BAT Community Weekly Update: 05/04/2019 to 05/10/2019 — Brave’s Concerns with the Client-Hints Proposal (blog), Notice: An update on Brave Rewards UI, Brave reaches 1.95M DAU as of beginning of May

Jennie on May 10, 2019

Welcome to this week’s BAT Community Update! Thank you to u/murphD for his contributions!

Brave’s Concerns with the Client-Hints Proposal

One of Brave’s main goals is to improve privacy on the Web, so that everyone can enjoy and interact with the Web while protecting their personal information.

The primary way Brave does this is by building a wide array of privacy protections that are on by default into our browsers, across all of our supported platforms.

A second way Brave works to improve privacy on the Web is through Web standards. For example, Brave advocates for privacy on several W3C committees, most significantly of which (for privacy) is PING, the Privacy Interest Group. As part of PING, Brave works to ensure that new Web standards don’t introduce new privacy risks, to Brave users or Web users in general.

This post discusses a new proposed Web standard, Client Hints, and why Brave is concerned that it harms Web privacy.

Read the full post here: https://brave.com/brave-and-client-hints/

Notice: An update on Brave Rewards UI

Thanks for using Brave Rewards! At the end of every month, we have a claim process to make sure you are sent BAT for enabling Ads.

It has come to our attention that due to a timing difference our UI made some of you anxious that BAT were taken away. We want to assure you that this was not the case as the bug only affects the browser-side display of estimated value, not the real earnings you will receive. Any value that was deducted will appear automatically next cycle as part of next month’s claim process – and we’re fixing our UI accordingly.

Read the full bulletin here: https://community.brave.com/t/notice-an-update-on-brave-rewards-ui/59181  

GROWTH: Brave reaches 1.95M DAU as of beginning of May, 6.178M MAU as of end of April

https://mobile.twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1126344850104696833

BRAVE ADS: Brendan Eich (CEO) confirms over 1300 advertisers are on the waiting list for Brave Ads

Brendan Eich (CEO) confirms over 1300 advertisers are on the waiting list for Brave Ads from BATProject

COMMUNITY: For the Chinese-speaking BAT fans, here is a Wechat group for you. We have close to 100 members now. You are welcome to join the gang. (Fanmade, unofficial)

For the Chinese-speaking BAT fans, here is a Wechat group for you. We have close to 100 members now. You are welcome to join the gang. 😁 from BATProject

COMMUNITY: Nananananananananana BAT CAKES! Yummy!

Condensed Milk Roll Cake from BATProjectCreators

BAT Community Merch Giveaway Winners!

The winners for our BAT Community Daily Merch Giveaways for this week are:

Click here to see pics of previous giveaway winners rocking their BAT/Brave merch!: https://imgur.com/a/lhF1G9I

Be sure to tune in to our social media channels every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday to participate in our daily merch giveaways for your chance to win!

Featured Creators

It’s official. Verified on Twitch. Even Added a Panel Banner. Over 1K Followers now asking about Brave/BAT.

It’s official. Verified on Twitch. Even Added a Panel Banner. Over 1K Followers now asking about Brave/BAT. from BATProjectCreators
Added brave verification for my wife’s YouTube channel. She is a budding creator. I would like to surprise and motivate her with some tokens. Please checkout her channel. Please contribute/share if you find this valuable. https://bit.ly/my192recipes . from BATProjectCreators
My new gaming tournament platform just got verified. Hoping to develope a cash out in BAT system for a feature revolving around twitch streamer battles. from BATProjectCreators

Client Updates

Dev Channel v0.66.59

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v0.66.59

Beta Channel v0.65.89

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v0.65.89

Release Channel v.0.63.55

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v0.63.55

Release Notes

  • Fixed display of Ad Rewards earnings in settings panel. (#4008)
  • Removed expiration date from the rewards UI for grants received from ads. (#4169)
  • Upgraded Chromium to 74.0.3729.131. (#4278)

Brave Team Tweets

How many ad accounts are on the waitlist?
100,000 Twitter followers!
Hmm… Facebook wants to make their own cryptocurrency payment system…
What’s the team up to with ad blocking?
Think of tracking as drones following you…
YouTube ads are showing ads for adult pics, but then linking to an app download?
Has Google authenticated you on Chrome yet? You should check. Or use Brave.
Vanity Metrics = No. Utility = Yes.
BAT in physical form? Not really. But Sampson is giving away some wonderful, limited-edition Brave coins!
Brave proxies things to keep you private.
Is Google telling the truth?
Is Quantcast in trouble with the Irish Data Protection Commission?
Brave offers up 5 BAT grant for a display issue problem.
Johnny sharing Brave’s insight at TransAtlantic Consumer Dialog
IAB is lawsuit bait.

