Brave Browser Review

How to Download the Brave Browser

Brave's download page is fairly simple. Select the operating system from the banner that attempted to auto-detect it, or from the smaller list below.

Scrolling further down the page will show the links for the Beta builds. These are only for users who wish to experiment with cutting-edge, often buggy, versions of the browser.

Installing the Brave Browser

Open the downloaded file. On Windows, it should have a name such as BraveBrowserSetup.exe or something similar. Run the file when prompted and give it permissions to install.

The first thing that Brave pops up is the Welcome Tour. Experienced Brave users can skip this, while everyone else should go through the tour and familiarize themselves with the browser.

On the tour, bookmarks and settings can be imported from other browsers. A default search engine can also be chosen; this will be Google unless otherwise specified. And the user can choose to opt into the Brave Rewards program, which will show ads that support content creators. Those ads can be turned off at any time.

Brave Browser Review - Out of the Box

The first thing a user might notice is an alarm or error symbol on the Options menu on the upper right. This is likely because certain global extensions need permission to operate within Brave. This includes things such as PDF viewers, password managers, and document editors. Enabling things that override Brave's default experience should only be done by experienced users who understand the consequences. Remember to click on the extension's icon and log in to any password managers as needed.

The Home Page will proudly show how many ads have been blocked and how much bandwidth has been saved.

By scrolling down on the Brave home page, a newsfeed can optionally be enabled. More importantly, a 'Customize' button will appear in the lower right. Clicking on it will bring up a home screen options menu.

Here the background images can be turned on and off, stats viewed, newsfeeds turned on and off, and the sidebar for crypto and ad preferences can be edited or removed.

After setting up initial preferences, it's time to start browsing. Searching via the default engine (selected during the tour) can be accomplished simply by typing a phrase into the top address bar. Or a web address (URL) can be entered to go directly to another site.

When using Google Search for the first time, there will be cookies prompt. Turning off all cookie options will remove Google's personalization features as well.

The user may notice the Brave lion glowing next to the site address that they've chosen to visit. That means Brave has a Shields site report available. Click on it.

For each site visited, Brave can let the user know what 'creepy' things have been blocked. This will include ad trackers, strange scripts and popups, and other things that would have secretly influenced a browsing session. Advanced settings and the way Brave Shields works across the entire browser can both be edited from this interface.

These are some of the obvious changes in the Brave user interface when compared to more mainstream browsers. Next, we'll have a look 'under the hood' and take a deep dive into some of the interesting options available in the Brave browser.

Brave Browser Review - Available Privacy Options

To see the incredible depth of the Brave browser, one need only visit the Settings menu. It can be reached by clicking on the three parallel horizontal bars next to the address bar and then select 'Settings', or by entering brave://settings/ into the address bar and pressing Enter.

As one might suspect, all of the cosmetic things can be changed here, from colors to themes to menu appearance. Assuming the user will take the time to explore those things themselves, we'll skip ahead to the more important functional, security, and privacy-oriented options.

The Shields settings are rather important. Always keep 'Upgrade to HTTPS' on. It is suggested that the Advanced View option is selected, so that as much data about cookie and script blocking is available as possible. Outside of that, there are a few important options to consider:

Trackers and ad blocking: Setting this to 'aggressive' might mess up certain plugins and sites by default, but it is the safest setting. An aggressive setting rarely causes too much chaos here.

Block Scripts: Turning this on will almost certainly screw up half the websites on the Internet. But it can be kind of fun in a masochistic way.

Cookie Blocking: This is normally fine set to 'only cross-site' and then briefly reviewing cookie requests as they pop up for a new site. Blocking all cookies will likely break the other half of the Internet that wasn't already broken by turning off all the scripts.

Fingerprint Blocking: Standard simply isn't good enough, and 'strict' will almost certainly break things. But try it out both ways to see how a typical browsing session is impacted. The Brave Browser and its limited fingerprinting protection are not enough to do the job properly.

The Social Media Blocking options are straightforward: Enable what seems appropriate, and disable what isn't. Facebook is the most invasive of them all, enabling their ads is not recommended.

For Extensions, if a user's browsing experience is Google-centric (Docs, YouTube, Gmail, etc.) then turning on 'allow Google login for extensions' is a good timesaver. If a user is planning to allow that access anyway, Google very likely already has their first-party information integrated across several formats.

