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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

#381

Post by notsureaboutpg »

1_player wrote: post #9

Great! I've recently mentioned that Brave Search is the only alternative search I've stuck to since day 1. Works much better for me than DDG or any other search has ever did. Not perfect, rarely returns DE results instead of English, but from my point of view they're doing something good and I'm sold. But please, give me a way to pay for it. I don't want to be the product, one day.

I switched to Brave Search after I saw DDG had some unfavorable hiring practices.

I'm also ready to pay. After seeing Google censor search terms it doesn't like and promote results that ideologically align a certain way, I'm willing to pay for search rather than be subtly influenced by the richest, most educated people on the planet to act the way they want me to.

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

#382

Post by barkerja »

kodah wrote: post #141
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…

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

Neeva has been pretty good in my experience, but the lack of ability to make it the default search engine in Safari (macOS and iOS) is what prevents me from using it 100%.

That's obviously not at all a knock against Neeva. Safari needs to allow more flexibility in its search engine defaults. I've filed multiple radars/requests to Apple to make this setting more flexible and/or provide Neeva as an option.

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

#383

Post by BitwiseFool »

jader201 wrote: post #380
jerjerjer wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pinterest. Bane of all image searches.

It’s a bit ridiculous, really. I actually don’t feel the need to ban that many sites. I would probably be happy if I could just ban them. How can one site be so bad?

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.

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

#384

Post by orangepurple »

AegirLeet wrote: post #180
fastball wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm honestly flabbergasted that people like using a browser that has the performance of Chromium without the Google, a thorough / very performant ad-blocker built-in, and some totally optional next-gen features that many people like.

There is no "Chromium without the Google". Chromium/Blink is made by Google. By using a browser built on Chromium/Blink, you are actively supporting Google's browser engine hegemony.

On a technical level there is a Chromium without Google

https://chromium.woolyss.com/

I don't care for your political argument.

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

#386

Post by galgot »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #65

Joe Rogan mentioned on his show past week that he stopped using google search as well. Joe is convinced google is censoring results on covid, because he kept getting back official sources (benefits of the vaccine), when he was searching the opposite. Keyword searches for specific articles failed to return results. He now questions what else google is censoring.

Agree with Joe, I believe in Bigfoot, and each time I search for live Bigfoot vids I only get unconvincing crappy stuff... They hide something...

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

#387

Post by johnebgd »

jader201 wrote: post #380
jerjerjer wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pinterest. Bane of all image searches.

It’s a bit ridiculous, really. I actually don’t feel the need to ban that many sites. I would probably be happy if I could just ban them. How can one site be so bad?

I’d like a ban lis option with public ban lists that I can elect to use so I can avoid having to spend time doing this manually.

Think of it as server side uBlock for search results.

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

#388

Post by hbn »

freediver wrote: post #335
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 really wish a search engine would empower me to provide a URL ban list Brave discussed implementing similar concept called Goggles: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/goggles.pdf Kagi Search already has customizable 'prefer' and 'mute' lists for domains, as well as customizable 'lenses' which are similar to goggles concept from Brave. (disclaimer: founder at Kagi) https://kagi.com

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 I find are these giant "articles" that aren't even about that specific thing. Instead it's a giant wall of text with commonly-Googled questions, and if you ctrl+F to the section you were looking for, the answer is usually horrible, and why should you be trusting information from this website anyway?

Then you go back and click through other results and find an entirely different website with all the exact same text on it.

Top recipe results are also all copy-pasted SEO spam surrounded by a wall of text about the history of the recipe, and how the author is a "country mom" (definitely not a man at a content farm in India), hiding the recipe deep within.

They must be pumping out all these fake dedicated websites at such a high rate that blocking domains won't get you anywhere.

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

#389

Post by bradleyankrom »

skymt wrote: post #350
bradleyankrom wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t remember if it was a former feature of Google search or a Chrome extension, but that capability used to be available in Chrome. w3schools was on that list, among other republishers and whatnot. Loved it. Maybe someone else can augment my hazy recollection.

You're probably thinking of "Personal Blocklist", an official Chrome extension developed by Google. It's no longer available. https://www.ghacks.net/2010/03/18/blacklist-google-search-re...

That’s the one! Thank you.

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

#390

Post by whoopdedo »

toyg wrote: post #254
fleddr wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to agree, but can't. The loss of market share has nothing to do with the browser in itself. Mozilla simply has no reach. Chrome is shipped via Android and on the desktop via services having a billion+ users, like Youtube and Gmail. Mozilla has no reach or push. It's not an engineering problem.

It's not like FF was ever shipped with Windows. It's just that enough people saw enough value and purpose in it, to go out and get it themselves. You can install FF on Android in a second on the Play Store, it's easier than it's ever been on the desktop; but you have to want to install it in the first place. Some of this want can be generated by feature excellence, some by peer pressure; but for a long time now, FF h…

> It's not like FF was ever shipped with Windows.

At one time Lenovo was bundling Firefox on their computers.

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