PSA: Current FAQ

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Troubleshooting Steps

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Many of the basic browser issues can be resolved just by trying the troubleshooting steps below. If you can try these before posting and advise of the results, it will save you and Support a lot of time.

For all issues:

• Make sure you’re using the most recent version of Brave.
  • On Desktop you go to brave://settings/help to check version and if there’s an update possible it should update itself
  • On iOS and Android, you can go to Settings → About to see the version number. For updates, you need to go to Play Store or App Store and check if updates are possible

Browser performance issue or crashes:

• Open in a New Private Window.

  • This is done to help see if it might be something like your extensions.

• Create a new profile (Desktop only).

  • This works similarly as New Private Window but it also goes one step further of being able to see if it’s perhaps due to a setting you’ve changed or a corrupt profile.

• If having issues with performance on Desktop, try toggling Use hardware acceleration when possible (Desktop only) to see if you notice a difference.

• On Android or Desktop, if issue with graphics or performance, can try brave://flags and then enable Vulkan.

• If your browser had crashed, make sure to go to brave://crashes (Desktop and Android only) and submit any pending reports. Be sure to share the Crash Report ID

• Try turning off Shields and see if it makes a difference (If it does, just means might need to change settings on that particular site)

• Disable firewalls, VPN, and or antivirus to see if it has any impact.

• Clear cookies and site data. (on Android, also try to clear cache)

• Test on Chrome and see if the issue happens there too.

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Be wary of scammers

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Brave will NEVER:

• Ask you for your Wallet recovery phrase

• Ask for your password(s)

• Ask you to send payment for assistance

• Send you to some oddball website for “live chat” or help.

• Request you call a phone number for support

• Ask you to share your sync phrase or QR code

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There will be people who pretend they are with Brave or some other companies and will try to do any of the above or more. Make sure you know how you can tell who is from Brave and be very careful of who you give your personal information to.

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Support Ticket Links

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Rewards:
If you have an issue with payments, flagged accounts, or anything of that sort which will require Brave to gather your personal information and do an investigation, you’ll need to create a support ticket at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360001302431

Creators:

If you have an issue with Creators such as adding more channels, issues with payments, changing your information, etc then you’ll need to create a support ticket at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=10061687185549.

Do note that suspensions are only handled via email at suspensions@brave.com and will not be answered on Brave Community or via the support ticket mentioned above.

Brave Premium:

Most issues, including cancelations, can be handled in your Premium Account. However, if you need to delete your Brave Premium account, have an issue with payments, etc then you can create a support ticket at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360003078831

Uphold:

If you have issues with Uphold, you can contact them directly at support@uphold.com or via a support ticket at https://support.uphold.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Gemini:

If you have issues with Gemini, you can contact them via their support form at https://support.gemini.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=1260809732969

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Profile has been flagged

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If your profile has been flagged you most likely will want to create a Rewards Support Ticket at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360001302431 so Brave can investigate and decide if they would like to reinstate your account.

For those asking why, there’s clear answer you’ll be given. What can be said is found at Why do profiles get flagged?

NOTE

As of June 2023, being flagged will mean all connected devices are flagged. This no longer will be impacting individual profiles and instead will extend to all devices connected to the same custodial account. These changes are happening because people were trying to circumvent antifraud by simply creating new profiles or attaching new devices. So these changes are coming to prevent that.

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Missing Rewards BAT Payment:

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First off, make sure that payments have completed by checking Ads Payout Status Update. If it shows still processing or pending, then you may still get your payment.

If that shows payments as completed and you have not yet received payment, then you should create a Rewards Support Ticket at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new? where someone from Brave will investigate.

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Region Not Supported

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If you get an error message saying something along the lines of Region Not Supported or Unsupported Region then it means that the ability to link to a custodial partner, such as Uphold, is currently not available for your country.

These decisions often are made by the custodial partners rather than by Brave. Usually it occurs due to high amounts of fraud or due to government regulations, such as sanctions. The custodial partner may still allow accounts to be active and used, but still put a limitation on the ability to link to Brave.

In any case, if you’re experiencing this issue then it’s important to know that Brave is looking at adding support to your region as soon as possible. Whether it be making arrangements with existing partners or adding new ones, Brave wants to have as many regions working as possible so they can make money. Remember, they earn much of their money from us participating in Rewards. So each country not supported is a loss of potential revenue.

