Brave is an open-source web browser based on the Chromium web browser and its Blink engine. The platform protects users' data from advertisers and pays users to watch ads in BAT, which can then be redistributed to content creators in the form of micropayments.^{[2] [3] [4]}

Brave was developed by Brave Software which was founded in May 28, 2015 by Brendan Eich and Brian Bondy. ^[8] Brave was first announced by co-founder Brendan Eich on January 20, 2016 with the stated goal of providing an alternative to the widely adopted system of providing free content to end users supported by advertising revenue that is employed by many content creators and publishers on the World Wide Web. ^[9]

Since 2019 Brave browser has fork: Dissenter (web browser). Dissenter does not support Brave business model, but allows to leave comments about any web pages. ^[20]

The browser strives to improve online privacy by sharing less data with advertising customers, instead targeting web ads through analysis of users' anonymized browsing history. Brave intends to keep 15% of ad revenue for itself, pay content publishers 55%, ad partners 15% and also give 15% to the browser users, who can in turn donate to bloggers and other providers of web content through micropayments. ^{[5] [6]}

Payments made through Brave are processed in Basic Attention Token, an ERC20 Token Standard. The token is designed to value and price user attention on the Brave platform. There is a total token supply of 1,500,000,000 BAT. ^[13]

Basic Attention Token held an initial coin offering on May 31, 2017 for its eponymous ERC-20 utility token, raising approximately $35M USD at the time within 30 seconds. ^[13]

The Brave Payments program, which formerly used Bitcoin, enables users to tip websites and content creators on certain platforms with BAT tokens. Some of the more notable publishers that accept tipping are The Washington Post, The Guardian, Vimeo, Marketwatch, Barron's, Vice and more. BAT is not exclusive to Brave and is its own distinct project.

BAT and Brave Software have received at least $7 million USD in angel investments from venture capital firms such as Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital, Digital Currency Group, among others. ^[13]

Being a privacy-focused browser, Brave can be considered far safer than Chrome and Firefox.

Not only does is block ads by default, but also trackers and blocking scripts.

Brave does everything it can to shield your PC, Laptop or mobile phone against malware & other malicious scripts.

The basic browsing process, though safer than the flagship browser its built on, is still a small step in the right direction.

Brave, in an attempt to make their browser even more secure, offers you the ability to open a private window using The Onion Router (TOR).

What this means is that when using the feature, your online browsing history is hidden even from your internet service provider on top of your IP address being hidden from every site you visit.

Brave will never collect, store, or sell any of your personal data as your data is considered your own personal property as detailed in Brave’s terms of service.

Something important to note is that all of Brave’s security features are enabled by default upon installing the browser for use.

This means that there is no reason to edit anything if your chief concern is security.

However, if you need additional details or are a computer guru and would like to add a few things to the code in order to create your own version of Brave, the entire open-source project can be found on Github.

On February 22, 2021, the Brave team released the 2.0 roadmap that intends to cover the next year to 18 months.

The team revealed their plans for an integrated Decentralized Exchange (DEX) aggregator and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) support. Brave’s new roadmap also highlights the company’s desire to integrate DeFi (Decentralized Finance) functionality in its wallet and explore scaling solutions for the project.^[22][23]

Brave’s new Ethereum-native wallet will support “DeFi and NFT use-cases,” in addition to introducing mobile support and enhanced API functionality.

The planned DEX aggregator will seek to reward BAT token holders, offering discounts to users that pay for transaction fees in BAT or hold the token in their wallets.

Brave is targeting support for assets across multiple chains, noting it will consider both layer-one and layer-two scaling solutions to mitigate the high fees associated with using the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet. Brave also hopes to expand the utilities of BAT throughout the decentralized web, including building support for the token in the context of e-commerce, VPNs, search engines, and file sharing. The team said it would expand efforts to engage with its community, including hosting regular AMAs with its team members, launching the “BAT Ambassadors program,” and translating content into a wider array of languages.^[22][23]

By the end of 2021, the browser also hopes to boast 50 million monthly and 17 million daily users.^[22][23]