I think most of you haven't even heard about Brave, a new browser.
Not just a new browser, but one that will save the internet.
And that is not just a commercial call out. I think it might indeed release the internet from everything that makes it filthy at the moment.
We all find internet advertising very annoying. Especially when this comes with irritating movements, sounds or what I hate the most myself, when it pops up over the text you want to read. And with the close button hidden somewhere outside of the visible lines of the advertisement. It makes me sick.
But things are even more worse.... It happens quite often that these advertisement networks are hacked and used to distribute malware to viewers of the pages the advertisement is shown on.
This has happened on multiple very popular news and newspaper sites for example.
Brave is putting you, the user, in the middle and protects you from these annoying if not dangerous advertisements.
And it is blocking all the tracking cookies that are used to trace your wondering over the internet, including the one or two porn sites that you accidentally clicked on. ;)
Brave is blocking this for you. But other web browsers can do this as well, with an ad blocker.
Yes, but by far not at the level that Brave can do this. And companies like Microsoft and Google pick up quite some income through advertisement. So they will never incorporate ad blocking in their browsers the way Brave is doing this. That would work against themselves, isn't it?
On top of this all Brave is quite fast as a browser. I've done some tests and I could really see the difference with Chrome, the browser I normally use.
Now who's behind all of this? It is Brendan Eich, who in de Middle Ages has worked on the browser Netscape, he is the inventor of JavaScript and he started Mozilla, the people who came up with the Firefox browser.
So he is someone who knows his business. And that makes Brave even more interesting!
But now where I am in doubt.
As a user you can assign bitcoins to your browser and the Brave browser keeps an anonymous list of visited websites.
Brave then calculates on how long and how often a website has been visited, how much of the by the users assigned bitcoins will be transferred to the website owner.
And 5% of the assigned bitcoins will be kept by Brave; that is their earnings model.
This seems to be quite a bit, but it is far less than advertising companies earn on advertisement etc.
But do you think people (we!) are prepared to pay for our internet use? (Apart from our connection costs)
Do we indeed fund our browser every month so that we can use an internet without tracking and advertisement?
Or do we take the loss of privacy, the annoying advertisements and the risks for granted and keep surfing for free?
I am not convinced that people will pay for this. I don't see the majority of people see and understand the risks and they won't bother to pay their browser...
Or do you think they will in the near future? And does Brave has got it spot-on with their idea?
I am very happy that there is a group now thinking about this and coming up with a great new browser.
But I am confused if this will work as they think. I can't say it won't (not at all - I would pay for my privacy!) but I can't say it will either.
The Brave browser is free to use so you can download it and test it yourself:
http://www.brave.com
I am curious about your vision - please leave your comments below!
Oh, and good to say that I am not involved in the Brave project - I am just a curious user and I am wondering if this will be a revolution on the internet or not...
Many thanks for your comments!
Joris, out of a cloudy Amsterdam
Some additional resources:
Benchmark test:
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3030134/microsoft-subnet/benchmark-tests-brave-browser-ad-blocker-chrome-firefox-ie-11.html
Want true privacy? Article on CNet:
https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy-browser-brave-tor-trump/
Dutch newspaper Volkskrant with an interesting article (in Dutch, sorry!):
https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/vergeet-chrome-firefox-en-internet-explorer-deze-browser-gaat-het-web-redden~a4503658/
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