New ask Hacker News story: Enabling Media Router by default undermines Brave's privacy claims
Enabling Media Router by default undermines Brave's privacy claims 2 by noguff | 0 comments on Hacker News. So, Brave now enables Casting by default on desktop — and does so silently, without explicit notification or consent after an update? What fresh hell is this? A browser that markets itself as privacy‑first should not be turning on a network discovery feature by default as if it were a trivial setting. If the Brave team’s operational goal is to expand the browser’s attack surface (more than they already have) they’ve made a strong start. Forcing users to manually opt out of Media Router to protect their systems and data directly contradicts the principle of “privacy by default.” This is exactly the kind of behavior many users left Chrome to avoid. Media Router is not a harmless convenience toggle. Under the hood, it relies on automatic device discovery protocols such as SSDP and UPnP on the local network. That means the browser is actively participating in multicast discove...