Chris Lacy, the developer behind Action Launcher, had developed Link Bubble then sold it a few months ago. We recently learned that it would be renamed to “Brave Browser” in the future, and the future is now. Today’s update for the app has rebranded the app to Brave Browser. Link Bubble was a pretty simple app, it allows you to click on links within other apps and load them in the background. Then you would be able to open up the browser over the app you are currently in, read the web page and close it. It made things really simple. As is normal when acquisitions happen, many weren’t sure what would happen to Link Bubble.
Thankfully, the app isn’t going away, but it is getting ad blocking, as well as tracking protection mode. So now you are able to keep sites from tracking you while you are loading them in the background. Especially important to most people. They also turned on ad blocking by default, which will likely be changed if Google has their way (the app may get removed from the Play Store altogether). The app hasn’t really changed much, other than its owner, and the update brings in some very handy bug fixes that were needed.
Another feature is “Brave Shields” which allows you to whitelist certain apps from the ad blocker, and allow those ads to appear. Brave Software notes that this will change in the future and will allow known “good ads” to make their way past the ad blocker that’s included in the app. We all hate ads, but they are necessary to keep the internet free. Right now, Brave Browser isn’t quite a browser alternative just yet, however it might become one in the future. As Brave Software continues to add more and more features and changes to the app. Right now it’s just a “stand in” type of browser, that would complement the likes of Chrome or Firefox quite well.
Brave Browser is still free, and there are no in-app purchases at all, included in the app. That will likely remain, at least for now. You can pick it up in the Google Play Store now.
