Brave
By Brave Software
Brave is a free, open-source web browser developed by Brave Software and built on the Chromium project and Blink rendering engine. It ships with built-in ad and tracker blocking enabled by default and an optional privacy-preserving…
Definition
Brave is a free, open-source web browser developed by Brave Software and built on the Chromium project and Blink rendering engine. It ships with built-in ad and tracker blocking enabled by default and an optional privacy-preserving advertising system that rewards users with a cryptocurrency token for opting into viewing ads. Brave is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, and positions privacy as its primary differentiator among Chromium-based browsers.
Overview
Brave was founded in 2015 by Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and a co-founder of Mozilla, with the goal of addressing what its founders saw as an unsustainable and privacy-hostile online advertising model built on invasive third-party tracking. Rather than requiring separate ad-blocking extensions, Brave built blocking directly into the browser's core so it is active for every user by default. Mechanically, Brave renders pages using Blink and executes scripts with V8, inheriting Chromium's underlying web compatibility, but intercepts and blocks known ad and tracker network requests before they load, along with blocking third-party cookies and browser fingerprinting techniques by default. Its optional Brave Rewards system replaces blocked ads with privacy-respecting ads matched on-device rather than through server-side tracking, and pays users a share of ad revenue in Basic Attention Token, a cryptocurrency users can keep or use to tip content creators who have registered with Brave's creator program. Within the browser landscape, Brave differs from other Chromium derivatives like Opera and Vivaldi primarily through its privacy-first default configuration and its unusual advertising and cryptocurrency model, rather than productivity features. It differs from Firefox, which also emphasizes privacy, by being Chromium-based and by directly monetizing attention through its rewards system rather than relying primarily on search-engine revenue-sharing deals. In practice, Brave is used by privacy-conscious users who want strong tracking protection without configuring extensions, and by a smaller community interested in its cryptocurrency rewards and creator-tipping features. It also ships Brave Wallet, a built-in cryptocurrency wallet, and has experimented with a privacy-focused search engine, Brave Search, as an alternative to sending queries to Google or Bing. Brave's trade-offs include that its aggressive default ad blocking can occasionally break sites that depend on ads or scripts Brave misclassifies as trackers, and that its cryptocurrency and wallet features add complexity some users do not want in a browser, alongside skepticism from parts of the privacy community about a browser that itself runs an advertising business, even one it frames as privacy-preserving. Brave has also drawn criticism at various points for how it has handled affiliate links and its own revenue mechanisms, controversies that highlight the tension inherent in building a for-profit advertising business inside a browser marketed primarily on privacy grounds. Brave Software has continued to expand the browser's scope well beyond ad blocking, adding features like a decentralized IPFS gateway and its own AI assistant, which further distinguishes it from more narrowly focused privacy browsers.
Key Features
- Built on Chromium and the Blink rendering engine
- Blocks ads, trackers, and third-party cookies by default
- Includes Brave Rewards, an opt-in privacy-preserving ad system
- Pays users in Basic Attention Token for viewing optional ads
- Provides a built-in cryptocurrency wallet, Brave Wallet
- Offers Brave Search as an independent, privacy-focused search engine
- Supports Chrome extensions via the Chrome Web Store
- Blocks browser fingerprinting techniques without added configuration