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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

#451

Post by soundnote »

NoGravitas wrote: post #344
skinkestek wrote: post #176

I'm actually tempted to start using Brave. I'm still holding out with Firefox despite Mozilla trying very hard to get rid of us (to the point where the thought has struck me more than once if the current CEO of Mozilla is in the pocket of Google). If at some point the last competing mainstream browser engine is gone I'll probably go for Brave and I might start testing it this week.

Brave is just Chromium with a cryptocurrency scam bolted on to it. I'm unhappy with Firefox's ad-related changes recently, but Brave is definitely not an option. If it came to it, I'd use a WebKit browser — objectively worse, but not clearly compromised.

Yeah, built-in adblockers (including the blocking being written in Rust and built into the browser, so it won't get nerfed by Manifest v3. Also capable of doing CNAME unmasking, the thing that makes uBO better on Firefox, btw) and other anti-tracking measures, running their own end to end encrypted sync architecture and standalone revenue streams like Brave Talk, their Brave Ads-driven takes on Search and News, etc. so they can be actually independent. Yeah. Just a cryptocurrency scam.

The coin itself is one of the few that has a value based on some actual use, at that:

Brave sells adspace, gets paid in Money™. They keep a cut, take the rest and buy BAT with it, give it to users. Users can then tip content creators with the BAT and get some compensation for Brave's part in killing tracking ads.

Many people are idiots who do think that BAT is for them to get rich but like hell it is. Single ad viewers aren't very valuable, they only matter in aggregate, so you'll only ever get pocket money as BAT.

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

#452

Post by dantyti »

freediver wrote: post #448
hbn wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure how much manually blocking domains would help remedy the problem with Google results, which is that so much of the top hits are copy-pasted blog spam with very little information, scrambled together (very possibly by a non-human) purely to game SEO. It seems like it's gotten even worse just in the past few months. I'll try to Google something common, like "can you feed X to dogs" and all the results…

What we do (at Kagi Search) to address this problem is use our own index which contains only non-commercial results from the web as well as forum discussions. Thinking behind is that the quality of the content is in inverse proportion to the number of ads/trackers/affiliate links on the site. Our index is still in infancy but the example of it working for the query 'best laptop' can be seen in this screenshot: https:…

afaik, seo spammers are quite sophisticated in masking affiliate links and tracking codes with redirect chains and other techniques. Their general assumption is that google does exactly what you expect to do and downranks affiliate spam.

What are your thoughts on reputable news websites that have tons of ads and trackers because they have yet to figure out any other viable way to survive?

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

#453

Post by hairofadog »

nr2x wrote: post #430
hairofadog wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yelp, pinterest, w3schools

Prior to mdn w3schools was a decent way to quickly find info on random HTML tags. Not sure why it gets so much hate.

For me the issue with all of these sites is that their primary innovation seems to be dominating search results, and everything else is an afterthought. I actually don't know very much about w3schools other than that I have to continually reach over them to get what I'm after.

I also seem to remember reading a lot of critiques like this one: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/280484

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

#454

Post by tristan957 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #282
skinkestek wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hostility towards users asking questions as seen in the tabstrip API bug. (A really simple thing that I fix on a weekly basis in 4 minutes every time I restart Firefox but somehow next to impossible for Mozilla. Although I should admit they are making it harder and harder for me as well.) Pushing Pocket (which is nice and could have become a nice source of income from users like me who wants to support the browser) i…

> Milking the browser...to fund its "mission", then laying off browser engineers and the Rust team to save money...Misleading people to think they suppprt [ sic ] Firefox when they donate to the foundation, then sending nothing to the browser and burning it all on "its mission" This is where they lost me as a donor. Mozilla can't go a month without launching a new idiot project. Do we know what fraction of their reve…

Mozilla literally can't win on HN or Reddit. People criticize them for taking money from Google and then when they try to monetize new ideas, they again get criticism.

The Mozilla Foundation (where your donations go) is not the one launching these new ideas that you hate so much. If you are going to hate something, at least hate the right thing.

