Brave is Chromium under the hood, so familiar Chrome extensions work, but it ships with ad and tracker blocking turned on and never sends your browsing history to Google. For people who want Chrome muscle memory without the Google data pipeline, it’s the lower-friction swap.

What you gain

• Built-in shields that block ads, trackers, and fingerprinting by default
• All Chrome extensions install, including the ones you already use
• Optional Tor private windows for occasional anonymous browsing
• Sync without a Google account

What you give up

It’s still Chromium, so you’re still inside Google’s rendering monopoly. Brave Rewards and the crypto wallet ship enabled and many users find them noisy; they can be disabled but you’ll see prompts. Manifest V3 limits will hit Brave too.

The math

Brave is free. The optional Brave Rewards program pays in BAT for viewing privacy-respecting ads, but most users turn it off. No subscription tier is required.

Who should switch

Chrome users who want privacy without retraining muscle memory. If you care about engine diversity on the open web, Firefox is the better long-term answer.