Faster than Chrome. Better privacy by default than Firefox. Uses less battery on mobile. By blocking harmful ads and trackers you get a faster Internet. Other browsers claim to have a "private mode," but this only hides your history from others using your browser. Brave lets you use Tor in a tab which not only hides your history, but it masks your location from the sites you visit by routing your browsing through several servers before it reaches your destination. These connections are encrypted to increase anonymity.

What engine does Brave Browser use?

Brave Browser has been built using the Chromium engine. As one would expect, this makes Brave Browser compatible with most extensions found in the Chrome Web Store.

Who owns Brave Browser, is it trustworthy?

Brave is safe to use and it's headquartered in San Francisco, California. Brave was co-founded by Brendan Eich, the creator of the JavaScript programming language and co-founder of the Mozilla project.

What search engine does Brave Browser use?

Brave Browser tries to set itself apart by giving privacy a greater emphasis. For this reason they have opted to incorporate in their web browser a proprietary search named Brave Search.

What is Brave Search?

Brave Search is the default search engine in Brave Browser. It's been designed to eliminate privacy concerns by not tracking or recording any of your activity. Brave Search relies on anonymous community contributions to refine results, as well as community-based ranking models.

Does Brave Browser come with a VPN?

The Android and iOS mobile versions of Brave Browser do offer a VPN, but Brave Browser for desktop doesn't include a VPN.

Control the Ads You See

Brave Ads is an opt-in advertising platform that rewards you to view non-invasive ads without compromising your privacy. In exchange for paying attention, you earn 70% of the ad revenue that Brave receives. That revenue comes in the form of Basic Attention Tokens (BAT),7 which are tokens that can be spent online.8 At the end of each month, you can either withdraw your BAT in the form of cash or pay it forward by tipping your favorite websites and content creators.9 Just open the Brave Rewards panel and hit "Send a tip" to instantly share your BAT earnings with the content creators you love.10

Getting paid isn't the only perk of opting into Brave Ads --- it allows you to engage with advertisements and brands in a more thoughtful way. Brave gives you control over the ads you see and how often you see them. No more having to sit through ads on YouTube,11 and definitely no more searching through all of your open tabs to find out where that annoyingly loud video ad is playing. With Brave, ads play on your terms.

Switching is Easy

  • Import and continue where you left off
  • It's easy to import your settings from your old browser. You can do it during the welcome tour or later through the menus.
  • All of your old browser profiles will appear in a list. You can import other browser data through the main menu item called "Import Bookmarks and Settings."

Support your favorite sites with Brave Rewards

  • Turn on Brave Rewards and give a little back to the sites you frequent most. Earn frequent flyer-like tokens (BAT) for viewing privacy-respecting ads through Brave and help fund the content you love
  • Browsing the web with Brave is free: with Brave Rewards activated, you can support the content creators you love at the amount that works for you.
  • Brave can automatically distribute your contributions based on how much time you spend on sites. Or, you can choose to tip sites directly, and even offer a fixed monthly tip amount.
  • All of this works while keeping your browsing history private. Your funds are made available to site owners through an anonymous ledger system, so you can't be identified based on the sites you visit and support. Over 10,000 publishers and content creators have registered to receive Brave Rewards.
  • Remember: these contributions are optional - browsing the web with Brave is free.

Experience unparalleled privacy and security.

  • Brave fights malware and prevents tracking, keeping your information safe and secure. It's our top priority.

We're not in the personal data business.

  • Our servers neither see nor store your browsing data - it stays private, on your devices, until you delete it. Which means we won't ever sell your data to third parties.

Customize your shield settings

  • Choose your settings on a per-site or browser-wide basis. See how many ads and trackers are being blocked by Brave every day on the New Tab Page.

Security meets simplicity

  • If you're willing to research, download, and install multiple extensions, and carefully configure and correctly maintain settings in both the browser and extensions, you can match some of Brave's privacy and security.

Brave does all that work for you. Simple, right?

  • Whenever possible using the HTTPS Everywhere list, Brave automatically upgrades to HTTPS for secure, encrypted communications when an ordinary browser would use an insecure connection.

Defaults that matter

  • Browse confidently with default settings that block phishing, malware, and malvertising. Also, plugins, which have proven to be a security risk, are disabled by default.

Sync your devices bravely

  • Brave Sync, currently in beta, can be enabled to encrypt and synchronize your preferred settings and bookmarks. However, Brave does not have the keys to decrypt your data.