What this means for you is that you’ll not be able to earn BAT from Brave Rewards until your region is supported.

You can see an official list of which countries are supported at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/6539887971469

NOTE 1

If you live in a supported region but are getting this notice, then it’s likely that you used a passport or other form of ID for a country that’s not currently supported. Brave will rely on whatever passport you submitted to custodial partners to determine your location.

For example, let’s say you created Uphold when you lived in Russia and you used your passport from there. Now you live in France and have changed your address with Uphold, but you didn’t submit a new passport or other ID. This would still report to Brave that you’re from Russia, therefore might not be supported. (as Russia is not supported at the time of writing this FAQ section).

NOTE 2

I know for many from EU, this can be frustrating as you don’t need to update passport or ID when you change countries as long as it’s within the EU. In fact, getting resident permits sometimes aren’t possible and everyone having a driver’s license might sound quite odd. Unfortunately, that passport or ID is what it’s based on for now.

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Rewards are not available in your area

If you’re getting this message, it means your device Locale is set to be in a region that Brave is not able to support for Brave Rewards at all. This means no ads or any form of participation of Rewards is possible for you. Countries that are not available for Rewards can be seen at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/9053832354957-Unavailable-jurisdictions-Brave-Rewards-is-not-available-in-your-region-

If you don’t live in one of those countries but still see this message, you will need to check all your device settings. Most likely, you have your country, region, regional format, or something of the sort set to a country that is on the list. Until that is changed, you’ll not be able to access Rewards.

Example of someone who had this issue is in screenshot below. You’ll see they had country for Belarus but regional format for Russian (Russia). This then told Brave they are from Russia, which at the time of this FAQ is not supported. Once they changed from Russian/Russia for their region and regional format, Rewards became available.

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Limited Uphold account functionality

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If you’re getting this message, it means you have not fully completed all the steps for KYC/AML that is required by Uphold. To know for certain what’s missing, you may need to contact Uphold directly. That said, the step often missing is what they call Liveness. This is a selfie picture that you have to take live, in the moment.

You can get to this either by trying to initiate a withdrawal from Uphold. It’s important to note you don’t actually have to complete the withdrawal, only pretend like you’re going to do it. Once this is done, it will ask for your picture. Or others have stated that simply installing the app on your phone and using it may end up notifying you of the need to submit another picture (selfie).

And yes, some say that even if you had submitted a picture once before, this is an additional one they want/need. Link to a post made from another User who experienced this issue is I cannot get verified using Uphold. The problem seem to be from Brave - #3 by firsttradingday

Another person sharing this solution is SOLUTION to "ERROR: Limited Uphold account functionality”

Also someone shared a screenshot of instructions from Uphold directly, so I’ll put that below:

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Creators showing unverified even though I’m verified

If your website is showing as an Unverified Creator even though you’re verified, then try the steps below. If they don’t work, then create a support ticket.

Step 1
Make sure your region is supported. Just because you’re linked to a custodial partner doesn’t mean your region is supported. You can verify this by making sure your country is on the list at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/6539887971469

Step 2
Hit the refresh button that appears next to where it says Unverified Creator. Sometimes this simple refresh is enough to resolve the issue for you.

Step 3
Go to your Creators dashboard and disconnect from the custodial partner, then reconnect. Sometimes this refreshes things and resolves issue within 24 hours. You may need to repeat Step 1 for yourself again.

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Those are primary steps which resolve for some people. If that doesn’t do it, then create a Creators Support Ticket at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=10061687185549 and someone from Brave will investigate

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How do I participate in Rewards?

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On the far right hand side of your address/URL bar, you’ll see which is the Rewards icon. If you have never tapped/clicked on it before, then when you click on it you’ll see the prompt below:

After you take the tour, you’ll want to hit Start Using Brave Rewards and it will then prompt you to choose your country.

-NOTE- The country you select must be the one you’ll have a passport or other photo ID when you go to connect to a custodial partner, assuming you want to earn BAT for yourself and receive payouts. If the country you choose doesn’t match the ID you used with Uphold, Gemini, or whichever partner you’re using then you’ll get a Country Mismatch error and will have to reset Rewards or change your ID before you can participate.