BAT/Brave in the News

Johnny appears in The Register and speaks on Google’s cookie blocking feature.

Johnny Ryan, chief policy and industry relations officer at browser maker Brave, expressed disbelief that Google makes it sound as if it’s opposed to tracking.

“Google isn’t just the biggest tracker, it’s the biggest workaround actor of tracking prevention yet,” he said, pointing to the company’s efforts to bypass tracking protection in Apple’s Safari browser.

Read the full text here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/08/google_cookie_diet_could_starve_competitors/

Brendan Eich speaks to Vox on Google’s privacy changes

“By not changing the default, by making it optional, Google is relying on people not changing it,” Brendan Eich, co-founder and CEO of Brave, a privacy-oriented web browser and thus a Chrome competitor, told Recode. “Chrome users may never know this is an option.”

Eich estimates that people opting out would be in the “single digits.” Google declined to speculate or disclose the percentage of current Chrome users that change their browser settings on the world’s most popular web browser. Chrome has a more than 60 percent global market share.

Read the full text here: https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/9/18537250/google-privacy-tracking-cookies

Inventor of the ad exchange and former CEO of AppNexus Brian O’Kelley makes a Brave mention in his latest post.

“Here’s the thing, Sundar Pichai. We hear lots of talk from Silicon Valley CEOs about how they are going to address privacy and other ethical issues. Actions are what count. You have some of the smartest people in the world at your company. You build incredible, consumer-centric products that have changed the world. If you wanted to build a privacy-centric browser, you could (see  and their attempts to protect privacy and enable ads). You could refuse to let ads run on dangerous content that facilitates misinformation and hate (see Infowars and Breitbart).”

Read the full text here: https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-opinion-of-Googles-new-move-to-update-its-privacy-features-so-that-it-forces-users-to-take-over-the-responsibility-of-their-data/answer/Brian-OKelley?ch=99&share=079217bd&srid=n7Z

News You Should Know

Google now wants to crack down on cookies to convince you it cares about privacy

This move has the “semblance” of a pro-privacy effort, because of course the importance of cookies has waned a bit in recent years, thanks in part to the impact of smartphones and mobile browsers on web activity. So it’s questionable how courageous and pro-privacy a move this really is.

Read the full text here: https://news.yahoo.com/google-now-wants-crack-down-220418566.html

Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Selling Customers’ Location Data

The lawsuits come after a Motherboard investigation showed AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile sold phone location data that ended up with bounty hunters, and The New York Times covered an instance of Verizon selling data.

Read the full text here: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k3dv3/verizon-tmobile-sprint-att-class-action-lawsuit-selling-phone-location-data

Apple CEO Tim Cook talks protecting customers’ private data, limiting screen time: ‘You are not our product’

Apple CEO Tim Cook is worried – about the protection of personal data, kids’ relationships with their devices, and the amount of time consumers are spending on devices.

Read the full text here: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-ceo-tim-cook-talks-protecting-customers-private/story?id=62808679

Roaring Fans

From Reddit:

I love the brave browser no annoying ads at YouTube and other sites and I got 20 BAT also 😀 from BATProject
As an Advertiser, I Want to Say: Thanks for the Support!!! from BATProject
Spreading the word with one comment at a time! Just got one of our favorite creators on Youtube to download and sign up to be a verified publisher. We love this team, idea, and community! Keep up the great work everyone! from BATProject
The numbers are not big, but they are super encouraging! Thank you, Brave and BAT! from BATProject
Brave DOUBLED the number of downloads on Android 2 MILLION MONTHLY NOW!!! from BATProject

BAT Community Weekly Update: 04/26/2019 to 05/03/2019 — FAQ about Brave Rewards & Ads support, Brendan Eich at Global Privacy Summit in Washington, D.C., Brave hiring a general counsel

Jennie on May 4, 2019

Welcome to this week’s BAT Community Update! Thank you to Dan Murphy for his contributions!

