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

#141

Post by kodah » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:13 AM UTC

tommica wrote: post #87

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…

I remember reading in HN an idea about allowing people to customize the weights used to filter search results - a search engine that provided that, where I could use some curated configuration file. Maybe I could have profiles like "cooking", "programming", "news" and help the search engine even better to understand my intent. Or just have the "don't show results from this site again" button from youtube taken into g…

I use Neeva.com and I think one of their features resembles this idea. It is a paid for search engine though.

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

#142

Post by KronisLV » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:18 AM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #85

sverhagen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder maybe every other day if I could delist W3Schools, by maybe always adding a negating query aspect to the URL. But this all doesn't seem easily supported, when I looked at it. Yep, hating on W3Schools with a passion. Younger self shot himself too often in foot with W3Schools.

Warning: unusual opinions sliding into a full fledged rant. I know it is cool to hate w3schools and I don't use it personally, but seriously, can we get over ourselves here? The reason why w3schools rank highly and have done for years is because for a large segment of users it works. And as someone else has pointed out the official documentation is often atrocious: both Python and Java online docs are close to worthl…

Not in regards to W3Schools, but in regards to docs in general: i've found those of PHP to be excellent for one simple reason (regardless of what i think of the language).

They have user comments, which oftentimes contain the information and examples that are actually very important in day to day usage, as opposed to a cut and dry description by the language authors.

For example, go to this page and scroll down to "User Contributed Notes": https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.str-replace.php

To me, it feels like most of the technologies out there could benefit from user source and user voted content at the bottom of pages like this, the one thing that IDEs also don't provide (though if one were to throw in some fuzzy search from, say, StackOverflow, we could probably get context surrounding a particular bit of code).

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

#143

Post by eloisius » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:19 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…

I just found a timely example of one of these sites that republish GitHub issues as their own content. Trying to understand a fairly specific Tensorflow error. Pasted an exact phrase query and the top result is gitmemory dot com. The content is horribly formatted, obviously just a low-effort scrape job. The author is attributed, but the link links to another page on this site that even says it just pull the data straight from GitHub's API. The footer links to another website, uonfu dot com. It looks even worse, and doesn't even try to attribute the original author of the content.

https://search.brave.com/search?q=%22%27tensorflow.python.fr...

> If you are wondering where the data of this site comes from, please visit https://api.github.com/users/.../events. GitMemory does not store any data, but only uses NGINX to cache data for a period of time. The idea behind GitMemory is simply to give users a better reading experience.

Better reading experience, my ass.

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

#144

Post by p-e-w » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:20 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…

I don't understand why search engines don't fight SEO spam using simple, hardcoded rules for specific keywords. Surely, something like "if the search string contains the word 'python', rank results from 'python.org' above everything else" can't be difficult to implement?

Granted, it's not a silver bullet for search engine spam in general, but even a few dozen rules like that would dramatically improve the quality of search results for a huge number of queries in practice.

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

#145

Post by p-e-w » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:22 AM UTC

topbanana wrote: post #139

occamrazor wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago Google had the option to remove a website from search results. After a few months they discontinued. It would be nice to know why, if the user adoption was too low, the computational cost too high, or the user experience too bad because users inadvertently removed good results.

Commercial pressure seems the most likely to me

How would such "pressure" look in practice? Seems to me that every industry on the planet is at Google's mercy, not the other way round.

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

#146

Post by 0x49d1 » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:27 AM UTC

Unfortunately can't use it: I'm on my private VPN almost all the time (need it for work). VPN is hosted as OpenVPN service on German Digital Ocean server to have static public IP. The VPN is mine only (sure IP is not), I'm the only person who uses it. Brave Search shows error on accessing: https://ibb.co/72L3mc5 . Other search engines open without problems. Turning off VPN helps, but I don't really understand why my (Digital Ocean's) ip is related to opening the web search page? Even if someone "compromised" that IP - it should not be a stopper to open the search from my point of logical view.

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

#147

Post by underwater » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:30 AM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #144

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…

I don't understand why search engines don't fight SEO spam using simple, hardcoded rules for specific keywords. Surely, something like "if the search string contains the word 'python', rank results from 'python.org' above everything else" can't be difficult to implement? Granted, it's not a silver bullet for search engine spam in general, but even a few dozen rules like that would dramatically improve the quality of…

What about people who keep snakes as pets?

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

#148

Post by knuthsat » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:31 AM UTC

0x49d1 wrote: post #146

Unfortunately can't use it: I'm on my private VPN almost all the time (need it for work). VPN is hosted as OpenVPN service on German Digital Ocean server to have static public IP. The VPN is mine only (sure IP is not), I'm the only person who uses it. Brave Search shows error on accessing: https://ibb.co/72L3mc5 . Other search engines open without problems. Turning off VPN helps, but I don't really understand why my…

I usually can barely browse the internet using VPN through OVS, Digital Ocean, Scaleway and others. All websites assume my traffic is not from a person but from an automated server.

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

#149

Post by p-e-w » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:33 AM UTC

underwater wrote: post #147

p-e-w wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why search engines don't fight SEO spam using simple, hardcoded rules for specific keywords. Surely, something like "if the search string contains the word 'python', rank results from 'python.org' above everything else" can't be difficult to implement? Granted, it's not a silver bullet for search engine spam in general, but even a few dozen rules like that would dramatically improve the quality of…

What about people who keep snakes as pets?

Their queries (such as "best food for reticulated python") are unlikely to have results from "python.org", so such rules would not affect them.

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

#150

Post by goldforever » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:34 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #62

cyberpsybin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

lol...paid for by Google