10 Life Hacks Every Brave Browser User Should Know.

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If you like the idea of ​​using Chrome extensions with a browser not developed by Google, Brave Browser is a great choice. This Chromium-based browser is designed with user privacy in mind and offers a number of usability enhancements. However, not all of these features and options are enabled by default or even obvious. If you use Brave, you might want to know these 10 tricks:

Use these settings to get rid of Brave’s own ads.

Brave’s business model involves promoting its own services, including a VPN and search engine. By default, the browser displays ads for these services on the homepage, and you can easily remove most of them while customizing the browser’s overall appearance and functionality.

Open a new tab in Brave and click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the page. This will open the customization options. For starters, you can disable ads on the new tab page , which will remove ads from the Brave Rewards program, where you earn small amounts of cryptocurrency for viewing ads. (On the same page, you can upload a custom image to use as a wallpaper if you like.) Go to the “Cards” section in the left pane and disable “Brave stats ,” “Brave VPN ,” “Brave Rewards ,” “Brave Talk ,” and “Brave News .” This should tidy up the new tab page, but to complete the minimalist look, go to the “Top Sites” section and disable ” Top Sites .”

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Now click “Search” in the left pane of this settings window and select your preferred search engine. Uncheck Brave to replace the default search engine on the New Tab page. Note that this will not replace Brave as the default search engine in the address bar. To do this, click the button with three lines in the upper-right corner of the browser window and go to “Settings” > “Search Engine.” You can click the “Change” buttons on this page to replace Brave search with other options in both the regular and private windows.

Use Shields content filters to block annoying website elements.

Photo: Pranay Parab

While uBlock Origin remains my favorite ad blocker , you might not need to install it in the Brave browser, as it has its own effective ad blocker called Brave Shields. Shields blocks ads, hides cookie notifications, and removes a lot of annoying YouTube-specific features. Shields is enabled by default, but it can do much more if you enable additional features in the settings. First, go to Brave’s settings ( the button with three lines > Settings ) and open the Shields tab in the left panel. Go to “Content Filters” > “Show full list.” Review this list and enable any options that interest you. I recommend the following:

  • cookie notification blocker

  • Distraction Blocker

  • AI suggestion blocker

  • newsletter pop-up blocker

  • YouTube Short Video Blocker

  • YouTube thumbnail blocker

  • Tracking URL Blocker

  • Paid content blocker (a way to bypass some paid restrictions)

Disable AI features.

Brave has a built-in AI bot called Leo. While the company claims it’s a privacy-focused service, I personally prefer to disable its features entirely. If you share this opinion, you can go to Brave Settings > Leo and disable all the options on that page. You can also remove some of these features from the address bar. Right-click the icons in the toolbar and hide the following:

  • Brave Rewards program (this icon is in the address bar)

  • Brave Wallet

  • Leo II

  • Brave VPN

This will disable unnecessary features and leave you with a clean address bar. You should also go to Brave Settings > Appearance and disable Leo AI assistant under “Show autocomplete suggestions in the address bar.”

Use the Memory Saver feature to improve performance.

Brave has a “Memory Saver” feature that improves performance by suspending inactive tabs. You can enable it if you frequently open many tabs and notice that this is slowing down your computer. Go to Brave Settings > System and enable “Memory Saver.” Click the “Add” button below this feature to prevent Brave from suspending certain websites.

Use vertical tabs to free up screen space.

In most browsers, I prefer to arrange tabs vertically, especially on larger screens. This leaves more room for content: a single toolbar at the top and a vertical tab bar on the left . In Brave, you can enable vertical tabs by going to Brave Settings > Appearance > Tabs and selecting “Use vertical tabs.” Then, you should disable “Show header” to remove the extra horizontal bar from the top menu. This setting combines the collapse, expand, and close buttons with the toolbar for a more streamlined look. Don’t forget to click the collapse tabs button at the top of the tab bar to reduce it to a narrow vertical column.

What do you think at the moment?

Use Brave’s task manager to find battery-consuming tabs.

Photo: Pranay Parab

If your browser is slowing down due to unauthorized tabs, you can use Brave’s built-in task manager to sort things out. Press Shift-Esc while Brave is open to access it and remove resource-intensive tabs. If the keyboard shortcut doesn’t work, click the three-bar button in the upper-right corner and go to “More tools” > “Task manager.”

Use the Copy Clean Link feature to remove tracking data from URLs.

The internet is full of links containing unnecessary characters that can track your browsing activity . Brave has a feature that helps block this tracking data. Right-click any hyperlink in Brave and select “Copy Clean Link.” This will remove tracking information from most types of links, but keep in mind that it won’t help with tracking through shortened links. You can also use Brave Shields to remove tracking parameters from links you click. To do this, go to Brave Settings > Shields > Content Filters > Show Full List and enable Tracking URL Blocker .

Use the Force Paste feature to bypass copy and paste blocks on the internet.

Some websites block the ability to copy and paste information, which is incredibly annoying. I still don’t understand why my bank thinks blocking the pasting of usernames and passwords is a great security feature. On these sites, you can right-click on the form and select “Force Paste” to bypass the block. Some sites even go further and disable right-clicking. This can be circumvented with an extension, such as Enable Right Click .

Get free YouTube Premium features.

Brave blocks YouTube ads by default on both desktop and mobile devices. Since YouTube ads are more difficult to block on mobile devices, I believe this feature is much more valuable in Brave for iOS and Android . Therefore, I highly recommend switching from the YouTube app to Brave whenever you want to watch a video. You’ll also notice that it allows you to watch YouTube videos in picture-in-picture mode and play them in the background. These are all YouTube Premium features that you can access for free simply by using the Brave mobile app.

Take advantage of Brave’s hidden dark mode.

Most of the internet still operates in light mode, even for users of devices with dark mode enabled. While you can use a browser extension to force websites to dark mode, Brave has a hidden feature that does the same. You can open brave://flags/#enable-force-dark in the address bar and enable the flag to change the theme of all websites to dark. This is better than using a browser extension: it uses fewer resources and poses less of a privacy risk, as no third-party companies can access your tabs. Note that you will need to restart Brave to use this feature.

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