The test was on ad-heavy news sites where ad blocking saves memory and cuts power use. The four comparisons show results for a higher-end MacBook (W1) and less powerful MacBook Air (W2) making network requests from the US and UK. In its first phase, now in testing on personal computers, ads are shown in notifications that have no tracking scripts, animation, audio or video.īrave testing showed its browser using less memory usage than Google Chrome, with or without the AdBlock Plus and uBlock Origin ad blockers. In fact, its business strategy relies on showing its own ads with its own technology designed to protect privacy and share some of the ad revenue with anyone using its browser. 'In our research, we show that Brave consumes 40 percent less battery than popular browsers like Chrome, Edge and Firefox thanks to a combination of bandwidth savings and lower CPU pressure.'īrave Software, founded by JavaScript inventor and former Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich, got its start with an ad-blocking browser. 'The primary savings come from blocking resource-hungry ads and trackers that popular sites are teeming with, especially news ones,' Brave Chief Scientist Ben Livshits told CNET in an exclusive interview. Ad blocking helps not just with memory use, but also with power consumption, Brave has found. Reader mode, tracking protection and ad blocking are some examples of browsers taking more control. But browsers are getting more assertive about displaying websites in ways that are good for those of us looking at them, not necessarily those publishing them.

As browsers have increased in power, becoming full-fledged software foundations instead of just vessels for digital documents, memory usage has soared. Memory is a precious resource on laptops and phones, critical to everything a device does. Brave cuts memory use by 33 percent to 66 percent compared with ordinary Chrome, the company said Friday. But the ad-blocking Brave browser has another reason to intervene: to free up memory and preserve your battery life.ĭetailed tests comparing Brave to Google's dominant Chrome browser, with and without the Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin ad-blocking extensions, show that blocking ads can help reduce browsers' ever-heavier use of precious computer memory on ad-heavy sites.

You might run an ad blocker in your browser to cut website clutter and keep companies from tracking you online.

Brave adblock extension