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Brave Browser Experiment

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John T. Haller
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Brave Browser Experiment

I decided to take a look at the Brave browser rewards program. After a slightly tedious signup, here's what I found:

  • PortableApps.com makes about 10 cents 34 cents $1.17 27 cents a day from it (as of May 2022)
  • We can't access what we would make since Brave only works with Uphold which doesn't do business in NY state where our LLC is registered (unsure as of 2019-08-30?)
  • Brave's login system uses en email-you-a-magic-link setup and disables auto-fill on the email address. I accidentally created a second account and had to delete it because of this.
  • The magic link page to login always shows as expired due to a bug in the html cache setting and must be manually reloaded to complete the login
  • The contributor panel customization setup is buggy and will get reset at random and not save when you save it
  • The domain registration details are hidden using a domain privacy service registered in Panama Iceland controlled by NameCheap

Overall, not the start I was hoping for.

Additionally, it's worth pointing out, that Brave, like all Chrome/Chromium browsers, isn't fully portable. Unfortunately, they're not interested in working with PortableApps.com to make it at least more portable than it currently is the way we've done with Chrome and Opera. As an aside, we can't track Brave users since we, like nearly everyone, use Google Analytics, so they won't even figure into our partnering outreach and direct ad sales, either.

UPDATE 2019-08-30: Brave seems to have fixed the issues with the login page always showing expired and the resetting of the donation header editing in Firefox. I was also able to verify the Uphold account so it is linked. I'm unsure if Uphold is now supporting NY or not as I never got a notification about it.

UPDATE 2019-11-22: It looks like Uphold started working in NY. Monthly income seems to be around $10.

UPDATE 2020-03-27: It's around $10 a month still. Made another inquiry to Brave about an official portable version.

UPDATE 2021-04-20: While the level of BAT we get per month has gone down a bit, BAT itself has increased in value quite a bit. We're at about $35 per month this quarter or a bit over $1 a day. I enabled the experimental ad feature to see how well that works as well. I also accidentally created a second account due to the annoying email magic link form that prevents automatic filling to login. Luckily deleting an account is available within Settings. The basicattentiontoken.org domain is now registered with NameCheap and using their built-in WHOIS hiding service.

UPDATE 2022-05-17: Our average earnings in BAT have fallen to 27 cents a day in 2022.

digi-u
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Brave Browser

Thank you for enduring the process for finding the Brave Browser information! I'm going through the mandatory process of registering in their community because I couldn't find an alternative option for asking a question. A sign up requiring email verification. I'll be sure to also ask why portability isn't supported.

The lack of ease present for asking questions is a red flag. Unfortunately, at this point, I'm suspecting they are another Google version. Once the user base is maximized the options holding any flavor of idealism will gradually disappear and be supplanted with policies prioritizing the bottom line.

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"Doing what is right isn't always the best option personally"
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digi-u
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Update

Hi John,
Unfortunately, I made two requests to join the Brave browser community to ask questions. I didn't receive an email verification with either request, so I won't be providing any Brave information update. It seems dealing with Brave is a process nightmare waiting to happen. A company that makes a significant effort focused on profit through advertising requires focused scrutiny!

Have a Great Day!
"Doing what is right isn't always the best option personally"
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DELETED

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John T. Haller
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Unrelated, Publisher Uninterested

Brave Browser running portably is unrelated to this discussion. This is about BAT, which is still not worth it for most sites (we got less than $10 in the last 30 days).

Brave's publisher was uninterested in a portable version when I inquired, unfortunately. And, since it's Chrome-based, it won't be fully portable anyway.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

John T. Haller
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Experiment Update

Over the last 4 months, the BAT we received was: 68.4, 50.4, 38.5, 131.8 for an average of 72.3 BAT per month. At present rates, that's $10.08.

Side Note: I made another inquiry with the Brave folks about doing a portable version.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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Thank you very much John for

Thank you very much John for taking the time to investigate!

John T. Haller
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Updates 2021-04-20

While the level of BAT we get per month has gone down a bit, BAT itself has increased in value quite a bit. We're at about $35 per month this quarter or a bit over $1 a day. I enabled the experimental ad feature to see how well that works as well. I also accidentally created a second account due to the annoying email magic link form that prevents automatic filling to login. Luckily deleting an account is available within Settings. The basicattentiontoken.org domain is now registered with NameCheap and using their built-in WHOIS hiding service.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Ken Herbert
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The experimental ad feature

The experimental ad feature doesn't actually do anything yet. For now it is just a toggle with nothing behind it. Brave held off releasing the in-page banner ads to bring it in line with the release of their self-serve ad dashboard which is in a closed beta testing phase right now.

Have you actually been able to withdraw from Uphold to a bank account?

Uphold don't have their BitLicense so NY residents should not be able to withdraw to a bank account. But you can continue to accumulate BAT there indefinitely. However Brave added Gemini (who already have their BitLicense) for creators last year, and they will be available for users in a few versions.

I think it would be worth you switching over at some point, but not just yet. There is still some work needed to enable tipping from a user on one exchange to a creator on the other. But when it is time I can suggest some ways to move your BAT balance over that will have significantly lower fees than just transferring the BAT directly.

I'm fairly active and connected within the Brave community these days. Have made a couple of pieces of software to benefit users, and was recently added as moderator on both of their official subreddits. So maybe some day I will have a contact there who is willing to hear us out about portability.

John T. Haller
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Coinbase

I can transfer from Uphold to Coinbase and do the sell to USD on there. That's what I do for BTC, DOGE, LTC, and ETH. You're correct that right now it's just sitting in Uphold.

Brave may be interested but I have to get around to doing a build and chatting with them a bit. How is their community and how are their interactions with the community?

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Ken Herbert
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The community is a mixed bag

There's three main groups amongst the community. You've got the privacy advocates and the crypto enthusiasts, both groups often being a little more technical by their nature. Then there are the not-so-technical users attracted to some degree by the privacy and/or rewards aspects.

There is an occasional bumping of heads between the crypto and the privacy crowd because the two aims of the project can conflict at times.

Then you get the occasional crypto purists and privacy elitists who just want to hate on Brave, but I think that is more a side-effect of being on Reddit than anything else.

Otherwise I don't spend much time on their community forum because I prefer the format on Reddit, and I've never checked out their Telegram/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.

The support team are currently trying to funnel most technical support to the community forum, but I've heard that forum support isn't always very responsive and semi-regularly some user problems slip through the cracks there.

But on Reddit the support team are always great with the community as far as I see, and they were often thankful for my help or would put a little more time into an answer for me knowing I would then pass the knowledge on. But they are definitely spread thin.

Rarely one of the developers, researchers, or even the CEO will put in an appearance on Reddit too.

duttyend
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Thank you so much John for

Thank you so much John for the hard work and the time you dedicate to this...

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