Blog: Brave loads popular web pages 3x to 6x faster, while using ~1/2 the memory & power, and 1/3 of data (saving you time & megabytes of data for every page load). Check out Brave 1.0’s performance vs. Chrome, Firefox, Opera, & Edge.

In 2019, Brave reached a major milestone with the release of the 1.0 version. As ever, web browsing performance is a key priority for Brave, so we set out to evaluate in detail how it stacks up against the competition and devised a methodology for doing so. In our “1.0 reviewer guide”, we summarized the significant savings Brave users can expect. In the spirit of transparency, we here present our methodology and detailed results.



For the 1.0 evaluation, we put together a comprehensive testbed, pitting Brave against Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Edge on Windows, MacOS, and Android. We use the testbed to compare these browsers across memory use, page load speed, data, and power use, as well as traditional synthetic benchmarks. We discuss in detail the methodology and techniques that we used in working out the savings we wrote about at 1.0 launch: that Brave ends up loading popular web pages 3x to 6x faster, while using about half the memory and power as well as a third of data, saving seconds of time and megabytes of data for every page load.

Read the full post here: https://brave.com/brave-one-dot-zero-performance-methodology-and-results/

What’s Brave Done For My Privacy Lately-Episode #1: Web Resource Replacements (replacing tracking code with privacy-preserving code that keeps sites working well)

This is the first in what will be an ongoing, regular series of blog posts by Pete Snyder (Privacy Researcher), describing new privacy features in Brave. This post describes work done by Research Engineer Anton Lazarev, Performance Researcher Andrius Aucinas, and CTO Brian Bondy.



Read the full post here: https://brave.com/whats-brave-done-for-my-privacy-lately-episode1/

Blog: Google and IAB’s inadequate proposals to reform Real-Time Bidding (RTB)

In June 2019, the ICO published a report on “real-time bidding” (RTB), validating the complaints and evidence submitted by Brave’s Dr. Johnny Ryan, with other privacy advocates.



The ICO gave Google and the IAB six months to submit plans to resolve the data breach. But in that time, Google and the IAB failed to make any substantial proposals to fix the problem. We have analysed their proposals in detail. They will have no material impact to reduce the ongoing data RTB data breach.



Read the full post here: https://brave.com/google-iab-reform/

Contest: VOTE FOR BRAVE in Product Hunt’s Golden Kitty Awards (Category is: Privacy-Focused Products)

The Golden Kitty Awards is an annual celebration of products, makers, and community members. Winners are selected by the community so cast your vote by nominating your favorite new products from 2019. Results will be announced January 28th, alongside our biggest global meetup to date.



Brave is running in the category titled, “Privacy Apps & Services that make Privacy a Competitive Advantage”.



Please help us win by voting for Brave in the Privacy-Focused products here: https://www.producthunt.com/golden-kitty-awards-2019/voting/privacy-focused

Interview: Brendan Eich on the Unchained Podcast (Ep. 155): “How Brave is Working to Decentralize” with Laura Shin

Brendan Eich, Founder & CEO of Brave, discusses his history in tech prior to crypto, including working at Netscape, how he created Javascript in 10 days and his short stint as CEO of Mozilla, what problems with ads Brave is trying to solve, and why Brave needs the Basic Attention Token.



Website Episode Link: https://unchainedpodcast.com/brendan-…

User Stats Update: Brave is now at 11.2 monthly active users (MAU) and 3.5 million daily active users (DAU)!

Sorry for delay — @Brave finished 2019 with 11.2M MAU & 3.5M DAU. Since then DAU has passed 3.7M DAU, and growth continues. See volunteer site https://t.co/oTK6lBmnEA for creators stats (new: https://t.co/2PBryNZDwi; need to check on methodological diffs). https://t.co/DG6JmaDwPC — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) January 18, 2020

Upcoming: Guest AMA LIVESTREAM: Thursday, Jan. 30: Priyanka Murthy, Esq., Co-Founder and CEO & Geena Dhaliwal, Co-Founder and CMO of Access79 — Discussing how Access79 is using the web to change the way we shop for fine jewelry (+ giveaway details)

Meetup: BAT Indonesia hosts BAT Cafe 25.0 meetup in Kupang, NTT, Indonesia (Jan. 31, 2020)

This is the 25th meetup of its kind in Indonesia, brought to you by Viking Karwur, Eljuno Kasih, and the rest of the BAT/Brave Indonesia crew.



If you plan to be in Kupang on the 31st, be sure to drop in to connect with other die-hard BAT fans!



Check out the Meetup.com event here.

Client Updates

Dev Channel v1.4.47

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.4.47

Beta Channel v1.3.99

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.3.99

Brave Creator Spotlight (in partnership with Everipedia)

Everipedia, a next-generation blockchain-based encyclopedia, and Brave have come together to form a partnership with the goal of promoting each other’s brands and publishers to wider audiences around the world.

Rachel Marie: gymnast, gymnastics coach, & YouTuber extraordinaire

Rachel Marie

YouTube Channel description:

“The name is Rachel Marie and I’m 20 years old! You may know me from the popular gymnastics channel – SevenGymnasticsGirls or from my old channel -1010Gymgirl.



I’ve been a gymnast from the age of 6, an acrobat from the age of 14, an avid traveler from the age of 10, and a coach since the age of 17!”

