Brave Browser Review – Details and Features. How Good Is It?

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Originally Posted On: https://ernestsembutnieks.com/brave-browser-review/

The Brave Web Browser is the fastest browser. It takes your security & privacy to the next level. It blocks all the ads and trackers. It also gives you the option to earn by viewing the ads.

What is Brave Browser?

Brave is an unusual web browser that lets its users navigate through the internet and display content. Just like most of the web browsers, it’s also free to use. The unusual part is that it’s anti-ad and it respects your privacy. From the minute you’re going to download brave you’re not going to see a single Ad unless you want to. Although it won’t block search ads.

I noticed when people are talking about Brave they are saying – “Oh yeah…the web browser that blocks ads, I’ve heard about it.” I believe they have a bigger story behind them – It’s the web browser that brings back your Privacy. If you want to look at ads – fine. If you hate ads – fine. Turn them off. Want to block all the scripts and cookies – do it. If it’s okay with you to share that information – good, share it. That’s the whole concept. It’s the browser that gives the power back to the user. With so many companies out there that are violating your privacy, we need more companies that fight on the other side.

How do you earn from Brave Browser and how do they earn?

How do users earn from Brave Browser? How does Brave Browser make money? Users will be able to earn up to 70% of ad revenue from Brave Ads.

There are two ads variations – User Ads & Publisher Integrated Ads.

• User Ads – First of all they will be optional. If you’re not a fan of ads, block them and forget about them till the end of times, there won’t be any extra subscription fee or anything like that. These Ads will provide brands with the opportunity to communicate with their target audience while they are browsing the web. Users will receive 70% of ads revenue and 30% will go the Brave.
  
• Publisher Integrated Ads – 70% of the revenue share will go to the Verified Publishers. 15% will go to users and the remaining 15 % will go to Brave.

Note: Brave will always pay their users more or equally the same revenue share. Putting the user as number one priority.

I believe there’s a scenario for every user out there. If you like to browse content without paying – good, you can do it. If you like to contribute to the Publisher – good, you can tip your favorite website. If you like to earn a little extra passive income – good, you’re allowed to do that.

How the advertisers will be charged for Brave Ads?

Brave will start with a CPM based model. Advertisers will pay for each 1 000 impressions. As the product will move forward Brave will also offer different options of engagement with your ads.

• Payments will happen in fiat (will be transferred to BAT in the background)

The information on this is very limited. The information will be updated as soon as Brave will post more information regarding the subject.

I personally would love to see a CPS model on Brave ecosystem. You only work with publishers that bring you sales/conversions directly. I believe these kinds of campaigns make the internet less spammy. Also, I understand there are many companies and ad campaigns that wouldn’t work with this model, but I would love to see such an option.

These ads will be released in 2019.

What is Basic Attention Token?

Now that we got to know the whole Brave system, we need to understand what is BAT(Basic Attention Token) and how does it supplement Brave.

Basic Attention Token was created in order to disrupt the digital advertising space that’s been monopolized by two companies – Google and Facebook. These two companies alone receive 73% of all online ad dollars. The team behind the Basic Attention Token wants to change the current situation in the market.

Using smart contracts, advertisers send ads with a token payment in a locked state to users. When a user views the ad, they receive a portion of that token payment. The Brave browser also receives some of the token payment. The remainder of the payment goes to the publisher hosting the advertisement.

As a user, you can spend your BAT on several things in the browser including premium articles and products, donations to content providers, or high-resolution photos and data services. You can also exchange your BAT tokens to U.S Dollars or EUR and withdraw them to your bank account. The BAT ecosystem may even expand to use micropayments for comments and up/down voting in forums.

Advertising system like this is advantageous for everyone in the digital advertising space.

1. Users are able to browse the web privately again while monetizing their attention with BAT.
2. Publishers can get revenue without using advertisements on their website.
3. Advertisers receive better data on the campaigns enabling them to target their messages more effectively.

You can learn here how to buy/sell and store your Basic Attention Tokens.

How much can you earn from viewing Brave Ads?

Brave Ads have only just been released and are available only in a couple of countries, so it’s hard to make precise estimations.

