Brave Browser - Privacy-focused Web Browser

Brave is a cross-platform, open-source Chromium-based web browser with a focus on privacy. It contains practically all of the capabilities of popular web browsers like Chrome and Firefox, plus added security against advertisements, online spying, and other threats.

Privacy-respecting Web Browser

While Chrome and other web browsers block unwanted adverts while ignoring user privacy, information such as online activity and behaviour is sold to advertisers and other third-party companies. Brave completely eliminates it by banning invasive adverts and trackers that collect users data. As a result, users have access to a safer and quicker internet.

Brave claims to offer quicker Internet access. It prevents all third-party scripts from collecting user data on the user’s bandwidth.

Because Brave blocks third party all of that out of the box, it’s considerably faster than other browsers. And that’s doubly true on slower or laggier connections where every bit counts, or older devices where every stray CPU cycle or bit of RAM rapidly adds up…

Brave team (read more)

The Brave team conducted an intriguing test to see which web browser works best. On Windows, macOS, and Android, the test compared Brave to Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Edge. According to the results of the test, Brave opened popular websites 3 to 6 times faster, spent roughly half the system memory and power, and just a third of the data usage. The whole report is available in this article.

If you use Brave on a regular basis, it will display you fascinating information such as the number of trackers brave has blocked, internet bandwidth saved, and time saved while browsing the Internet.

Users may install all of their favourite extensions because it is built on the Chromium web browser. The Brave team also examines extensions and informs users if they attempt to install an extension that has not yet been checked.

Tor support

It’s one of my favourite features of Brave. Tor is already simple to install and configure, but Brave takes a novel approach by embedding Tor in the Brave browser. Brave includes the option to open a Tor browser window. Tor browser can be launched from the browser menu, or by right-clicking any link and selecting Open in Tor. It’s the same as opening a new tab.

Tor is at the heart of nearly every privacy-enhancing technology. It is open-source, free, and works on practically all devices. When you browse a website in Tor, instead of directly contacting the desired server, the request is routed to three Tor clients, or nodes, and the third node forwards the request to the server. The final node in the network is known as the exit node since it sends the request outside of the network. The entire procedure is repeated backward to receive a response from the server; the exit node receives the response from the server, sends it back to the preceding node, and finally reaches the user.

Whereas most browsers only offer Incognito mode to browse secretly from “other users on the device,” a built-in Tor browser allows users to browse the internet completely anonymously; not even the ISP knows what sites a user is browsing.

Tor is covered in detail in this article.

IPFS support out of the box

IPFS (Inter Planetary File System) is a peer-to-peer hypermedia technology that aims to make the internet quicker and more open. HTTP(s) is based on location-based addressing, which means that a user sends requests to a location (server) for content such as a web page, video, or image. If the server is down, the request will fail and you will be unable to obtain content.

IPFS protocol support is incorporated into Brave. IPFS operates in a unique manner. It is based on content-based addressing, which means that a user submits a request for content to the network, and the network returns the file to the user. To avoid deduplication or manipulation, each file on the IPFS network is preserved with a unique fingerprint or hash. Users can open the page by entering the address with ipfs:/ in the address bar.

Here is how IPFS address looks like –

https://bafybeiemxf5abjwjbikoz4mc3a3dla6ual3jsgpdr4cjr3oz3evfyavhwq.ipfs.dweb.link/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh.html

Earn Rewards & Support Creators

Brave compensates its customers for viewing relevant and privacy-protecting advertisements. Users receive push notifications from time to time, and clicking on them sends them to the ad page. It is entirely optional, and you can opt out of receiving such notifications. If you click a notification, Brave will reward you with BATs (Brave Attention Tokens) for each advertisement you watch, which you can then use to support your favourite content creators.

You can view the total reward amounts in the new tab.

Brave Sync

You may sync your data across multiple devices running Brave browser. Brave sync works slightly differently than Chrome, but it is more secure. Data is encrypted locally before being transmitted to a Brave-operated server. In Chrome, users must enter their own passcode to encrypt their data, whereas in Brave, a Synch-Chain is built using a 32-byte random seed produced during the first sync setup. The seed is then encoded using BIP39. That’s all. This BIP39 seed serves as a password when synchronising your data on new devices.

Whenever you install Brave on a new device, go to Settings > Sync, click I have a Sync Code. Enter the BIP39 seed, and the sync will start.

Learn more about Brave sync.

Why do we need a privacy-focused web browser?

People who are conscious of their digital lives, on the one hand, demand more privacy-focused solutions; on the other hand, a larger percentage of society does not appear to care about their digital lives at all. The majority of individuals do not believe in online privacy. Hundreds of articles on privacy have been produced in an attempt to make people aware of their digital lives and the impact of their digital lives on their real lives.

Today, tech behemoths collect consumer data in order to forecast their next move. They try to predict what you’ll do next, what kind of cuisine you’ll like, what political viewpoint you’ll embrace, and how to manipulate your thinking to make the firm more profitable.

This is such a broad subject that I won’t be able to cover it in this short article. However, I recommend seeing the documentaries below, which describe the importance of an individual’s privacy and its impact on society in real life.

Most people I’ve ever talked to and disagreed with on privacy claimed that information collected online, such as users’ location, device information, and so on, isn’t important. The following Al Jazeera documentary explains how journalists and activists face real-life threats. Following the viewing of this documentary, you will understand how hundreds of journalists and activists are assassinated each year throughout the world utilising the same technology that we use every day.

Upcoming brave search

Brave just announced the purchase of TailCat, an open-source search engine. Brave is developing its own search engine, Brave Search. Brave Search, which will be built on top of TailCat, will be a private search engine that will be incorporated into the Brave browser across devices.

Brave search has already been made available publicly. We covered it in this article.

Learn more about Brave Search.

Download Brave Browser

Install Brave Browser on Ubuntu

sudo apt install apt-transport-https curl gnupg

curl -s https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/brave-core.asc | sudo apt-key --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/brave-browser-release.gpg add -

echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list

sudo apt update

sudo apt install brave-browser

Install Brave Browser on Arch Linux or Manjaro Linux

Brave browser is available in Arch Repositories. So use pacman to pull package from the repository and install it on Arch.

sudo pacman -S brave-browser

However, on Manjaro Linux, users can choose to download & install brave browser snap app. Enable the snap support if you haven’t already from the App installer. Open App installer > click the three dots in top right corner > open Preferences > Third Party > Enable Snap support.

After enabling snap support, the app installer will search & install snap app. Search brave browser and install the Brave Browser snap app. Alternatively, install Brave browser snap from the command-line.

snap install brave-browser

Install Brave Browser on Fedora or CentOS

sudo dnf install dnf-plugins-core

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://brave-browser-rpm-release.s3.brave.com/x86_64/

sudo rpm --import https://brave-browser-rpm-release.s3.brave.com/brave-core.asc

sudo dnf install brave-browser