IMPORTANT: FAQ about Brave Rewards & Ads Support

FAQ: Brave Rewards & Ads Support from BATProject

Client Updates

Beta Channel v0.64.65

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v0.64.65

Dev Channel v0.65.78

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v0.65.78

Brave Team Tweets

With Brave, users remain anonymous to us.
Hooray for great ad partners!
When are rewards coming to Thailand?
Johnny comments on a California amendment that could impact people’s intimate details
Cryptomining against users is basically extinct.
Brave is hiring general counsel

BAT/Brave in the News

Johnny appears in the New York times and mentions voter profiling

“In the next election, I think it is inevitable that every single voter will have been profiled based on what they have been reading, watching and listening to for years online,” said Johnny Ryan, the chief policy officer at Brave, a private web browser that allows users to block ads and trackers.

Read more here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/opinion/privacy-targeted-advertising.html

News You Should Know

Brendan Eich appearing at Global Privacy Summit in Washington D.C.

Our CEO @BrendanEich will be at @PrivacyPros Global Privacy Summit in D.C. this Thursday to discuss why companies no longer need to follow a surveillance model to succeed.

Read the full text here: https://iapp.org/conference/global-privacy-summit/

The Terrible Truth About Alexa

“I read through a history of everything I’ve said to Alexa, and it felt a little bit like reading an old diary. Until I remembered that the things I’ve told Alexa in private are stored on an Amazon server and have possibly been read by an Amazon employee.”

Read the full text here: https://gizmodo.com/the-terrible-truth-about-alexa-1834075404

One Country Blocks the World on Data Privacy

Data privacy experts and regulators in other countries are questioning Ireland’s commitment to policing imminent privacy concerns like Facebook’s reintroduction of facial recognition software and data-sharing with its recently purchased subsidiary WhatsApp, and Google’s sharing of information across its burgeoning number of platforms.

Read the full text here: https://www.politico.eu/interactive/ireland-blocks-the-world-on-data-privacy/

Roaring Fans

https://twitter.com/rynfrd/status/1123824743239618568

From Reddit:

Spread the word! from BATProject
Just want to say thanks <3 from BATProject
Just got my first non-crypto ad! from BATProject
Just got an AD for Vimeo Stock. woah. from BATProject
We hit 100,000 publishers 5 days ago, we are now over 111,000. Huge growth! from BATProject

Brave Ads officially launches for desktop, over 100K creators now verified with Brave Rewards, 24 Hours of BAT (global meetups event)

Jennie on April 26, 2019

OFFICIAL: Brave Ads is officially here. Users can now earn BAT token rewards for seeing ads in Brave (desktop)

Starting today, users of Brave’s latest release of the desktop browser for macOS, Windows, and Linux can choose to view privacy-preserving Brave Ads by opting into Brave Rewards. These users will receive 70% of the ad revenue share as a reward for their attention, which they can auto-contribute to publishers under default settings. Brave’s platform is a new path toward a better Internet, where users can browse the web, earn rewards, and support their favorite content creators while preserving their privacy.

Brave Ads also provides brands with direct opportunities to highlight offers and engage with users as they browse the web. Since Brave Ads are opt-in, brands know with certainty that when their campaigns run with Brave, their ads are viewed by people who welcome advertising. Brave’s anonymous-but-accountable campaigns ensure that advertisers are connecting with the users they are seeking, removing the excessive costs, privacy, security, and fraud risks currently associated with middlemen in digital advertising.

Read the full post here.

OFFICIAL: Check out the shiny, new Brave Rewards page!

CLEAN—in our humble opinion. 😉

Check it out here.

CREATORS: Brave Rewards now has over 100K Brave browser publishers and creators!

This is a milestone worth celebrating! Extending a warm welcome to all of the publishers and creators who recently joined us.

See the post here.

In addition, if you’re a recently verified publisher or creator, be sure to introduce yourself over on r/BATProjectCreators!

COMMUNITY: 24 Hours of BAT, a BAT Community global meetups event, was a huge success!

