Brave is a promising free open-source browser based on Chromium. It appeared in 2016. The creators of Brave say that it is aimed at ensuring privacy. Talented programmer Brendan Eich, creator of the Javascript language and co-founder of Mozilla leads the Brave team. The idea behind the Brave browser is to effectively rid people of intrusive ads and the constant collection of user data. Brave is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
How Ads Work
Brave has an ad blocker enabled by default. Most likely, you won’t even notice its presence unless you compare it to another browser. Moreover, you can enable additional ad filters by typing “chrome: // adblock /” in the address bar (also available in the Brave ad-blocking menu).
Brave critics say it is controversial to cut all ads radically. Many sites exist by serving ads. And as a result, they do not charge readers. Is it right to deprive website developers of the opportunity to recoup their costs?
The creators of Brave offer their concept of showing and accepting ads. In short, the user can receive a little money from viewing ads, but not in dollars or euros, but BAT tokens. The creators of Brave call this “a reward.” Tokens are deposited in the registered virtual wallet. It is already built into the browser, so you just need to activate it. You can spend tokens from this wallet to support your favorite sites. However, it is only possible if the owners of these sites have the status of registered authors.
Brave Shields
In the upper right corner of the browser, there is a button with three horizontal stripes. Press it, then select “Settings” from the menu, and then in the left column go to “Protection.” The security options that are present there are called “shields.” Some of them are the following:
- They can block hidden trackers. A tracker is a small element of a web page that collects information about user actions. Sometimes trackers are useful and desirable, for example, for website builders to collect statistics about visits. But from the user’s point of view, this is, in simple terms, surveillance. There are useful browser extensions that detect and block trackers, such as Privacy Badger. And the Brave browser has its own built-in tracker blocker. This option may also affect the display of banner ads since some of them contain trackers.
- It can upgrade connections to HTTPS. If there is an HTTPS version for the site, but because of admins the redirection to this version does not occur, Brave will perform this task itself. For regular browsers, automatic redirects can be achieved by installing the HTTPS Everywhere extension.
Wayback Machine Integration
An interesting feature of the Brave browser is its integration with the popular Wayback Machine service. If, while surfing the web, you came to a missing (deleted) page, Brave will kindly offer you to use the Internet archive and see if the page you need is there. Of course, some add-ons can do it independently, but in Brave, you only need to press the orange button “Check for a saved version” once.