Then you’ll need to connect to a custodial partner, such as Uphold or Gemini if you want to be able to earn. If you can’t create an account with them for any reason, then you can still participate but all earnings will be auto-contributed.

However, if you’re able to create an account and link it to Brave, then you’ll be able to receive payouts each month based on the Brave Ads that have appeared on your device.

Once that step is done, all you need to do is make sure that Brave is allowed to show notifications on your device. Many of the ads Brave shows will be notifications, though there are other types. Keep in mind that you never have to click on ads to earn anything. In fact, Brave only wants you to click on ads if you’re interested in them. Just having them appear is all that’s needed for you to earn BAT.

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When will I receive my Rewards payment?

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Payments begin processing around the 7th of each month. It’s important to remember that this is when the process begins and is not when you’re guaranteed to receive your pay.

Brave Support typically updates a topic, Ads Payout Status Update, that you can check each month to see the overall status of payments.

NOTE

Generally your Estimated Earnings will become 0 on the final day of the month and then will process and send starting around the 7th. The dates generally go by United States on Pacific time. So if you’re in Europe or other areas, you’ll need to keep the time difference in mind.

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How can I see more ads?

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There’s no real way to increase the number of ads you can see. However, there are things you can do to make sure you’re not missing out on potential ads. For example:

• Make sure settings like Focus Assist (on Windows) are turned off. Many OS or devices come with these settings now, which will pause all notifications during hours it thinks you’re sleeping or while you’re busy doing things, such as playing games or watching videos. If it pauses notifications, that means it will pause ads.

• Make sure your New Tab Page settings (Settings → New Tab Page or on your New Tab Page, go to Customize) has Sponsored Images turned on. This will allow possible ads to be served when you open a new tab.

• Make sure Brave News is turned on. On Desktop you go to Customize on your New Tab Page and then to Brave News and make sure it’s enabled. On iPhone and Android, you need to go Settings → Brave News.

• Make sure your IP address and device Locale are the same. If these don’t match, you can have issues receiving ads or getting paid for the ads you do see. This is especially important to remember if you use a VPN. (Same goes with proxy servers, usually bad to have as can cause issues)

• Do your part to spread word about Brave. The more people who are aware will help to bring advertisers. More advertisers in your area = more ads.

• Use your device casually and make sure it’s running. Overall it observes our activity. As long as we’re moderately active on our devices and letting notifications serve, we’ll usually do well. Just keep in mind if you leave a device unattended for extended periods of time, you’ll see less ads. Yet in the same token, if it’s constantly in use and seems like someone is using it to “farm” Rewards, then it also will reduce ads.

For all others on what to avoid, check out part about Why do profiles get flagged?

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What types of ads are there?

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There are currently four types of ads available. These are:

• Push Notifications (PN) - These will appear in the Notification Center of your device. The maximum amount of PN ads you can receive are 10 per hour, up to 100 per day. That said, the maximum number will almost never be reached.

• Sponsored Images (SI) - These are also referred to as New Tab Page (NTP) ads. These are shown to you when you visit a NTP. The maximum amount of SI you can receive is 20 per day, with a maximum of 1 every 15 minutes. Unlike PN ads, you these will be big ads that are designs that take up the entirety of the background of your NTP. The designs/images can vary greatly.

• Inline Content (IC) - These will be shown to you as you scroll through Brave News, which is below your New Tab Page. The maximum amount of IC ads you can see are 12 per hour, up to 60 per day. As with PN ads, you’re not guaranteed the maximum and may come nowhere close.

• Search Ads - These are still in beta at the time of writing the FAQ and, as a result, won’t be available via Rewards. However, once set these will appear during searches at Brave Search and we will be able to earn BAT from them. The maximum amount we can see is unknown at this time. However, this will be a good way to increase monthly earnings while looking for things you need.

NTP Ad Example:

Brave News Ad Example: (See the BAT triangle on top right that says ad? It appears mixed in with news sources as you scroll through Brave News. They can be big or small

)

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Why can’t I get paid directly to Brave Wallet?

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In order to comply with current financial regulations (such as FinCEN and OFAC requirements, or equivalent regulators outside the United States), payouts at this time must first go through a regulated custodian. Once you receive BAT into your custodial account, though, you can always then withdraw it on-chain to your Brave Wallet.

