Brave Browser 1.59 is here with security and crash fixes

Brave Browser 1.59 is the new desktop version of the Chromium-based web browser. The release revamps the main menu of the browser, introduces a few new options and fixes security issues and crashes next to that.

The new version is in distribution already and most installations of Brave Browser on the desktop should receive it automatically.

You can check the version by selecting Menu > Help > About Brave. The browser runs a check for updates when the page is opened. It should download and install any new version that it finds during the check automatically.

Brave 1.59

Brave 1.59 is a smaller release. The official release notes divide the changes into different groups as usual.

The new browser version updates Chromium to 118.0.5993.70, which means that security issues are patched in the new version. Google launched Chrome 118 recently, which is based on that. The company addressed 20 security issues in the Chrome release.

Brave engineers have fixed several crashes in the browser. One crash occurred when users loaded an internal page, brave://optimization-guide-internals, another when users added scriptlet injection filters with too many arguments.

As far as other privacy and security changes are concerned, Brave 1.59 improves the browser's debouncing service. Bounce tracking protection was introduced in 2021 in Brave Browser. It is designed to protect users from so-called bounce tracking or redirect tracking methods. The main idea behind bounce tracking is load tracking domains when users navigate that redirect users to the original destination.

Brave Browser will also block "onion" domain subresource requests in non-Tor contexts now. Brave supports Tor, which users may enable by selecting Menu > New Private Window with Tor, or through the keyboard shortcut  Alt-Shift-N.

Onion domains and subresources should only be loaded in Tor mode, and this fix prevents subresources from being loaded outside of the mode.

The Linux version of Brave Browser comes with improved password storage backend detection logic in the new version.

Brave 1.59 other changes

The integrated Wayback Machine feature has a now "don't show again" checkbox in the new browser version. It replaces the button and helps minimize miss-clicks according to Brave.  Brave suggests to load an archived copy of a webpage if it can't be reached, for instance if the server is down.

Brave Browser 1.59 has a refreshed main menu, which features icons now. All Chromium-based browsers move to this new main menu design.

Brave VPN users may now enable WireGuard in the settings by loading brave://settings/system.

Closing Words

Brave Browser 1.59 is a light update for the web browser. It is still important, as it addresses security issues and crashes. Brave Software has laid off 9% of its workforce recently.

Now You: do you use Brave?

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