Brave Browser Review – Introduction

Brave Browser is the latest unique browser to join the ever-expanding market. In our review about Brave browser, we’ll try and see what makes it unique and why you should switch to it. Until then, let’s see what you need to know about it.

The open source and free browser from Brave Software Inc. has positioned itself as the browser that loads faster with better privacy protection. The firm was co-founded by Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and a co-founder of Mozilla. Brave keeps data safe and provides users with the power to save or delete it. It features a built-in ad tracker and blocker. Unlike most common browsers, Brave also helps to fight phishing and malware. In this Brave browser review, we’ve analyzed what are the things that makes Brave browser special – and if you wanna give it a try, you can easily download it from here.

Understanding the Brave Browser Model

Brave is a more-or-less standard browser that lets users browse, run web apps and display online content. It is free to download and use. Furthermore, they remember site authentication information. With their default ad blocking, they caused a buzz in the market. It was viewed by many as a threat to content creators. But, the fact is that some of the users can support the content creators even more this way.

The Brave Browser User Interface

Brave offers a clean and crisp interface that is intuitive to use. It has all the elements you would expect in your ideal browser. Furthermore, its individual tabs support icons for quick identification, and hovering the cursor over a tab offers details on the page in that tab without having to click on the tab and activate it.

The browser also displays statistics about the content the browser has blocked. These statistics are very useful. Furthermore, it displays photos, the current time and shortcuts to your favorite sites. Like other websites, one would expect these features to have an effect on speed. However, this is not the case. Its very easy to use, with a streamlined design and the useful option to preview the content of tabs. One of the things that made us love it even more while we were writing this Brave browser review, was the fact that they display how many hours of ad loading they saved you – pretty cool, right?

Brave Rewards System For Content Creators and Users

Content creators depend on ads to sustain their operations. However, the ads are not displayed on Brave browser. So how does this browser support online publishers?

The browser has a unique approach when it comes to compensating of creators. Rewarding is done through the Brave Ads network and user donations. Publishers are required to register with the network before qualifying for revenue. Registered publishers earn 55% of the replaced ad revenue.

Brave comes with an inbuilt BAT wallet. This wallet enables users to support their favorite websites. Users can load the wallet and allocate a specified amount of BAT to their preferred sites. The wallet can be funded through Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and BAT token. Credit card holders use payment processor Uphold. You can set a monthly budget of BAT to be automatically distributed to sites you frequently visit. You also have the power to set the percentage to be contributed. Brave users are not able to view any ads but still, support their favorite website.

For users, you can earn in BAT by browsing websites that are a part of their publishers program. If users consent to replace usual adverts, with anonymous adverts from Brave, they get paid in Basic Attention Token (BAT). A single user gets 15% of the revenue. The revenue depends on the time you spend using the browser. Brave BAT is the browser’s cryptocurrency with a real use case – helping people earn ad revenue or supporting their favorite content creators. Unlike Chrome and Mozilla, Brave is mostly users based – so people have the power to decide.

However, you have to enable Brave ads because the browser blocks all ads by default. Before receiving any payments, the BAT token wallet needs to be activated first.

For users who don’t want to support any website, they neither earn nor contribute. They enjoy fast browsing.

Is Brave a safe browser?

Yes, it actually is. Brave is way safer than Chrome and Firefox as its a privacy focused browser. The Brave Shields work to protect your PC, Laptop or mobile phone against malware & other malicious scripts. One of the things that Brave is known for is the possibility of blocking ads and trackers as well as blocking scripts. Brave is based on its BAT token, which you can earn with Brave while surfing. You have the option to earn with brave or enjoy a secure fast browsing experience.

However, Brave will never collect,store or sell any personal data about you. The data is your personal property and they have no right about it ( as per Brave’s terms of service). This is one of the reasons why million monthly active users chose Brave as their default browser. The Brave BAT is the main way Brave is making money.

One of the most important things is that the Brave browser have all these security features on default from when you install it. You don’t need to edit them or be a computer guru to solve those, they come like that since you install it. Brave also blocks ad trackers and also – you can create a private tab with tor browser, which basically makes you completely anonymous. For more details, you can check the Brave github as the entire project is open source.

Why Brave Settled For BAT

Current delivery of digital ads relies on tracking browsing history, cookies, search question, and third parties. Brave does not support these tactics. With the use of BAT, the role of intermediaries and tracking is eliminated from the inventory catalog of current ads.

Integration of BAT into the browser involves implementing BAT Ads system. The system displays ads to users based on locally stored information. With the data, ads targeting is done locally.

