Brave is a browser based on Chromium and created by the creator of JavaScript, Brendan Eich, this browser has taken much relevance in recent years, achieving an average of 52 million active users per month approximately, this mainly to its appeal of being a browser oriented to the security and privacy of the user, this is achieved, in addition to excellent marketing, applying a number of native features of the browser, the main ones are.
- Ad blocker.
- Tracker blocker.
- Cookie blocker.
- Fingerprint blocker.
- HTTPSOnly mode, which is a mode that forces all connections over the HTTPS protocol instead of HTTP, almost all browsers currently already incorporate it by default, but it is important to mention that Brave does as well.
While these features may attract the attention of any user who wants to further improve their privacy and security when browsing, we must understand that, they are not perfect, as in any project, they have their flaws, besides reminding you that, Brave is still being developed to finish polishing some aspects, so possibly more features will be added, obsolete ones will be removed or those that are already there and do not work as they should, which brings us to the next point to address.
Brave's main problem
A section that they have not yet finished implementing very well, is the issue of its integration with Tor, since, Brave allows us to open a window and navigate within the Tor network as if we were using the Tor project browser, but as we said, it is not an integration that is complete yet, since among other things, we can not see or configure the Tor circuit that we are using at the time of the connection, in addition, the circuit in Tor changes every 8 minutes, which in Brave does not happen unless we manually select a new connection with Tor in this integration.
Actually, this “problem” can be avoided by simply not using Brave to browse through the Tor network, instead, if you want to access the Tor network, it is better to do it through the official way, using the Tor browser, since, according to the Brave browser forum itself, it does not seem that there are many intentions to polish this feature.
However, this does not mean that Brave is not a useful browser, not at all, it is a very good browser that, over time, it is possible that these details will be corrected, but for now, use Brave to browse without further ado, do not use the integration of Tor in it, as recommended by everything explained above.
Brave pays you but is it safe?
Now, an aspect that many users usually call much attention, is the fact that Brave pays its users only for browsing, this is true in principle, Brave pays you in its own cryptocurrency called BAT, balance in cryptocurrencies that you can then withdraw to a financial services platform such as Uphoald.
Well, the ads in Brave work as follows, you first activate the Brave Rewands program and configure the amount of ads you want to see per hour (the maximum is 10), as you browse, the browser will show you ads that may be relevant to you or not, because, as the browser does not collect your information, if you do 100 searches on “Buy Bread”, the browser will not show you ads to buy bread, or maybe yes, but not because it is collecting your information (at least in theory it is so).
However, this allows users to earn money by seeing ads that in principle have not been shown by profiling the user previously, but simply advertisers who want an audience with varied interests, know them, so we can say that this functionality can be safe in terms of privacy of your information.
On the other hand, keep in mind that the payment you will receive is really very small, do not expect to have a salary just for surfing, it will really depend on the price of the BAT, but if you surf about 8 hours a day and every hour ads are shown, you could earn about 20 dollars a month (this is an estimate based on the current price of the BAT).
Finally express that, Brave is undoubtedly one of the best alternatives to surf the internet in a more private way, there are more alternatives like LibreWolf but certainly, if you like the physical aspect of Chromium and you are looking for privacy, this is your browser.
