A year or more ago I started use brave browser as my main browser. It was a rocky start, but it appears the majority of wrinkles have been ironed out on the browser side.

I initially downloaded it because of the built in ad-blocking and the idea that I could reward publishers of sites I visit with tokens directly. This was back in the crypto-bubble.

I keep using it for the blocking. It makes a huge difference, and if you follow me on twitter I share and re-tweet a lot of digital privacy content that I find. Today I ran into a perfect example of WHY blocking is important. I came across this headline on Fark and clicked it - How the fark is this considered a "news article"? https://fark.com/go/1072983

Initially I get this data warning. This is a great example of a warning. I check the little shield at the top and it hasn't blocked anything yet.

For kicks I click through.

39 ITEMS BLOCKED!!!

Here is the entire list: [1]

(click here to skip, its excessive)

https://s.aolcdn.com/ads/adsWrapperIntl.js
https://s.yimg.com/ss/rapid3.js
https://cdn.vidible.tv/prod/max-suite/evergreen/aol.co.uk.js
https://s.blogsmithmedia.com/www.aol.co.uk/assets-he33ca3b1745fb01fd3456bb7dc843fb5/images/nav/amazon_co_uk.png?h=a1003a44a96b2b165c3ac5812ac206ce
https://cdn.taboola.com/libtrc/aol-uk/loader.js
https://s.yimg.com/dy/ads/readmo.js
https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js
https://s.yimg.com/av/yap/ga/yap.js
https://cmp.advertising.com/cmp-apid.html
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/impression.gif?pid=57d16906a01b4d46de57a4d8&bcid=564dfd34 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/impression.gif?pid=57d1688fdb4bc60e4976c9a1&bcid=564dfd ...
https://z.moatads.com/aolvidibleapi29384728347/moatapi.js#moatApiCallback=moatApiInit1583181169401
https://video.adaptv.advertising.com/ad/ads/advertisers/advertisers.txt
https://www.facebook.com/tr/?id=1589527114407796&ev=fb_page_view&dl=htt ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid=57d1688fdb4bc ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=57b488cecc52c729a0db5ea9&pid=57d1 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=57b488cecc52c729a0db5ea9&pid=57 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid=57d1 ...
https://cdn-ssl.vidible.tv/prod/player/ad-time/local-storage.html
https://tag.sp.advertising.com/sp.js
https://video.adaptv.advertising.com/vrm?bcid=564dfd34bbe5c146d4b33c86&pid=57d1688f ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/ad-request.gif?bcid=564dfd34bbe5c146d4b33c86&bid=5710c7 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid=57d168 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/display.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid=57d1688fdb ...
https://z.moatads.com/aolvidibleapi29384728347/moatapi.js#moatApiCallback=moatApiInit15 ...
https://video.adaptv.advertising.com/vrm?bcid=564dfd34bbe5c146d4b33c86&pid=57d1690 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/ad-request.gif?bcid=564dfd34bbe5c146d4b33c86&bid=57b488c ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=57b488cecc52c729a0db5ea9&pid=57d16 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/display.gif?bid=57b488cecc52c729a0db5ea9&pid=57d169 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/video-impression.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid=57d1688f ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid=57d168 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid=57d1688fd ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/video-impression.gif?bid=57b488cecc52c729a0db5ea9&pid=57d16906 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid=57d1688fdb4bc60e49 ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=57b488cecc52c729a0db5ea9&pid=57d16906a01b4d46de ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=57b488cecc52c729a0db5ea9&pid=57d16906a01b4d46d ...
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=57b488cecc52c729a0db5ea9&pid=57d1690 ...
https://www.facebook.com/ajax/bz
https://trk.vidible.tv/trk/action.gif?bid=5710c7c3e4b007de6511d1ff&pid= ...

That's too much

Why does any single page on the internet need to track you with 39 separate trackers?

Lets take a closer look at what all these are for.

21 of these are for vidible.tv, I’m guessing it’s for tracking what videos you watch on the page, how long, etc. Building a profile for you so they can entice you to spend more time on the site watching inane videos.
There’s one for Facebook so they (and Facebook) can build a profile for you so they can target you there too.
They are all related to advertising in one way or another. Marketing has a habit of ruining all the things, because attention is where the money is. Technology follows money because it costs money to develop technology.

Brave browser allows you to browse the web with a tiny bit more privacy. There are lots of ways to track you like IP address and DNS records that Brave can't help you with.

For example, if you use public wifi there are also companies that use MAC addresses as an asset to sell to advertisers.

Other things you can do.

In future posts I will show you ways to further protect yourself from online browsers.

I will start with the simple ones Gom[2] can do like using Brave over Chrome, and build up to the more technical solutions like building your own DNS server.

Footnotes:

1 - They were all very long, so I just showed the first part.

2 - The name of my grandmother, that I gave her, when I was a wee-one

Posted from my blog @ [ https://jeffmackinnon.com/why-i-use-brave-browser/