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

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

#431

Post by InitialLastName »

eloisius wrote: post #205
v7p1Qbt1im wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it would do much good to have a ban list. An entire industry is singularly focused on gaming search engines to promote whatever. It just so happens that blogspam sites are incredibly profitable in aggregate.

It still seems like such a simple technical problem to solve, albeit at large scale. Particular URL is blatant spam? Delist it. Keeps popping up on new URLs? Threaten to delist the hosting provider's address block. I'm more inclined to think that the reason these problems aren't solved is because there's little incentive to do it. The more time you spend milling around looking for what you're looking for, the more op…

Right, ad-driven search engines are fundamentally incentivized to provide results that are bad enough that you need to try harder to find your answer, but that are good enough for you not to switch (with a fairly high cognitive barrier to switching).

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

#432

Post by JohnWhigham »

TheEnder8 wrote: post #4

This seems more like trying to capture money. If this was about privacy, they could have just gone with duckduckgo.

Despite all their posturing about privacy, DDG is the same as Google. Especially given their founder's history with selling user data.

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

#433

Post by matheusmoreira »

BarryMilo wrote: post #97
tommica wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is where ad-based businesses show their ugly side: The more control you have over what you see, the fewer ways they have to slip you inconspicuous ads. This is why all content feeds like Facebook and Twitter get vaguer as time goes by, and it's why Google will never give up control over results unless it legally has to.

Not to mention the fact they police content. They'll refuse to associate with anyone they deem objectionable enough for any reason. This will deny sites their revenue and will lead to self-censorship to regain their favor. Nothing kills perfectly good websites faster than some offended person complaining and ads getting pulled.

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

#434

Post by soundnote »

5560675260 wrote: post #185
KronisLV wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you say that the Brave Browser and Brave Search compare with something like Firefox and DuckDuckGo (plus a plugin, like uBlock Origins), if you've used those? Anyone else care to comment? Personally, i'm still someone that's used more to Firefox and is more familiar with Mozilla due to them having been around for longer, but their recent decisions might make some people reconsider their choices and look int…

For browser biggest UI difference is tabs - they squeeze instead of scrolling. There are no plugins that can create a proper sidebar, but out of the box you can organise them into foldable groups. Search results are noticeably better, especially for non-english and location-specific results. What's worse is image search - unlike with text you tend to get only 2-3 good, relevant results, everything else is only somewh…

Stock Chrome has a flag that activates a combined two-tab reading list + bookmarks sidebar. Brave has the same flag, but for some reason the sidebar didn't list bookmarks the last time I tried.

There are actually flags for enabling tab scrolling if you want, and tab squeeze is also adjustable via flags.

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

#435

Post by addingnumbers »

Closi wrote: post #259
thestepafter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised by this as well since Google is able to identify the origin of content (eg. Stackoverflow) and penalize sites for duplicating that content (or so they say). In my opinion it wouldn’t be difficult to identify the domains duplicating the content and penalize heavily. But, those sites are most likely displaying Google Ads so…

I would assume this is easier if you are indexing more frequently and have been indexing for longer, and Google has more resources to allow them to crawl more often (another advantage to scale in search, which combined with other advantages of scale, is why Google has an effective monopoly IMO). If you recently started crawling you won't be able to detect which content was 'first', and if you don't crawl as frequentl…

> if you don't crawl as frequently as google you are reliant on your crawl frequency being quicker than the 'content stealing' speed.

No problem there. If a page hasn't been crawled, it won't be a search result.

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

#436

Post by soundnote »

KronisLV wrote: post #138
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…

How would you say that the Brave Browser and Brave Search compare with something like Firefox and DuckDuckGo (plus a plugin, like uBlock Origins), if you've used those? Anyone else care to comment? Personally, i'm still someone that's used more to Firefox and is more familiar with Mozilla due to them having been around for longer, but their recent decisions might make some people reconsider their choices and look int…

UI wise the big thing for me are tab groups. They are straight crack, and the stock Chromium implementation Brave inherits probably my favourite.

Apart from that, the main thing you can't adjust via flags is Chromium's style of using separate browser profiles instead of Firefox's multiple containers within one profile/window/session.

The bigger UI differences are on mobile, where again, tab groups are crack and the implementation excellent.

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

#437

Post by Minor49er »

jerjerjer wrote: post #326
amelius wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish a search engine would empower me to provide a URL ban list that gets applied server-side instead of filtering on the front end (if anything). The irony is that Google wants all our information "to improve our user experience", except they don't want our ban lists.

pinterest. Bane of all image searches.

Also Tenor. They've taken over just about all animated GIF results, then take steps to make it as annoying as possible to simply download the GIF.

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

#438

Post by notreallyserio »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #404
notreallyserio wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you get a Josh Mitteldorf scienceblog result for the search (no quotes): weight and aging a paradox part 1 It’s the first result for me with or without quotes. I’m curious if the site is somehow blocked.

weight and aging a paradox part 1 (without the quotes) is first place on Google for me. Seems like google only fails on politically sensitive topics like unpopular opinions about COVID. I suspect they might be using a filter, or even a different ranking system for certain keywords.

And perhaps only for some users. Can’t help but wonder if location has some effect.

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

#439

Post by nr2x »

sam0x17 wrote: post #416
sph wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG is awful for spam on most searches which can't be easily resolved with a Wikipedia info box. The 3rd result onward is very fishy, content spammy results of very low quality. It's like their algo isn't good enough to separate the wheat from the chaff yet.

DDG also just uses the bing search API for all their results seemingly. They claim to use other sources as well, but in the tests I conducted building Kagi last year, it was always identical to bing. They must have a special deal with microsoft because the API fees at that volume are completely unsustainable, as in the operating costs are 5-10x the theoretical profits from advertising. If they were actually scraping,…

Yeah, DDG is just privacy Chrome on top of bing. As far as I can tell they've made no efforts at building a proper scraper or index. If Microsoft gets tired of the deal there is no more DDG. Risky proposition.

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

#440

Post by damiencarol »

jerjerjer wrote: post #326
amelius wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish a search engine would empower me to provide a URL ban list that gets applied server-side instead of filtering on the front end (if anything). The irony is that Google wants all our information "to improve our user experience", except they don't want our ban lists.

pinterest. Bane of all image searches.

At least move it in the "Image" tab; (facepalm)
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