Part of the issue is that Brave would have to KYC/AML everyone directly, which they are trying to prevent. Another is that they would have to obtain licenses and all, such as Money Transmitter License (MTL) among others. There’s a lot of hoops and hurdles to jump through, much risk in considering those things, and definitely a lot of expenses. The safest and most effective way to resolve all of this has been just to make sure to use custodial partners like Uphold and Gemini, which are able to make sure all regulations are being met.

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Why is a custodial partner necessary?

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To have better accountability and transparency of BAT, to reduce fraud, and to abide by government regulations.

In the past, Brave allowed people to earn BAT in the form of vBAT. This vBAT was able to be tipped to Creators and would be able to be earned even while not Verified. Unfortunately this resulted in a lot of people creating bot accounts and even offered exchanges on Discord and others, where transactions were occurring that were nothing short of money laundering. This illegal activity definitely caused some negative feedback and potential issues, especially from governments.

That aside, there also was the issue of people who lost devices, quit using Brave, etc. With BAT being a closed system with a limited supply, this made things difficult for Brave to be able to guarantee we had BAT circulating and available for everyone. By moving to the idea of using custodial partners, there’s no more worry about whether anything was lost to corrupt profiles, lost devices, etc. and there’s better accountability overall.

NOTE

It has been teased that Brave is looking into options that will allow them to offer on chain BAT payouts. If done, this would likely be done on Solana. This would be part of Boomerang.

If and when this happens, it would erase the requirement for using a custodial partner. Stay tuned for more possible news on this in the future. They are still going through legal and trying to make sure that this could be done with no issues.

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Why can’t we link to Binance or some other exchange?

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I’ll quote Brendan Eich, CEO of Brave on this one:

The process in having a business relationship with exchanges is more difficult than Users may realize. There are a lot of fees and other arrangements that need to be set up to happen.
That said, we are in talks with multiple and hoping to reach new deals to expand offerings. In fact, we can’t give details, but we have a major deal we’re hoping to reach soon that would make Users very happy. We are also always reaching out and trying to do business with other companies, but it takes time.

If you’d like to see Binance or any other exchange that’s not currently offered by Brave, then I’d encourage you to reach out to that exchange and share that you would like to see them do business with Brave. If you and others can create enough of a demand, I’m sure they’ll make arrangements and make it happen.

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Why do profiles get flagged?

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Profiles get flagged based on what the system sees as activity that violates the Terms and/or is an attempt at fraud. If you have been flagged, you’ll likely want to know what caused you to be flagged. Unfortunately, Brave’s policy is that they won’t reveal what activity resulted in an account being flagged.

Obviously this makes this challenging to figure things out if you did something accidentally, but it’s been done because people who were doing wrong just used the information to try to better avoid detection in the future. It’s a tough balance.

Ideally, I’d like to give a big list of potential issues. However, little to nothing has been confirmed by Brave and I want to avoid any speculation. We can provide random lists, but without confirmation it’s all theories.

What I CAN tell you is that you’ll often hear people mention VPN as one of the things causing people to be flagged. What has been confirmed is that just using a VPN is not enough to get you flagged. However, it is a contributing factor along with other activity to abuse Rewards or defraud advertisers.

The simple and concise way of thinking about it though is that the system essentially uses a logic puzzle. It bases everything on casual use by the “average” person. If your use seems far out of the ordinary, especially in a way that might be at a disadvantage to Brave or advertisers, you’ll likely see the account flagged.

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Why is KYC/AML required?

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Short answer is because it’s required by governments and it’s dangerous not to comply.

There was someone who asked for references to the laws or at least for information to show where it’s required. Below is an answer I gave them, which I hope might serve as a starting point for anyone interested. It’s not a perfect answer but it should help provide a lot of information and get you on a starting point to research on your own, if you really care to know.

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United States:

Part of it is buried in https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/usa-patriot-act

Another portion which might help you is https://www.innreg.com/blog/fincen-cryptocurrency-regulation-foundations-four-key-msb

European Union

Then you have https://www.mobbeel.com/en/blog/kyc-mandatory-2024-wallets-exchanges-cryptocurrencies/

https://www.protocol.com/fintech/eu-crypto-kyc

https://decrypt.co/104110/eu-crypto-anti-money-laundering-rules-private-wallets

World Economic Forum

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/why-crypto-businesses-need-anti-money-laundering-regulations/ interesting.

