The Internet is one of the major breakthroughs of technology.
It opened the world to endless possibilities. It brought new means of communication, means of doing businesses, and a lot of other things.
On a less positive side, it brought a way for our privacy to be hijacked, and our activities tracked.

Naturally, this shouldn't pose any threat. But it could. Aside from the threats, and other negative things that could happen, people just want to have privacy.
That is why we have privacy browsers today.

Personally, I don't care so much about privacy. But, that's begining to change lately.

So, What about you?

• Are you skeptical about your privacy when you surf the internet?

• Do you care about what happens when you aren't surfing the internet incognito?

Well, if you do care, then, this series is for you. If you don't care, I'll advise you to read up and gain insight.

This article will open up a new series about private browsing.

In this series, I will be reviewing some open source privacy friendly browsers.

Here are some the app's I will be reviewing in this series.

• Brave browser
• Duckduckgo browser
• Orbot(tor) browser

There are lots of them out there. But for now, these are the ones in my focus radar.

Before I review these apps, I will first discuss the concept of private browsing.
This discussion will be done under several points.

After my discussion about private browsing, I will proceed to review an app from the list above.

Point to Note:

The apps listed above serve the same purpose, but, they have their own perculiarities.
In my review of them(the apps), you will find out these peculiarities.
Furthermore, I will do a comparison between the apps. This would come after I have reviewed all of them(the apps).

Without further ado, let's delve into today's discussion.

Here are the talking points in this article;

• What is Private browsing?
• Review of Brave browser
• Summary

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What is Private browsing?

I couldn't find a better way to defined privacy browsing. Although, I know what it is.

Here's what private browsing is according to Wikipedia;

Private browsing, privacy mode or incognito mode is a privacy feature in some web browsers to disable browsing history and the web cache. This allows a person to browse the Web without storing local data that could be retrieved at a later date. Privacy mode will also disable the storage of data in cookies and Flash cookies. This privacy protection is only within the browser application as it may leave traces on the hard drive and memory of the device, or via websites by associating the IP address at the web server.
source

This description is explicit and concise.

Another way to understand what private browsing is: is to explain what happens when you use a non-privacy browser.

When you use a regular browser to surf the internet, this is what happens;

• A regular browser records the websites you visit, to help you find the same URLs again and recall previously visited sites.
• Manage (create, store, open) cookies to personalize your browsing experience, let you stay logged in, help you with auto-completed forms.
• With a regular browser, search engines are able to record your search history.
• Regular browsers allow ad engines to record your browsing details and to store information on which ads you click on.
• Allow social engines to record which sites you visit while staying logged on at their site.
• Allow your internet service provider to track pages you visit.
• Allow anyone with proper (or illegal) access to your hard drive or cloud storage to find and do whatever with your files.

Proof to show that your privacy is being tracked is through the ads you get on websites you visit.

Have you noticed that after spending a few minutes on an e-commerce site like eBay or aliexpress, you start seeing ads of similar products?

Do you ever ask yourself how that is possible?

Well, I never really pondered on that issue until I came across the concept of private browsing.

This is possible through tracking. Tracking is something that is done by almost all websites these days.
Through tracking, they know what things you are interested in and feed you ads with your interests.

That's creepy right? Well, maybe not entirely.

Brave Browser: Enjoy private, secure and fast browsing

source

Having discussed the concept of private browsing. Here's an app to actually experience it. "BRAVE BROWSER".

What is Brave browser?

I've heard about Brave browser for a long time but never gave it a try. Not until I read an article published by @creativecrypto.

According to the description on the about section of the app's landing page;

Brave is on a mission to fix the web by giving users a safer, faster and better browsing experience while growing support for content creators through a new attention-based ecosystem of rewards.

Here's another description from Wikipedia;

Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. The browser blocks ads and website trackers.

The app is available for all operating systems, which is cool.

Often times, I have seen great apps that have only android versions. This greatly affects the number of prospective users.

I currently have the windows and android versions of this software installed. So far, I have enjoyed using either of them.
For my review: I will be reviewing the Android version.
But, I will throw some highlights about the PC version too.

Review of Brave Browser[Android Version].

I will start this review with the app's UI.

Review of Brave Browser's UI.

The UI of the app is clean and smooth. But not so great.
To be honest, I was expecting a much better UI on this app than what I saw.
I wasn't expecting too much though. I expected at least "night mode", which is something that's available on almost every app.
However, this is one of the cases where I have to be biased about UI, based on the functions of the app.
I've been biased about the UI of some many apps recently.
I might stop reviewing the UI of apps soon.

