Brave is a free and open-source web browser which was first released in 2016. It is developed by US-based Brave Software, Inc. and based on the Chromium web browser. The browser is marketed as a privacy-focused web browser and includes features such as built-in advertisement blocking, protections against browser fingerprinting and a private browsing mode that integrates the Tor anonymity network. Brave also incorporates its own advertising through a rewards system based on cryptocurrency, which allows users to earn Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) by opting-in to view ads served through its ad network. While Brave has been praised for its privacy protections and features, it has faced criticism over early plans of replacing publisher's ads with its own and missteps surrounding its handling of affiliate links and privacy vulnerabilities in its private browsing mode.

Brave Software was founded in 2015 by Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript and former Mozilla CEO who left the organization after coming under fire for his support of eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry, and Brian Bondy, a programmer who had formerly worked at Mozilla. In 2016, the company released the Brave browser positioning it as a privacy-focused browser that blocks ads and trackers by default. Early plans for the browser proposed creating a system through which Brave could replace the ads shown by websites with advertisements of its own in a manner that would be privacy preserving.

In 2016, Brave Software acquired Link Bubble, an Android web browser that preloaded websites in floating bubbles before users clicked on links while browsing text on their phones. The Link Bubble app was subsequently re-branded into the Brave browser. However, the unfamiliar interface, along with limitations in how Android's WebView engine handled rendering websites on background threads, led Brave to separate the two products in 2017. Brave was re-released as a conventional tabbed browser, while Link Bubble continued as a standalone app.

In August 2016, the company had received at least US$7 million in angel investments from venture capital firms, including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital and the Digital Currency Group.

In 2017, Brave introduced the Basic Attention Token (BAT), an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency. Brave intended for it to be used as a medium through which publishers and content creators, who would have typically relied on advertising revenue to be paid directly by the person viewing the content. The project raised approximately $35 million through an initial coin offering and was eventually integrated into the Brave Rewards system in 2018 where users could watch ads through the browser which would in turn earn them the token, which they could subsequently share with creators and publishers.

Until late 2018, Brave was built using a fork of Electron called Muon, which the company claimed offered improved security over the standard Electron framework. In October 2018, Brave announced that it would transition to building the browser on top of the Chromium codebase. Chromium also served as the foundational codebase for browsers like Google Chrome, Vivaldi and Opera at that time. Despite Chromium being maintained by Google, Brave stated that it would not integrate any Google services into the browser. The company cited the need to reduce the maintenance burden of supporting a custom user-interface framework as the primary motivation for the change. According to Brave, the switch resulted in a 22 percent performance improvement over earlier versions. The final Muon-based version of Brave was released in January 2019, after which the Muon variant was declared end-of-life and users were encouraged to migrate to the Chromium-based version.

In 2019, Brave released their 1.0 version across all platforms, the 1.0 version signaled that the browser was finally out of beta and was ready for mass adoption. The 1.0 released the Brave Ads system to their iOS browser version and introduced a way for users to sell their Basic Attention Tokens on cryptocurrency exchanges through a partnership with a cryptocurrency exchange company called Uphold. Users who signed up to accounts on Uphold were able to exchange their BATs for an equivalent amount US dollars.

In 2020, Brave introduced Brave Today, a privacy-preserving news feed integrated into the browser's new tab page. The feature delivered personalized news content without revealing users' IP addresses to publishers or ad networks, using Brave's custom content delivery network (CDN). However, Gizmodo noted that while the feed avoided third-party tracking, users could still be shown ads through Brave's own Brave Ads program instead of publisher-served ads. The feature was later renamed Brave News. Later that year, a user discovered the Brave browser inserted referral codes to the end of URLs of cryptocurrency companies. Brave specifically targeted cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Coinbase and Trezor with which it had advertising agreements with. Brave also added their referral codes to web search links when a user searched the terms "bitcoin", "ethereum" or "litecoin" in their browser. In response to the criticism after this practice was discovered, the CEO, Brendan Eich said that the addition of the referral codes in the URL bar was a mistake and that the addition of such advertising would be made opt-in.