Brave browser has long been the champion of data-conscious individuals who want to protect the little rights they have on the internet – this writer included. The fact that I personally use Brave for my daily browsing means that I was overjoyed when I learned that Brave is actively trying to protect users from yet more threats and annoyances.
The annoyance in question is the cookie acceptance policy that nearly every website demands you react to. The most ridiculous is the case where this pop-up that asks whether you want to just accept the fact that a website tracks your every move or whether you want to take the time to accept and deny options individually and read through their cookie policy takes up the entire page. Given how much of an annoyance these are, Brave is working on a way to let users block not just the cookies but also the cookie acceptance pop-ups with one click. Brave’s one-click principle already works so well and blocks pretty much everything you don’t want to see on browser pages.
Brave isn’t doing this unprovoked, though. The company takes issue with Google’s latest proposed changes to its Chrome browser. While these changes have enough industry jargon to put regulators at ease, there is something inherently sinister about what Google intends to do. Some of these changes include a plan to merge websites into singular files under the new WebBundles standard and the browser’s proposed switch to the Chrome Manifest V3 API.
Brave issued a statement in response to the proposed Chrome changes. Here is an excerpt from that statement that perfectly outlines the company’s dedication to user safety. ‘The Web is built to be open. On the one hand, that’s great: It means privacy-protecting Web tools like Brave can act on behalf of users, and protect them from Web abuses and annoyances. On the other hand, cookie banners highlight how much worse the Web will get if Google (and others) succeed in weakening users’ ability to block such annoyances.’
This isn’t the first time that Brave is warning of the dangers of these new policies and changes that Google and other companies want to make to their browsers. Essentially Brave has been warning about the fact that companies are actively seeking to diminish the control you have over your web safety since its inception.
Brave has already submitted its concerns about Google’s proposed changes to the UK Competition and Markets Authority, and it’ll be interesting to see how this turns out. I support Brave because it lets me browse the internet while upholding my right to do so safely and without giving up my personal information or privacy.