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019, volunteers from around the world held BAT & Brave meetups in their region for 24 Hours of BAT, a global initiative to draw attention, interest, and adoption to Basic Attention Token and Brave. The goal was to create a BAT & Brave wave—to take social media by storm, flooding it with photos and videos of BAT fans from around the world who’ve come together to learn, teach and celebrate the ways in which BAT & Brave are revolutionizing the web.

The event was a huge success, with participation from 16 regional groups around the globe. Meetups were held in San Francisco (CA), Media (PA), Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal (Canada), Bogota (Colombia), Juiz de Fora (Brazil), Vigo (Spain), Perth (Australia), Tondano, Manado, Salatiga, Bali and Bekasi (Indonesia) + two virtual meetups hosted by BAT France and BAT China!

For tweets and pics from the event, see below (more to come in next week’s recap blog post):


Find out how to get involved as a BAT Community volunteer or Regional Leader here.

BAT Community Merch Giveaway Winners!

The winners for our BAT Community Daily Merch Giveaways for this week are:

  • Monday (Reddit):  JustinBilyj
  • Tuesday (Twitter): m4tchB0X3r
  • Wednesday (Facebook): Christian De Guzman
  • Thursday (Contributor Special): coladh_samh

Click here to see pics of previous giveaway winners rocking their BAT/Brave merch!

Be sure to tune in to our social media channels every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday to participate in our daily merch giveaways for your chance to win!

Client Updates

Dev Channel v0.65.74

Beta Channel v0.64.60

Release Channel v0.63.48
In this latest release, we’ve added the ability to opt-in to user private Brave ads (#4209), fixed not being able to auto-contribute even though the required BAT is available. (#3897), fixed bookmark and pin buttons under the New Tab Page for top site tiles. (#3347), upgraded Chromium to 74.0.3729.108. (#4192), and much, much more! See the release notes for full details.

Brave Team Tweets


Luke outlines the first regions for ads… then… the rest of the planet.
Luke comments on launch partners.
Bye bye duopoly…
Brave doesn’t censor. And, “Can’t be evil” is much better than… “Don’t be evil.”
Luke praises Uphold!

BAT/Brave in the News

Brave was in the news… A lot!

Brave rolls out its own ads that pay users a 70% cut

Brave rolls out its own ads that pay users a 70% cut

The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

https://www.wired.com/story/brave-browser-will-pay-surf-we

View Ads, Get BAT: Brave Delivers on ICO Promise of Paid Web Browsing

View Ads, Get BAT: Brave Delivers on ICO Promise of Paid Web Browsing

Brave’s privacy-first browser ads arrive with promised payout for you

https://www.cnet.com/news/braves-privacy-first-browser-ads-arrive-with-promised-payout-for-you/

Privacy-centric browser Brave launches its twist on display ads

https://marketingland.com/privacy-centric-browser-brave-launches-its-twist-on-display-ads-259895

Brave browser lets you see opt-in ads in exchange for rewards

https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/24/brave-ads/

The Brave browser launches ads that reward users for viewing

The Brave browser launches ads that reward users for viewing

Brave Launches Ad And Rewards Platform, Pitting The Browser Against Ad Tech

Brave Launches Ad And Rewards Platform, Pitting The Browser Against Ad Tech

Brave will pay web browsers to watch ads with novel digital revenue model

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/04/25/brave-will-pay-web-browsers-watch-ads-with-novel-digital-revenue-model

Blockchain-Based Brave Launches Digital Advertising Model For Desktop

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/334979/blockchain-based-brave-launches-digital-advertisin.html

News You Should Know

Canada group sues government over Google’s Sidewalk Labs

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is suing three levels of government over a Google-backed plan to build a smart neighbourhood in Toronto. The association says the project is “invalid and needs to be reset”. Privacy advocates are concerned the project will increase surveillance and outsource government responsibilities to a private corporation.

Read the full text here:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47956760

NY AG opens investigation into Facebook for harvesting user email contacts

New York’s attorney general is launching an investigation into Facebook after it was reported last week that the company had scraped the email contacts of 1.5 million users without their consent.

“It is time Facebook is held accountable for how it handles consumers’ personal information,” state Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for consumers’ information while at the same time profiting from mining that data.”

