Probably, it's been a year or a year and a half since everyone has been pushing the Brave browser. So much is written about it that at some point almost everyone began to think: everyone uses it, except me. Obviously, active promotion is part of a well-thought-out advertising strategy aimed at increasing brand awareness and systematic audience growth, because at some point even your humble servant decided that he had no right to ignore a new trend. To be honest, then nothing came of my experiment, which consisted of trying to switch from Chrome to Brave. And, as I see now, it's good that everything turned out this way.
Brave browser is not as secure as we are told
Brave's creators position it as the most secure browser. Despite the fact that it is based on the Chromium engine, the developers have improved it in a special way, adding a number of protective mechanisms. For example, they excluded Google's tracking algorithms from the browser, prohibited cross-site tracking, and enabled the blocking of scripts and trackers that analyze visitor behavior. In this way, it is possible to ensure the privacy of users by not allowing sites to show them ads based on their preferences. In a word, everything is great.
Is Brave Browser Safe
Brave hasn't gone through any security audits, unlike Chrome, FIrefox and Opera
But no matter what the creators of Brave try to tell us, citing its absolute reliability, this browser has never passed a security audit that can confirm the truth of the developers' statements. It is a universal procedure that is followed for sites, services and browsers based on the standards outlined in the 'modern safe browsers' guide. It includes checking according to the following criteria:
Browser security audit
- Master password mechanism support;
- Built-in update mechanism;
- Support for blocking telemetry collection mechanism;
- Domain restriction rule support;
- Content protection policy support;
- Support for the integrity of sub-resources;
- Browser profiles support;
- Organizational browser transparency.
It would seem that it did not pass and did not pass. Aren't there enough of these browsers? And who even said that this security audit really does anything? However, a hint of untidiness in Brave came from where it was not expected at all. As it turned out, the browser monitors the sites that the user visits in order to detect cryptocurrency exchanges in order to substitute an abstract link at the right time. Then, if a user signs up or buys something on the exchange, the creators of Brave receive a commission. They make good money this way, considering that commissions can often be as high as 50%.
How Brave Developers Cheat
Looking for a secure browser? Brave is definitely not your choice
In fact, there is nothing wrong with the desire of developers to make some money. But the very fact that a browser can identify a site, generate a referral link for each user, and then send this data to the servers of its creators for identification, already raises caution. At the end of the day, I really would not want the browser that I am entrusting with maintaining my privacy to be able to conduct such activities in secret from myself. And even more so when it comes to such a delicate matter as cryptocurrency trading.
When this became known, the creators of Brave confirmed that they cooperated with cryptocurrency exchanges and did not see anything wrong with receiving commission from users. However, they promised to remove this mechanism from the browser with the next update – to avoid further scandal. But even if they do this, the reputation of the project, whatever one may say, is already tarnished. Therefore, I would not recommend that you use Brave if your goal is to keep yourself safe online.