Brave 1.0: This excellent, privacy-focused browser can make you money, too
Brave Software’s new Brave browser, which has emerged out of a long beta into a full-fledged Brave 1.0 release, works in two ways: As a privacy-minded browser that does everything it can to minimize your footprint on the Web, and as a convoluted means of paying people who provide you the content that you read daily.
It’s been literally years since Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and the co-founder of Mozilla, first spoke to PCWorld about trying to balance privacy and ensuring that those that created content were paid for their efforts. The compromise was what Brave Software now calls the Basic Attention Token, or BAT, which leverages the Ethereum blockchain as a unit of virtual currency.
Brave not only allows you to accumulate BAT, via ads that slide in as system notifications once per hour or so, but also to receive BAT that’s either paid or “tipped” to you by other users or readers. You can take some of that BAT to “pay” other users, or store it. Eventually, Brave says, you’ll be able to trade it in for gift cards or other services.
For now, though, I found Brave as very much in keeping with the current emphasis on privacy, above and beyond what users have already established with ad
