A new browser extension lets users support their favorite websites, and YouTube and Twitch creators through donations of BAT crypto-tokens via Brave Payments.
, I argued that Brave Payments would be a better product as a browser extension than a whole web browser. Brave Software has since made no indications that they’re interested in making a browser extension, and have instead scrapped their current Muon based web browser product and begun making yet another web browser built on Chromium.
Browser extension developer Michael Volz, however, have detangled the attention tracking and contribution system from the Brave browser in a new unofficial Brave Payments client called BATify.
The BATify extension gives users who don’t want to abandon Firefox, Google Chrome, or Opera for the Brave browser the ability to support their favorite websites and creators through the Brave Payments platform.
Update (): The extension appears to have been discontinued and is no longer being distributed for any web browser. The website and project have disappeared completely without a trace.
There were 560 websites registered as verified Brave publisher partners as of , according to BAT Growth. All of these can receive funding through Brave Payments using the BATify extension or the Braver web browser.
Users can’t migrate their wallets from the Brave browser to BATify as the two use incompatible backup and restore codes for their wallets. Users also won’t receive free BAT tokens when using BATify so they’ll have to fund their wallets with their own BAT crypto-tokens purchased at an exchange. Brave Payments and BATify needs to address the complexity surrounding user contributed funds to the platform.
BATify is available for Google Chrome and Firefox from the BATify website and for Opera through their website. The extension only had some 130 users across supported platforms as of .
The current version of the BATify extension doesn’t work on Firefox for Mobile, despite reports to the contrary. The extension requires the browser.windows API which is unavailable on Firefox for Android. (By the by, almost every time I say and extension isn’t available for Firefox for Android, this API is to blame.)