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Rust in Production

Brave with Anton Lazarev

Jan 9, 2025
Anton Lazarev, a Senior Software Engineer at Brave, is known for developing rust-based solutions and his customizable split keyboard project. In this discussion, he explains how Brave's privacy-first ad-blocker leverages Rust for optimal performance. He shares insights on overcoming challenges in browser constraints, parallelizing CSS parsing, and enhancing filter list capabilities. Anton also details the transition from C++ to Rust, emphasizing the benefits of memory safety and innovative development, all while exploring the future potential of Rust in browser technology.
56:11

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Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • Brave's use of Rust for their ad-blocking engine enables superior performance and safety, crucial for real-time web applications.
  • Anton Lazarev's journey showcases how overcoming initial challenges with Rust can lead to significant advancements in web privacy technology.

Deep dives

Building a High-Performance Ad Blocker with Rust

Brave focuses on developing a high-performance ad blocker written entirely in Rust, which serves as a core component of their web browser. The decision to use Rust stemmed from its ability to produce efficient and safe native code, which is particularly important given the constraints involved in real-time applications like ad blocking. Anton Lazarev, who works on the adblock engine, highlighted that using Rust allows for optimizations that are unattainable in languages like JavaScript, primarily due to the inherent efficiencies of compiled code. This performance advantage includes features such as CNAME uncloaking, which is essential in preventing privacy-invasive tracking, emphasizing the technological edge that Rust offers in this application.

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