Former Mozilla CEO reveals Brave

a browser that speeds up the Web by blocking all ads

[bill]

Former Mozilla CEO reveals Brave, a browser that speeds up the Web by blocking all ads [pcworld.com]

Brendan Eich, co-founder of Mozilla and for an 11-day stint, its CEO, yesterday announced a new browser called “Brave,” that blocks outside online ads and ad tracking.

Check out the browser on the Brave [brave.com] website.

[not2easy]

I have a feeling that Brave will be the latest UA blocked. In their headlines they shout "Removes All Ads!" Further down they explain that is to make room for their own ads. Of course their ads are all nice, not like yours. Just another parasite.

[tangor]

A sign of the future of advertising, this time linked to the browser itself. I'm happy to see competition of any kind at this moment, since what we have has been in slow but steady decline for years. Unless one has diversified, of course.

[tangor]

Previous report at The Register (three days ago):

Brave is built on top of open-source browser Chromium – which Google uses as the foundation for its Chrome browser – and claims to be between 1.5 and 4 times faster than competitors by stripping out not just ads, but also all the tracking code that lives in abundance on most ad-supported websites.

[theregister.co.uk...]

[robzilla]

They want you to believe it's all for the benefit of the users, but it's just a business model. For those already blocking ads with browser extensions, I don't see how Brave can be of any benefit -- except to the developers, of course. Doubt it'll take off.

Example User-Agent string:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) brave/0.7.7 Chrome/47.0.2526.73 Electron/0.36.2 Safari/537.36

[creeking]

We are building a new browser and a connected private cloud service with anonymous ads.

reminds me of an adblocker that makes deals to allow certain ads.

[bill]

I probably would have been more excited about this browser if it wasn't just focused on replacing ads. Apparently early versions will not show replacement ads as they likely don't have much inventory, but eventually they'll be there. I wasn't clear of the benefit of this sort of browser over simply adding browser extensions to do the same.

[not2easy]

It is still in beta last I read, they are allowing interested people to sign up. I guess that might be an essential part of getting their ads lined up.

[ken_b]

I dunno ...

I can live with people using an adblocker, they probably weren't going to click on an ad anyhow.

But strip ads from my site and replace them with your own?

If it wasn't a browser, wouldn't we call that malware?

What do you call a browser with built-in malware?

.

[edited by: ken_b at 3:12 am (utc) on Jan 25, 2016]

[tangor]

A hand in your wallet?

[Selen]

The most important point is missed - it could be the new model for webmasters to make money. It's likely they will start an affiliate program (similar to Firefox years ago), pay webmasters to promote Brave. Then webmasters would get 50-70% revenue share per click for the 'replaced' ads. Similar to Adsense.

[tangor]

My chuckle above aside, I think most of us know that an alternative ad network is the real thrust behind Brave. If that network can serve ads without all the current baggage then we might have a hit on our hands. Wait and see while in beta. Wait and see what kind of network can be put together. Wait and see if advertisers will put ad dollars in that market. Wait and see if users will accept (use) the new browser. What is different is that Brave is a "Killer" which requires no additional work by the User to filter ads/scripts. Out of the box it does what it does. In that there might might enough interest.

And we'll wait and see.

[mack]

Any new product, be it a browser or a gadget needs to serve a purpose. Simply doing something in the same way doesn't make it stand out. If Brave's key selling point is 'no ads' then they really do need to review their business plan.

If a user wants an add free user experience they dont want to see ads at all.

This reminds me a little of the old Opera. It was ad supported with ads on the chrome. For them it quickly became aparent that it simply wasnt working.

A browser is one area where it is hard to generate revenue. Will be interesting to see where, if anywhere this leads.

Mack.

[engine]

This is the equivalent of an official browser hijack. hehehe

If a user accepts it, that's fine, but from an advertiser point of view for ads being blocked, it's not good.

I'd like to see how and if it's going to work, or whether companies such as google block the browser from using its services. That's be an interesting one, eh!

[buckworks]

But strip ads from my site and replace them with your own?

If it wasn't a browser, wouldn't we call that malware?

I sure would call it malware.

[keyplyr]

Whether it is successful or not, the news is another nail in the coffin to diminish the ad-dollar spent. Over the last year since adblockers (browsers & extensions) have been gaining more press (Cnet has a stream segment about their benefits) I've seen a significant drop in ad revenue despite a measurable gain in traffic.

[nickreynolds]

cant see many people downloading this browser

[mcneely]

google paid ios a billion to be their search?

How much will it pay to run ads in a browser

[robzilla]

How much will it pay to run ads in a browser

By default, the Brave browser does not block ads on google.com (they're "1st-party").

Presumably because they would be difficult to replace with their own ads.

And would probably upset the folks at Google quite a bit if they would.

When certain ISPs started replacing/inserting their own ads into web pages, that caused a #*$! storm. I don't see how this browser is much different.

[super70s]

But strip ads from my site and replace them with your own?

If it wasn't a browser, wouldn't we call that malware?


I sure would call it malware.

I guess that's why they call it Brave.

[Nutterum]

So, this is actually a Konqueror browser but with modern UI and integrated ads. Not to be a doomsayer but this browser will fail as it does not introduce anything new to the table.