The web browser Brave recently launched version 1.11, and this one inches it closer to being one of the best browsers to use out of the box. While I covered the release of version 1.0, it’s been a mixed bag in terms of Brave’s reputation and progress.
Earning users’ trust
Brave was recently featured in the news for its misstep of suggesting URLs in the address bar that contained affiliate codes. The CEO apologized, and the company has since addressed the issue, but it wasn’t the best move for the existing goodwill it had accumulated among the tech-savvy crowd. Also a reminder that Brave is open source, so even if there were some missteps, anything sneaky can be seen out in the open, so people should feel more relieved than if the software was proprietary like Opera.
After initially using Brave as my full-time browser, I ran into issues with its sync feature, which caused my bookmarks to be duplicated, deleted ones to be resurrected. In other words, it was a big mess, and I ended up using a third party extension for bookmark syncing (xbrowsersync). However, Brave managed to even make that not work thanks to their change in the default bookmark system behavior, which broke bookmark syncing extensions.
Until Brave was “ready” for me to use full time on my machines, I switched to the surprisingly good new Microsoft Edge built using the Chromium base. It’s similar to Brave in that it is memory efficient and lighter than Chrome. The sync feature also works really well.
However, I still keep Brave installed on some machines just to keep up with the latest developments.
The new and improved ad blocker!
Brave’s 1.11 latest update is an important one, as it features a new “aggressive” ad blocking mode. Until this feature, the ad blocker built into Brave would only block third-party ads and not ones it deemed “first party” on sites. This meant you would still see ads on sites such as Reddit and Twitter since they served some internal ones.
With the new aggressive mode turned on, it’s like having something like uBlock Origin built right into your browser, only faster. I can’t say enough how much I love the speed of the Brave browser, and it’s all thanks to the native ad blocker built using the rust language. Well, now, with the Brave 1.11 release, the browser is coming together rather nicely.
The only thing left needed for me to switch to this browser full time is the new improved sync version 2, which is making its way through the development channels and should arrive in stable sometime in August 2020.
What’s your take?
While I feel Brave is still trustworthy and their browser is shaping up to be a great alternative to Google Chrome, how about you? What’s your current preferred browser? Are you thinking of switching to something else? Let me know.