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I'm sick of AI being shoved down my throat
Stop passing off machine learning tricks as real AI improvements
The privacy-focused, ad-busting Brave browser introduced its Leo AI months ago to the excitement of no one in particular. Building and maintaining a browser costs money, so it's not surprising that free-to-use Brave is trying to entice users with yet another halfwit chatbot, only offering more powerful (and actually useful) versions for a fee.
Say goodbye to third-party cookies and hello to microtransactions
Your browser may someday auto-pay the creators you love
Payments and content subscriptions for the best entertainment apps are arguably the bane of the internet age, but for companies, they are a proven business model which generates recurring income. However, imagine an existence online where you just surf the web unhindered and your browser compensates content creators directly without your repetitive involvement. Chromium developers are working on such a system, thus creating an exciting future for our favorite browsers on Android.
Brave Browser on Windows sneaks in a couple of VPN services without user consent
The company has promised to fix this with a future update
Online privacy is an aspect almost every internet user has to consider, especially at a time when malicious actors (and even some governments) may not be fully aligned with that idea. This is why many rely on VPNs to mask their online activity and keep the prying eyes away. While some free-to-use VPNs are notorious for sharing data with third parties, other, more reputable services that charge a subscription fee generally have a more robust infrastructure in place to prevent such practices. Makers of the privacy-oriented Brave Browser provide a VPN service of their own for $9.99/month. The team has now acknowledged its controversial decision to bundle a couple of VPN services with the Windows app, even if the users didn't ask for it.
Brave Browser's latest addition outmaneuvers shifty trackers
After blocking third-party cookie tracking, the company has its sight set on first-party reidentification
Online security and privacy are a serious concern for every user who accesses the internet, even more so if that's where a majority of your work takes place. Third-party cookie tracking has been used by giant corporations and smaller entities as a means of tracking user activity across different websites, even after logging out from services. But with awareness on the topic growing each day, companies have pivoted to other tracking means, such as relying on reidentification via first-party cookies, recognizing returning visitors. Makers of privacy-focused Brave Browser have announced a new feature coming to their web and Android versions, known as Forgetful Browsing.
8 Brave Browser tips and tricks to enhance your experience
Make the switch from your current web browser to Brave with ease
Brave is a privacy-first browser offering advanced settings for blocking trackers and improving online security. While it does have some bloat in the form of a built-in cryptocurrency wallet, it's easily one of the best browsers on Android.
Earlier this year, the people behind Brave Browser bought a search engine and turned it into something that they could call their own, allowing their users to search the web privately. Now, after a few months in beta, Brave Search has replaced Google as the default search engine in the latest version of the Brave Browser, which could be said to be a brave move.
Brave Browser lives up to its name, picks one more fight with Google
They're going to try to make a video chat platform
The privacy-focused browser Brave has just unveiled its new video conferencing platform Brave Talk after a year-long beta phase, built on top of the open-source video meeting platform Jitsi. Like its other products such as Brave Search and News, it's meant to be as private as possible and can only be fully used through the Brave Browser.
The majority of us turn to Google Search to discover all kinds of web content, but that might not be the best choice if you care about privacy. In order to improve its results and make more relevant recommendations, Google tracks your activity across the web. If you're looking for a privacy-focussed alternative, we have good news — Brave Search is here to offer another option.
Nobody wants anything to do with Google's new tracking mechanism FLoC
Almost all browsers and privacy advocates slam the third-party cookie replacement
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Google is about to shake up the status quo on tracking with its newly proposed browser-based Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) tracking mechanism, which it introduced as a replacement for the outgoing third-party cookies the advertisement industry still heavily relies on. But many privacy advocates like the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and search engine DuckDuckGo think FLoC could turn out to be even worse and more invasive than third-party cookies, and most browser makers were fast to join in on that stance. Almost all of them have vowed or at least hinted that they won't support FLoC in their products, including those based on Google's open-source Chromium rendering engine also used in Chrome.
The Brave Browser people bought a search engine
Brave Search will focus on privacy and openness, with a paid ad-free option
Brave, the desktop and mobile browser based on Chromium code, is gaining a lot of steam. Its stated mission of protecting privacy and blocking malicious advertising resonates with a lot of users, particularly those who are growing weary of Google's track record on both. Brave's latest move is an acquisition of Tailcat, a small open source search engine out of Europe.
Brave is the first browser to support the decentralized HTTPS alternative IPFS
No central servers needed to view websites
Brave may be controversial due to its founder's past and its Brave Rewards cryptocurrency, but the browser does have some neat tricks up its sleeve. As of version 1.19.x, we can add one more feature to Brave's list of capabilities: It now supports the decentralized HTTP(S) alternative IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) that launched in 2015.
Kiwi Browser shows signs of life, teases team-up with fellow Chromium browser in future
Kiwi's first release in almost a year is still based on Chrome 77
Chrome might be most people's choice for browsing the web, but that doesn't mean it's the only option out there. Kiwi Browser is based on the same underlying code that powers Chrome, but it has its own unique features, including being one of the few mobile browsers to support desktop extensions on Android. The project hasn't seen many public-facing changes in the last year, but now a new release is coming down the pike.
Brave may not have the best reputation following referral code injections and its founder's history as the disgraced Mozilla CEO, but it does have a unique approach to ad-blocking without completely cutting off websites from monetization, which you might enjoy. Since the software is based on Chromium, it follows comparable development cycles and comes in similar flavors as Chrome does: Stable, Beta, Dev, and Nightly. Brave Stable and Beta have been available on the Play Store for a long time already, and now the Nightly variant joins them.
Brave Browser caught adding its own referral codes to some cryptocurrency trading sites
No, Brave is not a privacy browser
Brave Browser is undeniably a commercial product first, and a privacy-centric web browser second. While the browser does have quite a few improvements to privacy compared to stock Chrome, it's designed to promote the use of a cryptocurrency (BAT) that Brave itself owns, and it has a referral program that pays browser users by how many people they can get to download Brave. Now the browser has been caught injecting its own affiliate codes into web addresses for popular cryptocurrency trading websites.
Dark mode is a big UI trend of late, with countless apps and even entire operating systems embracing the look. Privacy-focused browser Brave is the latest notable name to get in on the action in its new update, version 1.4.
The privacy-focused, ad-blocking browser Brave is best known here at Android Police for acquiring and shutting down Link Bubble, which allowed users to surf the web in floating bubbles similar to Facebook Messenger's chat heads. Now, the company has announced the roll-out of its advertising initiative called Brave Ads, which replaces intrusive tracking ads on the web with privacy-centric ones provided by the browser.
Brave Software acquired Link Bubble from developer Chris Lacy a few years back, aiming to turn it into a friendlier ad-blocking browser. The name was eventually changed to Brave, but now the owners are reversing course. It's Link Bubble again, and there's a more conventional browser app available called Brave. Yeah, it's kind of a mess.