Brave is best known for its privacy-focused web browser, but back in March the company announced a search engine was in development with a similar focus on privacy. This week, Brave Search launched in beta form and is vying to compete directly with Google.
Development of Brave Search was sped up considerably through the acquisition of the open search engine Tailcat earlier this year. Although it's only in beta, users can try it out on all versions of the Brave browser, including desktop, Android, and iOS. Anyone else can try it from their browser of choice by visiting search.brave.com.
Although Brave Search will be a completely independent service, for now it relies on Microsoft's Bing search engine for image searches, although no tracking will be allowed.
As to why you'd choose to use Brave Search, Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave explained, "Brave Search is the industry’s most private search engine, as well as the only independent search engine, giving users the control and confidence they seek in alternatives to big tech."
Brave is promising there will be no tracking or profiling of users, an independent search index that doesn't rely on any other providers, a community-curated open ranking model (no algorithmic bias), browser integration without sacrificing privacy, and eventually the ability for other search engines to use Brave Search. There's also going to be a choice between an ad-free paid search or an ad-supported search experience, but we'll likely have to wait for the beta to end before that choice becomes available.