Network requests in Brave

Brave, like all browsers, needs to make network requests in order to fetch security and browser updates, fetch the latest tracker and ad blocking lists and resources that are required for Brave Shields, usage pings, etc. We have tests to ensure that the browser is not making unnecessary and privacy-harmful network requests and connections on start-up. We proactively investigate and stub out network requests, especially to Google.

The following requests are expected by default without the user opting into any Brave features:

1. star-randsrv.bsg.brave.com (used for STAR, our privacy-preserving telemetry system)
2. go-updater.brave.com (hosts manifests for Brave components like tracker & adblocker lists, the components are then downloaded from brave-core-ext.s3.brave.com)
3. variations.brave.com (used for Griffin)
4. usage-ping.brave.com (used for usage pings)
5. componentupdater.brave.com (Chrome components which are needed in Brave too like the list of revoked TLS certificates, proxies update.googleapis.com so that we hide users' IP addresses from Google while fetching components)
6. brave-core-ext.s3.brave.com (hosts Brave's components)
7. redirector.brave.com (proxies requests to Google, see commit)
8. updates.bravesoftware.com. (browser updates)
9. extensionupdater.brave.com (Chrome Web Store extensions installed by the user, proxied by us)