// ITS FOSS — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
Linux Users Get This For Free! Brave Origin Costs $59.99 For Everyone Else
Origin is Brave's stripped-down browser, built for people who never touch most of what the company packages with Brave Browser. It drops the AI assistant, the rewards program, the crypto wallet, and the VPN, leaving the ad and tracker blocking in place.
Don't let that fool you into thinking that this is some half-baked browser; you still get regular security upgrades, Chromium-specific patches, and general browser updates.
Though, for most users, Brave Origin costs $59.99 for a one-time license purchase for use across Windows, Android, macOS, and iOS. However, people running a Linux distro on their computer do not have to pay a dime or sign up for an account.
Announcing Origin earlier this month, Brave explained that they:
I wanted to see for myself what Brave Origin was about while also comparing it to their flagship offering. So, would you like to come along as I explore it? 🤓
The first thing Origin showed me was a choice built right into onboarding; pay for a license to support Brave, or proceed for free since I was on Linux. I went with free, and right after came the usual first-time setup screens.
First came the prompt to set it as my default browser.
Next came the request to import settings from other browsers, offering to pull bookmarks, extensions, and saved passwords over from whatever browser Brave found on the system (Firefox in my case).
After that came the reporting of crashes or freezes (aka Stability) dialog; basically some telemetry that would be sent over to Brave when Origin behaved erratically during use.
Those were the only things asked of me during onboarding, and I started browsing right away. Brave Search is the default here, same as any other Brave install, though it can be swapped out for something else if you prefer something like DuckDuckGo or Ecosia.