On a postive side, I love the browsing stats displayed on the homepage.

The User Interface of the Windows version is amazing.

It has theming capabilities which makes it even better.
Aside from themeing, you can customize font type and size.
I wonder why such efforts weren't replicated on the mobile version.

Main features and functionalities.

Aside from the privacy features of the browser, it is pretty much like your common browser.
But, those are what makes the browser. So I will be reviewing those features.

Ad blocking.

Ad block is a common feature in browsers today. But, not all are effective.
Ad blocking on Brave browser was impressive.
I checked out a website, I'm certain, that had loads of ads on it. Brave browser blocked them.
The implication of Brave's ad blocking is that the webpages open faster.
This is why the company claims the browser opens pages 8x(8 times) faster than other browsers.

Battery & Data Optimazation.

This is also a result of effective ad blocking. Faster loading time leads to less battery consumed.
Furthermore, data usage is optimized with the removal of ads on a webpage.
I've seen many browsers advertised data optimization, but I don't ever believe them. I wouldn't say they lied though.
Data consumption in my country is a serious case. I spend over $50 on data every month. Surfing the internet is my major activity. I rarely engage in a downloading spree.
I saw reasonable improvements while using the app. I wouldn't rate its effectiveness for now though.
I'm still observing this feature.

Tracking protection.

In the write up before the review of this app, I mentioned something about tracking.
A lot of websites track your activities while you surf through them.
But, with Brave browser, this is impossible.

I opened up Ebay, and from the count I saw, I was being tracked by over 6 services.

It was then I knew why I always saw ads of products I searched on eBay while I'm surfing other websites.
This was made possible via tracking.

Inbuilt downloader.

I wasn't expecting the app to have its own downloader. It's normal for this kind of app to use the device's default downloader. I was excited about this feature.

The download speed was not so great. I wasn't expecting anything less than fast download.
However, I assumed it could have been the quality of my internet connection. That is because I tried Google chrome and had relatively the same download speed.

Https Everywhere

I had to look up this feature on the internet. From what I saw, it is a browser extension. It is available on all the popular browsers. Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Brave etc.
Apparently, it makes surfing the internet more secure.

Sync

You can sync data between Brave browsers on all your devices.
It is a handy feature. I did this with Chrome.

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The above features are noteworthy features to talk about. Other than that, the app is similar to your common browsers.

You have;

• Bookmarks
• History
• Private tabs
• Recent tabs
• Payment methods etc.

There might be other notable feautures I missed talking about. I'm not so sure though, but if I did, I apologize.

A little digression from the mobile version.

Brave has launched something that could ultimately make it the most used browser.

They are calling it "Brave rewards"

Users could earn BAT(Basic attention tokens) just by using the software. It sounds too easy, right?
I'm a little skeptical about this, but at the same time optimistic, and then, confused.
From the article I read, it sounds as though the rewards are not personal. Instead, it is meant to be used to support publishers and content creators.

Honestly, I'm confused about the whole thing.

You can check out the article here. If you do understand it, please do well to explain.

In other news, I have gotten my own (BATs). 40BATs to be precise: and it is worth $6.

I really don't know what to do with it though.

Summary

In this series, Ive been able to review Brave browser, and also share knowledge about its relative concept. That is private browsing.
From my review, you can see that the app is great.
It works as described by the developer(s). I enjoyed using it, and I'm still using it.

But, is it the best privacy browser out there?

Well, I won't be the judge. You will.

In my next article, I will be reviewing another privacy browser that's on the list. Maybe that one would perform better than Brave: maybe it won't.

Thanks for reading.

Links

• Project repository: https://github.com/brave/browser-android-tabs
• App download link: Latest release

Resources:

• https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/private-browsing/
• https://www.purevpn.com/blog/how-private-browsing-works-scty/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/leemathews/2017/01/27/what-is-private-browsing-and-why-should-you-use-it/#3c93fdc825b1

Some amount of content in this article was ripped off the above sources.

But, the content of the app's review was created based on my knowledge of the project, and mostly from my experience. The images used are screenshots of the platform on my device. Other images gotten elsewhere have their source links provided just below them.

Series backlinks:

This is the first post of this series.

Github profile:

https://github.com/HarryHeights