Brave (web browser)

Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. It blocks ads and website trackers, and provides a way for users to send cryptocurrency contributions in the form of Basic Attention Tokens to websites and content creators.

Brave
Brave 1.5 running on macOS
Developer(s)Brave Software, Inc.[1]
Stable release(s)
Desktop: 1.10.93 Android: 1.9.80 iOS: 1.17 / June 17, 2020 (2020-06-17)
Preview release(s)
Beta: 1.11.69 Dev: 1.11.70 Nightly: 1.12.38 / June 19, 2020 (2020-06-19)
Repositoryhttps://github.com/brave/brave-browser
Written inC, JavaScript, C++
EnginesBlink, V8, (WebKit on iOS)
Operating system
TypeWeb browser
License
[2]
Websitebrave.com

As of 2019, Brave has been released for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. The current version features five search engines by default, including their partner, DuckDuckGo.[3]

History

Brave is developed by Brave Software, which was founded on 28 May 2015 by CEO Brendan Eich (creator of JavaScript and former CEO of Mozilla Corporation) and CTO Brian Bondy.[4] On 20 January 2016, Brave Software launched the first version of Brave with an ad-blocking feature, and announced plans for a privacy-respecting ad feature and a revenue sharing program.[5]

In June 2018, Brave released a pay-to-surf test version of the browser. This version of Brave was preloaded with approximately 250 ads, and sent a detailed log of the user's browsing activity to Brave for the short-term purpose of testing this functionality. Brave announced that expanded trials would follow.[6] Later that month, Brave added support for Tor in its desktop browser's private browsing mode.[7]

Until December 2018, Brave ran on a fork of Electron called Muon which was marketed as a "more secure fork". Nevertheless, Brave developers moved to Chromium, citing a need to ease their maintenance burden.[8] The final Muon-based version was released with the intention that it would stop working and instruct users to update as its end of life approached.[9]

In June 2019 Brave started testing a new ad-blocking rule matching algorithm, implemented in Rust, that Brave claims is on average 69 times faster than the previous implementation in C++. The new algorithm is inspired by the uBlock Origin and Ghostery algorithms.[10]

Brave launched its stable release version 1.0 on 13 November 2019 while having 8.7 million monthly active users overall.[11] At the time, it had approximately 3 million active users on a daily basis. Brave 1.0 was made available for Android, iOS, Windows 10, macOS, and Linux, and integrated "almost all of Brave's marquee features across all platforms," according to engadget.[12]

Business model

Brave uses its Basic Attention Token (BAT) to drive revenue.[13] Originally incorporated in Delaware as Hyperware Labs, Inc. in 2015, the company later changed its name to Brave Software, Inc. and registered in California, where it is headquartered.[14]

By August 2016, the company had received at least US$7 million in angel investments from venture capital firms, including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital, and the Digital Currency Group.[15]

In November 2019, Brave launched an ad network which returns a 70 percent revenue share to users.[16] The initial advertisements were coming from partners like Vice, Home Chef, ConsenSys, Ternio BlockCard, MyCrypto and eToro. [17]

Features

Basic Attention Token
Basic Attention Token logo

The "Basic Attention Token" (BAT) is an open-source, decentralized ad exchange platform based on Ethereum.[18]

In an initial coin offering on 31 May 2017, Brave Software International SEZC sold 1,000,000,000 BAT for a total of 156,250 Ethereum (US$35M) in less than 30 seconds.[18][19] An additional 500,000,000 BAT was retained by the company, to be used to promote the adoption of the platform.[18]

In early December 2017, the company disbursed the first round of its 'user growth pool' grants: a total of 300,000 BAT was distributed to new users on a first-come first-served basis.[20][21]

Brave Rewards

Since April 2019, users of the Brave browser can opt in to the Brave Rewards feature, which sends BAT micropayments to websites and content creators.[22] Site owners and creators must first register with Brave as a publisher. Users can either turn on auto-contribute, which automatically divides a specified monthly contribution in proportion to the time spent, or they can manually send a chosen amount (referred to as a tip) while visiting the site or creator.[23]

Users can choose to earn BAT by viewing advertisements which are displayed as notifications by the operating system of their computer or device. Advertising campaigns are matched with users by inference from their browsing history; this targeting is carried out locally, with no transmission of personal data outside the browser, removing the need for third-party tracking. In addition or alternatively, users can buy or sell BAT through Brave's relationship with Uphold Inc., a digital currency exchange operator.[24]

The first version of the micropayments feature, launched in 2016, was called Brave Payments and used Bitcoin.[25] Advertisements were shown in a separate browser tab.[26]

Critical reception

In January 2016, in reaction to Brave Software's initial announcement, Sebastian Anthony of Ars Technica described Brave as a "cash-grab" and a "double dip". Anthony concluded, "Brave is an interesting idea, but generally it's rather frowned upon to stick your own ads in front of someone else's".[27] However, Ars Technica has since become a member of Brave's revenue-sharing program.[28] TechCrunch,[29] Computerworld,[30] and Engadget [31] termed Brave's ad replacement plans "controversial" in 2016.

