced the change on X, describing it as a response to both users who want tab groups and those who don't.

NEAR Protocol posted a recap of its partnership with Brave, stating that Brave Wallet chooses NEAR Intents and Brave Leo chooses NEAR AI, under the tagline "Brave chooses NEAR." Brave retweeted the post, which links to Brave's blog posts detailing both integrations.

• The Wallet integration lets users swap across Bitcoin, Solana, Zcash, Cardano, and EVM chains via NEAR Intents without bridges or manual gas handling.
• The Leo integration deploys the assistant's LLMs on NEAR AI's NVIDIA-backed Trusted Execution Environments, adding cryptographically verifiable privacy that surfaces as a "Verifiably Private" label in the browser.

The tweets recap integrations announced over recent releases rather than introducing new features.

Brave is joining as a core sponsor for Breakpoint 2026, Solana's flagship conference, set for November 15-17 at Olympia London — the event's first edition in the UK. The announcement came via a post from Solana Spaces on X, which Brave retweeted.

• Breakpoint 2026 sponsor list also includes Jito, Phantom, Alchemy, Pyth, Metaplex, and WalletConnect, among others.
• Last year's Breakpoint in Abu Dhabi drew more than 7,200 attendees from over 100 countries.

Brave News can now be opened directly in the browser's Sidebar. Users click the newspaper icon in the sidebar to pull up their custom, private news feed at any time without navigating to the New Tab Page.

• The feature was a long-standing user request, tracked as issue #29147 in Brave's browser repository.
• Brave announced the arrival in a post on X, showing the sidebar news panel in action.
• The change adds Brave News to the existing set of sidebar panels alongside Leo, Favorites, Reading List, and Playlist.

Brave's desktop update (v1.96) now shows math equation answers directly in the address bar suggestions when Brave Search is the default search engine. Typing an equation into the browser bar returns the calculated result alongside the suggestion, and the same calculations appear when searching on search.brave.com.

• Addressing the same theme, v1.96 also introduced equation rendering in the AI assistant Leo, letting it display math formulas in chat responses.
• The update bundles the new math handling across the address bar, Brave Search, and Leo in a single desktop release.

Brave replied to a user report on X saying a fix would be out in a few hours, linking to a new commit in the EasyList filter-list repository. The commit, "Update Playables," adds a rule to custom-lists/youtube-playables.txt that hides YouTube's "Playables" horizontal card list on youtube.com.

The change extends the existing filter that removes YouTube's Playables section for users running Brave's content-filtering lists. It's a small filter update rather than a browser release, and addresses the specific rendering case the user flagged.

Brave v1.95 for Android adds dynamic color support, letting the browser's theme match the device's color palette. Users can enable it under Settings > Appearance > Dynamic colors.

• The update also brings stability improvements, better layouts for large screens, and an updated rating prompt that lets users opt out of future review requests.
• The release was highlighted in a retweet by software comparison site AlternativeTo.
• Brave is also rolling out a separate desktop release with Leo conversation sharing.

Brave v1.95 on desktop adds the ability to share Leo conversations with others via a generated link. Shared conversations are encrypted and can only be decrypted by the recipient through the link — Brave says only the sharer and the person given the link can read the content.

• Click the Share icon at the top right of a conversation, then "Generate link" to copy it to the clipboard.
• Shared conversations expire after 7 days; users can unshare any conversation under "Manage shared conversations" via the three-dot menu.
• The feature ships in v1.95 on desktop and has drawn attention from software comparison site AlternativeTo.