The best what we can get are estimates. The CEO of Brave Brendan Eich left a comment of his estimates. Brendan estimates that when Brave Ads will be released in 2019, users will be able to earn up to $70 per year by viewing an advertisement. He also estimated if Brave continues to grow in popularity as it has, users might be able to earn $220 or even higher by the end of 2020.

Their mission is to find a fair price for users attention after blocking all the fraud, arbitrage, and abuse in the current system, using the BAT ecosystem. By default, users revenue share will flow back monthly and anonymously to each user’s top websites and content creators on YouTube, Twitch, etc. Of course, by changing the defaults you will be able to withdraw Basic Attention Tokens. Send them to your Ethereum Wallet or just turn them into U.S Dollars, Euros or whatever. Those are you Tokens you can do with them whatever you want. Your tokens, your rules.

Brave Browser Features & Details

• Browse the web faster – Brave Browser loads faster than Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, etc.
• Privacy & Security – Cookie blocking, Fingerprint blocking, Script blocking, Phishing & Malware blocking
• Ads & Ads Blocking – Block all the ads or Block all the ads that are outside the BAT ecosystem, also contains the options to allow advertisement & trackers.
• Auto-contribution – You automatically can contribute your BAT tokens to your favorite content creators. Set your monthly budget from $5-$30 and it will distribute among your favorite sites on which you spend the most time on.
• Time Saver – If you enable all Brave features – script blocking, ads blocking, etc. Websites will load multiple times faster and you will save time, each day.
• Save Money – By loading ads, you are burning your mobile data.
• Tips – Found a content that’s exceptional? You can tip the content creator.

Simply click on the BAT button at the right corner and the popup that’s displayed above will appear and you will be able to pick the tip amount and send it over to the content creator.

Activate Brave Rewards (available on desktop only) and give a little back to the websites you frequent the most. Help fund the content you love – even when you block ads. That’s the new way of the internet.
Browsing the web with Brave is free: with Brave Rewards activated, you can support the content creators you love at the amount that’s in your budget. I personally believe it’s great that you can tip content creators that give value to you without seeing any ads.

So what’s Brave’s pitch? Brave gives you a better internet experience, saves you time, pays for your attention, but most importantly it gives you the option to choose. It gives the power back to the internet user. That’s what we all want, right? Freedom to choose.

Brave Twitter Tips

On August 1. 2019 Brave announces a new feature – Tips on Twitter.

Now you can tip individual content creators on Twitter with one click. I gave it a try myself and it worked perfectly. Gave a tip to BraveSampson.

When you tip someone you will be able to share that tip and informed the other party.

This feature will only work on Brave Browser Desktop newest version. As soon as you update you will notice a Tip button with BAT logo. Simple click on it, choose the amount and confirm.

That’s how you can contribute and tip Twitter users. Let’s make Twitter great again.

What is the faster browser?

Brave Web Browser is faster than Google Chrome & Mozilla Firefox, a lot faster. If you like speed then you should consider changing your web browser and buckle up.

Brave Browser vs Google Chrome

Brave Browser vs Mozilla Firefox

BraveGoogle ChromeMozilla FirefoxCoinmarketcap0.733.653.61Buzzfeed0.62.791.12Reddit1.593.724.44NYTimes0.624.245.54

This is just a simple test to compare three different browser – Brave, Google Chrome & Mozilla Firefox.
I tested four different websites – NYTimes, Coinmarketcap, Buzzfeed & Reddit.

I used a plugin to detect how fast does the web page loads. (I tried multiple plugins, but all of the plugins had the same results)

The modern internet has spoiled me, I scrape the internet every day and the speed matters to me. If the site doesn’t load in 3 seconds I’m already pissed, so my choice is already pretty obvious. I understand that many people like their web browser and are used to it, especially the interface and that’s okay. If it works for you and has all the features that you need then that’s just fine.

These are the settings I used to measure loading time on Brave. I blocked all the ads, all cookies, fingerprinting, scripts and phishing malware.

This is the only web browser, from what I know of that gives you the option to block ads, cookies, and scripts inside the browser. Which of course increases the load time dramatically. In the test, Mozilla Firefox & Google Chrome I didn’t use any plugins that block ads, scripts, etc.

Script blocking gave the biggest increase in page load time.

