A browser called Brave

We’ve all struggled with browsers, ad blockers, cookies, caches, etc. in an effort to protect our privacy on the internet. And some of us are more concerned than others. I, for example, boycott Facebook and Twitter except for my blog posts that are submitted automatically. I’ve installed several different ad blockers over the years and drifted through several different browsers — from Netscape to Explorer to Firefox to Chrome. Occasionally I use Safari or Opera. I reinstalled Ghostery. And I regularly delete cookies or switch browsers to try to avoid certain paywalls.

But no system is perfect and I recently complained to my son, an IT developer, about always being blocked by the Denver Post, with apparently no allowance for “x free views” a month like a lot of other newspapers. Annoying since the DP is my local paper.

He suggested I try a browser called Brave, which I’d never heard of. He says he uses it all the time because cookies aren’t the only problem. There are trackers, beacons, web bugs, and other things I don’t even understand that can be following you. (I knew that but had forgotten.) Brave blocks all that stuff automatically. No third-party ad blockers or other extensions needed. And it will import all your bookmarks, although I did fumble a bit trying to get my bookmark bar set up the way I wanted. There are lots of options I don’t fully understand yet, but you can, for example, set it to delete all cookies and trackers when you leave a site.

According to Wikipedia, Brave has gotten mixed reviews since its release two years ago. One thing I noticed right away was the lack of translation capability. For now. But in their forums it sounds like they are just trying to decide on the best way to implement it. And I’ve come across one or two other little things it doesn’t do, but I forget what they were.

Anyway, those of you looking for a more secure presence on the internet might want to take Brave for a spin.