The modern day internet is fueled by advertising. Digital creators contributing to the powerhouse can monetise their content without directly charging users for material they read, watch or use. Internet gatekeepers Amazon, Google and Facebook were quick to adopt this business model, turning ad-tech into the approximately 330 billion dollar winning industry it is today. The losers? Us. Programmatic advertising evolved into problematic advertising; stripping people of their privacy and enabling companies to track and exploit online activity in order to drive profits.

In 2015, creator of the Javascript programming language Brendan Eich and his cofounder Brian Bondy created the Brave browser, a privacy-first browser that natively blocks trackers and other invasive technologies used online for the sake of tracking user behaviour across websites.

By doing so, the browser significantly enhances the speed, performance and battery life of electronic devices. Furthermore, the next-generation platform presents a spin-off on the traditional advertising business model. It essentially reinvents the way publishers, content creators and advertisers unite with their invaluable consumers. Brave gives users the option to opt into receiving privacy-respecting ads that reward them with a digital token (called Basic Attention Token or BAT) that they can redeem for digital assets or fiat currency or simply use to further tip digital content creators and publishers.

A substantial 70% of Brave’s advertising revenue share is returned to users who are accepting to watch advertisements. It’s a win-win situation that annihilates the notion that users are products of capitalisation and instead, financially compensates participation.

How are the ads “privacy-respecting”?

Normally, each web page sends out a series of calls including personal information and behaviours of a user to an ad server. These calls are collected and shared with third party companies that create profiles of each user so they can target their ads more specifically. Brave Ads don’t send personal information to a cloud. Instead, your browser decides which ads from the Brave catalogue match you best by using machine learning. Everything is kept on your device and ads come through as push notifications that users can either accept or reject. Equally important to mention the ads are only visible to users if they explicitly opt-in and even then, users can decide how many ad notifications they want to receive per day.

What other features does Brave have?

Built on the open-source Chromium browser (the same technology behind Google Chrome), Brave makes switching over from your old browser easy. It allows users to import bookmarks, extensions and other settings across seamlessly. The difference being that you will now be using a browser that won’t see or store your browsing data, or sell your personal information to third parties. Compliant with their promise of privacy, passwords and keys to decrypt your logins won’t be transferred over.

Unlike ordinary browsers, Brave is designed to intrinsically upgrade webpages to encrypted HTTPS for better security. The Brave Shield is on by default and unapologetically blocks any phishing, malware and malvertising. In addition, Brave has integrated Tor into its browsing options and in doing so has made Tor much more accessible to users worldwide. Tor is a web browser that makes users completely anonymous on the web by rerouting all web traffic randomly through its three-layer proxy.

As scandals such as Cambridge Analytica continue to elucidate ongoing data breaches and security issues occurring globally, Brave reinstills power back in its users. Eich, CEO of Brave Software accurately characterises today as “a critical inflection point where privacy-by-default is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have”. We at Cryptotesters, 100% back Brave’s vision and highly recommend our users to jump on the platform today! You can download Brave here.