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Brave Search beta

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Re: Brave Search beta

#181
post #161
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing is one of many sources from which duckduckgo derives its results; kind of like what's going on here with Brave's new search.

Not true. In practice I've found their results to be basically identical to bing and other bing front-ends. What's not from bing are the widgets like weather, or dictionary definitions etc. So imo, "many sources, bing is just one" is misleading, as the main SERPs are pretty much straight up bing. (Note: I've used ddg as my main search engine for years)

>Not true.

https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

>In practice I've found their results to be basically identical to bing and other bing front-ends.

This is anecdote. Countering my argument -- calling it misleading -- with anecdote doesn't work.

Re: Brave Search beta

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use !g on Brave Search too, or turn on Fallback Mixing in Brave Search Settings, which will anonymously call out to Google and pull in results as needed. This helps to train the nascent engine more rapidly. I hope this helps!

Is that legal?

Why wouldn't it be? Google scrapes the web to populate it's results, why wouldn't other search engines scrape the web as well? Google is a website.

Re: Brave Search beta

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you given it a try? The crypto-currency parts are optional (you have to actually enable them). Brave has got a solid adblocker and privacy features out of the box

Google's targeted advertising campaign is also optional, that doesn't make me any more comfortable with the fact that it exists.

"Targeting" means something entirely different to Brave than it does to Google. Google engages in targeted advertising by collecting your data wherever possible. Brave doesn't do anything remotely like that. Instead, in Brave, the entire Ads component is optional and off by default. If/when you opt-in, your data never leaves your device. Instead, Brave uses on-device machine-learning to determine what types of ads you might be interested in. This machine-learning evaluates a regional catalog which is routinely downloaded to your machine—the entire process happens locally, rather than in the cloud. And, if an ad is shown to you, you get 70% of the associated revenue. I covered this a bit more in a recent 5-minute talk: https://youtu.be/LsrrT502luI

Re: Brave Search beta

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Three times faster than Chrome. Better privacy by default than Firefox. Uses 35% less battery on mobile."

If we're trusting the lies they dump onto the website, that should make Safari the fastest browser! /s

Where is the lie? Independent researchers have found Brave to exists in its own class as the "most private" browser: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf. Happy to discuss any concerns you may have.

Re: Brave Search beta

#186
This is just bing reranked with occasional results thrown in perhaps from their own index. Just look at the query completion suggestions, they are identical to Bing. If they had their own index they'd have a link to the cached copy.

Re: Brave Search beta

#187
post #81

I really don't understand Brave. What special thing do they offer that people actually want? The main concrete selling point seems to built-in ad blockers, but we've had that for ages in every other browser. They have some crypto stuff going on, I'll be honest, I don't understand it, because I don't care, I just want to browse the web. That should be possible without a blockchain. They claim performance is better, bu…

> I just want to browse the web

Do you run an ad blocker? If so you mean you want to browse the web ad-free, as many people do. The crypto stuff you don't understand is the killer feature for Brave.

Instead of seeing ads everywhere, you can automatically contribute a small (configurable) amount to sites you spend time on, based on how much time you spend there. Come across an interesting or helpful article on someone's blog? Just click the button on your toolbar and give the owner a tip. Same thing to support a GitHub project you find particularly useful.

Re: Brave Search beta

#188

Why should I switch to this from DuckDuckGo? What is the value proposition here that's somehow greater than it's alternatives (DDG, Searx, etc.)?

DDG is a great search engine, and we are very thankful for the movements they've brought about in the private search space. That said, Brave is developing its own, distinct index. A recent example of what this means is from the "Tank Man" results on Bing recently. When Bing returned no results, DDG also returned no results. Brave Search, on the other hand, continued serving up results. As was stated elsewhere, "we aren't beholden to anybody."

Re: Brave Search beta

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use !g on Brave Search too, or turn on Fallback Mixing in Brave Search Settings, which will anonymously call out to Google and pull in results as needed. This helps to train the nascent engine more rapidly. I hope this helps!

Is that legal?

It's just a redirect to Google.
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