Brave is one of the best web browsers available for Linux. The browser uses Google as the default search engine for most of the regions.
However, that is about to change with the recent announcement of Brave abandoning Google to favor its privacy-respecting search engine Brave Search.
Brave Search In, Google Out
Google pays a lot of good money when it comes to keeping its search engine as the default in many web browsers.
But, it seems that Brave plans to take on Google’s search engine by utilizing its offering (Brave Search) to replace it as the default search engine.
Considering Brave Search is still in the beta phase, it is a bold move.
The change is only for new users and is limited to a few countries (United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom).
Brave Search also replaces Qwant and DuckDuckGo in France and Germany, respectively.
Shortly, this change will be happening for more regions as well.
If you already use Brave, your default search engine will not be changed automatically. Also, if you do not belong to one of the regions mentioned above, you need to change the default search engine to Brave Search, if you prefer it over Google.
Improving Brave Search in the Process
With the new default selection, Brave Search should have the potential to receive more feedback on its search result index and quality.
Hence, Brave has also launched the Web Discovery Project along with this change to let users opt-in to contribute anonymous data to help improve the search results.
As of now, Brave Search does not include any advertisements. But, it will be adding advertisements soon and introducing a premium option to opt for an ad-free experience.
Closing Thoughts
Brave Search is a promising alternative to Google’s search engine. Of course, it is not easy to offer a good search experience as good as Google, but it is refreshing to see shifting focus to other search engines.
The brave web browser has a significant userbase among the Chromium-based solutions. So, this change should let new users experience a different search engine promoting more healthy competition.
You can read more about this decision in their official blog post.
What do you think about this? Let me know your thoughts.
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