Ideally, your web browser is invisible — a free, transparent, unobtrusive window through which you experience the open web. But your choice of web browser is a consequential one, given who builds them and what they expect in return.
Two decades ago Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was so dominant, it triggered government antitrust intervention for being too intertwined with the Windows operating system. Today the dominant web browser is Google’s Chrome, and it is worth examining whether it is too involved in your personal data.
Google, along with other tech giants, stand upon a foundation of “surveillance capitalism,” the commodification of personal information. Consumers are trading their privacy for the benefits of “free” access to services and the convenience of personalization. It’s not an inherently bad transaction, so long as it’s entered into knowingly.
And Google Chrome is a great browser that flourished after Internet Explorer’s wings were clipped. With efficient code, a robust ecosystem of extensions and other user-friendly features, 2 out of 3 people use it to browse the web.
But last fall Google blurred the line between its browser and the information that Google gathers from users of its services. An uproar of protest prompted the tech giant to make the change optional, but the default behavior is to still link your browser to your Google account, and effectively link your identity to the websites you visit.
And Chrome similarly helps other advertising companies track your movements as well. A recent Washington Post experiment found Chrome had picked up over 11,000 cookies and other bits of tracking code in just one week of web browsing. “Google Chrome has become surveillance software,” read the headline. “It’s time to switch.”
This tracking is so pervasive that privacy has become a top-line feature marketed by companies like Apple — which offers the Safari web browser — and Mozilla, maker of the Firefox web browser. And Firefox deserves credit for surviving the browser wars and retaining about 10% of the market. As an alternative it’s a decent option.
But I’ve spent the last few weeks using Brave, a web browser that promises “private, secure and fast browsing.” And it goes above and beyond to deliver on those promises.
Third-party cookies and tracking scripts are blocked by default, as is loading content via secure HTTPS, and running web searches on privacy-centric DuckDuckGo instead of Google. Every time you launch it, Brave tells you just how many trackers it has blocked (213 for me, after about a month of use).
Loading web pages is noticeably faster, the company citing speed tests that show two to four times the performance of Chrome. And if a website you visit isn’t working correctly, you can click “Shields Down” to allow it to do what it wants to do.
Brave is available on all platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and even Linux. It supports the synchronization of bookmarks between devices yet does so without requiring any personal information or logins. And if you love extensions in Chrome, nearly all of them also work in Brave.
As a browser, Brave shines. But the company behind it is working on even more interesting things. For example, Brave is testing its own ad platform that is opt-in and privacy-centric, and where 70% of the revenue is shared with users.
Brave also supports the Basic Attention Token (BAT), which quantifies the time you spend browsing the internet and allows you to donate tokens (which can be converted into cash) to websites or content creators. If you spent 10% of your time watching a YouTube channel, that channel can get 10% of the BAT you generated for the given month. You can also “tip” a site or creator if they’ve earned extra consideration.
Attention is indeed the valuable currency that you’re spending on the internet, so I am intrigued by a business model that attempts to spread the wealth. Nobody is going to get rich using Brave (I’ve earned 29 cents), but having my privacy protected across the web is priceless.
Ryan Ozawa is communications director for local tech company Hawaii Information Service, and a lifelong technologist. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter at @hawaii.