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There’s a lot of variations and you have to dig deep to find all the specifics. But most push it under the idea of combating terrorism, making claims that cryptocurrency is used for money laundering and funding of crimes. Therefore things continuously are getting stricter on enforcement and they are constantly trying to regulate cryptocurrency in general. Governments are even starting to look at DeFi, such as you can read about at

• https://cointelegraph.com/news/defi-regulations-where-us-regulators-should-draw-the-line
• https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/10/21/defis-severe-threat-needs-new-kind-of-regulation-eu-commission-told/
• https://forkast.news/defi-regulation-not-matter-if-but-when/

It’s kind of crazy all the things going on. But yes, nationally and internationally there’s a lot of specific mandates. One might be able to go through the swamp and make arguments that things like BAT payouts could fit outside of some of those areas.

The thing is, the penalty for not complying can be imprisonment, fines, etc. For example:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/high-ranking-employee-cryptocurrency-exchange-pleads-guilty-bank-secrecy-act-violations

https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8412-21

So question is, would you really want to risk it if it were you? Governments are big on mandating these things. Even India now is trying to require all VPN and crypto exchanges to do something like KYC and to hold all records for 5 years. This is why it’s required and why Brave has decided to use custodial partners that are properly licensed and following regulations.

NOTE

It has been teased that Brave is looking into options that will allow them to offer on chain BAT payouts. If done, this would likely be done on Solana. This would be part of Boomerang.

If and when this happens, it would erase the requirement for using a custodial partner. Stay tuned for more possible news on this in the future. They are still going through legal and trying to make sure that this could be done with no issues. Of course, this would also potentially mean no KYC/AML required.

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What are the best settings for Shields?

This is a difficult one to answer as it depends on your preferences. The default settings will block a lot but isn’t as solid as it could be. This is because it goes by moderate settings to avoid possibly breaking websites.

However, as time has gone by, it seems like it’s better to activate special filters and to increase the settings. The overall recommendation is:

GLOBAL SETTINGS

NOTE
Setting Block Fingerprinting to Strict, enabling Block Scripts, or setting Block Cookies to All will likely break many websites. So try to avoid those settings as much as possible.

Content Filters

NOTE
Keep in mind you have a higher chance of breaking sites or experiencing issues with the more filters under Content Filtering you have active. So I wouldn’t go crazy with it and you usually can have little to no issues just using Fanboy Annoyances and uBlock Annoyances on your device. Though you may need to activate a region specific one if you’re outside of the USA and still seeing ads on content designed for your region.

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How come I’m still seeing ads?

There’s a few possibilities. Overall Shields should stop ads and you’ll have little to no problems. However, it’s important to remember that advertisers are paying people to try to bypass ads, just as staff here is always improving filters to prevent ads from showing. This means every once in a while, something might work temporarily.

So what should you do if you see ads? There are two primary steps:

-Step 1: Troubleshooting:

• The first thing to check is that you’re using the most recent version of Brave.

• Second thing is to check your Shield settings. If it’s not on Aggressively block trackers * ads, set it to that. Does it help? (or if already had strictest, does easing it help?)

• Next,(Desktop and Android only), Go to brave://components and make sure to Check for update on everything there.

• When the above doesn’t work, the next step is to try opening the page in a Private Window (available on all devices). If ads don’t show here, then it suggests it’s likely an extension or a bad cookie. So disabling/removing extensions and/or clearing cookies would be a good place to start.

• (Desktop only). Create a new profile and test the site just once more. This again is testing for extensions but it goes one step further to also see if it’s something in your settings. If you see no ads on your new profile but see it on the old, it suggests it’s a setting, cookie, or extension. So then it’s just messing with things until you discover the culprit

-Step 2: Reporting:

If ads on websites still persist after basic troubleshooting steps, then you’ll want to create a topic here under Ad-Blocking, which is Ad-Blocking

When you create your topic, make sure to provide the following info:

• Which version of Brave you’re using.

• Which OS and OS version (such as Windows 11, Android 12, etc)

• The exact website you’re having issues with (provide URL)

• Screenshot of the ad, if possible.

• Which troubleshooting steps you’ve tried and the results.

From there, Fanboynz and the rest of the Brave team will typically investigate and make any changes possible to filters so that the ad will be blocked again in the future.