After four and a half years of development and testing first stable release of the web browser developed under the leadership of Brendan Eich, the creator of the JavaScript language and former head of Mozilla. The browser is based on the Chromium engine and is focused on protecting user privacy. Assemblies for Linux, Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. Project Code on GitHub, Brave-specific components are distributed under the MPLv2 free license.
Brave has an engine built in and enabled by default to cut ads, code to track movement between sites, social media buttons, autoplay video blocks, and mining inserts. The filtering engine is written in Rust and uses algorithms borrowed from the Block Origin and Ghostery add-ons.
According to the developers, cleaning displayed pages from ads and third-party JavaScript blocks allows you to speed up page loading by 3-6 times. In developer tests, Brave averaged 27 seconds faster on tested pages than Chrome and 22 seconds faster than Firefox, while Brave downloaded 58% less data and spent 40% and 47% more on page processing. less memory than Chrome and Firefox.
To combat indirect user tracking, the browser uses a blocker for hidden identification methods (βbrowser fingerprintingβ). The HTTPS Everywhere add-on is integrated into the main structure, allowing all sites, where possible, to use HTTPS. There is a private browsing mode in which traffic is forwarded through the Tor network. The browser supports the synchronization mechanism between Brave Sync devices, offers a choice of dark and light themes, is compatible with Chrome add-ons, has built-in support ΠΈ .
Recognizing that ad blocking can deprive content creators of the means to maintain their resources, Brave developers have integrated an alternative publisher funding mechanism into the browser. The essence of the proposed scheme is that the user receives the funds from displaying advertising, who then distributes them in the form of donations to the most interesting resources from his point of view.
Listing donations to content creators using the system . Donations can be made as a monthly subscription or in the form of one-time rewards for certain interesting content (a red triangle indicator is displayed in the address bar for a donation). To prevent fraud, only verified sites can participate in the program (more than 300 sites are supported). The Brave Rewards widget is placed on the page shown when opening a new tab.
Donations can be raised thanks to the Brave Ads advertising platform built into the browser, which allows you to display ads without resorting to external services. To ensure privacy, data about open pages does not leave the user's system and is stored locally. The use of Brave Rewards and Brave Ads is optional, enabled at the user's request (via the Brave Rewards menu or brave://rewards URL) and configurable (you can limit the number of ad units shown per hour). Ads are shown in the form of pop-up notifications separated from the content. Currently, advertising is possible in 30 countries, among which there are no post-Soviet countries yet.
Settlements are carried out in a specially created cryptocurrency (Basic Attention Token), based on Ethereum and combining a decentralized platform for the exchange of advertising. The proposed approach gives the user the ability to fully control all browser data, and businesses retain the ability to place ads. The distribution model implies the distribution between users of 70% of the income received from advertisers. Funds from viewing ads are accumulated in the form of BAT tokens in a wallet linked to the user. The user can exchange earned BAT for digital and real currencies or use it to sponsor websites.
Addendum: Manjaro Linux distribution developers are conducting about the possibility of switching to using Brave by default.
Source: opennet.ru