Brave browser

[Jason]

Has anybody tried the Brave browser? I've been using it for a month or so and find it quite good. Here are some features of it:

   
• It's security-focused by blocking trackers kind of like Privacy Badger does
• It has a built-in adblocker that is very aggressive at blocking ads which allows it to load up pages faster than other browsers.
• It has a built-in TOR mode so your location can't be traced bypassing the packets through several servers
• You can earn tokens to choosing to look at privacy-respecting ads and either support content creators by sharing those tokens to use them later to get premium content, gift cards and so on (you can choose how frequently you want to view these ads) - that last option is still being worked out
• You can also choose to tip content creators - btw, if you choose to give them tokens, they will automatically be divided up by the time you spread on various websites
• It's open-source and is based on the Chromium browser (the open-source browser that Google uses at the core of their proprietary Chrome browser) - this also means you can use Chrome extensions

Though the privacy-respecting aspects of Brave initially attracted me to it, it's the ad system I really like.

Just blocking all ads in other browsers forces content creators to beg for money or put their content behind a paywall. The smaller sites will likely just shut down their sites altogether. You have to somehow compensate writers for good content. Therefore, I thought it would be great if somebody came up with a micro-payments system so that websites are rewarded based on how many pages you view at the website or the amount of time you spend. This seems to be a way to do that. You can download it here and see why the browser creators believe it's a better browser:

https://brave.com/

I've found it hard to find recent reviews compare it to other browsers in terms of security and other features because its development has been rapid, so most of the reviews I've seen are rating it from how it was a year or more ago, if at all.

This review from VPNpro is recent with its only complaint is that it's bigger than other browsers and puts it at #3. The size could be because it has the TOR browser built-in and the Brave Rewards system which is how it does ads and rewards you for them. Evidently, it was created by one of the founders of Mozilla that also used to work on Firefox:

This review from PrivacyEnd puts at #7. BestAntivirusPro puts it at #3.
Privacy Canada rates it #2.
NordVPN gives it a #2 position.
PixelPrivacy gives it a #3 in the alternative browsers section but there are only 3 in that list.

Some other sites compare it but don't do a rating system. Even the ones that do rate Brave at a lower rank seem to give it kudos on the security side.


Update:

Here are two other articles that I found concerning Brave, one a review that gives it high ratings in speed and the other comparing browsers' privacy based on research by the University of Dublin:

Brave 1.0 browser review: Browse faster and safer while ticking off advertisers: The privacy-focused browser uses cryptocurrency to challenge ad-tracking (CNET - November 2019)

Brave deemed most private browser in terms of 'phoning home': The new Microsoft Edge and the Yandex Browser deemed the most data greedy (ZDNet - March 2020)

[Jason]

So is nobody responding because I said it all? Still curious if anybody is using Brave, or has given thought to it. And do you think there's any good reason to switch?

[fox]

I haven't tried it. I'm pretty happy with Firefox and the privacy extensions I use with it. Truth be told, I don't like the Brave's icon.

[Jason]

Brave feels a lot faster than other browsers because of its aggressive blocking of ads which I think is better that what Firefox or Chrome provides. Add-ons might do the same on other browsers but I still think some make it through whereas with Brave I don't think I've seen a single ad since I started using it. Even YouTube ads are blocked.

But with all this ad-blocking, I can't be the only one there that considers what that means. We're getting a lot of free content and cutting off the only source of income for those producing it. It's free to us, but even if someone is writing articles for free, it costs money to deliver all those bits to our screens. And because of it very few companies buy print ads. That's why paper versions of newspapers and magazines are thin compared to decades ago. It's not just less print ads, it's less content because those print ads paid for the content.

It's also why newspapers in Canada, and probably other media, are dying and are needing to be bailed out. It's obvious but not something we think a lot about. There is a connection between the world we want and the little actions we take, not just the big ones. If we want there to be local businesses, we have to buy local. We may buy online to save a few or lots of bucks and think other people can do the local buying but in time there won't be local businesses anymore or at least not the small ones. All we'll have left are Walmarts if it keeps goings like this. If we want to have Canadian media provided by Canadians, we have to give them a revenue stream by buying subscriptions or unblocking ads. Or do what Brave is trying to do.

They've created a micro-payment system that lets you look at non-intrusive, non-annoying, and targeted ads (based on local, not server information), get credit for those and cash-out or take that credit and distribute it to the sites you want or based on your browsing behaviour. You can also tip sites at the percentage you wish. They also promise the content creates more money from each ad clicked on then they'd get from Google. The ads are tiny and you only click on them if you wish and get credit for it. Their idea is promising, a way that is more ethical to me than just consuming content without ever paying for it via viewing ads or direct payments. The execution, well, we'll see. There's a video on how they do it here.

[Jason]

But the icon? Really? Well, maybe they'll change it for you down the road and you'll like it enough to try it out. Also, I was happy with Firefox. I'm happy with Kubuntu. But I still try other distros. But as I used to say to my best friend when I was a teenager when he was happy where he was, "Where's your sense of adventure?"

