Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser • Hacker News Board

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#61

Post by arp242 » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:31 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #19

1123581321 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will never catch up because Google is the only one dedicating enough engineering to match the growing amount of information, and their level of effort sets the pace of increasingly high user expectations for search results.

There is a growing sentiment, mine included, that Google search isn't getting better. In fact, I feel it's markedly worse for many queries. The problem for me are all the blogspams out there. These -should- be easy to just punt, but alas, they do not. I'd gladly switch to any search that didn't show me such results.

I don't know if it's really Google getting worse or the web (or perhaps even the world) is getting worse. I have the impression it's more the latter than the former, and suspect other search engines will struggle with blogspam just as much.

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#62

Post by charcircuit » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:33 AM UTC

cyberpsybin wrote: post #56

charcircuit wrote: post #28

It doesn't seem as good. My first search: what's the latest minecraft version Brave: 1.14.4 Google: 1.17 Brave gives me the wrong answer that is outdated by like 2 years. Second search: 白の意味 Brave: On Japan location 6 garbage search results + irrelevant wikipedia page. On United states 3 garbage search results before a relevant result. The first result is literally a private YouTube video. Seriously? Google: Has a sn…

"Google" "private"; unbelievable someone can put these two words in same sentence. Google cannot even pull pages older than 10yrs old at the moment.

Google cares a lot about protecting user's privacy. Take a look at their privacy policy. For example, what other API provider requires you to get security audits ($15k-$75k yearly) when handling sensitive user data.

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#63

Post by DeathArrow » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:33 AM UTC

whoisjuan wrote: post #8

Honest question. I have used DuckDuckGo and Brave Search and although they seem to do the job for generic searches they really suck for very specific searches. How likely is for one of these search engines to catch-up technologically to Google's sophistication? I really can't see a clear trajectory for them to compete with Google's quality.

Google search results are not very relevant and are poisoned with lots of spam.

Most technical aspects of searching were solved and are now common knowledge.

It amazes me why no one is trying to do a better engine. It doesn't have to do everything Google does, it just has to do text search.

Maybe it's hard to get money from search unless you also track users, store their data and sell ads?

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#64

Post by mrtksn » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:36 AM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #38

Google used to be good at one point in time. Now its search results aren't very relevant, it returns what it thinks it should interest you, not what you've actually searched for. It doesn't matter if you do a verbatim search, it will still try to be smart and use alternative terms.

Every NLP AI is like that, it’s like trying to make a mentally challenged person do something for you and you have to correct them for something extremely simple and it is frustrating.

Yes, Google, I did not type North Korea DHL by accident. I really mean the odd one because I’m curious if they have DHL but I really don’t feel like explaining it to you. Could you please simply don’t assume stuff by default? I appreciate the “did you mean” suggestions but let’s not try to be too smart.

Google was great when it understood that North Korea and DPRK are the same thing but these days it’s like “North Korea DHL? You must be trying to send a package to Republic of Korea”. Maybe that’s because there’s not much ad revenue from helping out people to get information about DPRK.

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#65

Post by dukeofdoom » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:37 AM UTC

Joe Rogan mentioned on his show past week that he stopped using google search as well. Joe is convinced google is censoring results on covid, because he kept getting back official sources (benefits of the vaccine), when he was searching the opposite. Keyword searches for specific articles failed to return results. He now questions what else google is censoring.

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#66

Post by sydthrowaway » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:37 AM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #58

hiyer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. If you search for any Python documentation the first links on Google are almost always geeksforgeeks, w3schools, etc instead of the official Python docs.

I think this is telling of how often the python docs actually solve peoples’ questions. For example, I searched “python string replace”, with the first 4 being tutorialpoint, w3schools, geeksforgeeks, stack overflow and at position 8 is the python docs. The issue with the python docs for this search is that it takes me to “built-in types”, and starts off with things totally irrelevant to what I want. I now have to go…

Yup, python docs need to look at cppreference

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#67

Post by cromwellian » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:38 AM UTC

1_player wrote: post #50

DeathArrow wrote: post #38

Google used to be good at one point in time. Now its search results aren't very relevant, it returns what it thinks it should interest you, not what you've actually searched for. It doesn't matter if you do a verbatim search, it will still try to be smart and use alternative terms.

I hate how smart it tries to be. Sometimes you need to search an intentional misspelling, say, "Aple" (just an example), Google will helpfully try to correct you with "did you mean Apple?", and even if you put the word in quotes you still get results for Apple, not my intentionally misspelled search. Listen to what I'm trying to tell you, dumb machine. They've tweaked it so it only respond to what it thinks you want…

I tried your example both with and without quotes and I got Apple Hospitality which seems to be correct.

Humans make so many typos that for the majority of people, autocorrecting is a net win.

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#68

Post by sydthrowaway » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:38 AM UTC

dukeofdoom wrote: post #65

Joe Rogan mentioned on his show past week that he stopped using google search as well. Joe is convinced google is censoring results on covid, because he kept getting back official sources (benefits of the vaccine), when he was searching the opposite. Keyword searches for specific articles failed to return results. He now questions what else google is censoring.

Joe is a magical thinker.

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#69

Post by DeathArrow » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:39 AM UTC

dd444fgdfg wrote: post #15

whoisjuan wrote: post #8

Honest question. I have used DuckDuckGo and Brave Search and although they seem to do the job for generic searches they really suck for very specific searches. How likely is for one of these search engines to catch-up technologically to Google's sophistication? I really can't see a clear trajectory for them to compete with Google's quality.

on the contrary. for what it's worth, I think google search is finally open to disruption. the tech required to compete with them is finally commoditized enough that it's financially doable, plus, and most importantly, they've screwed up their search results so much now that google search is just not that good anymore. I also think that they're "too" clever with their search to their detriment. We tend to think in te…

Exactly. If I search for "red car" with quotes, I don't get why I get results about purple wagons.

It's like going to a pub and ordering a steak and getting a burger instead. No, I don't want your damn burger, I am not going to pay for it, I'm just going to try another pub. But wait, there's no pub that delivers what you've actually ordered.

Re: Brave Search replaces Google as default search engine in the Brave browser

#70

Post by sanirank » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:41 AM UTC

eloisius wrote: post #7

I’ve been using Brave search for several months now. I switched the day that it was announced. The quality is fairly good, but I’m having troubling telling whether it’s just my own halo effect or if the initial quality that experienced has started to slip a little as it indexes more widely or something. At first I was impressed with how little spam ended up in top results, but lately exact queries for Python function…

Haven’t used Brave Search yet, but I have not had the same issue it’s DDG. I use it as my primary search and it works the large majority of the time. I do resort to Google on rare occasions and am always amazed by all the blatant spam at the top of its results.