[HN Gopher] Brave Search removes last remnant of Bing from searc... ___________________________________________________________________ Brave Search removes last remnant of Bing from search results page Author : twapi Score : 294 points Date : 2023-04-27 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (brave.com) (TXT) w3m dump (brave.com) | [deleted] | enpojames wrote: | Stoked for the independent Search API. Google and Bings are | pricey. I anticipate it having a quicker adoption path compared | to than the UI. | GCA10 wrote: | Just started testing Brave Search, and it scored a rare 100 on | the first test: If you type in the name of a favorite boutique | hotel, will you get that hotel's true website -- or the usual | hairball of third-party intermediaries? | | (For anyone who's ever tried to modify a reservation, the | difference is astonishing. If you're booked with the hotel, all | kinds of adjustments are at least possible. If you're booked with | Booking, Travelocity, Expedia, etc., it's somewhere between hard | and hopeless.) | | Brave gets it right. Bing, Google and even DuckDuckGo do not. | mintplant wrote: | Fails my personal benchmark, unfortunately: | | haskell megaparsec operators -> should return [0] somewhere | high in the result set. Found it on the third page of Brave | Search. For comparison, it's the very first result on Google, | second page for Bing, and the third page for DuckDuckGo. | | Sure, it's a bit obscure, and I don't even write that much | Haskell these days. But it's calibrated to determine whether I | can rely on the search engine to quickly surface what I need to | be productive, and whether I can trust its 'negative results' | (I don't see what I want on the results page -> I need to | refine my query or take a different approach). The version | number returned in the URL also shows how well the engine | handles keeping up with versioned documentation pages and | aggregating 'link juice' between them. | | I try this on every search engine alternative that pops up on | HN. Very, very few pass. I find it often works like an | adversarial example, yielding completely nonsensical results. | | [0] | https://hackage.haskell.org/package/megaparsec-5.2.0/docs/Te... | (or any other megaparsec-#.#.# version) | autoexec wrote: | Brave search also failed the old "office -microsoft" search | by returning a ton of microsoft pages. Just to be safe I | tried "office NOT microsoft" too but it was even worse. | | DDG and Bing (no surprise there) fails at it too, but Google | actually works. | burkaman wrote: | That's the first result on Kagi, but I think that's because | they just call Google behind the scenes for you. | | Edit: I didn't mean this to be an insult, I pay for Kagi and | use it exclusively. But actually, the Kagi and Google first | page of results look fairly different for this query, so Kagi | is doing more curation and ordering than I realized. | eitland wrote: | They have API access to Google but there is clearly a | sprinkling of magic and logic between. | | How can I know? | | The magic is proven by the fact that Kagi mostly respect my | queries (or accept my bug reports if I can prove they | didn't) despite being built on the shaky foundation of Bing | and modern Google. | | Also there is some good old fashioned engineering there, | like allowing me to pin, prioritize higher or lower or | block certain sites. | Spivak wrote: | That's pretty much how all small search engines work, but | with varying backing indexes. Kagi's value-add is Google | quality index (since they literally pay for it), no ads, | their ranking algorithm, and tools to control the results | that Google doesn't give you like blacklists and your own | weights. | | $25/mo is unfortunately a little steep because their lower | priced option with 700 searches/month is comically small. | On _just_ my work browser I have 4000 Google searches last | month. Doesn 't count my personal laptop or phone. It's | really hard to compete with $0/mo. for Google + AdBlock. I | really do like Kagi better but $25/mo. is Tailscale + | Notion + Spotify. | eitland wrote: | I have the early adopter professional plan, but I must | admit that while I consider myself very much a power user | I have never been close to even 700 searches a month. | mathgorges wrote: | Can you walk me through what a typical search day is like | for you? | | To me, the 700 soft limit seems absurd so I'm curious to | hear how you interact with the product. | | I average 50-100 searches per work day and 10-20 searcher | per off day (totalling 1-2.5k per month). But I don't | feel I'm using search in a particularly strange way. | | For example, if I need to know how the new WidgetBean in | SpringBoot works I'll usually end up making ~10 queries | related to it before I move on to a new area of research. | | E.g., I'll search "SpringBoot WidgetBean release notes" | then "SpringBoot WidgetBean examples" or "WidgetBean test | double", "WidgetBean in MockMvc test", "WidgetBean | PowerMock known issues in MockMvc test", "WidgetBean | FooService interation