Brave Launches Privacy-Focused Search Engine: Can it Compete?

Brave, the privacy-oriented internet browser, has announced the launch of its new search engine Beta version, which will be built into its browser and available to other browser’s users via a website.

The company has created a user base by offering them privacy-protection tools and a new advertising model based on blockchain technology.

Now, it is taking aim at Google, which has dominated the search engine market since its inception while also becoming one of the biggest data silos.

Brave is Taking on Search!

The new platform has not only been built on top of a, “completely independent index”, but it also promises not to track users in any way, including their searches or clicks.

However, it remains to be seen if this is enough to beat Google, which dominates 92% of the search engine market according to StatCounter.

Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave, referred to the new search engine by stating:

“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. Unlike older search engines that track and profile users and newer search engines that are mostly a skin on older engines and don’t have their own indexes, Brave Search offers a new way to get relevant results with a community-powered index, while guaranteeing privacy”

He also stated that he believed people were looking for alternatives after losing trust in the surveillance economy, which has created a void in the market.

While search engines like DuckDuckGo have taken a similar approach by offering added privacy, they have failed to compete in a market in which even Microsoft failed to compete.

BAT Might Make Its Way to Brave Search In The Future

Brave’s browser has characterized itself from the competition for its integration of crypto wallets and other blockchain-based solutions, such as the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) protocol

It also introduced a new blockchain-based advertisement model that used the Basic Attention Token (BAT) cryptocurrency, to allow advertisers to reach their audience.

Brave users can also opt-in to receive BAT as a reward for receiving advertisements while browsing.

While BAT suffered a drop of 21% over the past 7 days according to CoinGecko data, the news was enough to stop its drop and increase its value from $0.43 to $0.54 (about 25%) in a matter of hours.

Brave’s announcement said that BAT will not originally be part of Brave Search as it won’t display ads during the beta.

However, private ads might be added in the future by using BAT revenue share to search, with the integration being expected once the company “is ready”.

Brave also said it is planning to offer options for both ad-free paid search and ad-supported free search in the future.

A Community-Driven Approach

While Brave Search will not be introducing blockchain-based features to begin with except for the already existing infrastructure it has developed, it will depend on its community to provide a better experience.

As Brave Search won’t be renting Google or Microsoft indexes but building a new one, it will make use of anonymized contributions from the community to refine the results.

With this approach, the company says it expects to, “achieve greater independence and better quality without compromising the privacy of our users.”

While it is not decentralized, Brave’s plans to create an index by using community contributions are reminiscent of the principles that have guided the Web3 movement and are likely to improve transparency.

To achieve this, Brave has stated that it will have global independence metrics across all searches, allowing users to know what progress has been made toward complete independence.

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