Brave Browser

The Brave browser is developed by 11 specialists led by Brain R. Bondy and co-founder of Mozilla Project, Brendan Eich. It was announced just last year on Jan. 20, 2016, with a promise to block ads and trackers. The browser’s code is based on the Chromium and Chromium’s Blink engine, which means that you’ll see those familiar Google Chrome settings.

At the top most right of the browser, you’ll see Brave’s icon, the orange lion head. Clicking that will give you a drop-down menu where you could see the option to toggle on and off its built-in ad blocker and other features.

In the past several months, Adobe and anti-ad blocking firm PageFair saw an increase of users installing ad blockers by 11 percent than last year and I could not blame them (I use an ad blocker, too).

Before, ads were not a problem. But somehow, greedy marketers began to abuse online advertising that they would go to lengths of tracking a person’s online activity by subtly inserting files and super-cookies in their browsers.

Several types and forms of ads also began to surface (pop-ups, interstitials, etc.) to the point that they became annoying. In fact, some even promoted illegal activities and pornography.

On top of that, users living in countries with average and slow internet speed could not immediately load a content due to the fact that ads also contribute to the slowness of the site’s loading speed.

Eventually, online advertising became like a zoo.

And that’s what the lion Brave browser wants to solve: giving internet browsing a breath of fresh air by offering users safer and faster experience.

This is what intrigued me about Brave – a browser that has a built-in ad blocker and with privacy protection features. Brave has integrated, by default, essential privacy features that could only be used as either add-ons (for Firefox) or as extensions (for Chrome). One of these features is the ever useful HTTPS Everywhere.

In Brave’s Settings, you can toggle on and off HTTPS Everywhere at the Shields section. You can also choose to block phishing and malware attempts (which is important), block scripts, and enable or disable browser fingerprint protection.

There is also an Ad Control where you can show ads from Brave, block ads, or allow ads and tracking. In the Cookie Control, third-party cookies are blocked by default with options to allow and block cookies altogether.

Head to Privacy section and you get options to delete browsing history, download history, cached images and files among others. What is more, they also have their own built-in password manager where you can save your passwords for each site you log in.

Brave’s commitment is appealing to users who want to get rid of those annoying and intrusive advertisements and those who value privacy. Clearly, the developers had its users in mind when they created Brave.

However, a lot of website owners and publishers were not happy with the idea. You see, website owners depend on the revenue they get from ads (that includes TechnoChops). No ads mean no revenues.

And by default, Brave will always block ads, though you have a choice to turn on or off its ad blocking feature. Brave almost completely eliminates online ads in order to fulfill their promise of protecting their user’s privacy.

This spells a problem for publishers because, again, no ads mean no revenues. It’s from these revenues that publishers are able to pay for their monthly expenses.

Now, how would then publishers generate revenue from people who use Brave since their ads are blocked by default? This is what sets Brave apart from other browsers.

Brave has a program called Brave Payments. It is an online wallet for users.

Every month, you allocate money which will be divided among the publisher site you visited, provided that they are a part of the program. It’s also optional, which means that it’s up to you if you want to contribute to your favorite website or not.

If you do not contribute, there’s no problem. You can still use Brave for free and see no ads.

I must tell you that Brave really loads fast. In fact, I feel it’s faster than Chrome and Firefox.
What I love about Brave is that** it shows you the statistics of the number of trackers that were blocked, ads blocked, https upgrades, and the total estimated time you have saved every time you use the browser on a day.**

I like the fact that they have a few built-in password managers. Somehow, it makes me feel that they value my personal data.
Brave’s ad blocker is good. I was able to use the functionality of a site without it sending me a warning that I am using an ad blocker.

But I just wonder how Brave would stack up against Chrome and Firefox after its official release. Who knows. For the meantime, I’ll ditch Chrome and Firefox and explore the net with the king of the jungle.