Blog Post

The New Brave Browser is Great, but I won't Use It

Ted Edwards • 28 December 2019

I jumped on the Brave hype machine early in the beta, and now it's out in full force

What is Brave and why should I care?

Brave is the latest in "privacy" focused browsers that aims to give back a little control to you the end user. It's based on Chromium, which is the underlying open source code used to create the worlds most popular browser, Google Chrome.

The difference is, it focuses heavily on blocking ads and trackers and any other potentially nefarious uses of the internet you may not be aware is happening under your nose, all in the name of better targeting ads toward you specifically.

The trade off, of course is that any business needs to make money somewhere along the line, including web page owners who derive an income through ads. Brave's answer to that is their own cryptocurrency called BAT (Basic Attention Token) that can be used to donate toward these websites, if you so choose, or hang on to it yourself. BAT is earned by, dun dun dunnn, advertising.

Instead of in page ads that slow your browsing experience down, Brave sends notifications from time to time direct to your desktop or mobile notifications that you can simply ignore, close, or click on.

You can of course choose to not have any ads sent to you and simply enjoy the browsing experience.

Overall it's great, but I wont be making the switch as a full time browser.

Despite being based on Chrome, I've found that many sites just won't work, which is particularly annoying when trying to do work related stuff such as research web design topics or use cloud based services. There is a little icon to the right of the address bar you can turn on or off the "Brave Shields" feature which encompasses all the blocking tech and should theoretically return the site to a normal Google Chrome type experience. My experience thus far however, has seen it not be of much help at all in most cases.

So all that being said, it does what it's meant to do very well, just sometimes a little too well and I do recommend downloading it and giving it a go for yourself. Like most browsers it's completely free to download and you'll be able to make up your own mind.

I won't be getting rid of it but it won't be my daily driver so to speak either.

Do I just keep using Google Chrome then?

You can, there really is nothing wrong with it and you can of course continue to use various plugins to block ads in your browsing as well. Keep in mind though that plugins themselves can be a security risk and may in fact negate your browsing experience in some cases causing the site to otherwise load slower.

I personally have a variety of browsers installed including Brave, Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge but my daily driver is Opera.

Many moons ago, before Google Chrome was even a thing, I loved Opera, it was fast, sleek, had mail built in, they invented the tabbed experience we take for granted nowadays. It was fantastic. Then the wheels kind of fell off over time, and it appeared as if they lacked some direction.

Then not all that long ago, I decided to take another look. It's fantastic! It has a lot of the same privacy focused features that Brave is trying to achieve, without the popup ads or cryptocurrency, plus a whole bunch more like built in Messenger and What's App and probably my favourite feature Flow.

Flow is a feature that allows you to send your workflow, ie the browser tab, to your mobile, or mobile to desktop with ease. I know similar features are available on other browsers, but Opera Flow just makes it simple, seamless, and easy.

I'm often researching new web design techniques, or the latest in SEO practices and will need to flick between devices in order to complete my workflow efficiently. This just makes it dead easy.

I use WhatsApp regularly so having it right there is super handy and when a website tends to have a bit of a freak out that all it's tracking is being blocked, turning it off in a similar fashion has worked every time.

Opera desktop is also based on Chromium so all the Google plugins will work with it and on mobile, Opera has a few different browsers but my one of choice is Opera Touch.

Changing browsers is nothing to be scared of, Opera even allowed me to import all my bookmarks with ease and even the passwords if you use that feature of Chrome. I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on the experience, let me know in the comments below.