In February 2016, Andy Patrizio of Network World reviewed a pre-release version of Brave. Patrizio criticized the browser's feature set as "mighty primitive," but lauded its performance: "Pages load instantly. I can't really benchmark page loads since they happen faster than I can start/stop the stopwatch".[32]

In April 2016, the CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, David Chavern, said that Brave's proposed replacement of advertising "should be viewed as illegal and deceptive by the courts, consumers, and those who value the creation of content".[33][34]

In April 2017, TechWorld praised Brave's "great speeds and advanced ad-tracking controls", but said that its "extension functionality is still lacking".[35]

In August 2019, Wikipedia joined over 240,000 verified publishers.[36]

In November 2019, CNET reviewed the newly released 1.0 version of Brave. They praised the speed, saying "Brave is hands-down the fastest browser I've used this year on any operating system, for both mobile and desktop. Memory usage by the browser is far below most others, while website loading is far faster."[37] They also said battery usage could be reduced by using the browser – "With less strain on resources comes less strain on your device's battery life as well."[37] However, they had concerns that the user base is still far below Chrome, and thus it may not be able to build out its ad system fully yet, saying – "The browser will need more users, however, to truly build out its new ad system: while 8 million people is a good start, it will still need to compete with Google Chrome's billion-plus users".[37]

A February 2020 research report published by the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin found Brave to be the most private browser in terms of phoning home: "In the first (most private) group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari, and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex."[38]

Controversies

Brave browser collecting donations on behalf of content creators

In December of 2018 British YouTube content creator Tom Scott stated that he does not receive any donations collected on his behalf by Brave browser. In a tweet, he stated "So if you thought you'd donated to me through Brave, the money (or their pseudo-money [BAT]) will not reach me, and Brave's terms say that they may choose to just keep it themselves. It looks like they're 'providing this service' for every creator on every platform. No opt-in, no consent."[39][40] In response, Brave amended the interface with a disclaimer for each creator who hasn't signed up with Brave and promised to consider adding "an opt-out option for creators who do not wish to receive donations" and "switching the default so users cannot tip or donate to unverified creators".[41] Critics stated that the system should be opt-in and not opt-out, that the disclaimer does not clearly state absence of any relation with the creators and suggests that creator begun process of signing up with Brave.[42] Two days after the complaint, Brave issued an update to "clearly indicate which publishers and creators have not yet joined Brave Rewards so users can better control how they donate and tip"[41] and in January of 2020 another update to change the behavior of contributions and tips. They are now held in the browser and transferred if the creator signs up within 90 days - otherwise they are returned to the user.[43][44] Tom Scott tweeted about the changes saying "These are good changes, and they fix the complaints I had!".[45][44]

Insertion of referral codes

In June of 2020 Twitter user pointed out that Brave was rewriting some links to cryptocurrency trading websites inserting affiliate referral codes (to gain a commission money). In response to the backlash from the users, on June 7 Brave introduced a toggle for this 'feature' and disabled it by default in the next release[46] (without admission of any wronging).[47] On June 8, Brave's CEO apologized and called it a "mistake" and said "we're correcting".[48]

In response to this controversy developers forked Brave into Braver promising to remove all referral codes, BAT integration, and other "adware".[49]

