Monday, July 5, 2021

Brave Search Public Beta

Yan Zhu:
the new search engine we’ve been working on at @brave is now in public beta! search.brave.com
  • we don’t track clicks or queries
  • we don’t profile you
  • for localized results, we only use IP and don’t store it
  • we show you what % of results are served from our own index
Brave:
Brave Search uses its own index, but also ensures fully anonymous search, is transparent in how search results are ranked, and integrates with a privacy-preserving browser on desktop and mobile – an across-the-board combination of independence and privacy which no other provider offers. For a detailed comparison of Brave Search versus other search engines, please see our side-by-side chart here. […] Brave Search is not displaying ads during this early part of the beta phase,
John Gruber:
Biggest thing I dislike about Brave Search is the font. It’s a typeface called Poppins that, almost unbelievably, is a free font from Google.
That and it feels slow. The search results seem OK, though. Not as good as Google, but at least in my early testing it’s comparable to DuckDuckGo/Bing, which is a promising start. The main issue for me is that there’s no built-in way to set Brave Search as the default in Safari, though you can use it as a secondary serach engine or via LaunchBar. Previously:

Update (2021-07-09): Adam Engst:

Put bluntly, Ecosia failed. It’s not that it didn’t work, nor did it always provide poor results. But too often, I’d find myself questioning its results or knowing they weren’t what I wanted. Ecosia relies on Bing, just like DuckDuckGo (which I’ve tried and discarded in the past as well), so I gave up and went back to Google. I’m all in favor of privacy, but not at the expense of frequent search failures. […] When Brave first released Brave Search in private beta, I jumped at the chance to try it. And you know what? It was pretty darn good. Now and then, I’d find myself sending a search directly to Google after Brave Search didn’t find what I wanted, but it passed the annoyance test that Ecosia and DuckDuckGo had failed. […] The Goggles proposal is interesting and worth a read. In essence, it offers a way to create a plurality of rankings rather than require users to submit to a single ranking, even one that attempts to personalize itself to their desires. […] We can hope that Apple adds Brave Search to Safari’s search engine list soon—I’ve submitted it as a suggestion via Apple’s Feedback Assistant app, and I’d encourage others to do the same.

7 Comments RSS · Twitter

Really excited about this. I’ve never felt DuckDuckGo was a search engine as much as it is a privacy front end to Bing. A new independent search engine with its own index is a big deal.

Brendan Eich got pushed out of Firefox for his anti-LGBTI views. He would prefer I didn’t exist... so I don’t use his web browser, and will never trust his search engine.

Let’s not promote tech that is led by someone as homophobic as Brendan Eich. Who knows what content might be filtered based on his world views.

LGBT person here and I’ll not touch anything this man funds.

I find it a bit odd to boycott a service headed by someone with different views than I have. I'd probably have to remove half of all the software I use if I took that stance. If he used company funds, that might be different, but heck, Apple themselves spend millions lobbying for causes which I am sure conflict with the stance of many people. A culture that demands conformity of thought is on a dangerous path I'd say.

This isn’t “different views”, this is someone that thinks I shouldn’t exist.

Chris says:

someone that thinks I shouldn't exist

I am confused, Chris. All I can find online is that he supported Proposition 8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8

Wikipedia states 52% of Californians voted for that proposition. It banned the use of the term "marriage" for legal partnerships between same-sex couples. The Vatican does not condone such partnerships. Nor do many other faiths.

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/15/977415222/illicit-for-catholic-church-to-bless-same-sex-marriages-vatican-says

Do you have some other evidence that Brenden Eich believes you should not exist? If so, please share it, because this is quite the claim to make.

Otherwise, surely applying your logic would lead you to conclude that 52% of Californians want you not to exist. If so, do you use no computer, or software made or designed in Silicon Valley? What do you eat, since most farmers tend conservative?

Oh wow, opened an old tab and found an absurd reply.

If someone is against same-sex marriage they are ultimately implying they’d prefer there not be anyone that is acting outside of heterosexual gender norms. That’s it, this is the argument, no irrelevant URLs or patronising name use required.

As for the rest of your ramble: I don’t worry about my food coming conservative American farmers because I don’t live in America, what the Vatican thinks about anything is irrelevant (also: God doesn’t exist), 52 percent of companies in Silicon Valley aren’t run by homophobes, and we’re having this discussion on a website that’s primarily about a company led by a gay CEO. Tech is more progressive than dinosaurs like Eich.