Hello, I was wondering if its okay to use the built-in ad blocker in Brave. Ads are annoying, and thats why I like to use the brave ad blocker. But I also know that blocking ads can hurt the revenue of website creators. the ad block in brave makes my browsing much faster than chrome and other browsers, Although, I am not really into brave rewards that much.
Hello @yesxb09, thank you for reaching us out. Brave shields already include all features any other adblocker can give you. Brave shields have different options under shields advanced controls.
By doing so you can change the way you block ads, Upgrade connections to HTTPS , disabling and enabling scripts, Block fingerprinting, cross-site cookies, etc. Just keep in mind by changing these settings some sites might not work correctly.
Is there a option to disable ad-block but leave tracker blocking on? The only options I get under trackers and ads blocking is: Aggressive, Standard, or Disabled.
In 2023, ads are going to be probably tracking you, so there is not distinction to really whitelist one and leave the other on. The only thing you can run is Standard on, because Standard will block 3p only (and malicious 1p) and Aggressive will block both 1p and 3p. That’s why you can see search engine ads in Standard, since they are first-party ads.
Brave is the only one offering something like that, everyone else really is Ads = Easylist and trackers = EasyPrivacy, which is not accurate.
Anyway, Brave is fine for 99% of websites, it supports almost all features uBlock does.
Of course, it still doesn’t support some features which are in uBlock lists, so that can be an issue in few websites, Brave uses the same default list as uBlock, so the features are mostly to match uBlock features, so the uBlock lists can fully be used by Brave, that’s what feature parity is meant to do, but Brave has features that can do the same uBlock uses, so technically Brave can do the same with some brain work.
But for example, I run both, and always make sure Brave is the one doing all the job, if I see uBlock doing something, I check to see what and how I can force Brave to do the same, so in my case Brave does the job more than any vanilla Brave adblocker.
The only thing Brave can’t do in some cases is Procedurals, Procedurals even uBlock don’t recommend it but in some cases it is the only way to achieve something. Brave now supports :has() but that’s not enough in some cases, it can cover most cases, but not all.
Of course, I don’t really suffer about cosmetics, because cosmetics are cosmetics, and their only function is to inject a display: none !important css property to hide the DOM elements. so I don’t really care much, and if I need to make a cosmetic, css selectors or pseudo classes can do the job, if not, I wait for Brave to finally support Procedurals (don’t even use uBlock for them)
But also, in the future, Brave adblocker will keep improving more and more, like it has been doing, and it will not be influenced by WebRequest API or declarativeNetRequest changes, so it will have an advantage when Manifestv3 takes place in Chromium browsers.
Also, it Brave adblocker has the same features in Desktop and Android, making it great for mobile too.
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Trackers and Ads are under the same section, However you can select some filters to block most of the ads and trackers on the web under brave://settings/shields/filters
Asking if it’s bad or okay is asking a moral question. That’s going to be hard for anyone but yourself to answer. But I will say this. First, online advertising has evolved a lot since the early days. It is no longer simply displaying ads - just like in a newspaper except on a webpage. Advertisers are now part of a complex involving data mining, tracking, and attention-grabbing and attention-holding tactics that expoit our natural neurological weaknesses. This is all done on an enormous scale. That behavior has gone well beyond what I would consider ethical, so ad blocking is, in a way, simply pushing back.
Having said that, we all know content creators need to make money, or there wouldn’t even be an internet! Not to sound like a Brave shill, but at least Brave is doing more than just blocking ads and trackers. They are trying to introduce a new, ethical way of funding content creators through the Brave ad system. I can’t get into how it works, but the Brave blog and research hub has that info. Ultimately it’s up to you. For me, I’ve learned enough about the “attention economy” to have no qualms whatsoever about ad blocking. But I still like how Brave is attempting to rectify the problem, not merely by blocking the ads, but by trying to replace a broken system with a better way to compensate content makers. For this reason, I don’t turn off Brave ads. It’s a big goal. Whether Brave ads (or something inspired by them) eventually catches on remains to be seen.
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Just curious, why does brave not want you to use rewards if you are under the age of 18?
You’re asking the wrong question. It’s not about Brave “wanting” or “not wanting” anyone to be of a particular age. It’s that governments require certain ages for things. In the United States and other countries, you must be 18 years of age or older in order to open a bank account or purchase cryptocurrency. Exceptions, such as done through Binance, are only if you have parental consent.
While it won’t answer everything or go in-depth, a general answer to that is essentially found at https://learn.bybit.com/crypto/explained-how-old-do-you-have-to-be-to-buy-crypto-legally/ and I’ll leave it to you to use search engines if you want to know more.
NOTE
Just to be clear, you’ll find terminology to be a pain if you search and in replies. For example, I mentioned governments requiring specific age. Yet at the same time, you’ll find there’s not any law about age to buy cryptocurrency, necessarily.
The issue is the whole bank account/exchange requirements and of parental consent. Where this comes into play are laws protecting minors and requiring what is called Age of Majority where you have the authority to sign a contract. Otherwise anything a minor signs or agrees to is invalid and can’t be held up in court. A person under 18 has no authority to agree to anything and can’t be held responsible for any violations, really. (I’m saying that loosely, just to make a point).
So yes, I’m simplifying it when I say it’s legally required. Obviously bit more complex on phrasing and explanation than that.
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