The Brave browser basics – what it does, how it differs from rivals

 Boutique browsers try to scratch out a living by scratching out a niche underserved by the usual suspects. Brave is one of those browsers.

Brave has gotten more attention than most new browsers, partly because a co-founder was one of those who kick-started Mozilla's Firefox, partly because of its very unusual - some say parasitical - business model.

That model, which relies on stripping every site of every ad, then substituting different ads, came under attack almost immediately from publishers that depended on online advertising for theirlivelihood. "Your plan to use our content to sell your advertising is indistinguishable from a plan to steal our content to publish on your own website [emphasis in original]," lawyers for 17 newspaper publishers wrote in a letter to Brave Software in April 2016.

[ Related: How to replace Edge as the default browser in Windows 10 — and why you should ]

Computerworld took a deep dive into Brave to figure out what it is, what it does and how it does it. Here's what you need to know to decide whether Brave's for you. (If you do decide to try it out, download information is detailed below.)