Since Firefox has started yet another downward spiral, I’ve been on the hunt for a new browser. That hunt has taken me to Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Vivaldi, and now Brave. Brave is based on the Chromium engine, so it renders pages quickly and reliably. Since Brave is open source, I don’t have to battle with the idea of using even more proprietary software–which I’m not against. 

For the most part, Brave is like every other browser out there. It works, but in typical fashion, is attempting to be more than it should. One way Brave tries to stand out among the competition is how it handles ads. 

SEE: Kubernetes security guide (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Brave uses a rewards program–aptly named Brave Rewards–built on the Basic Attention Token (BAT) such that as you spend time on the internet the browser will tally the time you spend on sites, using local storage only. Once a month, Brave Rewards will pay out to you what you’ve earned and, if you opt in, send a percentage of your earned BAT to the sites you’ve visited, so long as the sites participate in the program. 

Thing is, it’s not exactly what you might expect. In order to gain BAT tokens, you have to view ads on sites and not a lot of sites are participating. This isn’t really a way to avoid ads, it’s a way to monetize your viewing of ads. Even with this feature, Brave’s a solid browser. 

So if you want to use Brave and disable the Rewards program, let me show you how. 

How to disable Brave Rewards

1. Open Brave and point it to brave://rewards/. 
2. On that page, you can either completely disable brave rewards, disable the earning of tokens via ads, or the auto-contribute feature. 
3. To disable all of the features, tap the On/Off slider for Brave Rewards. 
4. To disable either the ads or auto-contribute feature, tap the associated On/Off slider for either or both. 

Once you’ve disabled the feature you don’t want used on your Brave browser, you can close out the Rewards page and you’re good to go. You no longer have to worry about seeing notifications of earned BAT or concern yourself with having to earn tokens by viewing ads. 

Subscribe to TechRepublic’s How To Make Tech Work on YouTube for all the latest tech advice for business pros from Jack Wallen.

Open Source Weekly Newsletter

You don’t want to miss our tips, tutorials, and commentary on the Linux OS and open source applications. Delivered Tuesdays

Sign up today

Also see