in MockMvc test SpringBoot 3". | | Essentially, when I'm searching I go wide to survey the | information landscape, then refine my search term as I | discover what I actually need to know | | This quickly balloons as I'm expected to know many things | at $dayjob :) | | What does it look like when you search? | Doctor_Fegg wrote: | As an early adopter, I reluctantly cancelled my Kagi plan | today. It's a great search engine, but even while just | restricting it to one of my desktop machines and not | using it on mobile at all, I ran up against the search | limit with 10 days to go before renewal. | mathgorges wrote: | This. Kagi is a great product and has been my daily | driver for nearly a year. I honestly believe it's the | best search engine on the market | | But I fear they're going to have to get their prices (and | relatedly, cost per search) down considerably before I | can recommend them to anyone again. | | I was fortunate enough to be grandfathered into an | unlimited plan until March, but I don't think I know any | _professionals_ , e.g. people using a search engine to | get work done, which search less than 24 times per day. | seti0Cha wrote: | I don't know that I would rely on performance on a single | search to categorize how a search engine performs even in | related areas to that one search. Also, maybe this is a | stupid question, but are you letting Google personalize your | results? If so, the comparison becomes even more problematic. | jacooper wrote: | And you can customize it using goggles. | oidar wrote: | 0% on my test: ;-; meaning | | Google gets it right at the first page. Bing doesn't get it. | DDG doesn't. | dsissitka wrote: | There are two matching results for it on the first page. | crazygringo wrote: | Are you counting ads as results? | | I just put "the 252 boutique hotel" into Google (without | quotes) and the first non-ad result is the hotel's own website. | It's also first in Brave. And first in Bing. So no difference | here. | | Generally in my experience, I've never had a problem finding a | hotel's website via Google. | antihipocrat wrote: | The ads can take up more than an entire display, requiring | scrolling down a full screen of content before finding the | official site. | | It's even more difficult when trying to find the official | site for a business I'm unfamiliar with. | kyawzazaw wrote: | I have rarely faced this problem, just an anecdote . | benatkin wrote: | It gets it wrong. | | Sometimes I want the Booking.com. | | Otherwise you'd fan the flames of the predatory brochure | websites industry. | sethherr wrote: | Why not just use booking.com search then? | benatkin wrote: | The convenience of hitting the back button and looking at | other pages about them. Booking is the first page I want to | check but not the only one. Sometimes I won't hit back, but | my browsing habits are informed by being able to hit back. | orzig wrote: | You're allowed to have your workflow, but I'll add my n=1 | that I want the exact opposite behavior, and I suspect | I'm in the majority there | benatkin wrote: | You might be arguing for what people think they want if | they're polled. | | If Google always prioritized official websites, dollars | to donuts, people wouldn't like it. | b33j0r wrote: | That was a surprisingly peculiar example, but a quite practical | test! I appreciate that you shared it. | | (Ad) and (sponsored) were ok at first, but then they became the | first screenful of results on most devices. | | That's when my childhood BFF google went off the rails. | thrdbndndn wrote: | Huh, interesting idea. I personally deliberately book though | Booking and alike because it's so nice to have everything hotel | related in one place especially when having long trips. | benatkin wrote: | I prefer the hotel website but only if it's a really good | website. | drc500free wrote: | Having worked in the travel industry, I recommend booking | direct and organizing everything together with TripIt. | lotsofpulp wrote: | I always buy directly from the hotel assuming that I will be | treated better due to the hotel earning more money from me | due to not having to pay commission to a travel agent. | | Also, I assume there is less probability of errors since when | you reserve on a travel agent website, your reservation goes | through an additional system before it gets to the hotel. | time_to_smile wrote: | I worked for a travel startup for a bit and after that | experience I _only_ book airfare and hotels directly. | | Specifically with airfare, a 3rd party is not allowed to | sell for less than the airline directly, so it's always | better options since it is _much_ easier to reschedule | /cancel/refund directly with the airline. Plus, if you | travel a lot, it is better to find a favorite airline and | stick to them. Any bonus "features" offered by a 3rd party | I can assure you are either not in your interest or | actually a scam. | | I don't know if the pricing rules applies to hotels, but | I'd rather pay extra then get to the hotel and be screwed | over last minute because