Are you wondering what Brave is all about? Or why Brave is even worth a shot (ugh another browser?).
You’ve come to the right place.
But I apologize. This is not really a review.
It’s more of a love letter. To Brave. (If you couldn’t tell by the article of the article…)
Well, ok, it’s a very, very biased review 🙂
Table of Contents:
- What did I first think when I heard of Brave?
- How did I find out about Brave? A lot of other smart people using it…
- What is Brave, exactly?
- Blazing Fast
- Privacy!
- All your Chrome add-ons should still work!
- Built-in torrenting!
- Is there anything I don’t like about Brave?
- Here are some reasons why you might not want Brave…
What did I first think when I heard of Brave?
I actually first heard about Brave at its inception a few years before I actually switched over to it.
And honestly, I was pretty skeptic of the browser. I thought: “Ugh, yet another browser? What are the chances of that working out…”.
I didn’t understand what exactly was the point of having a built-in adblocker. Wasn’t ‘uBlock origin’ or ‘adBlock’ good enough for Chrome?
What exactly is there to be gained from a built-in adblocker?
So I kept using Chrome.
Until one day…
Why did I first switch over to Brave?
Until one day, when I was browsing Twitter, I came across a tweet from someone I highly respect, Naval Ravikant.
And this guy had a strong endorsement for Brave:
And I kept reading further in the tweet thread. Two more tweets that really interested me:
Now, Naval’s really smart. So if Naval’s switched to Brave as default…then why not give it a try?
Besides, I’m a big believer in Nassim Taleb’s notion of “tinkering” — where you make lots of small adjustments, and you keep the good ones while discarding the bad ideas. Every once in a while, you get a big hit.
And, Brave turned out to be one of those big hits.
That minute, I downloaded Brave and started transitioning tabs over from Chrome.
What is Brave, exactly?
Brave has high pedigree. One of the founders of Brave was Brendan Eich. This guy is known in the software world as the “Father of Javascript”. Fun fact, the first version of Javascript was written in 11 days (lol!).
Brave is a browser focused on privacy and ad-blocking.
Why does this matter? Well…
Blazing Fast
When I first saw the speed comparison video, my mind was blown:
A possible technical explanation, if you’re interested: Brave is probably doing this by simply not loading certain blacklisted JS files. So, Brave will not even have to wait for the JS files to download from the internet.
Additionally, the JS files don’t get to run on the webpage. Double-bonus — this helps your CPU as well as network. This explains Naval’s earlier observation that Brave doesn’t consume as much battery life. And those JS files don’t get a chance to download other data off the network!
How does this compare with Chrome?
Running an adblocker plugin as a hack on the Chrome browser has problems. For one, the plugin could use a lot of memory. Not sure why. But anecdote: my dad’s Chromebook was running really slow for some reason. When he debugged what was going on with the memory, turns out the culprit was the adblock plugin!
There’s another reason why some of my friends has noted that Chrome got slow…
Privacy!
…and it’s related to privacy.
Did you know that Chrome sends gobs and gobs of data over to Google?
Yep. It actually happens (hey, there are some people who don’t know this happens!).
Do you think “Incognito mode” is safe? Do you think everything you do in “Incognito” is safe from “Big Brother Google”?
Do you really think so?
Time to burst your bubble.
Nope!
“Big Brother Google” sends over everything!
Everything!
Why? Because they use that information to make their search engine better. To make more money. Yep. Money money money…
Those of you guys watching adult sites (for whatever reason, hey I don’t care what you do in private)…well this might be one REALLY good reason to switch to Brave.
Brave’s “Private Window” is truly private. Google doesn’t know a thing. Or, at least FAR less than if you were using Chrome!
All your favorite Chrome add-ons still work!
It’s amazing, but actually all your Chrome add-ons should still work!
OK, it’s not completely 100%. It’s more like 99%. I believe there are some edge cases where the add-on relies on a Chrome privacy-invading feature.
But personally, all my plugins still work.
For example, I use uBlock Origin and Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator. Both still work for me.
A quick tangential thread: a quick tutorial on how to add a Chrome plugin, since I was actually a little confused my first time. Just go to the chrome plugin page and click install. As an example, to install uBlock origin, just visit https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en and click Install. The website still thinks you’re using Chrome, when you’re actually using Brave.
Built-in torrenting!
This is a miscellaneous feature that I discovered after I had been using Brave for a couple months already.
It’s because of Brave that I finally learned how to torrent!
I used to be scared of torrenting because you had to download a separate client. The interface would look sketchy. And how do I know if the new software has a virus? Scary.
But since torrenting was built-in to Brave. I decided to just give it a try.
Turns out, in Brave it was as simple as clicking a Magnet link, and you’re off to the races.
That’s really it. That’s all you need to do to torrent.
Brave made it so simple.
Thank you Brave!
Is there anything I don’t like about Brave?
No.
Go download it via my referral link.
Now.
Here are some reasons why you might not want Brave…
- You are too lazy. You don’t want a much faster computer. Better battery life. Better memory. Then don’t get Brave. It isn’t for you.
- You want Google to know about all your internet activity, including “adult activity…”. Then don’t get Brave. It isn’t for you.
- You want your computer to download ad tracking software, privacy invasive software. So…they can serve you better ads? Then don’t get Brave. It isn’t for you.
- Your computer battery life is a gazillion hours long. You are lucky. Don’t get Brave. It isn’t for you.
Thank you so much for reading.
Peace.
P.S. My last reason for loving Brave? I earn a little crypto if you download Brave from my referral link. Please? Pretty please. If my review was helpful to you, please help out! It comes at no cost to you. In fact, Brave is free.
Life of Learning 