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As you may have already discovered, perhaps thanks to the our new Telegram channel called The Alternatives | Fresh, there is a new one Search engine on the market. Is called Brave Search and is developed by the company Brave Software, the same one that created the Browsers Brave of which you can read here our report.
•As always, we wanted to wait to relaunch the news on the site to be able to talk about it in more depth and without thehype initial. That is, without that anxiety mixed with excitement from new news and wanting to be the first to talk about it.
Especially when we talk about new projects we like to wait and give ourselves the right amount of time to talk about it, trying to put aside prejudices (positive and negative) and try to make a complete point.
That's what we did for too Brave Search.
We have been trying it for some time, since it was still available only thanks to a waiting list in which more than one person participated 100,000 people 1 2.
Brave Search, the Search engine private and with its own index
How do we know this? Thanks to a LOVES (libreddit link) done by the team of Brave Search on Reddit. LOVES, for those who don't know, is the acronym of TOsk MAnd TOnything, or: “ask anything”. It is a format that is often done on Reddit and allows interaction with famous personalities or companies by asking them anything you want.
Always thanks to this LOVES we discovered that Brave Search as of June 30, 2021 it indexed 9 billion pages and is constantly expanding 3 4. There are so many: if you think about it Mojeek, a Search engine alternative and very active, it has recently exceeded 4 billion after 16 years of activity 5. The merit of this result is due to the fact that Brave Search it doesn't start from scratch but from the acquisition of the company Cliqz and his Search engine called Tailcat. Cliqz closed its doors in April 2020 6 and was acquired the following year by Brave 7.
Brave Search and web search
Since 2023, Brave has stopped serving the results of other search engines and has decided to use, by default, only those of its index 8. Therefore unlike DuckDuckGo, Qwant and many others is that Brave Search uses its own independent index and no longer depends on other search engines.
If you want to know something more technical about how the Brave Search just read the pages of this blog and more precisely Building a search engine from scratch. It is also said that within the page Transparency soon we will also see the data relating to Brave Search.
Goggles
In addition to this, other interesting details emerged. For example their intention is to create a much larger and community project called Goggles where anyone can collaborate and help index the results. The concept that has leaked from the AMA is that anyone will be able to use their algorithm (for a fee?) to create custom search engines. This came up when a user asked to have something similar to Qwant Junior (The Search engine Of Qwant dedicated to children).
From what we understand, their idea is to allow the creation of additional customizable search engines using the APIs Brave Search. Therefore any company could open "its" Qwant Junior 9 10.
Update July 2022: the Goggles project has started in Beta version. It seems really very interesting and well done and you can find it at this address: search.brave.com/goggles.
Update May 2024: Goggles now appears to be available in full.
AND Open source?
One of the questions that is, rightly, continually asked on Brave Search is: but it is Open source?
The short answer is: unfortunately not.
The slightly more complex answer: currently it isn't Open source albeit with the project Goggles it seems that they intend to open their algorithm to everyone. It should be added that unfortunately if he were alone Open source and not free software would change the substance little as it would not be possible to install it on one's own server and it would not even be possible to understand if the software running on the server is the same one they released.
This choice does not surprise us: Brave is a for-profit company and from Brave Search he definitely wants to make money from it. The project Goggles however it seems interesting so we will see how and if the thing evolves. We would have loved to see Brave Search released under a free and open license for all but we knew from the beginning that this would not be the case.
The American data center
Initially, some complained about the slowness in obtaining results. We therefore discover that upon its launch on Brave Search 70 queries were made per second 11 12 and that only one data center was used in the United States 13 14. We don't know if things have evolved in this sense in some way but the slowdowns seem to have been resolved.
Brave Search is out of beta after a year of testing 15
The features of Brave Search
Now let's get to the features of Brave Search. We have tried using it daily and it does a more than decent job. It works well with many requests and often finds what you are looking for. Locally it definitely can't compete with Google yet but we are sure that things will improve with time.
Remember that the search for Brave it is, at least on paper, completely private. You won't be followed by weirdos Cookies and your searches will remain yours alone.
Brave Search It has some interesting functions such as the ability to search on different search engines. In fact, the concept of dei has been completely taken over !Bang Of DuckDuckGo. In fact, by using the exclamation point you can search directly on a Search engine different. For example, if you write “the alternatives !g” you will search directly on Google. If you write “the !yt alternatives” your search will end up directly on YouTube. It's a smart move in our opinion given that i !Bang they are one of the most loved things about DuckDuckGo.
The discussions, a very useful method that contains discussions present within forums (mainly Reddit and StackExchange) that could answer your search query.
