Following a public beta version of its new search engine in the first month of summer, Brave Software announced that Brave Search is now officially free. Starting today, the company's search engine will be the default engine for new Brave Browser users in the US, Canada, and the UK. The company's search engine is also replacing Qwant in France and DuckDuckGo in Germany as the default search engine for its browser users in those countries. Although current Brave users will keep the search engine they chose by default, they can also set Brave Search as their default search engine if they wish. To do this, users will need to manage their search engine settings on Brave for Desktop, Android, and iOS.
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Brave CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich explained in a press release how Brave Search offers a more privacy-focused alternative option to other search engines, stating: “Brave Search has grown significantly since launching in the first month of last summer, with almost eighty million queries per month. Our users are happy with the comprehensive privacy solution that Brave Search offers against Big Tech by being integrated into our browser. As we know from experience in many browsers, the default setting is vital for adoption, and Brave Search has achieved the quality and critical mass to become our default search option and provide our users with an experience. Transparent online privacy by default. "
Web discovery project
Aside from making Brave Search the default for your browser, Brave Software is also launching a privacy-preserving system that lets users anonymously contribute data to improve its search index called the Web Discovery Project (WDP). Users will need to register with WDP and the new project protects user privacy and anonymity by design so that the data provided cannot be linked to them or their devices, such as a set of users to circumvent anonymization. At the same time, the WDP represents a fundamental shift in the way a search index is built to deliver relevant results to Brave Search users. In contrast to other search engines, the WDP is developed in such a way that each and every one of the data it receives is divisible, making it impossible to create profiles or sessions of cooperators to the project. In order for a URL to be sent to the project, it has to be independently visited by a large number of people and this is achieved through the STAR cryptographic protocol. WDP also runs automatically when a user browses the website, so it doesn't require any effort on the part of the developers. Interested users can try Brave Search for themselves and contribute to the web discovery project by updating Brave Browser to the latest version or by visiting search.brave.com in the browser of their choice.