Brave Search beta • Hacker News Board

Re: Brave Search beta

#21

Post by cj » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

colesantiago wrote: post #18

open-paren wrote: post #11

Apparently, they have their own search index, which they say covers ~95% of queries, and if the results aren't in the index, it will then get it from Google or Bing. I'd love some more details on how this works. They probably aren't scraping the whole web. Are they just mirroring Bing and Google indexes? They seem to have their own page ranking algorithm that they're hoping to get trained.

I still wouldn't use it since it falls back to Bing or Google.

Presumably the fallback happens server side, and presumably the google/bing queries are cloaked so your IP isn't making it to google/bing.

Curious why you wouldn't use bing/google even if your queries are "proxied" through Brave servers? (Assuming Brave isn't also sending your IP, etc, when they submit the query to google/bing)

Re: Brave Search beta

#22

Post by robbrown451 » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

jtdev wrote: post #13

I’ve been using it. Seems like a solid search engine. Interestingly, Google appeared to be censoring results yesterday to hide reports about an unfortunate shooting at a Juneteenth event in Oakland and a subsequent situation where a crowd of people were blocking an ambulance from exiting the area of the shooting with wounded victims. Let’s just say the story didn’t play well to Google’s political base… so they hid it…

I'm wondering how this censoring process you envision actually played out at Google. Like did an executive tell an underling to hide this information from the world? I'm genuinely curious.

Re: Brave Search beta

#23

Post by staticassertion » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

Seems quite fast, good UX overall. I like that it gives me information like "all results from Brave" so that if they do fall back I know about it.

DDG has a 'bang syntax' where I can do things like '!rust' to start searching the rust docs from my url - I like that a lot, I wonder if there's anything similar here or if I could work around that somehow.

Re: Brave Search beta

#24

Post by nr2x » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

At least they are trying to build an actual index instead of rebranding Bing like duck duck.

Re: Brave Search beta

#25

Post by tnorthcutt » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

Reminder that Brave has done some morally questionable things in the past:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Controvers...

They've since corrected both of those things, but those are enough for me to choose not to trust them as an organization.

Re: Brave Search beta

#26

Post by kypro » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

55555 wrote: post #14

mark_mcnally_je wrote: post #9

How have they gotten there search results?

"Even supposedly “neutral” or “private” search engines rely on big tech for results. Brave is different. We deliver results based on our own built-from-scratch index. We’re beholden to no one."

Why is this?

I get that it's not easy to build a good search engine, but on the surface it doesn't seem to be that hard a technical problem to solve either. Is it simply that the R&D required to build something competitive is too high for most companies?

Re: Brave Search beta

#27

Post by louffoster » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

calpaterson wrote: post #4

This seems to be quick and gives decent results for what I tried! Very promising! Going to try setting it as the default...

I've been using it as default for few weeks. No complaints

Re: Brave Search beta

#28

Post by vmullin » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

colesantiago wrote: post #18

open-paren wrote: post #11

Apparently, they have their own search index, which they say covers ~95% of queries, and if the results aren't in the index, it will then get it from Google or Bing. I'd love some more details on how this works. They probably aren't scraping the whole web. Are they just mirroring Bing and Google indexes? They seem to have their own page ranking algorithm that they're hoping to get trained.

I still wouldn't use it since it falls back to Bing or Google.

Fallback can be turned off with an easy toggle in the settings: https://search.brave.com/settings

Re: Brave Search beta

#29

Post by Nicksil » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

nr2x wrote: post #24

At least they are trying to build an actual index instead of rebranding Bing like duck duck.

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.

Re: Brave Search beta

#30

Post by isoskeles » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

jtdev wrote: post #13

I’ve been using it. Seems like a solid search engine. Interestingly, Google appeared to be censoring results yesterday to hide reports about an unfortunate shooting at a Juneteenth event in Oakland and a subsequent situation where a crowd of people were blocking an ambulance from exiting the area of the shooting with wounded victims. Let’s just say the story didn’t play well to Google’s political base… so they hid it…

Do events show up on Google search that quickly, and in turn, get censored that quickly?

I saw the video of what you are referring to on Twitter. Just searched on Google, "alameda twerking", and the first four results I see are for this incident.