Most ad-blocker users don’t find any ads acceptable at all, and it’s doubtful they’ll bother with a new browser that still carries them.Īs for site operators, it doesn’t seem as though there’s much in it for them. Oh sure, there are some “moral ad-blockers” who do want to support the sites they visit where possible and view ads as long as they aren’t annoying or malicious-but they often choose to use ad-blockers and simply disable the blocks for the sites they want to support, or they use an ad-blocker like AdBlock Plus that will permit “acceptable ads” through. It doesn’t seem like it’s the sort of thing that ought to appeal to anybody-users, site operators, or advertisers.Īnybody who wants to block ads already can and does block them. The thing that puzzles me is who Eich thinks is actually going to want his new browser. But those things can be done just as easily with existing browser and ad-blocking technology. Also, it implements HTTPS Everywhere, automatically using HTTPS for every web site where available. It does have some attractive security features-it strips out tracking cookies that follow you around the web, basing its ads solely on your local browsing history. It’s fairly safe to assume that Brave will also use quite a lot of CPU time to strip out ads and then insert new ones. Brave doesn’t have a special pipe that makes its ads load more quickly than the ones it replaced. The new ads still have to be pulled down across the Internet. It isn’t clear whether Brave will actually be any faster than another browser, or whether it will save on mobile data usage, once it has inserted its own ads. And it seems that removes a lot of the potential advantage, especially for a mobile browser. It might be more apt to call it an ad-substituting browser, because while it might block ads now, the main idea is apparently to replace the more egregious (and potentially malicious) advertisements with its own ads, and split its own ad revenue with the site and the user. The browser isn’t available yet, but it’s taking sign-ups for beta users on its site.

Apparently it’s more like three browsers, because Ars Technica reports the iOS, PC, and Android versions seem to be based on Firefox, Chromium, and Bubble respectively. The usual news sources have been abuzz over the last couple of days about Brave, the new open-source ad-blocking browser from Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich.

Adblock plus for brave browser