Tag: Brave Search

Mini-Review: Brave Search Introduces AI-Powered Summarizer

Brave Search has unveiled its latest feature, the AI-powered Summarizer, which is designed to give users quick answers.

Microsoft Bing may be getting much of the news coverage for AI-powered search, but Brave is a popular, privacy-focused search engine that is also integrating AI capabilities. The company’s Summarizer tool is designed to give users “concise and to-the-point answers at the top of Brave Search results pages.”

Best known for its Brave web browser, the company acquired the open search engine Tailcat in early 2021 and used it as the basis for its Brave Search. The company’s search engine is unique in that it is one of the few independent search engines that has its own web index. In contrast, many other independent search engines use Google or Bing and strip out those companies’ trackers.

Read more: Brave Search Enters Public Beta

I personally am a big fan of Brave Search, using it more times than I can count throughout the day. While it’s not perfect, I find Brave to provide more relevant results than either Google or Bing in many categories.

The Summarizer began showing up at the top of Brave searches on March 2. In just the last few days, I’ve come to rely on the feature more and more, especially when looking for quick answers.

For example, searching for “best Linux text editor” produces this answer:

Brave Summarizer – Best Linux Text Editor

Asking “what is WebProNews” results in:

Brave Summarizer – What Is WebProNews

Just for laughs, I even asked, “who is matt milano tech journalist,” and received this:

Brave Summarizer – Who Is Matt Milano

At least Summarizer didn’t confuse me with a certain NFL player…

As the company points out and is evident in the above screenshots, Brave’s Summarizer is designed to provide authoritative answers, even backing them up with sources. The company emphasizes this advantage in its blog:

Unlike a purely generative AI model, which is prone to spout unsubstantiated assertions, we trained our large language models (LLMs) to process multiple sources of information present on the Web. This produces a more concise, accurate answer, expressed in coherent language.

In addition, the provenance of original sources of data is cited at all times via links. This maintains the rightful attribution of information, and helps users assess the trustworthiness of the sources, both of which are needed to mitigate the authority biases of large language models.

It’s clear from Brave’s approach that the company does not believe in relying solely on AI for answers but believes it should be used responsibly, in combination with “critical thinking.”

Using Web results enables the Summarizer to provide real-time information that is up to date with today’s events. Given the current advancements in AI, it’s crucial to remind users that one should not believe everything an AI system produces, in much the same way one should not believe everything that is published on the Web. At the risk of stating the obvious, we should not suspend critical thinking for anything we consume, no matter how impressive the results of AI models can be.

“With 22 million queries per day, Brave Search is the fastest growing search engine since Bing. We provide independent search results from our own index of the Web, and today we’re further improving the relevance of those results with our AI-powered Summarizer,” said Josep M. Pujol, Chief of Search at Brave. “Unlike AI chat tools which can provide fabricated responses, the Summarizer generates a plain-written summary at the top of the search results page, aggregating the latest sources on the Web and providing source attribution for transparency and accountability. This open system is available to all Brave Search users today to help them better navigate search results.”

Overall, I’m impressed with Brave’s implementation and will continue to rely heavily on it. Hopefully, the company will continue to evolve and improve it even more. In the meantime, all users can try it out without joining a waitlist.

March 7, 2023
Brave Search Enters Public Beta

Brave has opened its search engine beta to the world, following an invite-only early access.

Brave made headlines in March when the company announced it was working on its own search engine. Brave has made a name for itself as a privacy-focused company, with its namesake browser consistently winning rave reviews for protecting user privacy.

Needless to say, the company entering the search market could result in a major shakeup of the industry, especially with Brave’s clout and reputation. What makes its entry into the market so interesting is that it purchased Tailcat, an open search engine, to serve as the basis of Brave Search. Most competitors compile results from the top, existing search engines. DuckDuckGo uses this strategy, compiling results from hundreds of sources, in addition to results from its own web crawler.

By using its own web index, Brave Search’s results are independent of the other, Big Tech companies. This puts Brave in the unique position of having one of the only truly independent search engines on the market.

The search engine, while still in beta, is now available to anyone who wants to use it. The company sent an email to early testers today, informing them the beta was now open to the public.

Brave Search Email

As one of the early beta testers, I have been using Brave for weeks now and the results have been impressive. Compared to Bing or Google, Brave’s results are easily as comprehensive, although it sometimes offers even better prioritization of those results, in terms of relevance.

Add in a focus on privacy that is second to none, and I plan to continue using the search engine on a regular basis, and probably as my default — and you should too if you value your privacy.

Give Brave Search at search.brave.com.

August 22, 2021
Brave Launching Privacy-Focused Brave Search

Brave, the privacy-focused web browser made by JavaScript creator Brendan Eich, is throwing its hat in the search engine ring.

Brave has made a name for itself as one of the best web browsers for an out-of-the-box privacy focus, aggressively blocking trackers and ads. The browser uses Chromium as its rendering engine, ensuring its high performance and compatibility. Brave also includes its own cryptocurrency, which can be used as a way of rewarding content makers, in an effort to reinvent how paid web content works.

The company’s latest effort is its most ambitious yet, with plans to take on Google with a more privacy-focused alternative — Brave Search.

Billed as “search without a trace,” Brave Search will respect privacy, not harvesting user data, tracking or profiling users, or being beholden to advertisers. The search engine will offer both ad-free paid search and ad-supported free search options.

The most critical basis of a search engine is its index of the web. To make Brave Search a reality, the company acquired Tailcat, an open search engine developed by the same team responsible for German search engine Cliqz, a Hubert Burda Media holding. Tailcat will form the basis of the new Brave Search.

“Brave has grown significantly over the past year, from 11 million monthly active users to over 25 million. We expect to see even greater demand for Brave in 2021 as more and more users demand real privacy solutions to escape Big Tech’s invasive practices,” said Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave Software. “Brave’s mission is to put the user first, and integrating privacy-preserving search into our platform is a necessary step to ensure that user privacy is not plundered to fuel the surveillance economy.”

“We are very happy that our technology is being used at Brave and that, as a result, a genuine, privacy-friendly alternative to Google is being created in the core web functions of browsing and searching,” added Paul-Bernhard Kallen, CEO of Hubert Burda Media. “As a Brave stakeholder we will continue to be involved in this exciting project.”

“The only way to counter Big Tech with its bad habit of collecting personal data is to develop a robust, independent, and privacy-preserving search engine that delivers the quality users have come to expect. People should not be forced to choose between privacy and quality,” said Dr. Josep M. Pujol, head of the Tailcat project. “The team is excited to be working on the only real private search/browser alternative to Big Tech available on the market.”

With Google Chrome and Google Search boasting a 70% and 92% share of their respective markets, Brave definitely has an uphill battle ahead of it. Nonetheless, the company has gained significant momentum over the last couple of years. In addition, Google’s antitrust troubles have opened the door to what may be the best opportunity to challenge the once unassailable market leader.

In the meantime, interested users can sign up to be put on a waiting list for early access to Brave Search.

March 3, 2021