Do you want free money? This is not a trick. Seriously, do you want free money? Allow me to explain.

![money](/assets/images/blog/2022/02/22/00-money.jpeg)

I use many web browsers across many devices. I do this for a number of reasons but the main ones are:

* Separation of concerns
* Development / Testing web applications
* Privacy / Security

For a long time I've used Firefox with the awesome [Multi Account Containers](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/)
plugin for my personal web browsing because it allowed me to sandbox particular websites and reduce their ability to 
track me across the web. If you've not used this btw take it from me, it's great.

For my business browsing I was still using Google Chrome because being a business customer of theirs it felt natural. 
Then I remembered about a Chromium based, privacy focused browser that I'd used years ago and forgotten about. The browser 
is of course [Brave](https://brave.com/). So I installed it and started to look around and see what had changed since 
the last time I used it. I found a feature called [Brave Rewards](https://brave.com/brave-rewards/). 

Brave via it's Brave Rewards feature does something that no other web browser does. It flips the whole internet 
advertising game on its head and allows you to opt IN rather than OUT of seeing adverts. Why would you choose to opt in
I hear you say and the answer is Brave pay YOU everytime they show you an advert. No longer is it just the ad companies
profiting off of showing you ads, but now finally that sweet sweet ad money is getting shared around with the rest of us. 
You even get controls to decide how many ads you want to be shown in an hour anywhere from 0 to 10.

> Edit: I should add that the ads that Brave Rewards shows you are also super unobtrusive. Ranging from background ads
> on the new tab page, to simple notifications. 

To enable this rewards system the Brave browser has a built-in crypto wallet, and they pay rewards automatically each 
month to your wallet using a crypto token called BAT which stands for [Basic Attention Token](https://basicattentiontoken.org/).
Now don't worry if this all sounds complicated it's really not, it's very simple to get going and only takes a few clicks 
to use the web browsers built-in wallet. I would however advise connecting the browser to an external wallet provider 
straight away. Brave supports 2x different wallet providers. [Gemini](https://www.gemini.com/uk) and [Uphold](https://uphold.com/en-gb/products/crypto).
You can link to either of these from within the Brave Rewards feature. See image below:

![Wallet Services](/assets/images/blog/2022/02/22/01-wallet-services.png)

> Warning: I advise you connect to either Gemini or Uphold as soon as you decide to use Brave Rewards. I left it until
I had accumulated over £30 worth of rewards which I wanted to withdraw and when I connected my wallet to Gemini I lost
all the rewards I had accumulated. Nothing transferred across. Lesson learned! Once your wallet is connected to either 
Uphold or Gemini you can forget about it and just let the money trickle in.

What's even better about this feature is that it's clearly designed to help foster a better internet where people can 
choose to reward or tip the content creators of the websites they appreciate. It's not just individual Brave users that 
can sign up for rewards but content creators and owners of websites can sign up too. I have done so myself with this 
very website.

Whenever you browse a website that has signed up as a verified creator with Brave Rewards you will see this little tick
in the address bar.

![Verified](/assets/images/blog/2022/02/22/02-verified.png)

When you click the icon you will a confirmation that the website is a verified creator and from there you can send a 
one-off tip, or you can even set up a monthly recurring tip.

![Verified Creator](/assets/images/blog/2022/02/22/03-verified-creator.png)

When I was deciding on which Wallet provider to use I basically just flipped a coin in my mind. I've been watching the 
rewards flow into the Gemini account each month automatically and without a hitch. This morning I decided to withdraw my funds.
The process was simple. I logged into my Gemini account and chose the withdraw option. I pasted in a Gemini address from 
my hardware crypto wallet and the tokens were transferred instantly. I didn't notice any option to withdraw the money 
directly into my bank but that's fine, I wanted the tokens in my hardware wallet anyway. I have since learned that Uphold
do offer more options such as converting your BAT rewards into different types of crypto and also withdrawing directly 
into to your bank. I expect I may switch my rewards to Uphold and write a post about this sometime in the future.

So there you go, that's how you get free money. Just don't forget to tip me as you're cashing out. 😎

🤑💰💸 FREE MONEY 💷💶🤑