some 3rd party is trying something | "clever" behind the scenes and it turns out it ruins your | travel plans. | coldcode wrote: | Most contracts between an OTA and a hotel chain included | language requiring no lower price when I worked for an | OTA 10 years ago. Not sure about today, but would not | surprise me that nothing changed. OTA's are useful as a | comparison but you are always better off going direct. | Other than TripAdvisor, most OTA brands are either owned | by Expedia or Priceline, but they never let you know. | JohnFen wrote: | I do this as well. The fewer middlemen between me and the | product or service I want, the better. | EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: | I imagine it's booking.com requirement that the hotel can't | sell cheaper thought its own website, just like credit card | companies forbid discounts for paying cash. | lotsofpulp wrote: | The big hotel brands get around this by requiring | customers to sign up for their rewards program to qualify | for the discount. | vkou wrote: | Yeah, but when the hotel over-books, guess which | customers are the first to get their reservation | cancelled/sent to the room with a leaky ceiling. | | (It's going to be the Booking.com ones.) | HeavenFox wrote: | It actually could be the opposite: since the OTA guest can | leave a bad review, hotels may treat them better. | [deleted] | lotsofpulp wrote: | Anyone can leave a review on Google Maps and TripAdvisor | and the hotel brands' website, I assume a review on an | OTA would not be any more valuable. | | As a side note, I wonder if many people pay attention to | reviews outside of extremely low rated places. | [deleted] | achates wrote: | I do. One bad review doesn't make much difference to me | but if I see a few mentioning the same issue I usually | trust them. | bubblethink wrote: | > I always buy directly from the hotel assuming that I will | be treated better due to the hotel earning more money from | me due to not having to pay commission to a travel agent. | | I have never found this to be true unfortunately. I have | some conference related travel coming up, and the | conference made some deal with Hilton for a special rate. | Hilton's link wouldn't work, and I made 5 calls trying to | get them to offer a discounted rate to no avail. Eventually | had to book at a discounted rate on hotwire (same as the | conference's rate), which presumably made Hilton 20-30% | less. At scale, hotels are just operated like commodities. | Unless you are really special (loyal and big spender), you | won't get any special treatment. | RajT88 wrote: | > Unless you are really special (loyal and big spender), | you won't get any special treatment. | | Lifetime Platinum Marriott member here. | | The special treatment is OK. It is nice to get room | upgrades and freebies, but that's little stuff. It | doesn't get you a room magically when they are sold out, | and you don't magically get a better rate when prices are | high. | | The biggest benefit if you're traveling a lot is your | points accrual rate is higher with status, which lets you | more rapidly exchange points for things. The only sane | way to spend points of course, is more hotel stays. | Nothing else comes close value-wise. I recall running the | numbers on that (points/dollar ratio), and you'd be a | brazen fool to spend points on merchandise - when you | compare the ratio of hotel stays to merchandise point | cost, you realize that they have a 3-4x markup on the | merchandise. | hattmall wrote: | >don't magically get a better rate when prices are high. | | That's when you spend your points. Though it depends | severely on the brand. Marriott and Hilton are no longer | great. But Wyndham and Hyatt are pretty amazing. | Starwood, used to be good until Marriott bought them out. | gretch wrote: | > I assume there is less probability of errors since when | you reserve on a travel agent website, your reservation | goes through an additional system before it gets to the | hotel | | My intuition says the opposite. More moving pieces in the | system, more fragility in integration of different systems. | lotsofpulp wrote: | Is that not the same as what I wrote? | gretch wrote: | Rereading it I think it's ambiguous, and I definitely | didn't read what you intended (after clarification). | | The problem is that the phrase "I assume there is less | probability of errors" is not attached to a condition. | | It's a bit like that revolving ballerina dancer illusion | lotsofpulp wrote: | I see, but I was thinking the "Also" at the beginning of | the second sentence attaches the conditions of the first | sentence. So the second sentence could also be understood | to start with "I always buy directly from the hotel..." | | Nevertheless, there is clearly a more clear way I could | have wrote that comment. | tut-urut-utut wrote: | I have yet to find an occasion where directly booking a | hotel would give a better or even the same price as booking | through booking and the likes. | lotsofpulp wrote: | All the big hotel chains will usually give ~5% off for | reserving directly since they pay ~15% to OTAs. They will | require you to be a "rewards member", but that is just | checking a box since you already have to give them your | personal information. | JohnFen wrote: | > They will require you to be a "rewards member", but | that is just checking a box since you already have to | give them your personal information. | | I became a "rewards member" with a major hotel chain | once. Never again. The deluge of spam I got was | intolerable. | j1elo wrote: | I got the feeling that it's the opposite. _We_ pay the | Booking fee. I 've had hotel receptionists give me their | card and say "If you come back some other time, just call | to reserve directly with us, so you can save the x% that | Booking charges for your reservation!" | Alupis wrote: | You are both saying the same thing. | | The hotel has a room they want to sell for $100 a night. | They can list it on their website for $100 a night, and | after paying credit card processing fees, they get to | keep the remainder. | | The hotel now lists the same room on one of the booking | sites that charges a x% fee for facilitating the | transaction and providing discovery for the hotel | (getting the room in front of interested customers). The | hotel can either take a x% haircut, or charge x% more. So | that same room might be $110 per night now instead of | $100. | | It's a business decision, and not all operators will make | the same one, naturally. | carlosjobim wrote: | You have to ask for a discount, they can't offer or | advertise it. | pythko wrote: | I agree; I've had multiple instances recently of booking | through a third party where getting changes or refunds is | very slow and clunky, if they will even do it at all. | Contrast that to my experience with booking a hotel | directly through their website, where I mistakenly booked | the wrong dates. One phone call to the hotel and 2 minutes | later they changed it with no hassle. | tobyjsullivan wrote: | I've tried to do this for years and ultimately been | disappointed. Even on my latest hotel booking, the direct | quote was 20% more than Expedia and that's not an isolated | incident. | | I suspect this is partly predatory pricing on behalf of | Expedia (charge the hotel 30%, discount the price 20%, get | all the bookings and take the difference.) Yet I really | can't justify spending the extra $400 to stand the moral | high ground. Seems like something the hotels need to work | out. | | They used to at least offer the same price and add in | little things like "free wifi" and breakfast. I haven't | seen that offer since the pre-covid years. | londons_explore wrote: | Google usually does _through the maps place card_. To update | that card, the hotel manager has to receive a postcard posted | by google. Obviously expedia etc can 't easily do that. | jahsome wrote: | OP is talking about modifying their hotel reservation | directly, not updating a google maps listing. | mynameisvlad wrote: | And the comment you replied to is saying that the official | website will usually be shown on the map card to the side | of your usual results, which is only editable by verified | businesses. | bazmattaz wrote: | Interesting, my test of a search engine's ability to return | relevant results is usually some sort of obscure search for | tech help like; | | "Best way to modify the xyz on a raspberry pi 4" | | I stopped using DuckDuckGo because it always failed at searches | like this compared to Google. Brave was ok | nextmove wrote: | I love how on mobile Brave browser you can add YouTube videos to | your Brave playlist and then play them while your screen is | locked. | | Also I switched from StartPage to Brave search, but I do wish | Brave search had a translator feature. Like on StartPage I just | search "translate" and get an input box. I find it better than | most other browsers' translators. | kashkhan wrote: | using Brave on an iphone for Youtube is a godsend. Almost as | good as desktop experience. Youtube app, Safari and Chrome suck | enough to be unusable | bazmattaz wrote: | Can I ask what's so good about YT on Brave? I use the iOS app | but could change. | | Does it block ads? | nostromo wrote: | Yes. | | If you browse YouTube on mobile via the Brave browser it | blocks all YouTube ads. | | I haven't used the YouTube app in a year... | wazzer wrote: | same here, couldn't live without it. | | btw: it's also possible to go to fullscreen mode, then go | directly to the home screen so that the pop-over player | is activated, then the video keeps playing while the | screen is looked, with controls working from the | lockscreen. | manuelmoreale wrote: | Unrelated, but the same result is achievable by using | Safari and 1Blocker for the people who don't feel like | installing another browser but are tempted by the mobile, | ads free YouTube experience on iOS | ricardo81 wrote: | Great to have alternative entry points into the web. | | DDG seem to do quite well in that a lot of their users will deem | the relevance good enough, perhaps not aware of its 