Brave (Search Engine)

            Brave (Search Engine)

Brave Search is a first-party search engine from Brave. It is similar to Google search and Bing but does not track your queries or preferences. Moreover, it does not rely on the above-mentioned search engines or algorithms for its results except for images- more on it later.

It is open-source and anyone can look into its code for malicious practices. This makes it a transparent and ideal choice for people who care about their privacy. 

Initially, it was in Private Beta but became available for everyone in early 2021. It also comes as a default search engine in Brave browsers in certain regions. The choice to make it default was necessary to increase its adoption, and it has already led to nearly 300 million queries per month.

How Does Brave Search Work?

Brave Search does not track its users, their search history, or what website they have been visiting. It is entirely independent of other search engines, although it does give you an option to search from Google or Bing if you do not find relevant search results.

The Search Engine uses the Web Discovery Project that uses anonymous user data (that users can opt-out of) to create its unique Independent index to show search results. Other privacy-based search engines rely on other search engines like Google or Bing, but that’s not the case with Brave.

Note that while Brave is independent of Google and Bing in web search, it does rely on Bing for image search results.

Customizing Brave Search

Brave search offers limited but necessary customization options that help make your searches more relevant to you along with some advanced options that we will discuss in detail.

You can click the cog (settings) icon on the search engine page to make the following customizations:

• Change preferred language (Only 9 language supported as of now)
• Change theme to dark mode
• Change unit of measurement
• Open links in new tab
• Tweak Safe search
• Change Region (Limited number of countries supported)

Anonymous Local Results

Local search results are essential, especially when you need to find restaurants or stores nearby. But they require your location to know where you are to answer what is near you. Most search engines use your IP address to fetch your location and then store or sell that information.

Brave’s Anonymous Local results use your IP address to know your location but not store it or connect to your profile. It neither pinpoints your exact location- it uses a general area to offer search results.

You can even set location manually if you want more accurate results or do not want to give away your current location.