Let’s be honest — no major media or tech company, including Google or Apple, would love the idea of you switching to Brave. In many ways, Brave is a thorn in their side.

From Day #1, Brave’s mission was crystal clear. Its founder isn’t just anyone — Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla Firefox. After leaving Mozilla, Eich set out with a focused goal: build a privacy-first browser.

And in doing so, Brave essentially declared war on the modern internet advertising and tracking ecosystem.

Companies like Google earn the vast majority of their revenue from advertising. From its very first release, Brave began disrupting that model. With Brave’s user base now surpassing 100 million (as reported in 2025), it’s no small player anymore — and that certainly puts pressure on Google.

💡 What Makes Brave Special?

Brave is built on Chromium — the same engine that powers Google Chrome. That means anything you can do in Chrome, you can also do in Brave, including using Chrome extensions.

But here’s the difference:
Brave blocks third-party cookies and intrusive ads by default. No extra extensions required.

Because it doesn’t load heavy advertising and tracking scripts, Brave consumes significantly fewer system resources than Chrome. The result? A noticeably faster and smoother browsing experience.

Even more interesting — Brave flips the ad model upside down. Instead of tracking you and profiting silently, it offers users the option to view privacy-respecting ads in exchange for Basic Attention Token (BAT), its own cryptocurrency. In simple terms: you can earn rewards for seeing ads.

😏 The Controversies

Brave hasn’t been free from criticism.

At one point, the company faced backlash over its creator donation system, where funds intended for content creators were allegedly held without proper distribution.

There were also reports that Brave automatically appended referral codes to certain crypto exchange URLs — meaning if users signed up, referral commissions could go to Brave.

Additionally, a past browser bug reportedly exposed DNS requests when using the Tor feature, potentially compromising privacy.

✅ Despite Everything, Brave Keeps Growing

Controversies aside, Brave’s popularity hasn’t slowed down. With over 100 million users (as of 2025), it continues to grow while Firefox struggles with declining market share.

Brave is also building its own ecosystem:

Brave Search — independent from Google

BAT cryptocurrency

Built-in VPN services

Integrated AI features

In many ways, Brave is positioning itself as a full-stack alternative to Google’s ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Google has introduced its own privacy initiative called Privacy Sandbox within Chrome. While not as aggressive as Brave’s approach, it shows that privacy has become impossible to ignore.

Brave may not be perfect — but it represents one of the strongest challenges to Google’s dominance and remains one of the most privacy-focused mainstream browsers available today.

When did you start using Brave? Let us know.