Brave Search Explained

Brave Search
Type:	Web search engine
Registration:	Optional
Current Status:	Online

Brave Search is a search engine developed by Brave Software, Inc., and is the default search engine for the Brave web browser in certain countries.^[1]

History

Brave Search is a search engine developed by Brave Software, Inc. and released in Beta in March 2021, following the acquisition of Tailcat, a privacy-focused search engine from Cliqz.^[2] Brave Search aims to use its independent index to generate search results. However, the user can allow the Brave browser to anonymously check Google for the same query.^[3]

In October 2021, Brave Search was made the default search engine for Brave browser users in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom (replacing Google Search), France (replacing Qwant) and Germany (replacing DuckDuckGo).^[4]

In June 2022, Brave Search ended its beta stage and was fully released. In addition to the launch, the new Goggles feature was added, allowing users to apply their own rules and filters to search queries.^[5]

Features

Brave search has various features designed to enhance users' searching experience:

• Brave Search uses its own web index. As of May 2022, it covered over 10 billion pages and was used to serve 92% of search results without relying on any third-parties, with the remainder being retrieved server-side from the Bing API or (on an opt-in basis) client-side from Google.^[6] According to Brave, the index was kept "intentionally smaller than that of Google or Bing" in order to help avoid spam and other low-quality content, with the disadvantage that "Brave Search is not yet as good as Google in recovering long-tail queries."
• Brave Search Premium: users can optionally create an account with Brave Search Premium to support Brave Search directly. As of April 2023 Brave Search is an ad-free website, but it will eventually switch to a new model that will include ads and premium users will get an ad-free experience. User data including IP addresses won't be collected from its users by default.^[7] A premium account will be required for opt-in data-collection.^[8]
• Discussions: a feature that shows conversations related to the search query, such as comments on the website Reddit.^[9] When a user searches and scrolls down, if available a discussions section will be there, and it will contain various forums where and the user can click one to see an answer from a user from an online community.
• Goggles: a feature that allows users to apply their own rules and filters to a search.
• Answer with AI: large language model that automatically responds to some search queries, aided by content from web pages in the search results.^[10]

Data collection

Brave Search implements some level of data collection only when users opt in through the Web Discovery Project (WDP). The project is a methodology and system developed by Brave Software, Inc. which collects data generated by their users while claiming to protect users privacy and anonymity.^[11] Users can opt in at any time while using the search engine by modifying their settings. No account is required for this function.^[12] As of 2022, data from the WDP was used to inform the ranking of search results.

See also

• Comparison of web search engines
• List of search engines
• List of search engines by popularity

External links

• Brave Search

Notes and References

1. Web site: Porter . Jon . 2021-10-20 . Brave browser replaces Google with its own search engine . 2022-01-16 . The Verge . en.
2. Web site: Brave's privacy-focused search engine is available in beta. 2022-01-16. Engadget. en-US.
3. Web site: Google fallback mixing. search.brave.com.
4. Web site: Porter. Jon. 2021-10-20. Brave browser replaces Google with its own search engine. 2022-01-16. The Verge. en.
5. Web site: 2022-06-24. Brave's privacy-focused Google alternative lets you customize your search rankings. en-US.
6. Web site: Brereton . Dmitri . 2022-05-06 . Interview with Brave Search . 2023-02-16 . dkb.blog . en.
7. Burgess . Matt . Privacy-First Browser Brave Is Launching a Search Engine . en-US . Wired . 2022-03-10 . 1059-1028.
8. Web site: Brave. 2022-06-24. What is Brave Search Premium?. Brave Browser. en-US.
9. Web site: 2022-06-24. Web Discovery Project Overview. Brave. en-US.
10. Web site: Mehta . Ivan . 2024-04-17 . Brave Search is adopting AI to answer your queries . 2024-05-03 . . en-US.
11. Web site: 2022-06-24. What is the Web Discovery Project?. GitHub. en-US.
12. Web site: 2022-06-24. What is the Web Discovery Project?. Brave. en-US.