BRAVE NEW (AD-BLOCKING) BROWSER
Do you hate internet ads? Are you fed up with autoplay videos that distract you, slow down your browser, and consume an inordinate share of your data allotment? Brandon Eich says he has a solution for you.
A few years ago, Eich was the CEO of Mozilla. He was hounded out of his job by a Twitter mob over a small donation to a political cause. He has not been idle since then, though, and now he is poised to compete with his old employer.
Eich and his partners have raised $4.5 million in seed money for an ad-blocking browser to be called Brave. Eich says it will begin operating in September.
Unlike other browsers, in which the ad-blocking function is handled by third-party supplements or extensions. Brave has it built in. Brave says that its desktop version will be 40% to 60% faster than the competition, and the version for mobile devices will be two to four times faster than comparable browsers. Both desktop and mobile versions will consume far less data, and will dramatically extend battery life. Brave will feature several privacy and security functions: malware filtering, phishing protection, script blocking, fingerprint shields, and support for data encryption via HTTPS Everywhere.
Earlier this year, Eich said that Brave will insert its own ads, but they will not inhibit performance. The ads will be placed “only in a few standard-size spaces” found by a cloud robot, and will target users “only by a highly re-identifiable cookie”. In other words, targeting will be anonymous. You won’t have to give up your personal information to advertisers, as you would when using most other browsers.
The Brave ad platform has not been universally popular. In April, more than a dozen U.S. news organizations, including the New York Times Company, Dow Jones (owner of the Wall Street Journal), and the Gannett Corporation (owner of USA Today) sent a letter to Eich, claiming that it is “blatantly illegal”. Eich says that Brave has discussed the program with top New York publishers since then, and he believes they will learn to accept it. “If there is a role for ads”, he says, “they have to be fewer and more effective.”
(To get the most out of your browser, you need a reliable internet connection. Talk to us. We can help.)