Brendan Eich, the co-founder of Mozilla, has launched a new Internet browser named Brave through his company Brave Software.
The Brave browser is designed to be able to block all harmful advertising and tracking while increasing the overall security of users while they travel through the Internet. While blocking advertisements and tracking will increase security, the browser also looks to improve page load times by blocking these page components from loading.
The browser, however, will not be looking to disrupt the revenue streams that are associated with the advertisements. Instead, Brave will be presenting the user with "clean" advertisements from Brave itself, which are advertisements that do not limit the usage of the browser and are not connected with anything harmful. Brave would then share the revenue with website publishers, in theory.
In a blog post, Eich explains that while the complex piece of code required for an Internet browser is now available as a combination of free and open source software, tracking options found in current browsers are able to extract data on users such as their behavior and browsing intent signals.
Ad blockers have risen as a solution towards the improvement of the Internet experience, but by doing so, the main funding model of the Internet will be placed in jeopardy as users do not pay to access most websites that host information, with these websites relying on advertisements to keep themselves running.
Brave, in comparison to Internet browsers with ad blockers, will be blocking everything, including signaling and analytics scripts, ad-click confirmation signals and impression-tracking pixels. The new Internet browser will only be allowing advertisements to be inserted into several standard-sized locations, which are found through a cloud robot. In essence, Brave will be replacing advertisements from third-party companies on pages with its own advertisements.
According to Eich, Brave will be able to offer a better deal to website publishers than what they are getting by eliminating the adtech middlemen. With this system, publishers will be getting 55 percent of revenues, while Brave will be getting 15 percent. The partner that will be supplying the advertisements will be getting 15 percent as well, with the remaining 10 percent to 15 percent, interestingly, going to the user.
A preview of the Brave browser has now rolled out for Windows and Mac OS X computers, as well as mobile devices powered by either iOS or Android.
