How you can Make Money by Scrolling the Internet with Brave Browser

This article is not sponsored by Brave. For transparency, I do own some of the BAT tokens. Remember, this article is also not financial advice. Do your own research before buying anything.

Over the last few months I have made over $10 using the Brave Browser. This may not sound like much, but I am essentially getting paid for something that I would do anyways, scrolling the internet. So how does it work?

About the Brave Browser

The Brave Browser was founded by Brendan Eich and Brian Bondy and launched in 2016. The purpose of the Brave Browser was to create a privacy focused web browser. Brave does this by having their own built in ad blocker giving users the ability to completely turn off ads if they choose. So now, you are probably wondering, how does Brave make money? Through ads.

Side Note: I promise if you continue to read the article Brave making money off of ads will not be as hypocritical as it seems.

The BAT Token and the Brave Advertisement Model

Advertising on Brave starts with creators. Creators or websites sign up with Brave to allow them to show ads on their website. Then advertisers pay these websites and creators for ad space on their website. The price and type of ads are based on how much attention users have on a given site and their browser data. Remember none of the data used to show you ads are stored on a central server (or so they claim). Browser Data: In this sentence, when I am talking about browser data, I am talking about data such as your search content, your history, any information stored in cache, and more. All of this data is stored locally in your browser and computer.

Where are these Ads Placed?

The ad space Brave ads use the same as you would see on Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, or any other browser. Brave uses its ad blocker to remove the ads you would see on the aforementioned browsers and places its own ads instead.

How do Brave Users Make Money?

When a Brave user turns on ads, they get a percentage of the ad revenue. Most of the advertisement money is given to the actual website or creator, but the users still get a piece of the revenue.

Where does the BAT Token come into play?

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The BAT token (Basic Attention Token) is an ERC20 token (a cryptocurrency) on the Ethereum blockchain. Advertisers have to pay for ad space on Brave through the BAT token. Hence, the BAT token’s value is tied to how advertisable the Brave Browser is.

Why is Brave Advertisement Model Different?

The Brave advertisement model allows for a more democratized internet. Both creators and users get properly compensated for ads placed on their videos. Data used in advertisements is not stored on central servers and moreover, users have full control over if they want to see ads.

Problems with the Brave Browser

There are quite a few problems with the Brave browser, which should be expected from a relatively young Browser. Nothing here is really deal breaking, but extremely annoying nonetheless.

High Energy Consumption

Perhaps this is just a problem on my machine (I use a m2 Mac), but the Brave Browser takes a toll on the battery. This would almost be a deal breaker if it was not making money off of using Brave and because Chrome is only slightly better in terms of battery life. Side Note: I am sure Safari is very well optimized for Macs but I just can't seem to switch to it.

Bugs

The Browser Browser has plenty of bugs in their features. Here’s a list of the most frustrating ones for me.

Brave Search Engine

The Brave search engine capabilities are more than adequate. My only problem is that it will randomly stop working, which ironically forces me to type in www.google.com and start searching on Google in a Brave Browser.

IPFS Gateway and IPFS Node

Most people could care less about this issue. Nevertheless, if you are a web3 developer like myself this is extremely aggravating. Setting up an IPFS node on your computer using Brave has a lot of issues. It worked when I first set it up but the more you mess with the node setting the more UI bugs you see and bugs in general. Also, when loading an IPFS link the gateway seems to never work properly and you just end up copying and pasting a gateway and copying and pasting the IPFS hash instead.

Brave Wallet

Admittedly, I have not looked at the Brave wallet in a few months, so perhaps some of the issues I faced have been fixed, but my overall experience using the Brave wallet came with some serious problems both in terms of the UX and bugs.

Wrap Up

Overall, the Brave browser is fully embracing web3 and is trying to help democratize the internet. If you are someone who cares about your privacy on the internet or wants to make a few bucks a month doing what you were doing on other web browsers, switching to Brave might be for you.