Software:Brave Search

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Short description: Privacy-focused search engine
Brave Search
Screenshot of Brave Search
Type of site
Web search engine
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California,
USA
Created byBrave Software, Inc.
ProductsSearch API
Website{{{1}}}
RegistrationOptional[1]
LaunchedJune 2022; 4 years ago (June 2022)
Current statusOnline

Brave Search is an independent web search engine developed by Brave Software, Inc., the company best known for creating the privacy-focused Brave web browser. Designed to provide search results without relying on large technology conglomerates, Brave Search emphasizes user privacy by avoiding tracking, profiling, or the use of personal data for advertising purposes. It was launched in 2021 following Brave's acquisition of the open-source search engine project Tailcat from the German company Cliqz GmbH.

Brave Search avoids tracking or profiling users and allows them to view independent search results through its "Goggles" and "Discussions" features.

The search engine serves as the default search provider in the Brave browser in several regions, though users can switch to other search engines if desired. Brave Search is also accessible as a standalone web service at search.brave.com.[2]

History

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Data collection

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

Limitations

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

Note: This topic belongs to "Internet " portal

References

  1. ↑ Brave. "What is Brave Search Premium?" (in en-US). https://search.brave.com/help/premium. 
  2. ↑ Conway, Adam (2021-06-22). "Brave takes on Google with a search engine focused on privacy" (in en). https://www.xda-developers.com/brave-search-engine-privacy/. 
  3. ↑ "Brave's privacy-focused search engine is available in beta". 22 June 2021. https://www.engadget.com/brave-search-engine-beta-160013566.html. 
  4. ↑ Porter, Jon (2021-10-20). "Brave browser replaces Google with its own search engine" (in en). https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/20/22736142/brave-browser-search-engine-default-google-quant-duckduckgo-web-discovery-project. 
  5. ↑ Shankland, Stephen (June 22, 2021). "Google gets a new rival as Brave Search opens to the public". https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/google-gets-a-new-rival-as-brave-search-opens-to-the-public/. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Burgess, Matt (March 7, 2021). "Privacy-First Browser Brave Is Launching a Search Engine" (in en-US). Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. https://www.wired.com/story/privacy-first-browser-brave-launching-search-engine/. 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". 22 June 2022. https://brave.com/search-anniversary/. 
  8. ↑ Fingas, Jon (2023-08-03). "Brave's privacy-focused search engine can now find images and videos" (in en-US). https://www.engadget.com/braves-privacy-focused-search-engine-can-now-find-images-and-videos-211548516.html. 
  9. ↑ Shakir, Umar (2023-04-28). "Brave severs ties with Microsoft’s Bing for web search queries" (in en-US). https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/28/23702609/brave-bing-index-search-index-browser. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Swant, Marty (2025-04-02). "Why big advertisers are buying Brave’s search ads — despite its small size" (in en-US). https://digiday.com/media-buying/why-big-advertisers-are-buying-braves-search-ads-despite-its-small-size/. 
  11. ↑ Toulas, Bill (October 2, 2025). "Brave browser surpasses the 100 million active monthly users mark" (in en-us). https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/brave-browser-surpasses-the-100-million-active-monthly-users-mark/. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Brereton, Dmitri (2022-05-06). "Interview with Brave Search" (in en). https://dkb.blog/p/brave-search-interview. 
  13. ↑ Fingas, Jon (2021-10-19). "Brave’s privacy-first search engine is now built in to its browser" (in en-US). https://www.engadget.com/brave-browser-search-engine-default-160039239.html. 
  14. ↑ Toulas, Bill (April 20, 2022). "Brave adds Discussions to enrich its search results" (in en-us). https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/brave-adds-discussions-to-enrich-its-search-results/. 
  15. ↑ Roth, Emma (2022-04-20). "Brave Search no longer requires you to append “Reddit” to your searches" (in en-US). https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/20/23034024/brave-search-feature-discussions-append-reddit. 
  16. ↑ Muchmore, Michael (2025-12-13). "The Best Alternative Search Engines We've Tested for 2026" (in en). https://www.pcmag.com/picks/dont-just-google-it-smarter-search-engines-to-try. 
  17. ↑ Yee, Alaina (June 23, 2022). "Brave's privacy-focused Google alternative lets you customize your search rankings" (in en-US). https://www.pcworld.com/article/794153/braves-privacy-focused-search-engine-exits-beta-with-huge-numbers-and-a-new-feature.html. 
  18. ↑ Roth, Emma (2022-06-22). "Brave’s search engine lets you customize your results" (in en-US). https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/22/23179067/brave-search-engine-apply-custom-rankings-filters-goggles. 
  19. ↑ Burgess, Matt (June 22, 2022). "Brave Now Lets You Customize Search Results—for Better or Worse" (in en-US). Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. https://www.wired.com/story/brave-search-goggles-algorithm-vs-google/. 
  20. ↑ Fingas, Jon (2022-06-22). "Brave's new tool lets you create and share your own search rankings" (in en-US). https://www.engadget.com/brave-search-goggles-custom-rankings-160047418.html. 
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Claburn, Thomas (June 23, 2022). "Brave Search leaves beta and puts on Goggles on filtering" (in en). The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/23/brave_search_googles_google/. 
  22. ↑ Abrams, Lawrence (June 26, 2022). "NetSec Goggle shows search results only from cybersecurity sites" (in en-us). https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/netsec-goggle-shows-search-results-only-from-cybersecurity-sites/. 
  23. ↑ Mehta, Ivan (2025-01-23). "Brave will allow you to tune search results with upvotes and downvotes" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/23/brave-search/. 
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Toulas, Bill (January 23, 2025). "Brave Search now lets users ‘Rerank’ results from favorite sites" (in en-us). https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/brave-search-now-lets-users-rerank-results-from-favorite-sites/. 
  25. ↑ WebProNews (2023-04-27). "Brave Search Is Now 100% Independent, With An API Coming Soon" (in en-US). https://www.webpronews.com/brave-search-is-now-100-independent-with-an-api-coming-soon/. 
  26. ↑ Team, AppMaster (2023-06-01). "Brave Launches Search API for Developers, Driving Privacy and Transparency Across the Web | AppMaster" (in en). https://appmaster.io/news/brave-launches-search-api. 
  27. ↑ Speed, Richard (2025-05-15). "Microsoft set to pull the plug on Bing Search APIs" (in en-US). https://www.theregister.com/software/2025/05/15/microsoft-set-to-pull-the-plug-on-bing-search-apis/933656. 
  28. ↑ Mehta, Ivan (2024-04-17). "Brave Search is adopting AI to answer your queries" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/17/brave-search-is-adopting-ai-to-answer-your-queries/. 
  29. ↑ Muchmore, Michael (2025-12-13). "The Best Alternative Search Engines We've Tested for 2026" (in en). https://www.pcmag.com/picks/dont-just-google-it-smarter-search-engines-to-try. 
  30. ↑ Toulas, Bill (March 3, 2023). "Brave Search launches AI-powered summarizer in search results" (in en-us). https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/brave-search-launches-ai-powered-summarizer-in-search-results/. 
  31. ↑ Kan, Michael (2022-12-01). "Brave's Search Engine Starts Offering 'Privacy-Preserving Ads'" (in en). https://www.pcmag.com/news/braves-search-engine-starts-offering-privacy-preserving-ads. 



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