Brave Browser

About this release

Brave takes the position that blocking should be the default state of a browser rather than something bolted on afterwards. Advertising, third party trackers, cross site cookies and fingerprinting attempts are filtered out of the box, which means a fresh install already behaves the way a carefully configured browser behaves after an afternoon of setup.

The practical effect is speed. Pages that carry a dozen tracking scripts load without them, which cuts data transferred and time to render substantially on news and commercial sites, and on a laptop it shows up as battery life. A shield panel on the toolbar shows exactly what was blocked on the current page and allows any of it through per site when something breaks.

Fingerprinting protection is the part that goes further than a filter list. Rather than only blocking known trackers, the browser randomises the values scripts use to build a device signature, so repeated visits do not resolve to the same identity even without cookies. Scripts can be blocked wholesale per site for anything particularly aggressive.

The rest is a standard modern browser: the mainstream engine, the mainstream extension catalogue, tab groups, vertical tabs, profile separation, password handling and per site permissions. A private window mode routes through an anonymising network for sessions that need to be separated from the connection entirely.

What it does

Blocking by default

Advertising, trackers and cross site cookies filtered without installing anything.

Shield panel

See what was blocked on the current page and allow items through per site.

Fingerprint randomisation

Device signature values vary so sessions do not resolve to one identity.

Measurable speed gain

Heavy pages render faster and use less data with the tracking payload removed.

Private window with network routing

A session mode that separates traffic from the ordinary connection.

Standard extension support

The mainstream Chromium catalogue installs without any extra step.

Changed in this version

• Engine updated to the current Chromium generation with security fixes.
• Filter lists updated for new tracking techniques.
• Vertical tabs gain collapsible groups.
• Reduced memory use on long sessions with many tabs.
• Fingerprinting protection extended to additional interfaces.

System requirements

Install order

1. Unpack the archive.
2. Run the installer and import bookmarks from another browser if wanted.
3. Review the shield defaults and set the blocking strictness on first run.
4. Turn off the promotional features in settings if they are not wanted.

Worth knowing before you start

File details