When picking which service to use for Unstoppable Domain resolution and ENS, the question is: Does the user trust Cloudflare more, or Infura? Frankly, the medium (HTTPS or Ethereum JSON-RPC) is secondary to the trust in the service provider itself, at least in this case. Pick whichever one is most appropriate.

Use Tor and redirect Onion sites. When the user is inside a Private Window with Tor, Brave doesn't connect directly to a website. Instead, it uses a chain of three computers in the Tor network, passed through in series. Once traffic has moved through all three, it connects to the website that the user is visiting. Why three computers? Because only one of the three Tor computers knows where the connection is really coming from. And of course, only one knows where the destination address is. Those two don't ever talk directly to each other, instead of relaying data through another computer in the middle of the chain.

If using Onion services on Brave, make sure that the browser is upgraded to the most recent version. Versions of the Brave browser prior to March 2021 were accidentally exposing Onion addresses to the user's ISP. This was fixed in the 1.20.110 release.

Keep Widevine off unless it is absolutely required for something. Sadly, if the user is on services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney Plus, or other streaming sites, Wildvine may indeed be required. WidevineCDM (Content Decryption Module) is a DRM component used in Chromium-based desktop and Android browsers. It decrypts, decodes, and enables playback of DRM-protected video content like shows that the user would find on Hulu, HBO, and all the rest. Sadly this is buy-in by the big streaming services and not a decision from Brave or third-party web browsers. Anyone trying to completely cut the cord from Google services will find this disappointing, but it's simply reality at this point.

The final questions are all about IPFS. The InterPlanetary File System is a fairly new protocol. It's a decentralized web hosting and browsing system. When active, it turns on a hosting mechanism that allows others to store fragments of a website inside an active session. Much like BitTorrent, users retrieve bits and pieces of sites from many close neighbors at high speeds, rather than using a single authoritative source.

IPFS is a hedge against things like monitoring, censorship, and temporary routing issues or content blockages. Much the same way some people aren't comfortable seeding and hosting Torrents, some aren't comfortable hosting IPFS, even if it is just a website fragment. For more on the balance of privacy VS flexibility and the impact of various options, see Brave's guidance on IPFS.

Brave Browser Review - Missing Features

To be honest, many of the 'missing' features in Brave are strictly cosmetic. Things like custom backgrounds for the home page, custom avatars, avatar backgrounds, and dark mode on certain features such as Rewards would be nice. But they're absolutely not necessary.

It would be nice to have a robust password-generation feature as part of Brave. In fact, this is one of the most requested security and privacy-oriented features in the feature request database. As it stands, an external password manager is required for secure random generation. Hopefully, that will change in the near future.

Another feature that is highly requested and arguably necessary, given the accusations against a certain Uphold executive, is the ability to set a custom wallet address for digital currency. It's a hugely complex subject, and the solution to custom wallets will depend on the user's country of origin, so the folks at Brave have a lot to think about on this particular issue.

Advanced fingerprinting protection isn't optimal. It doesn't quite work right on virtual machines. It breaks far too many sites in 'aggressive' mode, which frankly is the only useful and effective mode. There are certain tweaks that need to be undertaken. Until then, there are third-party options to consider which will be addressed below.

But by and large, they seem to be on the right track. A couple of additional features with password generation and management, better wallet options, and an overhaul and improvement of its browser fingerprint features are all Brave needs to really shine.

The Results of the Brave Browser Review

After using the browser in normal operation with the fairly strict settings suggested above, there were a few bumps in the road. But that's to be expected when strict fingerprinting protection is turned on and aggressive tracker blocking is enabled. Things were as smooth as one might imagine when taking away a lot of the tools that the modern web expects one to have at their disposal. When certain sites were whitelisted, things got a lot smoother.

The Brave browser gets a solid 4.25 stars out of 5. It's a reasonable balance between privacy, security, and functionality. It offers more in the way of browser fingerprinting and alternative data access methods (Onion and IPFS as examples) than any mainstream browser without third-party add-ons or plugins. TOR might edge it out in some places, but the ease of use is certainly on Brave's side.

We're looking forward to the future of the Brave Browser, as it continues to be polished and feature-enriched.