The Brave little browser that could (block your ads on Youtube)

Back in the metaphorical days before electricity – that’s 2001 – there were the browser wars. Not just one, but two full blown wars for browser use share.

The first browser war was fought between Internet Explorer – affectionately nicknamed “Internet Exploder” during this time period, due to it’s tendency to crash – and Netscape Navigator, during the years of 1995 to 2001.

The second browser war was fought between Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome. Google Chrome won, and currently controls 64% of the browser market; Safari, by Apple, is in second place with 18%.

But the real winner here was the open-source software model. Redhat defines open source software as the following:

“Open source is a term that originally referred to open source software (OSS). Open source software is code that is designed to be publicly accessible—anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit.“

Most computer users are familiar with the web browser Chrome. Google Chrome is based on the open-source browser called Chromium, also developed by Google.

The other popular browsers – Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet, Opera – are…you guessed it….based on the Chromium platform.

There is a newer, Chromium-based, privacy-focused browser called Brave, which is gaining popularity for many reasons, not the least of which is an ad-light user experience.

Brave offers features that aren’t found in other web browsers.

• Brave, by default, greatly reduces or eliminates the number of unwanted ads seen in social media, on websites, and during Youtube.

• Brave users earn crypto while voluntarily viewing viewing ads; the crypto can be banked or used to support content creators.

• Brave offers a relatively expensive paid VPN option. Also included is a firewall, which is not a bad idea, particularly for cell phones.

• Brave blocks trackers, cookie tracking, fingerprinting, etc, which provides greater privacy while surfing the web.

• Cookie consent popups are blocked by default, eliminating cookie permission nag screens.

• Brave Talk accommodates up to 4 participates in an online video chat.

• Brave Wallet supports the purchase, storing and exchanging of Bitcoin, Ethereum, EVM chains, Solana, SPL chains, and Filecoin in the browser, using funds from credit cards or bank accounts.

Brave also claims to have a Playlist feature, allowing curation of playlists from online sources like YouTube, which allows the content to be played from the playlist on your phone even when offline. That said, the feature was not available when digging through the settings on either a Linux based computer, a ‘Droid phone, or following the support documents on how to use it.

Having a desktop AI Assistant widget was, frankly, addictive, and the handful of questions plugged into the Brave Leo AI too-quickly ran through the freebies. The final question posed to AI answered with a prompt for $14.95 a month, or a free 7-day trial.

If you’re looking for a browser that is more respectful of your privacy, and for an improved experience while surfing the web, then consider giving Brave browser a try. It is available for Windows, IOS, Android and Linux at www.Brave.com.