Business Insider spoke to Eich about the new browser. Called Brave, it aims to “fix” the problem of intrusive advertising online, preventing websites from tracking users with cookies or slowing devices to a crawl by layering pages with advertisements.
Brave is based on Chromium, the open-source browser engine behind Google Chrome and other browsers. It is the first public announcement Eich has made since resigning as CEO of Mozilla, creators of the popular Firefox browser, in 2014. Eich attracted intense criticism when it was revealed he had donated money to Proposition 8, an organisation based in California that wanted to define marriage as between a man and woman.
Eich is putting the controversy behind him with the launch of Brave. It is the first web browser to block adverts automatically right from the first time it’s launched. By doing so, it aims to keep users safer by banning ads that attempt to track visitors across different websites and speed up the experience of browsing the Internet. On mobile devices, not having to connect to external servers to load animated adverts can also save data and battery power.
Brave is unique in that it doesn’t completely remove adverts. Instead, it replaces them with authorised safe ones applicable to the current user. Although it may seem counterintuitive, Eich sees the technique as the best line between banning ads completely and still providing websites with the revenue they need to operate.
In talks with Business Insider, Eich likened it to cleaning a swimming pool. He said: “Chlorinate the pool. Only by doing that can we build a better ad model for publishers as well as users.” Brave intends to filter the bad things out of advertisement and then refresh the whole system.
The browser scans the user’s usage history to generate tags related to their interests. These tags decide which adverts to inject into webpages. The tag list will never be shared with advertisers and can be fully customised by users. Individual tags can be removed or added to tailor the displayed ads to each user.
Revenue is split so that the publisher receives a 55% share. Brave and the partner displaying the adverts get 15 percent each and the remainder ends up going directly to the user. This doesn’t mean users will be able to make major money just by browsing the web; instead, Eich imagines a scenario in which the proceeds could be used to make extra contributions to websites using money effectively received for free.
Brave isn’t ready for public usage yet but should receive a full launch later in the year. The browser will support Windows and Mac OS X as well as the iOS and Android mobile platforms. It has currently raised $2.5 million in angel investment but Eich is keen to get more, seeing 7 million users as a target before Brave produces enough ad revenue to cover the start-up’s costs.
