Brave, the popular privacy-focused Web browser, today released its independent search engine to rival Google Search. Since earlier this year, the company has reportedly been working on its search engine and has now been released in beta to users across all platforms.
The company announced the new Brave search engine via an official blog post. According to the company, Brave Search differs from its competitors, such as Microsoft Bing and Google Search, because it focuses on user privacy rather than user profiling and tracking. Furthermore, Brave relies on its search index to answer common questions without relying on third-party solutions.
“Brave Search is the industry’s most private search engine, as well as the only independent search engine, giving users the control and confidence they seek in alternatives to big tech,” said Brendan Eich, the CEO, and co-founder of Brave.
Brave Search
Brave uses its search index to fetch search results for common queries. However, it also ensures an utterly anonymous search and provides transparency regarding the ranking of its search results.
In addition, Brave Search brings the industry’s first search freedom metric. This essentially allows users to view search results that are specifically coming from Brave’s index. Thanks to this, users will be able to check aggregate metrics to verify the independence of their search results and see how the company’s index drives them.
Now, since search indexing is still a work-in-progress, Brave Search will rely on Microsoft Bing for its image search feature. With this, there will not be any tracking of users. However, reliance on Microsoft Bing will reduce users’ freedom metrics.
“Unlike older search engines that track and profile users and newer search engines which are mostly a skin on older Search engines and do not have their index, Brave Search is a new way to find relevant results with a community-driven index. Provides privacy while providing guarantees. BraveSearch fills an apparent void in the market today as millions of people have lost faith in the surveillance economy and are actively looking for solutions to take control of their data. Eich added.
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Coming to its availability, Brave Search is currently available as a beta service for all Brave users on iOS, Android, and Windows. During this period, search engines will not show any ads. However, the company plans to offer paid ad-free search and free ad-supported search once it’s publicly released. Users who do not use the Brave browser can visit search.brave.com to try out the new Brave Search. You can also watch the official promo video of Brave Search below.
Brave Search is Different from other Search Engines
- Privacy: no tracking or profiling of users.
- User-first: the user comes first, not the advertising and data industries.
- Independence: Brave has its own search index for answering common queries privately without reliance on other providers.
- Choice: soon, options for ad-free paid search and ad-supported search.
- Transparency: no secret methods or algorithms to bias results, and soon, community-curated open ranking models to ensure diversity and prevent algorithmic biases and outright censorship.
- Seamlessness: best-in-class integration between the browser and search without compromising privacy, from personalization to instant results as the user types.
- Openness: Brave Search will soon be available to power other search engines.