100% reliance | on Bing. More often than not new search engine skins with | comparable results to Google and Bing do tend to be the actual | results of Google and Bing. Apparently the average searcher | doesn't know nor care. | | If everyone 'donated' at least a few searches a day to true | alternative engines, it'd help diversify search, surely. The fact | that Google has such a high amount of revenue per search has | helped them price out competitors e.g. being defaults on browsers | and devices. Can see why Brave would launch a browser to | assist/complement search. | yamtown wrote: | Is there search independent? They have no page talking about | their robot. The Cliqz index they acquired was a database of | query url pairs scraped from Google. It is not obvious how true | their claims of independence are or how they are building an | index beyond further scraping of Google and opaque Brave browser | add-ons | jahewson wrote: | Do you have a citation for this? I can't find any sources to | back this claim. | yamtown wrote: | https://0x65.dev/blog/2019-12-05/a-new-search-engine.html | | Kudos if you can find their 2023 crawler in logs.... | JohnFen wrote: | OK, I'll have to give Brave search a try now! | nocommandline wrote: | Read the announcement and it looks like there isn't an option to | submit a site for crawling. If that's true, how do they discover | new sites? My understanding of the 'the Web Discovery project' is | that they're indexing your search and the results you click, | anonymously but you won't see new sites in your search results | which in turn means the new site won't be indexed by them | IMSAI8080 wrote: | Probably watching for new DNS entries gets you most of the way | there. When you fire up any new website you usually get a pile | of visits from mysterious cloud boxes in the first 24 hours | before you are listed on any search engine. I assume that's how | they find you. | Flimm wrote: | If you turn on "the Web Discovery Project" in the Brave | browser, then a fraction of the web addresses you visit will be | sent to Brave, even if the web pages weren't from a Brave | Search SERP. | | Source: https://support.brave.com/hc/en- | us/articles/4409406835469-Wh... | | > If you opt-in to the Web Discovery Project, your browser will | process the following data on your device, and securely send it | to Brave's servers: | | > - A fraction of the addresses (URLs) of the web pages visited | in the Brave Browser, along with engagement metrics (how much | time is spent on the page) | | > - [...] | nocommandline wrote: | > then a fraction of the web addresses you visit will be sent | to Brave | | I get that but if it's a new site, the number of people | visiting will be extremely small if not non-existent. The | possibilities that I see are | | a) The new website is first noted on something like social | media and you found it from there and then accessed it via | Brave browser | | b) You use Google search or Bing within Brave browser and you | find the site (because it was submitted to Google or Bing) | moint wrote: | [flagged] | aacid wrote: | I would really like to move away from google search, but | unfortunately every other engine I tried sucks for localized | searching... I get it that I come from small central europe | country which is not that interesting market wise but it looks | like google is able to provide relevant results while any other | engine does not. | | For example I tried brave to search for watch I'm currently | considering buying. When using site:sk it gives me 3 results... | Same google search returns thousands results... | carlosjobim wrote: | Kagi really aces it on local search. Honestly Brave was also | fine now when I tried it. | slig wrote: | Suggestion: use Brave Search as default, and g! for localized | queries. I did that with DDG and for a while with Brave Search, | but now it's surprisingly good enough even for my country. | ddtaylor wrote: | Sadly it failed my test. When I search for "Python str split" it | includes trash results and midway down the first page of results | is the python API documentation after some YouTube videos, | W3Schools and "GeeksForGeeks" spam garbage. DuckDuckGo at least | has the results correct for this case and an infocard on the side | that understands it's a Python related API question with relevant | examples and links. | ementally wrote: | I actually find their Goggles [0] feature really interesting. | | [0] https://search.brave.com/help/goggles | topspin wrote: | "Goggles enable any individual--or community of people--to | alter the ranking of Brave Search by using a set of | instructions (rules and filters). Anyone can create, apply, or | extend a Goggle. Essentially Goggles act as a custom re-ranking | on top of the Brave search index." | | Wow. | guerrilla wrote: | Good because I've about had it with DuckDuckGo. Bing has | downmodded a ton of Wikipedia (probably to trick people into | using their stupid AI). Feeling trapped with both Google and Bing | being terrible. | | What's the business plan though? | bmarquez wrote: | Brave