The browser's scheme rattled newspaper giants like the New York Times and Down Jones, which sent Brave a letter alleging the plan was copyright infringement. Brave responded by asserting they were not tampering with the publisher's content and promised the in-house ad network would actually pay out a more favorable revenue share.

But that payment system and ad network hasn't materialized yet, so what the desktop version does offer for now is a private, Chromium-based browser in a relatively clean-looking package (albeit with some gaps on the page). Script and ad-blocking is baked in by default in the latest version, which also catches up with the browser giants by adding spellcheck. And with a completely ad-free experience at the moment, it looks like nobody is getting paid just yet.