03 April 2016, USA :
Brendan Eich, co-founder of Mozilla and creator of the JavaScript programming language, has unveiled his latest project: Brave, a Web browser that blocks ads by default then replaces those blocked ads with its own ads. Brave Software, the company behind the eponymous browser, will take a 15 percent cut of the ad revenue generated.
First announced in January, Brave is a web browser for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android that has ad blocking built in. But instead of eliminating ads entirely, Brave wants to replace them with speedier, non-intrusive ads from its own network. Users who agree to see these ads will then get paid in bitcoin.
Brave automatically blocks programmatic online advertising and tracking cookies by default. Programmatic advertising refers to ads that are placed on websites via automated software. Most websites run a mix of conventional display advertising, which is bought and sold in human-to-human advertising deals, and programmatic advertising.
In theory, much like if you installed Ghostery or Adblock Plus, this results in a faster—and potentially safer, in the case of malvertising—Web browsing experience.
For its block-and-replace model to work, Brave will have to work directly with all of the big advertising networks. But at the same time, Brave will be blocking ads from those same advertising networks. Will those advertisers have to pay twice: once for the spot on the website—which gets automatically stripped out—and then again so that Brave deigns to display their ad as well?
As ad blocking becomes more common on the web, Brave is seeking a middle ground between compensating publishers for their work and protecting users from cumbersome, invasive, and sometimes dangerous ads. Whether advertisers and publishers get on board remains to be seen, but with the ad industry admitting that it has alienated users over the years, perhaps they’ll be receptive to novel solutions like the one Brave is offering.
Source & Image : arstechnica.com
