After reading this great article on Hashnode: Google Chrome VS Brave Browser - Which Is Better ? by samyek sonawane, I was convinced that I should use Brave as my default everyday browser. Faster load times than Chrome, Open Sourced software, Ad-free, and based off of Chromium, was all the features I needed. I am going to share the things I learned from using Brave Browser for a week.
Quick Summary
- Truly faster load times
- Zero Advertisements
- BAT (Basic Attention Token program)
- Too many tabs open and running = unresponsive Brave
- Safer browsing with TOR
Features in Brave for developers
- Chrome/Brave's DevTools
chrome://flags- Brave has everything Chrome has
Faster load times
I felt a difference in the load times on my favorite websites with Brave, they seemed to just already load when the enter key is pressed or when a link is pressed. Even opening the application on my machine was much faster than Chrome. On Brave's New Tab page, it displays a bunch of stats on how many ads were blocked, HTTP upgrades, minutes saved, and more.
View this video to see a browser load speed comparison
Zero Advertisements
Brave does a great job blocking advertisements from our view on our screens. Some ad-heavy websites look very clean compared to its original version after ad-blocking. Built-in ad-block is very helpful especially if they pay you to view less than five advertisements an hour! (See next section)
BAT (Basic Attention Token)
According to basicattentiontoken.org, a Basic Attention Token is a "token that can be exchanged between publishers, advertisers, and users."
Users (you) surf the web and get paid by viewing advertisements in Brave. Every month or marked date, some your money (earned by viewing ads), goes to certified Brave Content Creators which is supporting them. This way you can support your favorite creators for free (includes hard work of viewing ads).
Too many tabs open and running = unresponsive Brave
Towards the end of the week, I started to notice Brave freezing and eventually crashing once I had 8+ tabs running. This might just be my computer, but ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
Safer web browsing with TOR
Tor is open-source software in which the user can be anonymous.
As Caleb H mentioned, "Chrome has "Private Window", but Brave has taken it a step further with "Private window with Tor".
If you know anything about Tor browser, that's one of the most privacy-centered ways you can go. For people who want to get away from companies like Google and Facebook spying on you, Brave lets you do that with Tor."
Credit to Caleb H for more information about Brave's TOR feature