The Brave browser basics – what it does, how it differs from rivals

submitted by fred_red_beans from computerworld.com

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[–]HorseMeat 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

While I like the idea of removing ad tracking, there are addons for both Chrome & Firefox which basically do that anyway. NoScript & uBlock Origins are both some of the many addons that do as such in the comfort & familiarity of your existing browser.

If you actually cared for your privacy, you'd be better off using Tor Browser. It's not perfect, but does a decent job of hiding your online activities. And it let's you remove ad tracking through NoScript. Sessions are isolated per tab too, so even if you didn't want to remove tracking for some reason, you can do so without having the personalized ads following you about everywhere you browse.

[–]Afor 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I like Brave but it doesn't support vertical tab sidebars, and that's been an absolute requirement for me since widescreen became standard ca. last decade.

[–]fred_red_beans[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

What sets Brave apart is its aggressive anti-ad attitude. The browser was built to strip online ads from websites and its maker's business model relies not only on ad blocking, but on replacing the scratched-out ads with advertisements from its own network.

Brave also eliminates all ad trackers

Brave loads pages twice as fast as Chrome and Firefox

Brave will scrub sites of ads and ad tracking, then replace those ads with its own advertisement, which will not be individually targeted but instead aimed at an anonymous aggregate of the browser's user base.

The foundation of the Brave economy will be "Basic Attention Tokens" or BATs, which have a value derived from a cyber-currency. Those tokens will be awarded based on user attention, or more plainly, time spent viewing ads and content. Brave users who agree to receive ads will be rewarded with BATs; the tokens can be passed to publishers as support for their sites.

BATs is an opt-in system.