The development team at Brave has been at it again and boy have they delivered for users in a big way! I imagined with it being the start of a new year they could kick it off with an update maybe two but instead they hit us with three updates and an announcement about the Brave Scholarship Contest! 

Brave News Revamp

Kicking off the updates we have a revamped and in my opinion much improved Brave News! One of the biggest drawbacks I noticed with the first iteration of Brave News was that it was hard for you to personalize. My assumption for this was always that they were trying to make 100% sure that the personalization was private but the more I learned about how it was designed privacy was never an issue. 

This update streamlines the algorithms Brave News uses and by doing so enhances the experience overall! Using the local feed algorithm suggestions for new and interesting stories will be suggested. If you are someone who understands computers and coding etc. you can even add RSS feeds yourself! 

Below is what this update looks like!

The new view is not only easy to navigate but also uses clusters which makes it compact yet easily expandable. I find it also really encouraging to see that they took a page out of Google News book and now you have a For You section and a Following section so you can sort through what you are interested in or if you want to find new articles in the same vein. 

I think it is important to state again that none of these updates affect or sacrifice your privacy in any way as this is all based upon Brave's local personalization mechanisms and does not require data collection to function. 

Leo (AI Assistant) Improvements

When Leo was first launched I was a little skeptical about a privacy-focused AI bot but with Brave's implementation of its new protocol Boomerang at the beginning of the year I realized this was the real deal. In the update the default LLM is changed to Mixtral 8x7B an open-source LLM released by Mistral AI in December that has been surging in adaptation. This has helped in further cleaning up and simplifying the user experience along with improving speed and performance. 

Mistral's Mixtral 8x7B in particular outperforms ChatGPT 3.5, Claude Instant, and Llama 2. At the same time, it can also handle larger contexts, deal in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and generate code. In an important sign-off the CEO of Mistral AI, the company behind the open-source LLM, Arthur Mensch gave it his stamp of approval and was quoted as being excited about this partnership and how it can fulfill Brave and users' needs. 

Brave is leaving in place the flexibility to choose between different LLMs with Mixtral 8x7B, Claude Instant, and Llama 2 13B all being options for both the free Leo option and the $15 a month Leo Premium. Naturally, the Premium version does come with much higher rate limits. Free users though will be able to change between the LLMs when they max out on one if they would like to get the most out of the LLMs each month. 

Privacy with Leo is highlighted by the utilization of reverse proxy for all requests, immediate discarding of responses, no logins or accounts for Leo, and an unlikable subscription using unlikable tokens that validate your subscription. 

Self-Serving Ads Integration 

After announcing they were beta testing this feature the Brave team has finally taken the next step and deployed it for everyone! Businesses or even people now can set up an ad campaign with the only Brave team interaction being submitting the review which is expected to be addressed and launched within 48 hours. Customers who launch campaigns can access a dashboard to view the campaign's performance along with many other tools! An example of what creating a campaign can be seen below. 

A couple of ad placements still require contacting Brave's ad sales team and those are New Tab Takeovers and Search keyword ads. The others like notification ads (the original corner pop-up ads and Brave News placement ads are the two that are available to be used with self-serve ads integration. 

Winner of the Brave Scholarship Announced! 

Last fall Brave announced that it was going to be offering a $2,500 scholarship for a student attending college in the U.S.. The requirements were simple enough as you just had to submit an original piece of abstract landscape, nature, and/or architecture photo art and in the application provide the necessary school information. Along with the cash prize the art was going to be showcased as the featured background when you opened a new tab. 

The lucky winner's photo is the one below of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Nevada and I have to say I am extremely jealous of the amazing view!

Photo credit to Sam Richter

I am hopeful that we will continue to see more engagement by Brave in this area and possibly sponsor more scholarships. It is a huge win not only for the student or students that win them but also is a fantastic public relations move shining additional positive light on the crypto space and Brave Browser in particular. This light could also translate into additional advertisers signing on which benefits everyone involved! 

Final Thoughts

Brave's Development team has really kicked off 2024 with a bang across several huge product offerings and really has set a tone that I hope to see continued throughout the rest of the year!

Please know I am not a financial advisor and make sure you do your own research! If you enjoyed this article and would like to support me further below are a few referral links that if you used when signing up I would appreciate it! Also, follow me on Twitter @Cje95_

Fold App

Offers daily wheel spins to win free sats daily! If you sign up for Fold with my link here you will get 20,000 sats for free!  

Robinhood

Robinhood is offering an excellent signup deal if you use my link here where we will both be awarded free stock. All that you have to do is sign up and connect your bank account for the award! With commission-free crypto trading and the ability to set limit orders, it is a great hybrid offering in my opinion! Not to forget the addition of wallets and the ability to send and receive crypto!

Unstoppable Domains

Sign up using my link here and get a free $10 credit towards your first $40+ purchase!