Jump to content

Brave Search

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brave Search
Screenshot of Brave Search
FormerlyTailcat
Type of site
Web search engine
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California,
USA
Created byBrave Software, Inc.
ProductsSearch API
URLsearch.brave.com Edit this at Wikidata
RegistrationOptional[1]
LaunchedJune 2022; 4 years ago (June 2022)
Current statusOnline

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]

History

[edit]

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]

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).[4]

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.[5][6][7]

In August 2023, Brave created its own image and video search index so it no longer needed to rely on Bing for that 7% of its search results.[8][9]

In 2024, Brave started selling ads (without using behavioral or personal data).[10]

In September 2025, Brave search reached 1.6 billion monthly searches.[11]

Features

[edit]

Brave Search uses its own web index to generate search results with the aid of the Web Discovery Project (WDP) it launched as an opt-in feature to allow users to help it index the web.[12][13]

Discussions

[edit]

In 2022, Brave added the Discussions feature that shows conversations related to the search query, such on sites like Stack Exchange.[14][15][16]

Goggles

[edit]

A feature that allows users to apply their own rules and filters to a search, and share them with others.[17][18][19][20] Some of the more popular filters in 2022 included one that removed copycat spam sites from search results[21] and another called NetSec that searches a few thousand cybersecurity sites trusted by its creator, Forces Unseen.[22] Goggles files must be created in Domain Specific Language and must stay under 10,000 instructions.[21]

Rerank

[edit]

In January 2025, Brave enabled regular users to upvote or downvote sites to further improve users' search results.[23][24] It is based on Goggles but not intended as a replacement for it.[24]

Search API

[edit]

In May of 2023, Brave announced that it had launched a search API.[25][additional citation(s) needed] Brave Search API is an interface that allows developers to integrate search functionalities from the Brave Search engine into their applications.[26][27]

AI

[edit]

A large language model can be asked to respond to some search queries and is aided by content from web pages in the search results.[28][29] Summarizer was launched in 2023. It summarizes information from the web pages it searches and provides citations,[30] and by 2025, was providing summaries for 30-40% of searches.[10] Brave's chatbot, Leo, handled back and forth with users.[10]

Brave Search Premium

[edit]

Brave Search Premium is a paid tier that is ad-free.[31]

Data collection

[edit]

User data including IP addresses are not collected from Brave Search users by default.[6]

Limitations

[edit]

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, as of 2022, "Brave Search is not yet as good as Google in recovering long-tail queries."[12]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Brave. "What is Brave Search Premium?". Brave Browser. Retrieved 2022-06-24.
  2. ↑ Porter, Jon (2021-10-20). "Brave browser replaces Google with its own search engine". The Verge. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  3. ↑ "Brave's privacy-focused search engine is available in beta". Engadget. 22 June 2021. Archived from the original on 18 January 2022. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  4. ↑ Porter, Jon (2021-10-20). "Brave browser replaces Google with its own search engine". The Verge. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  5. ↑ Shankland, Stephen (June 22, 2021). "Google gets a new rival as Brave Search opens to the public". CNET. Archived from the original on 22 August 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  6. 1 2 Burgess, Matt (March 7, 2021). "Privacy-First Browser Brave Is Launching a Search Engine". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2022-03-10.
  7. ↑ "Brave Search passes 2.5 billion queries in its first year, and debuts Goggles feature that allows users to choose their own search rankings". Brave Browser. 22 June 2022. Archived from the original on 5 July 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  8. ↑ Fingas, Jon (2023-08-03). "Brave's privacy-focused search engine can now find images and videos". Engadget. Retrieved 2026-04-14.
  9. ↑ Shakir, Umar (2023-04-28). "Brave severs ties with Microsoft's Bing for web search queries". The Verge. Retrieved 2026-04-14.
  10. 1 2 3 Swant, Marty (2025-04-02). "Why big advertisers are buying Brave's search ads — despite its small size". Digiday. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  11. ↑ Toulas, Bill (October 2, 2025). "Brave browser surpasses the 100 million active monthly users mark". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 2026-05-01.
  12. 1 2 Brereton, Dmitri (2022-05-06). "Interview with Brave Search". dkb.blog. Retrieved 2023-02-16.
  13. ↑ Fingas, Jon (2021-10-19). "Brave's privacy-first search engine is now built in to its browser". Engadget. Retrieved 2026-05-01.
  14. ↑ Toulas, Bill (April 20, 2022). "Brave adds Discussions to enrich its search results". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 2026-05-01.
  15. ↑ Roth, Emma (2022-04-20). "Brave Search no longer requires you to append "Reddit" to your searches". The Verge. Retrieved 2026-05-01.
  16. ↑ Muchmore, Michael (2025-12-13). "The Best Alternative Search Engines We've Tested for 2026". PCMAG. Retrieved 2026-05-01.
  17. ↑ Yee, Alaina (June 23, 2022). "Brave's privacy-focused Google alternative lets you customize your search rankings". PC World. Retrieved 2022-06-24.
  18. ↑ Roth, Emma (2022-06-22). "Brave's search engine lets you customize your results". The Verge. Retrieved 2026-04-05.
  19. ↑ Burgess, Matt (June 22, 2022). "Brave Now Lets You Customize Search Results—for Better or Worse". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2026-04-05.
  20. ↑ Fingas, Jon (2022-06-22). "Brave's new tool lets you create and share your own search rankings". Engadget. Retrieved 2026-04-05.
  21. 1 2 Claburn, Thomas (June 23, 2022). "Brave Search leaves beta and puts on Goggles on filtering". The Register. Archived from the original on 2026-01-17. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  22. ↑ Abrams, Lawrence (June 26, 2022). "NetSec Goggle shows search results only from cybersecurity sites". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  23. ↑ Mehta, Ivan (2025-01-23). "Brave will allow you to tune search results with upvotes and downvotes". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2026-04-06.
  24. 1 2 Toulas, Bill (January 23, 2025). "Brave Search now lets users 'Rerank' results from favorite sites". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  25. ↑ WebProNews (2023-04-27). "Brave Search Is Now 100% Independent, With An API Coming Soon". WebProNews. Retrieved 2026-05-19.
  26. ↑ Team, AppMaster (2023-06-01). "Brave Launches Search API for Developers, Driving Privacy and Transparency Across the Web | AppMaster". appmaster.io. Retrieved 2026-05-19.
  27. ↑ Speed, Richard (2025-05-15). "Microsoft set to pull the plug on Bing Search APIs". theregister. Retrieved 2026-05-19.
  28. ↑ Mehta, Ivan (2024-04-17). "Brave Search is adopting AI to answer your queries". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-05-03.
  29. ↑ Muchmore, Michael (2025-12-13). "The Best Alternative Search Engines We've Tested for 2026". PCMAG. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  30. ↑ Toulas, Bill (March 3, 2023). "Brave Search launches AI-powered summarizer in search results". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  31. ↑ Kan, Michael (2022-12-01). "Brave's Search Engine Starts Offering 'Privacy-Preserving Ads'". PCMAG. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brave_Search&oldid=1357453773"