Read Everipedia’s entry on Rachel Marie here: https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/rachel-marie



Check out Rachel’s channel & subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviupxNnpvue7xQ8Qb3pEgQ

Tay Zonday on YouTube: Best known for his iconic song “Chocolate Rain”

Tay Zonday

YouTube channel description:

“I entered the worldwide spotlight with the viral song “Chocolate Rain” and have been interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel, Good Morning America, America’s Got Talent, CNN, The BBC, Comedy Central’s Tosh.0, Rachel Ray, BET, Wired Magazine and referenced on “South Pa rk,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Robot Chicken,” “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” and by celebrities like Kobe Bryant, John Mayer, Tre Cool, Kanye West, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert. You’ll also see me in Youtube videos by Rhett and Link, Shane Dawson, TotallySketch, Epic Rap Battles, The Fine Brothers, Jake Paul and more.



I’ve been lucky to work with brands including DrPepper, Intel, Intuit, Comedy Central, Firefox, Geico, Microsoft, Vizio, Hasbro, Hostess, Virgin America, NASA and Toyota.”



Read Everipedia’s entry on Tay Zonday here: https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/Tay_Zonday



Check out Tay’s channel & subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjMWn75PwKgutJQ0J3mrLbA

Brave Team Tweets

Going user-first as Brave is gets scale faster, which will knock over the publisher dominoes. Two macro trends: tracking (more than ads per se) blocking accelerating into browsers, privacy regulations messily coming into force. Cf. California emission laws + catalytic converter. — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) January 22, 2020 If Brave can get the users, the rest will follow.

Right! Plus, many pubs see high ad/tracker-blocker incidence already (IIRC, some CN properties such as Wired see 30%). Via https://t.co/YYe9LCTt8i the pub gets awards referring users to Brave, and we have a tag they can show to other blocker users to accelerate conversion & earn. — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) January 22, 2020 What are publishers seeing anyway?

We never “inject” ads into pages. Are you repeating hearsay? — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) January 23, 2020 Be careful, there’s a lot of fake news out there.

Verified Proof of Love for @brave 🙂 https://t.co/SB9JCLRiwS — Luke Mulks | lukemulks.eth (@lukemulks) January 23, 2020 Proof of Love verifies… Proof of love. <3

I’ll be in NYC next Wed-Fri (1.29-31).



DMs open if you’d like to meet re: @brave and @AttentionToken. $bat @BAT_Community — Luke Mulks | lukemulks.eth (@lukemulks) January 22, 2020 Want to chat with Luke in NYC?

Adtech / martech are out of touch with the fact that most people have blinds on their windows and locks on their doors for privacy and security.



As more 'standard practices' are exposed in the digital realm, expect people to feel disturbed and reach for digital blinds/locks. https://t.co/caKovpkLKH — Luke Mulks | lukemulks.eth (@lukemulks) January 20, 2020 Do people in the industry not think that people want privacy?

My unsolicited 0.02 regarding stronger privacy protection for clickthrough engagement event reporting:



It doesn’t get really serious until guard rails are raised and reinforced on redirects.



Preferred: cut || Kill redirect hops, & trim as many bits from the strings as possible. — Luke Mulks | lukemulks.eth (@lukemulks) January 21, 2020 Luke’s advice for a better ad world.

Redirects have become a fairly overlooked vector within the chatter, and are fairly rich/high-yield for quick/dirty data collection.



Limit the noise, and replace hops with high-integrity protocols. — Luke Mulks | lukemulks.eth (@lukemulks) January 21, 2020

But most of these things are fairly obvious.



The heart of the problem has never been a lack of technical expertise; there are a lot of extremely crafty and intelligent people in the space.



It is going to be a hard shift for the industry. Needs to happen, yesterday. — Luke Mulks | lukemulks.eth (@lukemulks) January 21, 2020

BAT Community AMAs are back 🎙️😄! Kicking off 2020 with a Guest AMA with @BlockFiZac, Founder & CEO of @TheRealBlockFi, a crypto-financial services company evolving the digital asset ecosystem by building traditional financial products for holders of cryptocurrencies. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/4HCd7zI5VR — BAT Community (@BAT_Community) January 21, 2020 Community AMAs are back!

BAT/Brave in the News

Hong Kong Free Press Promotes Brave’s BAT as a Tipping Method

The Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), a non-profit Hong Kong-based news website covering local affairs, has started promoting the Brave browser and its basic attention token (BAT) as a tipping method to support it.



Read the full text here: https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2020/01/hong-kong-free-press-promotes-brave-s-bat-as-a-tipping-method/

News You Should Know

Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained – sources

The tech giant’s reversal, about two years ago, has not previously been reported. It shows how much Apple has been willing to help U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, despite taking a harder line in high-profile legal disputes with the government and casting itself as a defender of its customers’ information.



Read the full text here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It

Mr. Ton-That — an Australian techie and onetime model — did something momentous: He invented a tool that could end your ability to walk down the street anonymously, and provided it to hundreds of law enforcement agencies, ranging from local cops in Florida to the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security.



His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.



Read the full text here.

Roaring Fans

At Konfidio we value privacy and that’s why we've verified our websites on @brave



Konfidio is now a #BraveBrowser Publisher alongside organisations like @Wikipedia, @washingtonpost, @tradingview and more than 41.000 trusted websites around the globe. https://t.co/fycmH99PbJ — Konfidio (@konfidio) January 23, 2020

I’ve been using @brave browser for few months now and that stats speak for itself. It’s cool to use Chrome only for development now without mixing history with regular browsing. pic.twitter.com/bLKSgkNrz9 — Piotr Palarz (@depalage) January 23, 2020

The number of trackers and adds that @brave reports to have blocked is almost comical. In 3 weeks of not even the most intense internet use, it blocked 111,282 of them. There is a great art work waiting to happen to translate that number of attacks into a sensory experience. — felix stalder (@stalfel) January 23, 2020

From Reddit