Brave, a web browser headed by Brendan Eich - a co-founder of Mozilla, now has three million monthly active users (3.1 million as of July 1st, to be precise). At the pace that it is growing, it will likely pass the five million mark before the end of the year.
Aside from the milestone mentioned above, the browser is also in the Top 10 category in “free communication apps” in the U.S. and 20 other countries around the world. Some of the countries where it is in the top 10 include the U.S., Canada, France, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, and Argentina.
If you’ve not heard about Brave before, it’s not really the browser itself that’s remarkable but the way it is trying to shake-up the online ad industry. So far it has integrated ‘Shields’ which gives users the options to block ads and tracking. It has also enabled HTTPS Everywhere, blocked phishing and scripts, and offers fingerprint protection. But it is also working on a new way to fund content creators.
Brave is currently working to add blockchain-based Basic Attention Tokens; each user’s browser has a wallet built in which you can top up with funds, and even though you might have ad blocking switched on, you’ll be able to donate money to your favourite sites in order to help support them. You can select an amount you’d like to spend each month and divvy it out between the sites which you’ve opted to pay or those which Brave automatically selects based on how much time you’ve spent on them. Brave says these payments work on an anonymous ledger system so you can’t be identified based on the sites you visit or support.
Brave currently boasts over 18,000 verified publishers which consists of 4,500 websites and 13,500 YouTube and Twitch streamers. It’ll be interesting to see whether this figure grows as more people begin using Brave and content creators decide to opt-in to claiming funds from Brave.
Let us know in the comments whether you’re using Brave on desktop or mobile and also keep in mind that Neowin’s preferred funding methods include allowing ads to run on the site which readers will see, or taking out a subscription which gives you additional perks on the site and in the forum.