search is surprisingly good. In the past I've often clicked | the "fallback to Google Search" option but these days I rarely do | that. | | It could be that Brave is getting better, or Google search is | getting worse, or both. | penjelly wrote: | as a brave user on my personal devices its nice to see that | theyre continually working towards independence. brave browser | with brave search has worked fine for me, i barely notice the | difference having switched from chrome/google. | [deleted] | schmorptron wrote: | I've been using brave search since it became public and it was | known they bought tailcat. | | Have been very happy with the search results, and for people who | don't like the simpler programming tutorial sites you can even | make a custom "goggle" to block those from the results | completely. | thefourthchime wrote: | My standard test for a search engine: "California style burrito | in Austin" I got mixed results. | | The "BraveAI" result was halfway decent, recommending a place | I've never heard of, but not listing any of the other top ones I | know of. | | On the sidebar map, it listed a restaurant in New Hampshire. | Hilarious, but not what I was looking for. | pachico wrote: | Just the fastest and most ergonomic browser I've tried. | | I wish Firefox was like Brave, to be honest. Until that happens, | I'll stick to Brave for both mobile and desktop. | [deleted] | rvz wrote: | The Mozilla CEO is to blame for the chaos they caused around | Firefox, and them losing market share to Chrome for the past 14 | years. | | Mozilla is so dysfunctional that the CEO is rewarded a massive | bonus for running the company to the ground and laying off | their employees. | | They are not interested in competing against Chrome; instead | they are chronically dependent on Google's money and on life | support, making over 80% of their revenue despite the Mozilla | CEO saying that they would not fully depend on Google's money. | in the future. [0] | | I hope Brave makes Firefox (and Mozilla) even more irrelevant. | | [0] | https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu... | paulryanrogers wrote: | This ignores the fact that Google is the/a dominant player in | at least mail, search, ads, and mobile. That both funds | Google's browser and they can nag users to switch. | | It's more surprising that Mozilla survives at all (and likely | at Google's mercy with default placement payment) since the | only other browsers who can hope to compete have massive | subsidies from a larger business. | rchaud wrote: | How would a nonprofit expect to compete against Google? It's | not exactly evenly matched is it? | | Firefox on desktop has been more than good enough anyway. | nostromo wrote: | Firefox competed against fairly successfully against | Microsoft for a decade. | | They still spin off massive amounts of cash -- they just | piss it away on their foundation, and not improving the | product. | function_seven wrote: | > _Firefox competed against fairly successfully against | Microsoft for a decade._ | | My recollection was that Microsoft had stopped innovating | on IE6 almost entirely during that decade, right? Or at | least for the few years that enabled Firefox to get a | foothold. | | > _They still spin off massive amounts of cash -- they | just piss it away on their foundation, and not improving | the product._ | | Hard agree on this. So many side quests when the main | quest is not done. | slig wrote: | Firefox usage is abysmal on Desktop (from the Cloudflare | usage stats which doesn't depend on JavaScript being enabled) | and practically inexistent on mobile. My tech friends gave | up, and normal users just use the defaults: Edge (which is | good enough for them), Safari or whatever browser default | browser comes with their smartphone. Mozilla needs to figure | out how to attract new users, and focus. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | A lot of us are running with modified UA strings to combat | fingerprinting. | cubefox wrote: | Mitchell Baker's salary is outrageous. | autoexec wrote: | Wow, think of what just a little of that 5 million could | buy in terms of bug fixes! | robocat wrote: | Mozilla Foundation Total revenue: 600 million | | Salaries and benefits - management & general: 81 million | | https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla- | fdn-202... | usefulcat wrote: | > I hope Brave makes Firefox (and Mozilla) even more | irrelevant. | | I get that you hate Mozilla, but from the perspective of an | end user of browsers, this is a deeply irrational position. | Less competition in the browser space is uniformly bad for | end users, as we've seen very clearly in the past. | skinkestek wrote: | My dislike for Mozilla the non profit is rather intense but | I still agree with you: nothing good comes out of playing | into Googles hand here and shortening and simplifying the | path they have to try to go to corner the browser market | and become really problematic. | | I still hope we can manage to break up Google before that | happens so anything that delays