The fate of popular floating browser Link Bubble, by Australian developer Chris Lacy is finally known, with the new owners making the app open source yesterday. The app was purchased by Brave Software a company dedicated to getting you to Browse Better, Faster and Safer.
The company is headed up by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich who was also the man who invented JavaScript so he knows his way around a browser. Brave is using a number of browsers purchased for the task of getting their initiative off the ground, the underlying concept is to ignore the ‘garbage’ that’s included in most websites such as tracking software and intrusive ads.
Brave will be secure, traffic is routed through HTTPS Everywhere which has been baked into Brave, and it also blocks tracking pixels and tracking cookies.
If you’re feeling bad about blocking ads, thereby cutting off a revenue stream from your favourite site, Brave also has a plan for that as well. Brave will replace ads deemed ‘eyesores’ or malicious (i.e possibly malware) with certain standard-sized ads they deem appropriate with the plan to revenue share back to content creators, somewhere in the realm of a 55% share which could grow as Brave does.
Link Bubble itself will remain very similar to what you’ve come to know and love, though obviously some things will change. The floating nature of Link Bubble will remain, but the app will receive an overhaul including branching into a full browser in its own right with a new ad-blocking engine and Android NDK support.
Brave is still in development, but anyone interested in checking it out can go and sign up as a developer or for the Beta on the Brave Website.
