The next major release of the privacy-focused Brave browser will start blocking annoyances like “open in app” prompts and provide better protections against group attacks.

Invasive “open in application” pop-ups aim to take visitors into a space where the privacy-protecting features of browsers do not apply, allowing the application author to freely collect many user data.

Brave will now block this annoyance starting with version 1.49 for Windows and Android (already available on iOS since v1.44), allowing users to browse the web without unexpected interruptions.

“Brave will hide ‘open in-app’ annoyances by enabling the ‘Fanboy mobile notification list,’ maintained in part by people working at Brave,” the software developer said. informed.

Users can disable the feature from the settings menu by disabling the “Fanboy Mobile Notification List” under custom and regional filters.

Brave version 1.49 will also add protections against “pool-party” attacks that aim to persistently track users by abusing features in the implementation of browser functionality.

A pool-party attack can help attackers track their targets’ browsing behavior on the website. They require limited shared resources, or “pools”, to create secondary channels that enable tracking and bypass privacy protections in browsers.

Group attacks are powerful, ubiquitous, and convenient. Unfortunately, they seem to impact all modern web browsers, including Brave.

Although Brave has updated its defenses against these attacks in version 1.35its engineers have discovered that sites are now using alternative means to circumvent existing protections.

Another feature planned for version 1.49 is partial support for procedural cosmetic filters, which are used to specify which page elements to hide when blocking ads.

For starters, Brave supports two of the most popular procedural cosmetic filters, but there are plans to add more in future releases.

Finally, Brave version 1.50 for Android will introduce more screen attribute-based fingerprint protections to prevent sites from profiling and tracking users based on their device’s screen size.

Brave will now block trackers from accessing screen size and browser position and will report slightly different random values ​​to each site for each browser session, making persistent tracking impossible.