Googles cornering of the | browser market is a win in my eyes. | HeckFeck wrote: | It is ergonomic until you want to send more than one tab using | Brave sync. | | Also Ctrl + B to show the bookmarks sidebar would be nice, for | those of us who nest their web clippings deeply. | | On the iOS app, it also forgets usernames I've stored using | password sync. For _some_ sites (criteria unclear) I have to | type the username before it inserts the password, which is | frustrating to a privacy conscious user who will not use the | same email address everywhere. | | I want to like it but there are power user pleasing areas where | it certainly lags behind Firefox. | jonathansampson wrote: | In Brave, you can select the Bookmarks panel from the side | bar, and then toggle it open/closed from then on with Ctrl+B. | | Regarding iOS, it's entirely possible there's a bug in our | code. I'll definitely take a closer look and speak with the | team regarding this report. That said, it's also not entirely | uncommon for users to enter a site through a slightly | different URL, or form, which complicates the credential- | autofill logic. If you have an example or two of sites where | this behavior is consistently observed, that would be much | appreciated. | HeckFeck wrote: | Ah, tried Ctrl+B with the mini side bar already open and | found it works. Thanks. | | The two recent culprits that didn't toggle password | autofill were eBay.co.uk and Gumtree.co.uk. I'd be grateful | it if this could be investigated; the latter prevented me | from checking an address in the Gumtree PMs whilst on the | road delivering a purchase. | | On the issue of sending multiple tabs, it is frustrating | enough that it prevents me from adopting Brave as my main | browser. I often open a few sites that interest me on | mobile then decide to read more on my desktop. If you could | pass the word along for someone to investigate that, all | the better. | | With that said, it's commendable being the only browser on | iOS with first class advert blocking & sync with every | other platform. | sundarurfriend wrote: | My experience has been the opposite. I wish Brave was more like | Firefox. | | I have Brave installed as an alternate browser (originally | because sites like Twitch and Netflix performed poorly on | Firefox, not so much the case anymore). And there's a | noticeable lag when switching tabs that's absent in Firefox. | And the memory usage - Brave uses as much memory with 10 tabs | open as Firefox does with 100. It seems like "unloaded" tabs | are not really unloaded at all, and continue to take up memory | (which makes you question what unloading does) as long as the | browser remains open. | | I'm not sure what you mean by ergonomic, but I've been spoiled | by Firefox's openness to customization, it was shocking to find | that you can't even customize the toolbar on Brave to have your | frequently used features handy. | jonathansampson wrote: | You can always check the internal task manager to see which | tabs/extensions/child-processes are using the most resources. | To do so, visit > More Tools > Task Manager in the browser, | or press Shift+Esc. | bigtex wrote: | Well the guy who started Brave used to head up Firefox before | the employees revolted and demanded he be fired over politics. | PpEY4fu85hkQpn wrote: | "politics" is one way to describe him donating a large sum of | money to a bigoted anti-gay cause and losing the trust of his | employees. | jraph wrote: | This submission is about a search engine, not a browser. | | What's to be like the Brave browser for you? You don't say | much. | darreninthenet wrote: | Have they sorted out the bookmark syncing? When I tried Brave a | few years ago I went back to Chrome (and now FF) as the | bookmark syncing functionality would frequently go out of sync | for hours on different browser installs. | causi wrote: | I don't see why anyone would pick Brave over Vivaldi, | especially on mobile. | sphars wrote: | I used Vivaldi for a good year or two on my machines, but | after some point Vivaldi was so slow to launch and to | navigate. Maybe it was my setup, but other browsers were | quick launch and use. Been using FF for several months now, | maybe they fixed the issues in Vivaldi since. | eviks wrote: | Vivaldi has this issue with many tabs slowing down the | whole UI, but the new v6 feature of workspaces allows you | to move some tabs to a WS group, that improves UI | performance | | But yeah, that's one of their biggest issues | colordrops wrote: | Because brave is open source and Vivaldi is not. | surgical_fire wrote: | Vivaldi user here. Excellent browser. | | But I still really miss Opera from the old days. Vivaldi is | the next best thing. | eviks wrote: | Vivaldi is not available on mobile (ios) | UberFly wrote: | I do really like Vivaldi on mobile - customizes perfectly for | my needs. Have no reason to mistrust them regarding their | proprietary chromium gui. | vorticalbox wrote: | Vivaldi on android still does not support adding custom | search engines. | caycep wrote: | I use