Leo AI
In addition to all these settings, Leo AI has also recently been introduced into searches. Leo AI is the chatbots of Brave who will try to answer the questions you ask. For example, if you write “what time is it in Beijing?” you can have them reply directly Leo AI without having to go and look for the answer within the sites.
Google, Bing and Mojeek
One of the things that catches your eye is that halfway through your search page you are asked to search on other search engines as well. And only three search engines are highlighted: Google, Bing And Mojeek. Show Mojeek instead of other more renowned search engines such as Qwant or DuckDuckGo We are really pleased. Why Mojeek it is one of the few that only uses its own indexing. In fact, let's remember that it is Qwant That DuckDuckGo they also use Bing for their web searches.
In short Brave Search quote Mojeek but not DuckDuckGo to whom, indeed, they borrow the idea of !Bang. Is it a declaration of war against the most famous duck on the web or is it just a coincidence?
Other features present are quick responses, which is also continually expanding. Searching for example “Population of Paris" or "Joker cast” we will have some interesting quick answers. They work very well in English and sometimes a little less in Italian. But for example by searching for “Population of Milan” you still get the data from wikidata. Overall, it seems to us that they are working well.
Reverse image search
One of the things that is missing and will probably never arrive is reverse image search. That is, the possibility of inserting an image and discovering similar ones around the web. Probably about this Google Images it cannot be fought and it will be difficult to achieve.
The maps
As for the maps, however, they are trying to find the right compromise in use and they should arrive shortly 16 17.
Until not long ago there was the possibility to set Google fallback mixing in the settings: help Brave to refine his searches with Google when he doesn't find anything decent thanks to its indexing. However, this option has disappeared for some time to some users. However, it still seems to appear for those who use the Browsers Brave.
Last important feature: Brave Search works perfectly without JavaScript.
Paid searches
We end the article by talking about monetization.
Not long ago it was possible to buy a premium subscription for 3$ per month. This will allow you not to see the ads otherwise present in the free version. The ads are anyway privacy-friendly therefore you will not be profiled and they are only related to your search query and not to you.
Pay to not see ads
The idea of paying not to see ads doesn't excite us too much, let's say more than anything we don't like the concept "if you pay me I won't track you". But since we are not talking about personalized ads and Cookies who follow us all over the web but only for advertising purposes in itself, the idea could also prove interesting. As long as there is someone willing to pay for one Search engine Obviously.
A very interesting question is finally asked inLOVES: “You have created a Browsers (Brave) to eliminate ads from the web and now you ask people to pay not to see yours?” 18 19.
Let's try to summarize the team's response Brave Search.
The Browsers Brave by default does not block first-party advertisements but only those of third parties. That is: if you search on Bing with Brave you will see Bing ads. The ads that are eliminated are third-party ones. Let's try to explain it better: if we here on our site used Google ads those would be third-party ads. If we used our own ad system they would be first party.
With Brave you will stop seeing third-party ones only if you also manually activate the option aggressive.
We therefore expect to see the same effect on Brave Search when the ads appear. For consistency they should allow their ads in the normal version but should block them in the aggressive version.
If this were not the case, the question would arise spontaneously: are you trying to replace one monopoly with another?
However, it's too early to say, we still don't know anything about what it will be like. If they will be implemented i BAT (the cryptocurrency created by Brave) or whatever. We will certainly follow the project with interest and see how it will evolve.
•- 100,000 people sign up[↩]
- 100,000 people sign up – Libreddit[↩]
- Our index is around 9 billion pages[↩]
- Our index is around 9 billion pages – Libreddit[↩]
- Mojeek Reaches the 4 Billion Page Milestone[↩]
- Cliqz[↩]
- Brave acquires search engine to offer the first private alternative to Google Search and Google Chrome on both mobile and desktop[↩]
- Brave Search removes last remnant of Bing from search results page, achieving 100% independence and providing real alternative to Big Tech search[↩]
- The difference with Qwant-junior is that we will provide the tooling and infra for individuals and communities to create…[↩]
- The difference with Qwant-junior is that we will provide the tooling and infra for individuals and communities to create… – Libreddit[↩]
- 70 queries per second[↩]
- 70 queries per second – Libreddit[↩]
- We are currently serving all traffic from a data center on the US west coast[↩]
- Currently we are serving all traffic from a data center on the US west coast – Libreddit[↩]
- Brave Search passes 2.5 billion queries in its first year, and debuts Goggles feature that allows users to choose their own search rankings[↩]
- Good point regarding the maps, it's something we are looking into improving[↩]
- Good point regarding the maps, it's something we are looking into improving – Libreddit[↩]
- People will say it's unfair[↩]
- People will say it's unfair – Libreddit[↩]
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