Brave Browser
You may be wondering what a web browser is doing on a financial education site, we’ll get to that in a bit, but first a bit about Brave. They claim to load pages faster than Chrome and Firefox, as well as use less battery on your mobile device. The Brave team says its mission is to make the web safer and faster for its users. Founded by the inventor of JavaScript and the co-founder of Mozilla, Brave aims to provide a privacy based, performance oriented browser. So here’s the skinny on Brave:
Brave focuses on the holy internet trinity noted below, providing a more balanced approach to advertising and user privacy:
Browsers
Content creators
Advertisers
Key takeaways
Brave promises more internet privacy
Get paid for viewing advertisements
How to get started
Go to Brave website to download and install the Brave browser. From here you can select your preferences such as appearance, privacy settings, import your bookmarks etc. This is also when you can decide if you would like to view advertisements in return for compensation in Basic Attention Token (BAT). This is the Brave Rewards program.
How it works
On the surface it is really not that different than the browser you use today. Type stuff in, get results, watch cat videos, go down the meme rabbit hole. If you have opted into the rewards program, you will periodically see ads pop up as you surf the internet. The max setting is up to 5 ads per hour. Although you can typically expect less than this. In cases where there are no current ads targeted to your search history, you might not receive an ad for multiple days. I’ve found that searching for cryptocurrencies and other tech related topics (even if you are not actually interested) can help boost ad frequency if you are experiencing a lull.
Brave Rewards
As you receive ads you will notice your Brave Rewards counter on your homepage increase. At the time of this writing, I have found that each ad tends to pay between 0.01 and 0.1 BAT. Each month this cumulative total will be deposited into your Brave wallet.
A typical Brave home page interface
With a several hours of computer use per day, I accumulate about 10 to 15 BAT on average per month. From here there are a couple options you have on how to use it:
Link it to your Uphold account to exchange for other cryptocurrencies or cash it out. See our Uphold review here.
Or, you can tip your favorite websites or content creators (like Finance Frog ) :)
Note that since this is still relatively new, many sites are not registered to accept your tips, but that won’t stop you from being able to. If and when they register, the tips will make their way to them.
The other option is to link your Brave rewards to an Uphold account and each month they will be automatically deposited into your account where you can hold or exchange them for various currency assets, including numerous cryptocurrencies.
You can also link multiple computers to the same Uphold account. So if you are using multiple devices the rewards can all be deposited in the same final location.
Brave Downsides
Some notes on the mobile vs. desktop versions of Brave. While you can view ads, accumulate BAT, and tip creators on the mobile version, you cannot directly link this to an Uphold account at the time or writing.
Final thoughts
Overall the browser runs great and the ads are reasonable. You certainly won’t get rich, but you can expect to earn a few dollars worth or BAT each month. Take that and exchange it for Bitcoin, Ethereum , XRP or several other cryptocurrencies and you’re looking at some interesting growth potential. It's a great way to dip your toes into crypto markets and finally get paid for the ads you see.