Their model also promotes privacy. The browsing history is kept private, as all data required for ad-matching never leaves your system.

Another thing that makes it a bit unique, the quality ads matching. Wrong ad matching is one of the reasons why some users hate ads. With BAT model, a user can select the ads he or she wants to see. The platform however, shields the anonymity of users while assuring the authenticity of their viewing.

It is, therefore, safe to say that BAT represents a fundamental rethinking of the way digital ads are delivered. By the time of writing this article, BAT had a market capitalization of $244,798,134. Compared to the dollar, BAT is valued at $0.196773.

How Is Brave Browser Funded?

Brave Software’s financial life is shrouded in privacy. However, the company managed to raise $35 million in just seconds by selling the BAT cryptocurrency to investors in their public ICO.

However, they have other revenue streams. For example, they kept a third of the 1.5 billion BATs and as starter seed for browser users’ wallets (300 million BATs). At the current BAT value, Brave’s 200 million equaled just over $70 million. The money will be channeled towards establishing a better blockchain-based digital advertising system with a strong privacy inside it.

Benefits of Brave Browser

The browser is gaining popularity. It has been viewed as the next Google chrome.It appears to be the solution to challenges that come with regular browsers. We’ve also made a Brave vs Google Chrome comparison – you can check that out too and see our unbiased opinion about them. Until then, you can check what made us write this Brave browser review and why we think you should switch to it as soon as possible.

Default Ad Blocker

Brave blocks ads automatically. Users are no longer required to search the web for a perfect ad blocker. The auto-blocking protects your device from malware and extensive tracking by advertisers. Brave is also working on a plan to replace ads that appear harmful.

Tracking ads by Brave is accurate. Users are served with the right ads because they do the tracking using local data. If an ad is irrelevant to the user, it is pulled down. You get the appropriate ads based on this model. A user’s data stays within the device since we have no third parties involved.

While the browser blocks third-party cookies, the first party cookies are not blocked by default. Users have the option to prevent or enable cookies on a given website.

However, Brave does not block ads displayed in search results. You will be able to see AdWords advertisements within Google’s results. This is because Ad blocking extensions don’t stymie search ads either.

Improved Privacy During Browsing

Blocking of malicious ads automatically allows safe browsing. Brave does not have access to identifiable user data. The anonymity aggregated ad campaign related data is used for accounting. However, this data cannot be traced back to a user’s device.

Brave also comes with additional tactics to boost privacy while browsing. The incorporation of HTTPS everywhere allows usage of web encryption whenever available.

The fingerprinting feature bars third parties from tracking your activity. This feature can be activated in the settings tab.

Brave is not as secure as Tor browser, because its based on chromium. However, its million monthly active users are pretty much happy with the privacy options offered by Brave.

Compared to popular browsers such as chrome and mozilla or even microsofts edge – Brave run way smoother than any of them and does all that while keeping the privacy of the users intact. The browsing experience is amazing, even if you have viewing ads activated.

Brave is Faster

Brave’s load speeds emerge on top. Fast browsing is supported by Brave’s lack of thirds party ads. You, therefore, have less content to download before accessing your favorite website. However, Brave’s rendering speeds is almost as good as Google Chrome and Mozilla.

You Get Paid To Browser – If You Want

The concept of getting paid for browsing has been a dream. However, Brave browser has changed the game. All you have to do is to enable Brave ads. View the ads and get 15% of the revenue. For content creators, you are supported by users who love your content. All payments are in the form of BAT tokens.

BAT payments are issued monthly and converted in USD or not converted at all – based on your choice.

If you however don’t want to earn BAT, you can make brave run without ads and get the best surfing experience. Viewing ads on Brave is not mandatory and you can make brave block ads anytime you want. Don’t believe us? Download Brave and try it out.

How Does Brave Browser Work?

You can download brave and run it on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux platforms. Users on these platforms can browse securely, and fast. It accomplishes this without using a lot of your computer’s memory. Unlike most common browsers, Brave does not use much RAM. Brave uses at least 170MB of your RAM. It is important to note that Brave is based on chromium browser. Browsers built on this platform are known to consume a lot of memory, but Braves load time & resources used are way lower than expected.

Brave’s Use of Chrome extensions

Brave is set up on the Chromium platform. Chromium is an open-source system that also powers popular browsers like Google Chrome and soon Microsoft Edge. Based on the Chromium capability, you can almost use all Chrome extensions on Brave. The extensions on Chrome can be added to Brave through the Chrome Web Store. Make sure you read messages accompanying extensions carefully. It is up to you to make responsible decisions when installing 3rd party extensions with respect to your data. You can enable, disable, remove and view additional details/options for your installed extensions in the extensions window. This is perfect, as you can import your password managers from Chrome to Brave and enjoy the best browsing experience of Brave blocking ads and trackers and blocking scripts that might harm your experience.

