Brave Browser – another non-ad web alternative?

 Brave is a web browser that has been about for while, but i only happened across it when it made its way onto the android platform.

It presents another concept which supports web content creators without subjecting viewers to horrendous ads, both in their content and in their speed detriment.

Check their site out here – https://brave.com

Crypto mining failed me (see coin hive here), ads are annoying and more and more likely to be blocked via various plugins and tools. The Brave browser blocks all ads by default and builds up a profile on where you are spending your time on the web. Contributions are then made to the various sites if they are registered to the “BAT” system, which is a way of rewarding the content providers.

My very brief experience so far has been positive, a fast browser which support all my chrome plugins – but with all ad-blocking etc built in. For the extra paranoid it also includes a private mode that utilizes ToR network. Oh and it has a web torrent client built in.

A pretty good summary / review here – https://coiniq.com/brave-browser-review/

Update;

It seems ad’s may be coming to the browser, but so far it looks as though they are “opt-in”. I’ve updated brave link above with referral ;)

SSL caching and redirects in chrome

While setting up SSL reverse proxy using lets encrypt and nginx i  had a few troubles with testing via googles Chrome browser.

  • Chrome caches some SSL responses which can be cleared by deleting your browsing data via settings or Ctrl+Shift+Del.
  • Chrome also caches http -> https redirects, you can see these by going to chrome://net-internals and select “HSTS” from the drop down. Enter the domain name under “Delete domain” and press the Delete button

The easiest thing to do during testing is use incognito mode. You will not need to clear the cache every time you change config or re-issue certificates.