Earlier this year, the former CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich launched Brave, a browser with a radically new concept. Available for Windows, Mac, Linux Android and iOS, Brave promises faster load and better privacy.
The USP of Brave is the built-in ad blocker. However, it doesn’t eliminate the ads completely, instead, it replaces the ads with ads from Brave’s own network. If the user agrees to see the replaced ads, he will be paid in bitcoin. Yes, you read that right; you can get paid to surf web!
So how does this actually work? The ads replaced by Brave are from its own network, hence are faster and safer. These ads do not affect the performance and are inserted in a few standard size spaces, and are targeted anonymously. These ads do not include tracking feature, hence you need not worry about your privacy.
Of the revenue made from showing their own ads, Brave will take only 15% cut, while the websites who publish these ads get 55%, Brave’s ad matching company gets 15%, the user gets the rest 15%, which will be paid in Bitcoin.
Brave deposits the money in the user’s bitcoin wallets. The user needs to verify his identity to claim this fund. In case the user does not verify his identity, his share of funds will automatically be donated back to the sites he frequents the most.
Instead of replacing the ads, you can have them completely eliminated. However, the user has to pay a fee to Brave for total ad removal. The user can either pay out of his pocket or through the bitcoin earned through ad replacement.
Coming to its performance, Brave is surprisingly good even though it’s in a primitive stage. Pages with many ads and junk such as eBay and Amazon load instantly when compared to Firefox and Chrome. According to Brave, the browser revs up the speed by 60%. The increase in speed on mobile devices is 4x, consuming less battery and data.The User Interface is very simple and many basic menus are missing. However, its flaws can be brushed aside given that development only started around January of this year. The extensions and plugins work pretty well, thanks to its Chromium base. With that said, there is much room for improvement.
The User Interface is very simple and many basic menus are missing. However, its flaws can be brushed aside given that development only started around January of this year. The extensions and plugins work pretty well, thanks to its Chromium base. With that said, there is much room for improvement.
Last week, Brave announced that it has raised $4.5 million to fuel its growth. The company is planning to release version 1.0 of the Brave browser in September. The developer version is now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
