Review: The Brave Browser

Especially if you’re active on the cryptocurrency space, the Brave browser along with the Basic Attention Token(BAT) is definitely one of the hottest Browsers and projects in general today; especially with the JavaScript founder and Mozilla Firefox co-founder Brendan Eich at the helm.

Now, if you’re planning on using Brave Browser and you’re wondering if it’s a good and safe browser to use and if it’s legit, you’ve gone to the right place. Let’s dive deep into it.

The Browser

Software

Instead of starting the software development from scratch, the team behind Brave decided to fork(a.k.a. copying the source code) Google’s open-source project: The Chromium project instead. While some people didn’t like this move, forking Chromium definitely sped up the Brave team’s job so the team can instead immediately focus on what’s important⁠— speed and privacy.

Privacy & speed

Along with speed, privacy is one of the main focuses of this project. While some people might think that the Brave browser might be bad in terms of privacy due to them using Chromium, which is owned by Google, it’s actually not the fact. While Brave forked Chromium, they removed all the trackers and data-hogging code as to give privacy to its users. Removing all of that unnecessary stuff altogether, it ends up causing the browser to be a bit faster than your typical Chrome browser.

Along with that, Brave added the “Shields” feature whereas it gives websites with ads and trackers a lot of a harder time tracking you.

And last but definitely not the last, the Brave browser has a built-in Tor feature!

Free coins!

While no one likes ads, with the Brave browser, you can opt-in and choose to see ads instead. “Why would I do this?” you ask, well, for every ad displayed on your browser, Brave pays you either bitcoins or BAT tokens. Another difference between Brave ads and Google ads is that with Google, the advertisers pay Google to display their ads, whereas, with Brave, the advertisers pay the Brave users to see their ads.

Take note that the ads that are going to be shown to you with Brave are less intrusive and annoying than the typical ads that you see on most websites.

While we personally don’t use this, some people definitely likely having to receive a few dollars worth of bitcoin or BAT every month.

Is the Brave Browser safe?

While we can’t say for sure if it’s the “safest” browser we have in the markets right now, it’s definitely on the top along with Chrome and Firefox in terms of safety.

In the end, browser safety mostly depends on the person using it. No matter how secure a certain browser or software in general is, if the user frequently clicks on random links and download shady files over the internet, it’s going to be quite inevitable for that user to infect his/her devices with malware or viruses. Whatever browser you’re using, always be skeptical with clicking links and downloading files.

Is the Brave browser faster and better than Google Chrome?

Yes.

In terms of speed, due to how much trackers the Google Chrome browser has, we can safely assume that the Brave browser is at least slightly faster than Google Chrome. Though in our opinion, speed shouldn’t be the reason why you should be moving to Brave. You should be moving to brave for better privacy.

Though you can install a good ad blocking extension on Google Chrome, that still won’t prevent Google from being able to track your browser activity. Hence, Brave is definitely better in the privacy category due to the reasons mentioned earlier in this article.

Haven’t downloaded Brave yet? Help us out and download Brave through our link here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Brave Browser safe? Yes. You can freely download it here.

Is the Brave Browser legit? Yes. Brave Browser’s source code is open-source hence it could be audited by anyone that can read code.

Is the Brave Browser open-source? Yes. You can audit the source code yourself here: https://github.com/brave/

Is the Brave Browser owned by Google? While the Brave browser is based on Chromium, which is owned by Google, no. Google does not own Brave Browser. The Brave Browser is under a different company lead by Brendan Eich.

Final Thoughts

Due to Brave having better speed and better privacy, it’s definitely a good browser to use. Though you probably could have the same level of privacy using a well-configured Mozilla Firefox browser, Brave is still a great choice for the people who simply prefer the style and feel of the Google Chrome browser and the typical user who doesn’t want to do some tinkering to achieve the same levels of privacy that Brave has.