Brave, A New Generation of Web Browser
Tagged with: Design Tips & FAQs
What Does it Mean for Business?
Brave is an open-source web browser that automatically blocks website trackers and removes intrusive internet advertisements. The objective of Brave is to offer a cleaner, safer and faster web browsing platform. The Brave site states, “At Brave, our goal is to block everything on the web that can cramp your style and compromise your privacy. Annoying ads are yesterday’s news, and cookies stay in your jar where they belong.” This is especially important to web users concerned about their privacy and who don’t like the intrusiveness of current advertising, which relies on re-targeting with tracking cookies.
However, the browser will not be completely free of advertisements. Instead, Brave has its own ‘cleaner’ advertising channel, which uses browser history to target web ads sold by co-founder Brendan Eich’s company, Mozilla Project. The revenue from the ads will be divided between Brave, content publishers, ad partners, and browser users. The users will then donate their funds to bloggers and other web content providers through micropayments, or they can pay to go ad-free on the Brave browser.
To ensure safety, Brave has integrated HTTPS into every page. Google has long been telling everyone this was a move they should make; now, Brave is forcing the issue. This might sound great for users, but what does it mean for marketers and businesses? Ad blockers are becoming more and more popular as users are trying to get away from pop-ups and annoying advertisements, so those concerned with marketing already have a hurdle to overcome. Now marketers are again left asking the question, what happens to businesses who use pay-per-click (PPC) marketing?
We all know people don’t love ads, but people do appreciate the direction. The ads that start showing after you’ve been searching for a particular product, the ones that show similar products to what you’re looking for, help direct the search. Does Brave mean that that direction will be completely gone? If there’s no financial benefit to publishing that content, will marketers find a different means? Not to fear, with Brave, there will still be ads, and PPC is still an option, but it appears they are simply taking Google out of the middle of things by creating their own advertising channel.
Brave is still in its beginning stages, so it is yet to be seen whether there is enough user interest to make this type of web browser a viable option. In any case, it is a reminder to advertisers and publishers that the digital landscape is constantly evolving. Understanding the different channels and opportunities for online advertising can be complicated enough if you’re not familiar with the various platforms and methods of advertising, and with new web browsers, such as Brave, there are always additional elements to consider.