Read the full text here:https://thehill.com/policy/technology/440731-ny-ag-opens-investigation-into-facebook-for-harvesting-user-email-contacts

Roaring Fans

https://twitter.com/SmashBrando/status/1120900189043093504

From Reddit:

Holy shit, the new Brave blows every chromium-based browsers out of the water from brave_browser
It’s Happening! Just received my first earnings from Brave Ads! Thank you to the team for ALL you have done and will continue to do! from BATProject
A huge thanks to the Devs and Everyone else in the BAT community from BATProject
This is how i feel right now!!! from BATProject

BAT Community Weekly Update: 04/05/2019 to 04/11/2019 — AMA with Jan Piotrowski, Des Martin, and Brad Flora, LA Times & MyCrypto now Brave verified publishers, new French BAT Telegram (official)

Jennie on April 12, 2019

AMA: Highlights from Jan Piotrowski, Brad Flora and Des Martin’s BAT Community AMA

The ongoing AMA series on Reddit is an eight-month-long event that features various guests from the Brave and BAT teams. The goal of the series is twofold: to give fans of the project an opportunity to interact directly with team members, and to give team members—especially those who operate largely behind the scenes—a chance to share their insights and offer the community a window into their work.

See the highlights and find the full AMA here.

CREATORS: The BAT & Brave Rewards Creators dashboard gets a fresh new design!

Lookin’ cleaner than your church shoes, ah!
Check it out here.

INTERVIEW: Des Martin, Business Development at Brave, discusses Brave & why privacy matters in digital advertising at TVrise 2019 (video)

Watch the interview here.

COMMUNITY: Groupe officiel (Telegram) de BAT pour la communauté francophone / New French BAT Telegram (official)

Rejoignez-nous: https://t.me/BasicAttentionToken_FR

CREATORS: The LA Times (latimes.com, one of the largest newspapers in the US) has verified with BAT/Brave Rewards and is now accepting Basic Attention Token tips (BAT)


CREATORS: MyCrypto.com (main MyEtherWallet fork) is now verified with BAT/Brave Rewards and accepting BAT tips!


BAT Community Merch Giveaway Winners!

The winners for our BAT Community Daily Merch Giveaways for this week are:

  • Monday (Reddit): u/Qurro
  • Tuesday (Twitter): @ericaltm
  • Wednesday (Facebook): David Sorge
  • Thursday (Contributor Special): u/Custom

Click here to see pics of previous giveaway winners rocking their BAT/Brave merch!

Be sure to tune in to our social media channels every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday to participate in our daily merch giveaways for your chance to win!

Client Updates

Desktop v0.62.51

Beta Channel v0.63.35

Dev Channel v.64.40

Brave Team Tweets

Payouts will be spread over time.
Great things take time: Ads can take up to 45 minutes to display.
Like working Japan time? Brave is hiring!
Real-time bidding = Big brother?
Hmm… Are ads coming to the release version of Brave?
Luke does a tweet thread on ads, starting here:
Something similar to on-page ads is coming later this year.
BAT transactions are adding up.
Soon, brands will create their best campaigns with Brave and BAT.
Johnny on elections and sabotage using ads.
Luke starts a tweetstream about a recent test to use ads as Social Drivers.

BAT/Brave in the News

Major Browsers to Prevent Disabling of Click Tracking Privacy Risk

Going forward, if privacy is important to you and you want to reduce the risk of being tracked online, then you will need to use Firefox or Brave.

Read the full article here.

News You Should Know

Here’s The Shocking Reality Of Completely Blocking Google From Your Life

How deeply does Google penetrate both your internet life and your real life? Maybe you’ve been considering ditching Google search for Duck Duck Go, or trading in Google Chrome for a privacy-respecting browser like Brave? Perhaps you want to separate yourself from Gmail and Google Maps? Those are all worthwhile endeavors, but what happens when you actively block all of your devices from even pinging Google’s servers? Apparently, nothing short of nightmare fuel.

Read the full text here.

Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa

Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening. Sometimes, someone is.

Read the full text here.

Roaring Fans

From Reddit:

Making money as a content creator (7k subs) has gotten me more in a month than youtube paid me out in several years. Thank you BAT! from BATProject
The Brave Collection from BATProject
[Fact] 27march i posted it takes 1 month to get 10k publisher. Now it takes 11 days to get 10k from BATProject

BAT Community Weekly Update: 03/29/2019 to 04/05/2019 — Brave Ads now available for testing in Brave Beta, Brave Sync now available for iPhones and iPads, Luke Mulks presents at the Never Stop Marketing webinar (video)

Jennie on April 5, 2019

Welcome to this week’s BAT Community Update! Big thanks to Dan Murphy for his contributions!

