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Add to SafariWhen comparing K-Meleon vs Brave, the Slant community recommends Brave for most people. In the question“What are the best desktop web browsers?” Brave is ranked 10th while K-Meleon is ranked 40th. The most important reason people chose Brave is:
Released to the community under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), this software respect the FSF's four freedoms, including the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute with or without modification freely.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Secure and fully under user control
No malware/adware toolbars/extensions can be injected. You can switch off Java, JS, Flash, popups, and Ads from the toolbar or with a hotkey.
Pro Extremely customizable
Almost every detail can be personalized:
- skin
- buttons (icon theme and on/off state)
- toolbar placement
- menus
- number of settings and preferences
- proxies (add and switch with ease)
- locale (switch on the fly without downloads and restarts)
etc.
Pro Fast and lightweight
Light on memory footprint: the smallest RAM amount used among all the modern browsers. Fastest application startup. Very responsive. Invaluable on the older and low-end hardware.
Pro Highly extensible
Has hundreds of its native extensions written on its own macrolanguage.
Supports dozens of XPI-extensions for Firefox.
Pro Native
Pro Free/libre software
Released to the community under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), this software respect the FSF's four freedoms, including the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute with or without modification freely.
Pro Takes care of privacy and security
Takes privacy seriously by blocking ads and trackers and not tracking people's searches. Things like HTTPS everywhere and no tracking are standard with Brave. In most other browsers, things like these are optional at best.
Pro Option to disable additional privacy concerns
Like fingerprint tracking.
Pro Built-in adblocking
Other apps make it difficult to block ads without rooting your phone or going through unoptimized add-on stores, but Link Bubble blocks them out of the box, making browsing much less crowded. Contains an optional "Allow Brave Acceptable Ads" So you can support the site you truly enjoy.
Pro Optional feature for you to get reimbursed for viewing ads
Basic Attention Token; you can decide to opt into a new blockchain-based digital advertising system, giving publishers a better deal and users a share of the ad revenue for their attention.
Pro Now supports Chrome Webstore
It's now a faster, less intrusive Chrome.
Pro Tor is available right in the browser
Private Window with Tor hides your IP address from the sites you visit.
Pro Faster than Google Chrome
Brave consistently beats Chrome in speed, might have to do with less tracking being run in the background.
Pro Very fast
The fastest browser out there.
Pro Sync is now available
Option to synchronize data between devices using peer-to-peer connections. No sign-in required, only a sync code.
Pro Option to pay supported sites based on view time percentage
Set up automatic micro-donations. Brave will automatically divide a monthly donation among the top sites you visit.
And/or, you can decide which sites get what percentage of your donation. It’s called pinning.
Pro Supports the latest technologies
Brave regularly adds new functionalities like decentralized domain support and a native crypto wallet long before Chrome considers them. These features to be disabled in settings.
Pro Developed by creator of Mozilla and Javascript
Pro Cross-platform Web Browser
Brave is available on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS
Cons
Con Dead
Ended in 2016.
Con Windows only
K-meleon is only available on Windows. It was previously available on Android and Linux, but now the both discontinued.
Con Stability issues
Con Extremely dated interface
The UI is ugly, which is forgivable, but sticking to a setup from the early 00s makes using it clunky.
Con Uses Goanna
Its one of the oldest gecko forks which was made by one man.
Con Not secure
Con Still dependent on Google
Since it's based on Chrome.
Con Brave is an Ad company
Brave Software is a for-profit company (though users must opt into Brave ads and Brave doesn't track users.)
Con Download package is very large considering it as a browser
Brave takes on a lot of roles besides just browsing so it is understandably a larger file.
Con Quite intrusive advertisements, especially on Windows
Advertisements keep popping up in the Windows notification center. Must opt in to ad system, but no option to disable sound for ad notifications only.
Con Useless built-in 'ad blocker'
Its adblocker is useless to be honest. Since the extension uBlock Origin is a great blocker by itself, the Brave ad blocker does not block every ad!
Con Same security-holes as Chrome
On the desktop: Brave uses the same browser engine as Chrome, meaning it has the same security-holes as Chrome. Chrome is a big target for hackers (being the most popular browser in the world), and a webpage that will hack Chrome may also hack Brave.
However, Brave has security features that Chrome doesn't (such as a built-in adblocker). Those features will stop many hacking attempts.
Con Doesn't remove search engine ads
Con Uses much RAM
1 tab, 400+ RAM, also it depends on what website you're on.
Con Dumbed down in the latest versions
In previous versions, Brave felt more like Firefox. Now it's been dumbed down, it feels more like Chrome/Chromium. For example: There's no menu-bar.
Con Sync issues
Unable to sync extensions, no cloud sync (only device sync).
Con No reader view
Can be accessed with an extension though.
Con Appearance
No options to customize apperance, and make the bookmarks appear on the home page, for instance.
Con A browser for NFT-ers(?)
There would be less of a problem with using Web3 solutions if they weren't sometimes looking like an art for art's sake, a jerkcircle shoving down it's own topic down the users' throat. Replacing the Web 2.0 with another commercial solution is bound to end up as a reinvention of the wheel, where even more commercialization and direct monetization will push digital exclusion. Non-profit open source community has achieved great things while so far NFTs and cryptos are, not without a reason, ridiculed.
Con Poor Customer Support
Only customer support available in Brave community. Mods usually does not help.
Con Promotes search engines that track users such as Bing and Google
Google Search is the first search engine on the list.
Con Creator support limited
Most creators don't use it and so will not profit from the crypto system.
Con Cache dump
Doesn't clear cache well, shows same page even after emptying it until you ctrl+F5 to get fresh page every time you visit the page(s).
Con Bookmark management
Bookmark management is not as seamless as other browsers.
Con The iPhone version has some odd behavior
On reopening Brave, it often returns you to the "search results" page, rather than the webpage you had previously browsed to from the search results page. Might just be a specific configuration.
Con No cloud sync like Firefox
Con Power hungry, uses much more battery power than other browsers
Per default Brave enables hardware acceleration which results in a much higher energy (battery) consumption than the most other web browsers.
Con Hypocritical/deceptive stance on privacy and advertisement
Brave is advertised as a browser that respects your privacy and blocks ads while still supporting content creators. However, at the same time the company is making deals with Facebook, Twitter and others to whitelist their trackers and ads
Con Bookmark button located on the left side of the URL bar and can't be moved
