The search will now be powered by Brave Search

Oct 20, 2021 06:58 GMT  ·  By

Brave has announced that its browser will no longer offer Google as the default search engine, with Brave Search to now be offered to all users on the desktop and mobile in an attempt to offer enhanced privacy when going online.

Brave has been offered Google for quite some time, but the company’s focus on user privacy and a service like Google Search didn’t necessarily produce the best mix.

And Brave says it wanted to offer an alternative to the Big Tech, so users in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom will get Brave Search instead of Google.

In France, Brave Search will take the place of Qwant, while in Germany, it’ll replace DuckDuckGo. More such switch of places will happen in the next few months, the company says.

To get the new search experience, you need to update Brave browser to version 1.31 on the desktop, 1.31 on Android, and 1.32 on iOS.

Full focus on privacy

Worth knowing, however, is that Brave Search will soon be updated to ad-supported model, though the company plans to release a Premium plan that will allow users to get a completely clean experience.

“Brave Search is built on top of an independent index, and doesn’t track users, their searches, or their clicks. Brave Search is currently not displaying ads, but the free version of Brave Search will soon be ad-supported. Brave Search will also offer an ad-free Premium version in the near future,” the company said in an announcement this week.

At the same time, the company has also introduced a new system called Web Discovery Project and whose purpose is to help contribute with data, obviously anonymously, to help improve the search experience.

“The WDP is a strictly opt-in feature and protects user privacy and anonymity by design, so that contributed data cannot be linked to individuals or their devices, and cannot be linked together for a user or set of users; this prevents deanonymization,” the company explained.