Brave Ads now available for testing in Brave Beta!

Our beta channel now features Brave Ads for testing. Users can opt-in to view private ads via Brave Rewards, and will be able to claim BAT accumulated for having viewed ads.

Download Brave Beta here.

If you’re an advertiser that’s interested in joining our Brave Ads Wait List.

For more information about testing in our Brave Ads Preview, click here.

Brave Sync now available for iPhones and iPads!

Brave Sync is now available in today’s Brave for iOS release (version 1.9). Already a feature in the Brave desktop browser and Brave for Android app, Brave Sync for iOS enables users to automatically sync browsing data between devices running the Brave browser.Brave Sync currently supports bookmarks. Other data such as tabs, history, passwords, autofill, as well as Brave Rewards, will be available in the coming months.

Read the full post here.

BLOG: Formal GDPR complaint against IAB Europe’s “cookie wall” and GDPR consent guidance

A formal complaint has been filed with the Irish Data Protection Commission against IAB Europe, the tracking industry’s primary lobbying organization.Dr Johnny Ryan filed the formal complaint with the Irish privacy watchdog against IAB Europe’s use of an unlawful “cookie wall” on its website. Dr Ryan is the Chief Policy & Industry Officer of Brave, the privacy web browser co-founded by Brendan Eich, the inventor of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla and Firefox.

Visitors to IAB Europe’s website, www.iabeurope.eu, are confronted with a “cookie wall” that forces them to accept tracking by Google, Facebook, and others, which may then monitor them. Dr. Ryan has complained to the Irish Data Protection Commission that this is a breach of the GDPR, which protects people in Europe from being forced to accept processing for their data for any purpose other than the provision of the requested service.

Read the full post here.

COMMUNITY: Pledge your support to your favorite sites and creators with BAT!

In the past, members of the community have leveraged social media to gain the attention of creators for whom they had pledged their support. Leon Lush, a popular YouTuber with over 1 million subscribers, is one example of a creator who verified with Brave after being tweeted by a fan about the Brave browser, BAT, and how they could benefit him.

If one person was able to get Leon’s attention by tweeting him, imagine what the BAT community could accomplish by banding together!

Read the full post here.

VIDEO: Luke Mulks discusses how BAT & Brave are reducing ad fraud at the Never Stop Marketing Research webinar (April 3, 2019)

Luke’s presentation begins around 14:30. 😉


Client Updates

New Brave client releases:

Release Channel v0.62.50

In this release, we’ve added Widevine support for Linux (#413), added social media blocking for Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook (#3489), fixed issue where users couldn’t create Brave wallet (#3046), fixed monthly tips not being displayed in summary when accessing from tip panel (#3177) and much more!

For the complete list of additions and fixes, click here.

Beta Channel v0.63.31

Dev Channel v0.64.36

iOS release v1.9.1, now with Brave Sync! Brave Sync now lets you sync your bookmarks — with total privacy, even from Brave. We’ve also made a whole bunch of smaller improvements all over the place.

Android release v1.0.89-rc.2
Upgraded to Chromium 73.0.3683.90.
Added menu to disable bottom toolbar.

Brave Team Tweets

Brave Beta: Now with Private Ads!


Self-serve buying in the platform in the works.


Sampson tipping the content he loves.


Brave, BAT, and a bat.


Woot woot! 100,000 addresses


Zuck is a little late.


Check out Johnny’s article in The Register.


Now it’s easy to block those sneaky social media logins and embeds.


New additions in v0.62.50!


When are new geographic areas coming to Brave Ads?


The Irish Times talks about Johnny’s filed complaint against the IAB


BAT/Brave in the News

BAT Q1 2019 Partnerships That Puts It Ahead Of Its Competitors

BAT growth experienced notable growth in 2018, with the Brave browser surpassing 5.5 million monthly active users at the end of 2018 compared to 1 million monthly active users at the start of the year. The speed of the desktop app was increased by 22%, and the platform grew the number of verified users to 7 times what it was at the beginning of the year. The project also developed new partnerships such as Dow Jones Media Group, Townsquare, Civic, Qwant and HTC.

