Brendan Eich, the embattled executive that served as Mozilla's CEO for a brief stint in 2014, is back in the news with the launch of a startup called Brave Software.
In the world of online advertising, publishers are inclined to learn as much about their readers as possible. As Business Insider correctly notes, this allows them to build profiles to target users more effectively. Targeted ads like these generate far more money for publishers compared to "general" ads albeit at the expense of privacy.
The company's first product, Brave, is a multi-platform web browser that strips away things like web trackers and intrusive advertisements to provide a no-nonsense, fast browsing experience. As a result, websites load up to 40 percent faster on desktops and up to four times faster on mobile devices according to Eich.
Brave is currently in a test phase (evident by its 0.7 version number). Right now, the browser strips out all of the "junk" and leaves empty spaces where ads would otherwise be. Obviously, that's not a sustainable business model for a for-profit company.
Once Brave has 7+ million users, the company will use your browsing history and share industry-standard ad categories with publishers. Armed with this data, they'll be able to place appropriate ads. Is it still invasive? Sure, to an extent. But Brave is hoping users will be able to look past that and is even planning to offer a small financial incentive to do so.
Interestingly enough, Brave is based on Google's Chromium rather than Mozilla's Firefox.
Those interested in trying Brave can sign up for beta access on the company's website.