Brave Search is a privacy-first search engine

Browser privacy is a big deal, as Google and other companies use your search data to serve you ads while you surf the web. While most users accept that tradeoff, others who believe strongly in maintaining their own data privacy. If you’re one of these, Brave Software can help. On Wednesday the company said it’s launching a search engine to compete with Google and Bing, with privacy as its first priority.

Brave is buying Tailcat, an open search engine, and will add it to what it’s calling Brave Search, a forthcoming search engine. The difference between Google, Bing, and Brave Search is twofold: Brave won’t collect IP addresses or use personally identifiable information to improve search result; and it will collect its own, independent search index.

It’s the latter element that will affect how well Brave Search searches. Google and Bing have developed sophisticated models for indexing and organizing the web’s content. Google’s success at helping you find exactly what you want is a primary reason for its success, despite its eager use of your browsing data for profit.

Brave Search will, of course, be built into the Brave browser, an excellent privacy-first browser that’s still relatively niche, with just 25 million users. Brave’s browser offers a blockchain-based model of paying users to view ads. The company has indicated that it will be using blockchain as a foundation for future e-commerce initiatives.

“We expect to see even greater demand for Brave in 2021 as more and more users demand real privacy solutions to escape Big Tech’s invasive practices,” said Brendan Eich, chief executive and co-founder of Brave Software, in a blog post announcing the move.

As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats.