Brave browser lands $4.5m

The Brave web browser, developed by former head of Mozilla Brendan Eich, has received $4.5m in funding from a number of VC companies, bringing total funding to $7m.

The open-source browser that promises to "fix the Web" by offering a faster, privacy-respecting experience, was released to developers back in January. It is hoping to launch version 1.0 in September.

Whereas other parties rely on third-party add-ons to block ads and protect user privacy, Brave has built those technologies into the browser itself. It plans to make money by controlling the ads that do apply, while ensuring user privacy, and splitting the ad revenue – a plan that has already led to a group of US newspaper publishers sending the company a cease-and-desist letter for a "blatantly illegal" business model.

The company claims its browser is between two and four times faster than Google's Chrome, despite sitting on the same Chromium foundation, because it strips out all the tracking code on websites. ®