Pros

Interface. Brave offers a simple, clean and intuitive interface.

Speed. Based on the default ad blocker, Brave’s speed is fast.

Ad and tracker blocking. Brave’s ad-blocking is a new one in the industry.

Privacy and security. Along with its blocking features, Brave’s anti-tracking tools are among the best.

Allows Chrome extensions – such as password managers and other important ones.

Cons

Brave Rewards. Brave’s opt-in ad display and compensation program not clear to many people.

Who is Behind Brave?

The Brave browser was co-founded by Brendan Eich. He is the creator of the Javascript programming language. Brendan is also the co-founder of Mozilla, the organization behind the open-source web browser Firefox. Brandan works along with other notable names in the tech industry. We have Brian Bondy who co-founded Brave also. Yan Zhu is the Security & Privacy Engineering personnel and she formally worked with Yahoo. Scott Locklin is the current BAT Smart Contracts and Economic manager. He is also the co-founder of Kerf Software. Here are other team members behind the Brave project. The Brave team also lined up a team of advisor led by Ankur Nandwani who previously worked with leading exchange Coinbase.

Is Brave a safe browser?

Yes, it actually is. Brave is way safer than Chrome and Firefox as its a privacy focused browser. The Brave Shields work to protect your PC, Laptop or mobile phone against malware & other malicious scripts. One of the things that Brave is known for is the possibility of blocking ads and trackers as well as blocking scripts. Brave is based on its BAT token, which you can earn with Brave while surfing. You have the option to earn with brave or enjoy a secure fast browsing experience.

However, Brave will never collect,store or sell any personal data about you. The data is your personal property and they have no right about it ( as per Brave’s terms of service). This is one of the reasons why million monthly active users chose Brave as their default browser. The Brave BAT is the main way Brave is making money.

One of the most important things is that the Brave browser have all these security features on default from when you install it. You don’t need to edit them or be a computer guru to solve those, they come like that since you install it. Brave also blocks ad trackers and also – you can create a private tab with tor browser, which basically makes you completely anonymous. For more details, you can check the Brave github as the entire project is open source.

Brave Users

Since 2018, Brave browser users have grown by over 450%. Elsewhere BAT’s active users have grown from 1 million per month in January 2018 to a total of 5.5 million active users in January 2019. As seen above, Brave works along with the Basic Attention Token (BAT). In March 2019, Brave reached over 20 million downloads on the Google Play store for Android devices. With 3 million monthly active users, a great browsing experience and the fact that you can earn with Brave – we don’t see a reason why you wouldn’t download Brave and give it a try.

Web 3.0 Browser Benchmark Battle – Chrome vs Firefox vs Edge vs Brave

Over the last couple of months, Brave improved a lot. They gained more users, most of the major bugs were solved and the team is building even if the market is down. But how fast is Brave compared to other browsers? Can brave support the latest technologies? Let’s find our together.

We’ve tested Firefox, Edge, Chrome and Brave using Basemark. The results are here and it appears Brave surprised everyone.

First of all, we tested Edge. Remember, that these test are not 100% accurate and it depends from browser to browser. Edge for example, had a low score due to the fact that the test wasn’t able to run Web GL 2.0 on Edge. However, on a different laptop the test run properly and Edge got over 250 – which is a great score.

The, we give it a try with Mozilla Firefox. The contender for the first place of the most used browser did a lot better than Edge. It appears that Firefox is on his right path and the continuously building that the team does improved the browser a lot over the time.

Chrome did good too. With 255.57 points, its the best browser so far. The page load and responsiveness capabilities is the highest so far and makes it a perfect choice for the people that want to browse the internet. But what about privacy? Well, if you care about that, check below how much Brave did.

Brave actually scored 397.81. This is more than 3 times Edge did and 1.5x compared to Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Of course, the test is not 100% accurate but you can test yourself with Basemark 3.0. Brave crushed their competitors even though its built on Chromium. Brave browser worked hard on creating the best browser for any privacy enthusiasts, and the results can be seen below.

Conclusion

Brave browser is an interesting product that seeks to revolutionize the market and the digital advertising model. The browser is fast and can save up time and money. Furthermore, users can earn some extra income for browsing ads from the Brave ads service. Give it a try and download Brave from here.