We use the Internet every day and tend to settle for the default browser. We use Chrome because it is the one that comes installed, but there are many more browsers with advantages, great speed, mimprovements in privacy and security. One of them is Brave Browser available for all kinds of devices and operating systems, a web browser that protects us from tracking or rewards us for seeing ads.
Brave Browser ensures that the most important thing is to “return power to the user” and that is why protects from trackers or give rewards for viewing selected ads that respect privacy. It also rewards content creators for their work. We explain here what it is, where it is downloaded and what its characteristics are.
What is
Brave is a completely free and open source browser for computers or mobile phones that stands out for its privacy and speed. In addition, it allows you to get rewards for viewing ads and donating those publisher rewards to reward your content. A browser that you can download on any operating system and that even allows you to use Tor to browse the Internet. Recommended if you are looking for a fast and different browser with a curious system of payment for ads.
In addition, it is compatible with all extensions and themes that you use in Chrome, since it uses the Chromium open source code so there is no problem to download the Chrome web store add-ons and use them in the browser.
Applications
It is compatible with computers operating system Linux, Mac or Microsoft. But you can also download Brave for iOS and Android phones and tablets. It’s compatible with windows 64-bit, with Windows 32-bit, with macOS Intel, with macOS ARM64 and with linux. Just go to the official website and tap on “Download Brave” so that your compatible version is chosen and you can start using it.
In the Google Play Store you can download Brave Private Browser or its “Nightly” version
In App Store you can download it for iPhone and iPad for free.
Characteristics
It stands out for loading quickly, for good privacy and security, and for protecting against ads.
Speed
Brave is much faster than other browsers you use on a daily basis. Its own creators boast and ensure that it loads the most important news sites up to “six times faster” than others like Safari, Firefox or Chrome. Both on mobile devices and desktop versions on computers.
Privacy
Privacy and security is one of the strong points of Brave that seeks to avoid trace and combat malware. On occasions, the company has taken it upon itself to ensure that privacy is its main concern and this was demonstrated, for example, in April 2021 when they refused Google’s FloC tests as a substitute for cookies: “FloC lets websites know your browsing history so it makes it easier to track you across the web”
It does not store personal data or browsing information on the servers, but this isand is stored on your devices until you decide to delete it. The information is not sold to third parties. In addition, you can choose the exact settings for each website or for the browser, depending on what interests you the most. It allows you to see in each tab or on each website or on each day the ads or trackers that are being blocked on that site so you can decide what to do.
Brave Shields protects privacy when browsing. Discard cookies from sites you don’t visit, block ads and trackers, update security connections and blocks malicious code websites. It has systems to protect against malware and the default configuration is prepared to prevent phishing, malvertising or malicious ads or malware. They also explain from their description that plugins are disabled in the default browser as they pose “a proven security risk.”
Advertisements
Brave blocks ads and trackers by default. Invasive ads. But you can see advertising if you activate “Brave Rewards”, a system that allows you to receive tokens in exchange for viewing such advertising. But these ads are not like the usual ones in another browser and are private and not annoying. They are a kind of system notifications that are not distracting or invasive or included in other pages that you read but are their own and selected. Once you see them, you get Basic Attention Tokens or BAT. The average if you use Brave as default is about five dollars from the BAT per month that you can use as we will explain in the next section, with the Rewards.
The advertising you see is completely private. As they explain from the website: “neither your personal information, nor the browsing data nor any other information leaves your device. This is because Brave downloads the entire ad catalog and selects the right ones on your device.” This allows fewer ads but higher quality ads when we are browsing the Internet. In addition, they are focused so that you are interested. The browser knows what you do, what sites you visit, what you see or how much time you spend on it, and based on this, it is able to decide the ads. But this data is only on your device and ad requests are anonymous.