[Jason]

I've been trying to find recent speed reviews for comparison to other browsers but the only ones I find that include Brave are from 2018. Otherwise it's just the "major" browsers, Firefox, Chrome, Edge and sometimes Opera.

[ssfc72]

Thanks for the info on the Brave browser, Jason.
I will  give it a try sometime.  I like the speed of the Opera browser and it's features and I am quite familiar with it's operation.

[Jason]

Yeah, you may like it or you might hate it but it's good to try different programs. I've experimented with Opera and Vivaldi. I can't remember if Opera had sync. I don't think it did at last when I tried it the last time. But Vivaldi definitely didn't. I liked sync when I used Chrome, too. Brave kind of had it but because of bug issues it was removed. I miss it.

I believe that Opera and Brave are both powered using Chromium code or maybe just the engine.

[ssfc72]

Yes Opera has had a sync feature, from years back when I first started using it.

[Jason]

Yes Opera has had a sync feature, from years back when I first started using it.

Cool! Now I remember why I didn't continue using Opera. It's not open source although there is some open source in it as they built it on the open-source Chromium browser. I'm fine with using proprietary software but not when it's my browser. It's also why I left Chrome for Firefox. I'm just not sure I can trust a browser that hides their code.

However, I like how they've always been ahead of the curve in terms of features. They've pushed other browsers to do better. I just noticed on the Wikipedia page how they've had built-in support for cryptocurrency wallets. Brave has this now but I haven't seen it in the mainstream browsers. They've also been very standards-compliant, from the beginning. It won't become my main browser because it's proprietary but I like to keep up with what other browsers are doing so I'll probably give it another look.

Oh, two more links having to do with Brave that I only found by looking at the Wikipedia entry for it:

The first review talks about how speedy Brave is. It also mentioned something that will particularly interest Fox. While they haven't specifically tested it, they claim that since it uses fewer resources (less memory), it means less strain on battery life.

The second article summarizes research done by a professor at the University of Dublin which compares how much information browsers sends back to their back-end infrastructure. He was rating out-of-the-box settings so some of this phoning home can be disabled for those that know where to look. But I like a browser that is built with privacy in mind right from the start. Sorry, ssfc72, they didn't rate Opera in terms of privacy.

Brave 1.0 browser review: Browse faster and safer while ticking off advertisers: The privacy-focused browser uses cryptocurrency to challenge ad-tracking (CNET - November 2019)

Brave deemed most private browser in terms of 'phoning home': The new Microsoft Edge and the Yandex Browser deemed the most data greedy (ZDNet - March 2020)

But they really need to bring back that sync feature!

I'll add these links to my original post.

[fox]

These posts got me curious enough to look into installing it. It's not in the Ubuntu repos and on the Brave website, you have to install it using curl. I don't understand why they don't make a snap, flatpak or .deb.

[Jason]

It is a deb file.

The terminal commands are to do download the keys, add the repos and install it. If you installed a deb, you'd have to update it on your own by downloading it again, same with any deb files that you don't have repos for. Etcher uses a format similar to a flatpak but the downside is that every time a new version comes out, you have to download it again because it isn't using a repo and there's no built-in way to update it. I think that snap and flatpak have repos so you'd face the same problem unless it has a built-in updater which I don't think any of the Linux browsers have.

The key is so that the download is verified that it is has been signed by the developers and hasn't been changed by miscreants who have hacked the server and put their own version up with malware.

Curl is just one of several commands used for transferring data.

You only have to do this setup once. After that you'll get updates for it through your package manager.

[Jason]

Some packagers of deb files seem to get around this like with Google Chrome. Not sure how they do this but they add the repo and key during the install. So there must be a way to do it without having to enter terminal commands. Maybe they'll do that down the road. But just downloading a deb file doesn't mean that the program will be updated when you run the package manager or use 'apt update && apt full-upgrade'. That's only if the repos are added. Same with flatpaks and snaps. If you check your package manager there will be repos for snap in it and flatpak if you've added any. Firefox in Ubuntu comes as a snap and it's in the ubuntu repos. If it wasn't in a repo you'd have to use the built-in updater, synaptic wouldn't do it.

Note that if Firefox wasn't already in your repos, you'd have to download the bzipped tarball and extract it somewhere on your drive. That's even worse in my opinion but at least it will update inside the browser (i.e. doesn't need a repo).

I found this reddit topic which is interesting. It talks about how appimages, snaps and flatpaks are updated. It says appimages have the updaters built in but I've never seen Etcher do this. Maybe they just didn't enable that function? But snaps and flatpaks need repos too.

[fox]

Well at any rate, I installed it on my iPad, as it was in the Apple Store. This was I can remove it as easily as it was to install it. I'll play with it a bit and report back.

[Jason]

Cool. Didn't know it was available for iOS. Btw, it's easy to remove once you've installed it in Linux. It appears in your package manager and you just remove it there as you would any installed program.