In 2019, the project has begun on a good foot with the Brave browser reaching 20 million downloads on Android. The project also secured new partnerships in 2019 with Tap Network and Cheddar.

Read the full text here.


Fortune favours the Brave: Privacy browser chap takes gripes over adtech body’s website to Irish data watchdog

Adtech industry body IAB Europe is facing down another data protection complaint from Brave browser bod Johnny Ryan, this time over the all-encompassing cookie wall stalking its site.

The complaint, filed today in Ryan’s home nation of Ireland, seeks to win a long-running argument between privacy activists and the tracking industry over methods employed to force users to choose between cookies and accessing a website.

Read the full text here.

News You Should Know

Researchers find 540 million Facebook user records on exposed servers

Security researchers have found hundreds of millions of Facebook user records sitting on an inadvertently public storage server. In the researchers’ write-up, Mexico-based digital media company Cultura Colectiva left more than 540 million records — including comments, likes, reactions, account names and more — stored on the Amazon S3 storage server without a password, allowing anyone to access the data.

Read the full text here.

Roaring Fans


From Reddit:

The Brave Browser is a safer and faster Chrome alternative

10 Days as the default browser and already saved 10 minutes of my life. Thank you, Brave.

Pledge your support to your favorite sites and creators with BAT

Jennie on April 4, 2019

Supporting your favorite websites and content creators with BAT is as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Here’s how:

  1. While browsing on your favorite websites, expand the BAT menu from the URL bar and click the “Send a Tip” button.
  2. Select the amount for your tip from the tipping banner.
  3. Click “Send my Tip”.

Tips to Brave-verified sites and creators will show up in their Publisher Dashboard almost instantly. Each month, all the tips they’ve accrued from fans and subscribers will be automatically deposited into their linked Uphold account. They can then use your tips to keep creating the content you love!

For a complete list of Brave-verified publishers and creators, visit BATGrowth. To discover verified creators by category, visit GiveBAT. To discover new verified creators, visit The Daily BAT on YouTube or r/BATProjectCreators.

If your creator of choice is not already verified with the Brave Rewards program, you can still pledge your support!

Any BAT you tip a creator who has not yet verified with Brave Rewards will remain in your browser. Over the next 90 days, your browser will periodically check to see whether your creator has verified so it can send off your tip. (You can use this period of time to reach out to the creator by tweeting them, emailing them, or contacting them via their website to let them know about BAT & Brave, and that they have some BAT awaiting them!)

For more information about what happens to your BAT contribution if a site or creator is not yet part of the Brave Rewards program, please see our FAQ.

In the past, members of the community have leveraged social media to gain the attention of creators for whom they had pledged their support. Leon Lush, a popular YouTuber with over 1 million subscribers, is one example of a creator who verified with Brave after being tweeted by a fan about the Brave browser, BAT, and how they could benefit him.

See the tweets by a community member that got Leon’s attention:

Unhappy with YouTube
A new way to monetize content
Leveraging social media
Getting verified is super easy
Victory lap! 
Victory lap! 

If one person was able to get Leon’s attention by tweeting him, imagine what the BAT community could accomplish by banding together!

What are some sites you would like to see verified with Brave? YouTubers? Twitch streamers? Let us know in the comments and let’s start a community wave! Let’s get your favorite content creators verified!

How to Verify Your Website with Brave Rewards and Begin Receiving BAT Tips

Chris on April 3, 2019

If you don’t already have Brave Rewards account, you can read our guide or watch our full Brave Rewards setup guide on YouTube.

Step 1: Add Channel

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Click Add Channel located at the bottom of the page.

Step 2: Add Website

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The Add Channel popup will appear. Select Website to continue.

Step 3: Domain Info

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Type the domain you wish to verify with Brave Rewards.

Step 4: Verification Method

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The verification box will appear and we’re given 2 options to choose from.

Trusted File Upload a trusted file to your web server or copy the verification code (WordPress only)

DNS Record (TXT) Verify your domain through your domain host (typically where you purchased your domain name).

Option A – Trusted File Verification

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Important: Your website requires an SSL certificate before proceeding with trusted file verification. SSL certificates are used to create an encrypted channel between the client and the server. You can create one for free at Let’s Encrypt 2.

