Privacy-focused Brave Browser has seen a dramatic increase in popularity in Japan. The Android version of Brave has become the most downloaded web browser in the country. The app has been download 2 million times in August. This makes it the most installed browser app.

Google Chrome is the standard browser installed on Android phones. When it comes to third party browsers Opera and Firefox are Brave’s main competitors. In Japan people downloaded Firefox 553 thousand times, compared with 830 thousand one month earlier. Opera saw a drop of 50 percent to 1 million installs.

Brave is taking the market by storm. More than 30 million people have downloaded Brave on a variety of platforms. Brave browser blocks advertisements and tracking cookies. However it does allow users – in some countries – to watch advertisements. Consumers will then earn BAT. In turn the browser automatically donates BAT to their most visited websites. Additionally Brave users can tip BAT to content creators.

Download Brave here, and support (this) content creator(s).

Brave browser verified content creators

Content creators can only earn BAT when they are verified publishers. Currently there are more then 258 thousand content creators. Most of them are on social platforms like Youtube (183 thousand), Twitch (13 thousand) and Twitter (22 thousand). There are 31 thousand websites that are confirmed content creators in the Brave ecosystem, which includes this one.

Recently Brave announced that The Wiki Foundation has partnered with them. That means that Wikipedia is now also earning BAT in order to keep their efforts going. Other verified websites include The Guardian, Sourceforge, The Washington Post, CoinmarketCap and LA Times.

Brave serious privacy

Brave Browser is a privacy oriented web browser. It takes this label very serious. Last week one of the company’s researcher outed Google for circumventing the GDPR. Apparently Google uses a hidden page to track users despite using privacy mode.

We have uncovered a Google GDPR workaround for RTB, and have submitted evidence to @DPCIreland

Thanks @thezedwards and @lukemulks https://t.co/1wrtfjw4La — Johnny Ryan (@johnnyryan) September 4, 2019

However, keep in mind that Brave’s main competitor is Google. Their Chrome browser has 53.9 percent of the entire market. On mobile devices this percentage is even greater, 65.2 percent. Therefore it makes sense for Brave to portray Google has ‘the bad guy’ and offer internet users an alternative with Brave.

Brave Browser allows users greater control over their privacy. It blocks advertisements. It’s generally faster than Google Chrome. And on top of all this it allows consumers to get an easy introduction into cryptocurrencies.

Also published on Medium.