Shields

  • Ad blocking
  • Fingerprinting prevention*
  • Cookie control*
  • HTTPS upgrading*
  • Block scripts*
  • Per-site shield settings
  • Configurable global shield defaults

Security

  • Clear browsing data
  • Built-in password manager
  • Form autofill
  • Control content access to full-screen presentation
  • Control site access to autoplay media
  • Send "Do not track" with browsing requests

Search

  • Choose default search engine
  • Use keyboard shortcuts for alternate search engines
  • Option to use DuckDuckGo for private window search

Brave Rewards

  • Earn by viewing private ads
  • Tip your favorite creators
  • Contribute monthly to sites
  • Auto-contribute to sites
  • Verify with Uphold and move funds in and out of your wallet
  • Become a verified creator and start earning BAT from tips, contributions and referrals

Tabs & Windows

  • Private Windows
  • Pinned Tabs
  • Auto-unload
  • Drag and drop
  • Duplicate
  • Close Options
  • Find on page
  • Print page

Address Bar

  • Add Bookmark
  • Autosuggest URLs
  • Search from address bar
  • Autosuggest search terms
  • Show/hide bookmarks toolbar
  • Show secure or insecure site
  • Extensions/Plugins
  • Brave Desktop now supports most of the Chrome extensions in the chrome web store

Brave Firewall + VPN (paid feature, iOS only)

  • Unlike many browsers that offer VPNs which mask a user's IP address, Brave's Firewall + VPN, powered by Guardian, offers enhanced security and privacy by encrypting and protecting anything users do while connected to the Internet.
  • Block trackers across all apps
  • Protects all connections
  • We never share or sell you info
  • VPN server does not know who you are

What's New

  • [Security] Fixed unreadable button labels on certain YubiKey modals when using light theme. (#39072)
  • Fixed unreadable button in the download manager. (#38905)
  • Upgraded Chromium to 126.0.6478.126. (#39329) (Changelog for 126.0.6478.126)

Web3

  • Added support for "Retry transaction" for failed Solana transactions. (#37776)
  • [Security] Fixed Brave Wallet WebHID connection prompt for Solana. (#24981)
  • Updated onboarding for Brave Wallet. (#37871)
  • Updated Solana transactions to rebroadcast every five seconds. (#37310)
  • Updated ZCash endpoint URL. (#38782)
  • Updated the deposit icon on the "Accounts" page. (#38403)
  • Updated the deposit icon on the "Asset Details" account menu. (#38077)
  • Updated the "LiFiTransactionResponse" JSON to show string value for "chainID". (#37930)
  • Updated all "More Menu" icons to be vertically aligned. (#37767)
  • Updated the size of the "Review send" button on the panel. (#37530)
  • Updated "Deposit" screen to full window height. (#37479)
  • Updated "Buy" screen to full window height. (#37437)
  • Renamed "Binance Smart Chain" to "BNB Smart Chain". (#29110)
  • Removed "Brave Fee" for all "Swap" transactions in Brave Wallet. (#38566)
  • Fixed incorrect deposit address being shown on the "Deposit" screen. (#38833)
  • Fixed missing "Connected sites" option when non-Solana network is selected. (#38868)
  • Fixed "Receipt" button in transaction status panel to show transaction receipt within the panel. (#37835)
  • Fixed missing network icon on "Asset Details". (#37818)
  • Fixed inconsistent size of card header buttons on "Account Details" and "Asset Details" screens. (#37801)
  • Fixed the token list alignment on the panel. (#37525)
  • Fixed "Portfolio" filter visibility on dark theme. (#37173)
  • Fixed Brave Wallet not using device locale formatting on "Portfolio" time graph. (#22816)

Rewards

  • Added "Brave Search Ads" toggle to "Manage Brave Ads" on brave://rewards page and updated default display behavior. (#37695)

General

  • Added Brave Search support to Brave Leo. (#37575 & #38155)
  • Added ability to use quick actions via "/" under Brave Leo panel. (#37294)
  • Added markdown rendering to certain Brave Leo responses. (#35891)
  • Added permission for location service to help improve geolocation accuracy on Windows and macOS. (#16897)
  • Added "Update lists" button under brave://adblock to force-update all adblock components. (#35216)
  • Enabled Media Router feature by default. (#37109)
  • Implemented dark mode scrollbars on Windows. (#37882)
  • Re-added "Safety check" section under brave://settings/privacy. (#38850)
  • Improved Google Docs compatibility with Brave Leo by supporting full page summarization. (#36649)
  • Improved PDF compatibility with Brave Leo by supporting image based PDFs. (#36403)
  • Updated pricing for Brave Leo. (#37459)
  • Updated Brave Leo model intro and added tooltip for more details. (#37825)
  • Updated Brave Leo CTA button text for non-premium users. (#38695)
  • Updated product header for Brave Leo. (#36202)
  • Updated labelling on certain language models listed in Brave Leo. (#35611)
  • Updated Brave wordmark on the New Tab Page for both Private and Tor windows. (#37946)
  • Updated "Share" menu icons. (#35758)
  • Updated header for side panel to be lowercase. (#37715)
  • Replaced "Llama 2" with "Llama 3". (#38071)
  • Deprecated "Claude Instant" model. (#37988)
  • Removed background graphics from Brave Leo onboarding. (#37344)
  • Removed known Salesforce Marketing Cloud tracking parameter "et_rid" from URLs. (#37847)
  • Removed known Blackbaud tracking parameter "bbeml" from URLs. (#37971)
  • Fixed labelling and rate-limit messaging for Brave Leo as well as removed the "Switch to basic model" button from rate-limiting modal. (#38676)
  • Fixed the "Snowflake" option for Tor bridges not working on Linux. (#37896)
  • Fixed de-AMP to only apply to HTML pages. (#37406)
  • Fixed items which have been removed from the sidebar being re-enabled. (#37394)
  • Upgraded Chromium to 126.0.6478.56. (#38974) (Changelog for 126.0.6478.56)