Yet another reason why Brave is the browser you should be using
People seem to have a real love/hate thing with browsers. Everyone has their own feelings as to why their browser is the best whether it's because they think that browser speaks for their ideals (usually the Firefox faithful) or because they hate something else (usually the Firefox faithful). That said I think Brave should be the browser you're using.
Why? They are doing the most work of any of the Chromium-based (ie: like Google Chrome) browser developers to ensure user privacy, bar none. One of the best features is their built-in Shields feature for ad/tracker blocking. It is very similar in design to the very popular uBlock Origin but unlike uBlock Origin it isn't an extension, it's built in to the browser directly and therefore isn't subject to any of the issues over the transition from the Manifest V2 to Manifest V3 extensions platform changes. For other changes Brave has made to Chromium in the privacy realm see the posts on their privacy updates blog.
Yesterday on their blog they showed one more reason why they are the leader in browser privacy: continuing the support of Manifest V2 inside of Brave even though their Shields ad/tracking blocker feature isn't reliant on the use of extensions and therefore not affected by changes being brought to Chromium with Manifest V3. Specifically called out is support for 4 major ad/tracking blockers: AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix. Vivaldi also recently announced similar plans but not as strongly worded as what Brave has said they're going to support. (I'd also note that Vivaldi's ad/tracker blocking is also not based on extensions).
I do need to note a couple of areas where people are taking issue with Brave. One area of concern is their support of crypto technologies inside the browser (specifically their built-in cryptocurrency wallet). Other people have taken issue with their Brave Rewards system for showing privacy-preserving ads. None of these features are on by default. I can understand to an extent the concerns given the reputation of crypto technologies as of late but since they're not enabled by default I don't personally see an issue with any of it. For me the work they're doing in the privacy space has a lot more impact on my life day to day.
Brave is also doing a lot of work in privacy-preserving AI/LLM features (I'd also note that Mozilla is moving into this area as well) as well as their own private search engine. I don't particularly care one way or another about the AI features but their search engine is very good in the testing I've done. All of this work is being done out in the open so I'm not quite sure I understand why people are taking issue with any of it. Again, none of these features are required to be used. Frankly, the current web is driven by advertising and that won't be changing anytime soon. Brave is providing a free, fast, privacy-preserving browser and creating other privacy-preserving tools like search and ads. For me that's a win.
