I haven’t always stayed loyal to a browser. I used Firefox for years and, when I got my first MacBook, I stuck with Safari for a while. I used Edge for a while when I switched to a Windows laptop. But, eventually, I was using Google Drive so much for work that I switched over to Google Chrome.

Chrome has been my long-time browser for the past seven or eight years. I’ve stuck with Chrome even after reading all about how unsecure it was as a browser. While I appreciate Google alerting me when a password that I use has shown up in a data breach, I did want more from my browser’s security. I decided to ease into the privacy browser marketplace and went with Brave, a well-known option by many. I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I do though.

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Brave does a lot of what I already like for a browser

Bringing over my settings was a treat

I’d done some reading on the best privacy browsers and saw that Brave was highly regarded. When you first download Brave, you realize that it is meant to look a lot like Chrome. This made my transition simple, as it’s a Chromium browser, so it’s made from the same open-source project as Chrome and Edge. I liked that it asked me about whether I wanted to bring over any settings from Chrome, giving me the option of syncing my browser if I want.

That being said, I know that using Brave gives you a different experience than Chrome. The interface is slightly different and Brave strips away some from the Chromium engine for a safer yet familiar browser. The Google services have been removed and those that aren’t are run through Brave servers.

Brave doesn’t save any data from users unless they use Rewards or Sync. You actually have to opt in to your data being stored, so it’s your choice rather than Brave just doing it on its own. While this may make the browser feel more minimal, it’s still packed with features.

Brave has a top-notch ad blocker to keep annoying ads out of my browsing experience. Using Chrome, I’m used to dealing with annoying pop-ups any time I go to a retail website to buy something. Usually, it asks me to sign up with my email and phone number to receive a coupon. Brave squashes that and shows me how many trackers and ads it has blocked for a site. I went on a site to buy a sweater for my wife and Brave told me it blocked 33 trackers as soon as the website populated.

I use Photopea as a photo editor because I’ve been using it for years and have grown accustomed to its controls. I was using it on Brave and it hit me with a pop-up any time I edited a photo, asking if I was blocking ads. Brave also alerts you to more of what is going on around you. It alerted me that CNN uses Google Widevine, which lets websites stream premium content without it being illegally downloaded and recorded. Brave let me know this because it’s a Google extension from Google servers and the browser can’t inspect it. That added level of information was nice to know about what actually goes on behind the news websites I use.

Brave’s Leo AI is right in the browser

This is added information at your fingertips

AI is basically taking over a lot of our cultures these days, so it seems hard to avoid. Well, you can avoid Brave’s AI tool, Leo, if you want. But, if you want to use it, it’s actually a pretty good service.

It uses Mixtral, Anthropic’s Claude, and Meta’s Llama but also allows you to bring your own model and import it. You can upgrade to Brave Leo Premium to use more models as well. Leo takes into consideration your prompt, the page that you are visiting for context, as well as the context of the conversation you’re having with it to try and find answers. It doesn’t store IP addresses or any other personal data during its searches. It also doesn’t use conversations for model training.

What’s nice is that you can access Leo in multiple ways. You can type a prompt into the search bar at the top of a browser and then click the Ask Leo entry that pops up, or you can click on the Leo AI button at the top right of the browser to open up a separate panel. You can add your tabs or files to the chat in order to include them in your prompts.

I found good success with Leo. It was fast and provided answers to prompts quickly. I like being able to open up the side panel and asking it to summarize a news article for me with just a few clicks and keystrokes. Then I can consume the news faster and move on with my day more promptly.

Brave has privacy options set as defaults

It also offers you a VPN

Brave VPN is also baked into the Brave browser. If you want additional security for your browsing, you can use Brave VPN on a seven-day free trial before it costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. It can connect to hundreds of servers globally and provides the standard VPN experience of changing your location and securing your traffic. You can also connect up to 10 devices with one plan.

Turning on Brave VPN is an option on the top right of the browser, next to Leo AI. What I like about Brave is that the security options and features are right there for you to see, so it’s easy to toggle them on when you want to use them. Also, I didn’t have to go into the settings frequently and make adjustments.

Brave is set up with privacy in mind, so all the settings are toggled on to be more conservative with what you want to share. Brave Search is the default search engine. Brave stands up against a WebRTC Leak test and shows no potential IP leaks with its default settings, making it a safe option as soon as you download it.

I’ll keep using Brave to protect my data

Using the Brave browser feels like I can have some of both worlds in terms of the accessibility of Google Chrome’s features and privacy that Chrome tends to lack. Brave’s integration of AI doesn’t feel forced like some other browsers, yet it’s comforting to know that, if I do use it, my data won’t be stored and used. Being able to use Brave without having to make changes to its privacy settings has made it an easy privacy browser to transition into for me. I haven’t found a real downside to using it yet and am interested in continuing using it.

OS

Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS

Price model

Free

Brave is an open-source browser that is known for its default privacy settings. It blocks ads and trackers and offers features like Leo AI and Brave VPN.