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

#455

Post by freediver »

dantyti wrote: post #452
freediver wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we do (at Kagi Search) to address this problem is use our own index which contains only non-commercial results from the web as well as forum discussions. Thinking behind is that the quality of the content is in inverse proportion to the number of ads/trackers/affiliate links on the site. Our index is still in infancy but the example of it working for the query 'best laptop' can be seen in this screenshot: https:…

afaik, seo spammers are quite sophisticated in masking affiliate links and tracking codes with redirect chains and other techniques. Their general assumption is that google does exactly what you expect to do and downranks affiliate spam. What are your thoughts on reputable news websites that have tons of ads and trackers because they have yet to figure out any other viable way to survive?

I think that 'reputable' and 'tons of ads and trackers' do not belong in the same sentence.

Ad-supported business models incentivize the creation of large quantities of content, because you need a lot of pageviews to earn a little bit of money with ads (since most people either ignore or block ads, if they manage to load the page to see them at all).

High quality journalism should have value that we are ready to pay for, like we did for hundreds of years. This concept is called the "newspaper".

You are expected to pay for high quality baker or a tailor, book, movie or music, why not for getting information that "only" has the power to shape societies? If I see information next to an ad, I personally tend not take it too seriously.

What is missing right now from a technology standpoint is an easy way to manage subscriptions, built into my browser as default. Expecting the user to create and manage a separate account/billing identity for every publisher is what is preventing this model to take off (IMO).

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

#456

Post by soundnote »

y4mi wrote: post #151
charcircuit wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i think a lot of people never really understood googles business model. google absolutely wants to protect their users privacy from third parties. their ideal situation would be if they're the only one's knowing everything about their users so they can allow third parties to advertise things to their users. if they'd leak any of this information, they'd be compromising their main business model. so yes, people can tr…

This. Big Tech companies or their divisions are advertising service companies and AI cults. They sell targeting, not the raw data. The data is useful for selling targeting services and feeding their AIs, actually selling it to others would be stupid of them.

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

#457

Post by godshatter »

amelius wrote: post #428
BitwiseFool wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't actually want Google to index as much of the internet as it possibly can. I actually want streamlined indices that are tailored towards thoroughly searching a specific knowledge domain. Edit: I would love, love, love a search engine specifically tailored towards programming questions. One that doesn't treat queries like "C# ?." as me looking for "C#" and getting the most generic results possible.

Yes, instead of Google collecting information about me to improve my search experience, I want: - A box where I can select the context of my search. - The box then appends a specific string to the query. For example, if I set the box to "clothes", the box will append "waist 34 inch, 5 feet tall" to the query. If I set the box to "programming", the box will append "favorite_languages:Python,C++" to the query. And of c…

I just want a search engine that gives me AND, OR, and NOT qualifiers or something similar. Parens, too, if possible. Ideally, an sql interface, but that's probably pushing it :)

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

#458

Post by gordian-mind »

pmurt7 wrote: post #449
soundnote wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Importantly: The donations go to Mozilla Foundation, not to its for-profit subsidiary Mozilla Corp. MozCorp is who develop Firefox, the Foundation focuses more on political activism. If you want to help fund the people developing Firefox, one of the Corporation's paid products is the place to send your money.

Why is Mozilla Foundation doing political activism? Is it just some money-grabbing scheme or what? Mitchell Baker's blog: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/author/mitchellmozillacom/ Not a single word about Firefox, just some far-left propaganda about racial justice, empowered women in tech, Trump bad, and so.

Sadly, it's out of (misguided) convictions...

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

#460

Post by amelius »

godshatter wrote: post #457
amelius wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, instead of Google collecting information about me to improve my search experience, I want: - A box where I can select the context of my search. - The box then appends a specific string to the query. For example, if I set the box to "clothes", the box will append "waist 34 inch, 5 feet tall" to the query. If I set the box to "programming", the box will append "favorite_languages:Python,C++" to the query. And of c…

I just want a search engine that gives me AND, OR, and NOT qualifiers or something similar. Parens, too, if possible. Ideally, an sql interface, but that's probably pushing it :)

You can have that with my idea. Just leave the Combobox empty.
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