 | |
 Screenshot of Brave Search | |
| Formerly | Tailcat |
|---|---|
Type of site | Web search engine |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, USA |
| Created by | Brave Software, Inc. |
| URL | search |
| Registration | Optional [1] |
| Launched | June 2022 |
| 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. [2]
Brave Search was developed following the acquisition of Tailcat, a privacy-focused search engine from Cliqz, a subsidiary of Hubert Burda Media based in Germany. [3] [4] [5] [6]
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). [7]
In June 2022, Brave Search ended its beta stage and was fully released along with an announcement that within its year-long beta testing period, it surpassed 2.5 billion total queries. [8] [9] [10] [11]
Brave Search uses its own web index to generate search results with the aid of the WDP project. [12]
However, the user can allow the Brave browser to anonymously check Google for the same query. [13]
A feature that shows conversations related to the search query, such as comments on the website Reddit. [14]
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.
A feature that allows users to apply their own rules and filters to a search. [15]
A large language model that automatically responds to some search queries, aided by content from web pages in the search results. [16]
Users can optionally create an account with Brave Search Premium to support Brave Search directly involving data-collection. [1]
As of January 2025, 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. [1]
User data including IP addresses won't be collected from its users by default. [17]
However, Brave Search implements some level of data collect when users opt in through the Web Discovery Project (WDP) [18] . No account is required for this function. [19]
As of May 2022, it covered over 10billion 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. [12]
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." [12]
This is a comparison of both historical and current web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost.
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy . Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance.
Startpage is a Dutch search engine company that highlights privacy as its distinguishing feature. The website advertises that it allows users to obtain Bing Search and Google Search results while protecting users' privacy by not storing personal information or search data and removing all trackers. Startpage.com also includes an Anonymous View browsing feature that allows users the option to open search results via proxy for increased anonymity.
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and also mobile app traffic and events, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in November 2005 after acquiring Urchin.
Microsoft Bing is a search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service traces its roots back to Microsoft's earlier search engines, including MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search. Bing offers a broad spectrum of search services, encompassing web, video, image, and map search products, all developed using ASP.NET.
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and also for Android, where it is the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, where it serves as the platform for web applications.
DuckDuckGo is an American software company focused on online privacy, whose flagship product is a search engine of the same name. Founded by Gabriel Weinberg in 2008, its later products include browser extensions and a custom DuckDuckGo web browser. Headquartered in Paoli, Pennsylvania, DuckDuckGo is a privately held company with about 200 employees. The company's name is a reference to the children's game duck, duck, goose.
Epic is an Indian proprietary privacy-centric web browser developed by Hidden Reflex using Chromium source code. Epic is always in private browsing mode, and exiting the browser deletes all browser data. The browser's developers claim that Google's tracking code has been removed, and that blocks other companies from tracking the user.
Comodo Dragon is a freeware web browser. It is based on Chromium and is produced by Comodo Group. Sporting a similar interface to Google Chrome, Dragon does not implement Chrome's user tracking and some other potentially privacy-compromising features, replacing them with its own user tracking implementations, and provides additional security measures, such as indicating the authenticity and relative strength of a website's Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.
Waterfox is a free and open-source web browser and fork of Firefox. It claims to be ethical and user-centric, emphasizing performance and privacy. There are official Waterfox releases for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android. It was initially created to provide official 64-bit support, back when Firefox was only available for 32-bit systems.
Microsoft Edge, based on the Chromium open-source project, also known as The New Microsoft Edge or New Edge, is a proprietary cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft, superseding Edge Legacy. In Windows 11, Edge is the only browser available from Microsoft.
Ecosia is a search engine and web browser based in Berlin, Germany. The company uses renewable energy to power its servers and invests its profits in tree-planting projects, aiming to absorb more CO2 than it emits.
Vivaldi is a freeware, cross-platform web browser with a built-in email client developed by Vivaldi Technologies, a company founded by Tatsuki Tomita and Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, who was the co-founder and CEO of Opera Software. Vivaldi was initially released on 27 January 2015.
Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser.
Cliqz was a privacy-oriented web browser and search engine developed by Cliqz GmbH and majority-owned by Hubert Burda Media. It was available as a desktop and mobile web browser as well as an extension for Firefox itself.
Searx is a discontinued free and open-source metasearch engine, available under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3, with the aim of protecting the privacy of its users. To this end, Searx does not share users' IP addresses or search history with the search engines from which it gathers results. Tracking cookies served by the search engines are blocked, preventing user-profiling-based results modification. By default, Searx queries are submitted via HTTP POST, to prevent users' query keywords from appearing in webserver logs. Searx was inspired by the Seeks project, though it does not implement Seeks' peer-to-peer user-sourced results ranking.
Mojeek is a UK-based search engine known for its focus on privacy and independence from other major search indexes. Established with a commitment to user privacy, Mojeek operates its own crawler-based index, setting it apart from search engines that rely on third-party search results, such as those from Google or Bing. Unlike many mainstream search engines, Mojeek does not track, profile, or personalize search results, ensuring an unbiased and transparent search experience for its users. Founded by Marc Smith, Mojeek has grown steadily as an alternative for those seeking privacy-respecting search options. With its technology focused on privacy and transparency, Mojeek appeals to users who value data security and freedom from targeted advertising.
Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) is a type of web tracking. It groups people into "cohorts" based on their browsing history for the purpose of interest-based advertising. FLoC was being developed as a part of Google's Privacy Sandbox initiative, which includes several other advertising-related technologies with bird-themed names. Despite "federated learning" in the name, FLoC does not utilize any federated learning.
The Privacy Sandbox is an initiative led by Google to create web standards for websites to access user information without compromising privacy. Its core purpose is to facilitate online advertising by sharing a subset of user private information without the use of third-party cookies. The initiative includes a number of proposals, many of these proposals have bird-themed names which are changed once the corresponding feature reaches general availability. The technology include Topics API, Protected Audience, Attribution Reporting, Private Aggregation, Shared Storage and Fenced Frames as well as other proposed technologies. The project was announced in August 2019.
