Why don't I see any Brave Ads after enabling them? Follow
After opting into Brave Ads, there may be times where the Ads system seem to stop functioning properly and are no longer appearing as they were previously. While there may be times where that is indeed the case and there is a legitimate bug in the system causing the issue, it's often the case that the system is working as intended and only appears as if there's an issue. This document will help you differentiate between the two scenarios and have a stronger grasp of how the system works overall.
Expected Behavior
First, it is important to understand what it should look like when the system is functioning as intended and clear up some common misconceptions about the logic. While some of information is available in our Brave Ads FAQ, we should highlight some of the key points:
When Ads are shown
The goal is to show you privacy respecting ads that are relevant to the user in the right context. This is done by "matching" an ad that is (ideally) catered to you based on your browsing activity (note that your information is always kept private - please see the FAQ for more information). The intention is not to make sure that all users simply “see some ads”. Enabling Ads does not guarantee that you’re going to see ads – if the system does not find a match for you in the ads catalog, then you may not see any until a match is found.
Further, given the above and the other various factors that determine what ads you can/will see (we will go over many of these factors later in this article) you may see ads appearing regularly today, but tomorrow you may not see any – and that’s perfectly fine. In this situation, it really is a feature, not a bug. We encourage you to keep this in mind before assuming that the feature simply “isn’t working”.
Max Ads per hour
In Brave, if you navigate to Settings --> Brave Rewards --> Ads Settings you have the option to change the Maximum number of ads displayed (per hour):
This setting determines the maximum number of ads the browser can show you each hour. In the image above, for example, the number is set to 5. Please note that this does not mean that you will see 5 ads every hour as the number being set is a ceiling, not a floor. Meaning that with the setting configured above, you may see anywhere between 0 and 5 ads every hour.
Configuring OS Notifications
At this time, Brave leverages the notification system native to the Operating System that you're using. Ensure that you have the appropriate configuration for your OS to avoid Brave Ad notifications getting blocked:
Windows 10 systems
Please see our comprehensive Windows 10 Troubleshooting Guide for details on how to allow notifications and adjust features like Focus Assist to work with Brave Ads.
macOS systems
On your mac, open Finder and navigate to System Preferences --> Notifications --> Do Not Disturb. Check that the Do Not Disturb feature is either disabled or set to the appropriate times in which you'd like to allow Brave Ads to display.
Next, scroll down further on the Notifications window until you see the Brave Browser application. Select it and ensure that Allow Notifications is toggled "on" and that the "alert style" is set to either Banners or Alerts.
Note that if you are using the screen mirroring feature, you will need to check the appropriate box here to allow the browser to display alerts while screen mirroring:
Configuring Anti-Virus Software
While most A/V software does not interfere with Brave Ads, at this time it is known that users running Kaspersky Internet Security may not see ads appear while the application is running. To configure Kaspersky to allow Brave Ads to show while running:
- Launch Kaspersky on your system
- Go to
Settings --> Network settings - Scroll down to
Encrypted connection scanning - Select the
Do not scan encrypted connections option - Click save, relaunch Brave
Once done, Brave ads should start to display normally again.
Common Reasons for not seeing Ads
If you've gone through all of the above and have looked at the additional resources provided below (highly encouraged) and believe that you are encountering an error with Brave Ads, it may be due to one or more of the circumstances listed below.
Note that this list is subject to change in the future as new updates are added to the browser.
| Possible Cause | Why? | User Action (if available) |
| Users wallets were marked as fraudulent | Users who's wallets have been flagged for suspicious activity are not eligible to receive or earn from Brave Ads. | Do not attempt to defraud the Rewards/Ads system. |
| User is on a VPN | Brave discourages using VPNs for the purpose of downloading ad catalogs from other countries. Doing so may increase the chances of being flagged as suspect, and result in issues with claiming tokens on the payment date. | |
| Running browser in full screen mode | Ad notifications will not be displayed when full-screen mode is detected to ensure the notifications do not interrupt the users session when watching a movie or gaming (for example). | |
| System notifications not enabled | See above section | See above section |
| Focus Assist enabled on Windows | See above section | See above section |
| Using a gaming mouse | Determined the cause to be a driver issue which also affected the Windows screen saver due to the driver always reporting the mouse being active. | View potential workaround |
| Media was playing on the active tab | Playing or streaming media on some sites will prevent ads from being displayed. | |
| User exceeded the frequency caps for their region | Please see "Are Ads Available in my region?" in the FAQ for more information. | |
| User were running multiple browsers with the same wallet | ||
| User assumption that they will receive 40 ads per day (consistently) |
The number of Ads you see each day will vary based on several factors, such as:
|
|
| User manually modified browser state files |
By editing local state files you run the risk of corrupting the data or flagging your wallet as invalid or fraudulent. |
Do not edit these files. |
| Users manually backup (copy/paste) and restore their user profiles to new computers (restoration fails as we could not decrypt the wallet as each instance of the wallet has its own decryption key) | At this time, this action is not recommended and will cause you to stop seeing Ads. |
Additional Resources
We strongly encourage all users to read through the available documentation we have for a firm understanding of the ads system:
General
Help Center – Ads FAQ
Help Center – How to enable and use Brave Ads
Community – Windows 10 Focus Assist troubleshooting
Reddit – BAT Project Ads troubleshooting
Brave Transparency Page
Dive deeper
Blog – An introduction to Brave's In-Browser Ads
Brave Wiki – Security and privacy model for ad confirmations
Start your own Ad campaign on Brave Ads