Brave is a browser-based web browser developed by Brave Software, a company of Yahoo! Online, and the maker of the pop-up blocker McAfee. In 2021, Brave was one of the first browsers to implement the High-Bandwidth Hosting Protocol (HBHPP), an industry-standard that defines the bandwidth limits for websites. Brave also implements cookies, or web beacons, which provide users with the ability to sign in without having to memorize passwords or passcodes to access content on the Internet.
One of the primary motivations behind the creation of Brave was to implement the Open Source community’s need for a secure browsing engine. Brave’s developers had long been frustrated with the lack of security and privacy protection present in most current browsers, and they finally took action with the implementation of Brave. However, users quickly began complaining about the lack of advertising that appeared when browsing the Internet, and advertisers soon began blocking support for the browser, even as Google and Microsoft maintain their dominant share of the search engine market. Despite the constant conflicts between the browser and advertisers, however, Brave has managed to increase its user base, while also enjoying wide success as a niche browser among Internet users.
The primary source of Brave’s advertising revenue is Google, which pays the browser company a daily fee for enabling the tracking of advertising. However, as noted above, Brave users were quick to spot the conflict and many now avoid Google altogether while using Brave. This ongoing struggle between the advertising-centric advertising giants and Internet users has led to even more complications for both sides. As detailed by Edward Czarnet, “The major problem with Brave’s ad-blocking policy is that it makes advertisers’ jobs harder by reducing their control over what Internet users see and click on. Tracking is still possible through some tracking systems, but users are likely to block them, which diminishes the advertising benefit for Brave.”
In contrast, Brave has chosen a different path when compared to other browser projects like the Chrome browser or the Safari browser. Rather than attempt to replicate the appearance and functionality of both Google and Microsoft browsers, Brave has opted to adopt a user-friendly design concept based around a “bobber bar” interface. This interface looks very much like a traditional banner advertisement, except that when you view a Brave article or visit a particular site, the “bobber bar” turns red, signaling that you have pressed the appropriate “stop” button in order to allow the publisher to place advertising onto your web page.
The “bobber bar” functionality can be disabled by visiting the Brave browser home page and clicking on the “Off” button. This ensures that no ads will appear on your web pages, allowing you the freedom to browse the Internet without the distraction of annoying ads appearing on your screen. Although this feature is not perfect, it is an important step forward in eliminating certain types of advertising from appearing on your browser. In addition, Brave provides its users with the option to view certain media, such as music videos, behind a “sponsored result” area, giving users the choice to view media that they prefer. With respect to security issues, Brave also utilizes the same cookie mechanism used by Internet browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox, which helps keep track of web history so that websites will not appear in the list of search results anymore once you have removed their advertising from your browser.
Brave browser has received a lot of criticism over the past few months due to the implementation of a new revenue-sharing system that will reward publishers who have a high percentage of users that click on their advertising. Under this revenue share system, Brave is essentially becoming more like the Facebook social network, where the more members a website has, the more advertising that can be displayed on their home page. Some Internet users are concerned with the privacy issues relating to this new revenue sharing system, however, the Brave team has stated that the majority of its users do not have concerns regarding the advertising being displayed on their pages. Many Internet users have expressed their concern with the fact that Brave still uses adverts to direct users to the company’s own online shop, while other advertisers will display advertising on these pages in an effort to cash in on the popularity generated by Brave’s USP.
Cryptocurrencies, blockchain, decentralized networks, time will only tell what this could all mean for the advertising industry.