Step 1: Download

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Click the download link and save your brave-rewards-verification.txt file

Step 2: Web Server

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Depending on your web hosting provider, we have 2 ways to upload the verification file.

cPanel is a web based hosting management control panel. It is used to manage your website and server’s backend working system. If your web host supports cPanel, you can upload the verification file directly through Brave browser by navigating to File Manager.

FileZilla is a free, cross-platform FTP application that allows you to transfer computer files between a client and server on a computer network. FileZilla is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux devices.

Step 3: Create Folder

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Access the root directory (home folder) of your website and create the folder .well-known

Step 4: Upload

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Upload the brave-rewards-verification.txt file from step one.

Step 5: Verify

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Once the txt file has been uploaded to your webhost, you can return to the Brave Rewards dashboard and click Verify .

Step 6: Trust File Verification Success

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You will now be redirected back to the Brave Rewards dashboard.

This completes our Website verification guide. It can take up to 24 hours for the verified status to appear on your website within Brave.

If you require further assistance, you can create a post under the Beginner’s Help subcategory.

Option B – DNS Record Verification

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Brave gives you a TXT verification record to add to your domain host’s DNS records. A TXT (Text) record is an informational record you can use to provide additional information about the named service.

Copy the unique TXT Value to your clipboard and sign in to the domain registrar which hosts your domain.

Step 1: Domain Manager

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Domain hosts use DNS records to connect your domain name with email, websites, and other web services. This DNS guide is for the domain host GoDaddy.com, and although the steps involved may look different to your own host, the settings are very much the same.

Select DNS from the GoDaddy main menu.

Step 2: Add DNS Record

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On the DNS Management page, at the bottom of the Records section, click Add

Step 3: Select TXT Record

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Select TXT from the dropdown menu and click Save .

Step 4: Edit TXT Record

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You will now be redirect to the TXT record configuration window.

  • From the Type list, select TXT .
  • In the Host field, enter @ .
  • In the TXT value field, paste the entire verification record that you copied from Brave Rewards.
  • In the TTL (Time to Live) field, leave the default value .
  • Click Save .

Important: The above fields may look different depending on your domain registrar.

Step 5: Verify DNS Record

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Once the TXT record has been added, you can return to the Brave Rewards dashboard and click Verify DNS Record . When Brave sees the record exists, your domain ownership is confirmed.

Important: It can take up to 24 hours for propagation to complete and verify DNS to work. This is because it takes time for the DNS changes to take effect across the internet.

Step 6: DNS Verification Success

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You will now be redirected back to the Brave Rewards dashboard.

This completes our Website verification guide. It can take up to 24 hours for the verified status to appear on your website within Brave.

If you require further assistance, you can create a post under the Beginner’s Help subcategory on our forum.

Thanks to our Community Manager Stephen for putting this guide together!

How to Verify a YouTube Channel with Brave Payments (verified publisher)

Jennie on July 16, 2018

Brave Payments is a contribution platform, similar to Patreon, that allows Brave users to donate to their favourite creators and publishers, like you! To learn more about Brave Payments and how it works, click here.

Verifying your YouTube channel so that you can receive BAT contributions from your viewers on Brave is easy and only takes a minute.

Here’s what you’ll need to do:

  • The first thing you need to do is head over to https://publishers.basicattentiontoken.org.
  • Find the text box that says, “New to Brave Payments? Start verification by entering your e-mail,” and click “get started.”
  • Type in your e-mail address and click, “get started.” You should get a pop-up saying that an e-mail is on its way, which you can go ahead and open.
  • Follow the link in the e-mail to log into Brave Payments. You should now arrive at your Brave Payments publisher dashboard.
  • Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select “add channel.” You will now see a popup showing you that you can verify either a website, a YouTube channel or a Twitch channel.

Select “YouTube channel.” Then, simply choose the account that you’d like to sign in with. Once you’re back on your publisher dashboard, scroll to the bottom of the page to your list of verified channels. Your YouTube channel should now appear as “verified”!

On the bottom right-hand side opposite your channel name, you will be able to view your channel’s contribution balance denominated in BAT. Each month, the BAT you’ve earned from user contributions will be deposited into your linked Uphold account.

That’s it! You are all set to start receiving contributions!