Brave just launched a Google Search competitor that doesn’t track you across websites

Brave browser has just released a beta version of its own privacy-focused search engine, Brave Search. The non-tracking search engine uses its own index, so it’s not beholden to other indexes created by other search engines.

Brave built its non-tracking search engine from scratch and is marketing it as a privacy-focused alternative to the search engines that track users across the internet.

You can find it in Brave’s browser, both on the desktop and mobile versions, or via search.brave.com so you don’t have to install it to your browser to use the new search.

While most search queries will return results from Brave’s own index, some queries might return relevant results from Bing’s index. If so, the search results will specify which percentage of results are coming from Brave’s index, versus the third-party results.

“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,” says Brave’s CEO Brendan Eich.

It’s a new world for adtech, where new search indexes are putting user privacy first. Google is still the leader in the space and has been bringing privacy features to Google Search, like killing off third-party cookies.

That might improve the privacy of individual users, but with Google still tracking them, it means that the search giant is still able to sell targeted advertising. No doubt that will end up with another antitrust suit, once governments realize the implications of Google’s new privacy push.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.