Blocking scripts can be helpful to prevent websites from building your fingerprint, for instance, what device are you using, the screen size, the plug-ins, if add on support is enabled, and many times, disabling scripts neutralizes the ability of the website to scan your web activities like previous tabs opens, Java support, Flash & silver-light support… and much, much more.

Braves Extensions

Get all the extensions you had in Google Chrome. Brave offers support for nearly all extensions that are compatible with chromium.

1. Launch Brave Web Browser and open the Menu on the top-right:
2. Select More Tools ? Extensions
3. Click on Web Store

Above you have an example with my personal extensions. This is a great update from the Brave team. One of the biggest reasons why I didn’t use Brave on my Desktop was the extensions. Now that I’ve all the extensions that I need for work I don’t have a reason why I shouldn’t use it on my Desktop as well.

After you’ll install an extension a notification will appear in your screen, with details what data and permissions you are granting the extension by installing it.
Make sure you read all these messages carefully.It is up to you to make responsible/educated decisions when installing 3rd party extensions that will respect your privacy & data.

You can enable, disable, remove and view additional details/options for your installed extensions in the extension log.

Brave Browser Dark Mode

These days a lot of platforms and website offer dark mode. I can’t imagine using Reddit without the dark mode anymore, the white screen is just making me blind. So Brave developers have taken notice of this trend and created a dark mode for their browser.

Simply go to – brave://settings/

You can choose between Dark, Light and same as Windows.

As you can see in the screenshot, that’s how dark theme looks. You can of course change font size and other settings here as well.

Regarding Brave Dark Mode on Android and iOS – it’s unavailable. Although Brave development team is working on the dark mode for mobile. Both Andriod and iOS. As soon as they release it, I’ll update the blog post as well.

How many users does Brave have?

At the beginning of 2018, they only had 1 million users. At the end of it 5.5 million. That’s a 450% increase in user base over the year.

Brave currently has 20+ million downloads on Google Play.
Apple store doesn’t provide us with such details.

Brave doesn’t post information about their user base each month, so we have what we have. The last update was in January 2019.

These are just some of the Brave highlights of 2018.

Source:

Brave Twitter Account
Brendan Eich Twitter Account

With ICO the biggest problem, in my opinion, was that every project is the new big thing. Since I’ve worked in one of those projects I would know. 100K followers, but only 10 monthly active users. People were in it for the wrong reasons. Brave, on the other hand, is different – it actually has users that love their product.

Why should you pick Brave?

1. It’s faster than other web browsers.
2. You are going to save mobile data which equals money.
3. You will save time. It takes time to load ads. Now that you don’t have them anymore…
4. You will earn BAT Tokens, which also equals money.
5. It cares about your privacy.

Should you switch to Brave?

So this probably isn’t objective anymore, but just my opinion than anything else.

So now you know what is Brave, what is Basic Attention Token…so what’s the next step? In my opinion, it’s a no brainer. It’s faster. It’s private. It’s not disturbing you with ads if you don’t want to. It blocks all the trackers, so advertisers can’t follow you with ads. It’s paying you if you decided to view advertisements. I’ve been converted to Brave for more than a year and haven’t looked back ever since.

I changed my phone in February. So in two months, Brave Browser has blocked 25 935 ads & trackers. Made 5 436 https upgrades and saved me 21 minutes of my life.

On my desktop, I’ve saved 44 minutes. That’s an extra Game of Thrones episode. Brave FTW.

I believe that’s the greatest and one of the most valuable features that Brave has. I never actually thought from that kind of perspective before, that ads & trackers are actually stealing our time. They make the websites load slower and we pay for them with our time. So if you’re not a fan of ads and they are stealing 20 minutes of your time each month then maybe there’s a call for a change. Your time is valuable. Take back the control over your privacy.

I’m going to leave you a shameless affiliate link. Meaning I will gain $5 in BAT Tokens if you’re going to download it through my affiliate link and going to use it at least for a month. I’m not ashamed to admit that, it’s a great browser I’m using it myself and yes, I’m advertising it as well.
I’m also Brave Verified if you would like me to leave a tip in BAT, feel free, thanks.

Click the banner above to Download Brave Web Browser.

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