References
  1. "Company Overview of Brave Software Inc". Bloomberg. 4 April 2018. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  2. "browser-laptop/LICENSE.txt at master". GitHub. 29 June 2017. Retrieved 26 July 2018.
  3. Brave's browser offers you a bit more privacy when searching online, CNET, 14 December 2017, retrieved 16 July 2018
  4. Bondy, Brian (13 November 2019). "The road to Brave 1.0". Brave Press. Archived from the original (html) on 19 November 2019. Retrieved 29 December 2019. It took another few months to get initial funding, but in May 2015 we started this ambitious project.
  5. Ha, Anthony (20 January 2016). "With Brave Software, JavaScript's Creator Is Building A Browser for the Ad-Blocked Future". TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 July 2018.
  6. Lomas, Natasha (20 June 2018). "Blockchain browser Brave starts opt-in testing of on-device ad targeting". TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 July 2018.
  7. Shankland, Stephen. "Brave advances browser privacy with Tor-powered tabs". CNET. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  8. Cimpanu, Catalin. "Brave browser moves to Chromium codebase, now supports Chrome extensions". ZDNet. Retrieved 10 February 2019.
  9. "Brave browser goes 'full Chromium' by adopting Google UI". 16 December 2018. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  10. Tung, Liam. "Brave defies Google's moves to cripple ad-blocking with new 69x faster Rust engine". ZDNet. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  11. Brave (13 November 2019). "Brave Launches Next-Generation Browser that Puts Users in Charge of Their Internet Experience with Unmatched Privacy and Rewards". Brave Browser. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  12. Bonifacic, Igor (13 November 2019), "Brave says 8.7 million people use its privacy-focused browser every month", Engadget, retrieved 16 November 2019
  13. "Brave Wants to Destroy the Ad Business by Paying You to Watch Ads in Its Web Browser". Gizmodo. 24 April 2019. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  14. California Secretary of State Business Search: Brave Software, Inc.
  15. Perez, Sarah. "Brave, the ad-blocking browser from former Mozilla CEO, grabs $4.5 million". TechCrunch. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  16. "Brave browser launches an Ad Network while blocking publisher's ads". PPC Land. 14 November 2019. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  17. https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/24/brave-ads/
  18. Russell, Jon. "Former Mozilla CEO raises $35M in under 30 seconds for his browser startup Brave". TechCrunch. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  19. "Javascript creator's browser raises $35 million in 30 seconds". Engadget. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  20. "Ad-blocking browser Brave courts new users with free crypto tokens". VentureBeat. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  21. "This ad-blocking browser has some cryptocurrency for you". CNET. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  22. Fingas, Jon (24 April 2019). "Brave browser lets you see opt-in ads in exchange for rewards". Engadget. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  23. "Features". Brave Browser. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  24. "Brave Partners with Uphold to Launch Wallet That Rewards Users for Browsing". Brave Browser. 3 October 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  25. Keizer, Gregg (6 September 2016). "Ad-blocking Brave browser tests users-to-sites micro-payments". Computerworld. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  26. Shankland, Stephen (16 November 2017). "Brave browser lets you pay your favorite YouTube stars". CNET. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  27. Anthony, Sebastian (21 January 2016). "Mozilla co-founder unveils Brave, a browser that blocks ads by default". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 21 January 2016.
  28. "Brave Creator: arstechnica.com". Archived from the original on 29 February 2020. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  29. Perez, Sarah (1 August 2016). "Brave, the ad-blocking browser from former Mozilla CEO, grabs $4.5 million". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 13 December 2019. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  30. Keizer, Gregg (25 June 2018). "Brave browser begins controversial ad repeal-and-replace tests". Computerworld. Archived from the original on 13 December 2019. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  31. England, Rachel (20 June 2018). "Privacy browser Brave pays 'crypto tokens' for watching its ads". Engadget. Archived from the original on 13 December 2019. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  32. Patrizio, Andy (4 February 2016). "Benchmark tests: How the Brave browser compares with Chrome, Firefox, and IE 11". Network World. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  33. Murphy, David (8 April 2016). "Newspapers: Ad-Blocking Brave Browser Is Illegal, Deceptive". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on 13 December 2019. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  34. Edmonds, Rick (7 April 2016). "U.S. newspapers to ad blocker: Drop dead". Poynter. Archived from the original on 13 December 2019. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  35. Mercer, Christina; Dunn, John E (26 April 2018). "The most secure browsers 2018". Techworld. Retrieved 16 July 2018.
  36. Brave (28 August 2019). "Wikipedia is now a Brave Verified Publisher, Ready to Receive BAT Donations from Brave Users". Brave Browser. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  37. Hodge, Rae (14 November 2019). "Brave 1.0 browser review: Browse faster and safer while ticking off advertisers". CNET. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  38. Cimpanu, Catalin (2 March 2020). "Brave deemed most private browser in terms of 'phoning home'". ZDNet. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  39. "Brave browser is collecting donations on your behalf — did you know?". The Block. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  40. "Brave web browser no longer claims to fundraise on behalf of others — so that's nice". Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain. 13 January 2019. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  41. Brave (22 December 2018). "Brave Rewards Update". Brave Browser. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  42. "News: Brave browser's opt-out "fundraising" for third parties, fallout from the Bitcoin and Ether price crash, Tether margin trading, UK tax guidance". Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain. 23 December 2018. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  43. "Frequently Asked Questions - unclaimed funds". Brave Browser. Archived from the original on 17 June 2020. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  44. Shankland, Stephen (15 January 2019). "Brave browser launches ad system that soon will pay you 70 percent of the revenue". CNET. Archived from the original on 19 February 2019. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  45. Scott, Thomas [@tomscott] (15 January 2019). "A final update on the thread about Brave" (Tweet). Retrieved 17 June 2020 – via Twitter.
  46. ""Show Brave suggested sites in autocomplete suggestions" should default to off".
  47. "Brave Browser caught adding its own referral codes to some cryptocurrency trading sites". Android Police. 7 June 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  48. Tung, Liam (8 June 2020). "Privacy browser Brave busted for autocompleting URLs to versions it profits from". ZDNet. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  49. "Brave Browser's Affiliate Link Controversy, Explained". CoinDesk. 8 June 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
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