both. Brave is better for the "chromium only" wonky | websites/webapps. But the whole altruistic privacy thing is | kind of undercut, at least optics-wise, by all the | crypto/gamification upsell present by default. Not good when | your supposedly privacy-focused browser requires extensive | fiddling in the settings to shut everything off on initial | install a-la Windows 11... | jacooper wrote: | Honestly its very easy to ignore all the crypto crap. And its | much better for your average user, since he/she will be | private by just using brave, without any tinkering. | ThunderSizzle wrote: | It's a little odd to be concerned about privacy focus on a | post-Windows 10 os. | slig wrote: | Using Brave Search feels like the Google Search from mid 2000s. | Anyone tired of Google should give it a try. | gumballindie wrote: | I know brave is basically chrome but i am very pleased with the | experience. Works a charm on linux and is good enough at blocking | ads that i dont really need pihole. The only thing i miss is | syncing between devices, i mess that up and cant get it right. | All in all is quite good. | devmunchies wrote: | I have brave search as default but always do a google bang "!g". | I do this for every search but figure I'm giving brave some data | on all my searches to help improve it. I guess it's be better if | I clicked a link on their results too for reinforcement learning. | fardo wrote: | Once you've doing this, is there a value-add Brave is providing | over just using Google through a VPN? | | As someone without much familiarity, this alternative seems | circuitous if Google results are what you actually want. | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: | <meta property="og:description" content="Search the web | privately ..."> | | Would be nice if Brave did not require SNI since this is | considered a privacy concern by some folks.^1 Anyone sniffing the | wire can see all the domain names to which the SNI user is | connecting.^3 The other search engines do not require SNI, e.g., | Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, GigaBlast, Qwant, etc. | | 1. One example would be Cloudflare. Because some folks see SNI as | a privacy concern, Cloudflare used to offer ESNI which was a way | to encrypt SNI. It has since been discontinued while we wait for | ECH. Some HN commenters will often try to argue that SNI is | irrelevant to users without offering any evidence to support. | Watch for it. For example, China found SNI was relevant enough to | block ESNI. Apparently, China found it preferable to use SNI than | to use only IP addresses, which of course are easy for websites | to change. Go figure. | | https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/Dae-cukKMqfzmTT4Ks... | | SNI can be used for censorship purposes, among other things. Many | search engines work without SNI. But not Brave. | | NB. As I understand it, these browsers do not allow the user to | enable/disable SNI on a per site basis; in some of them it is not | even possible to disable SNI at all.^2 TLS might enable the user | to hide web _pages_ from the proverbial "MITM", but with SNI | enabled it will not allow them to hide web _sites_. | | 2. Thus, even when Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, GigaBlast, Qwant, | Mojeek, etc., and millions of other websites do not require the | user to send SNI in order to return SERPs or other pages, these | browsers send it anyway. Brilliant. | | 3. SNI is different than DNS. DNS lookups can be done at a | different time from when a user connects, if the user ever does | connect. (Popular browsers are not good for this, of course.) | Whereas SNI shows the user actually connected. Strangely, much | effort has gone into encrypting DNS, while SNI, and to some | extent TLS prior to version 1.3, leaks these same domain names on | the wire, unencrypted. | k__ wrote: | Interesting timing. | | Just today, it told me to use Bing or Google for image search. | | I understand the reasoning, but it felt a bit like "whelp, we | give up" | jcadam wrote: | I use chromium for work/dev. Brave for personal stuff (including | on my phone). It's actually been a while since I've used Firefox. | chad1n wrote: | While they did some shady stuff with their browser in the past, | the search engine is surprisingly good and their relation with | the community is pretty decent, I wish more search providers | start providing their own results instead of using Bing API. | INeedMoreRam wrote: | [dead] | asimpletune wrote: | Surprisingly good. I tried "what is a monad" and got reasonable | results. Searching my own name resulted in socials instead of my | personal website, but that seems reasonable since my personal | website isn't super popular. I guess I'll have to try it out for | a few days or even weeks to really know, but a completely new | search engine would be amazing. | Nuzzerino wrote: | I guess that explains why the quality in its search results has | been trending downward for me. | IceWreck wrote: | How is it that Brave managed to build an indexer and remove | dependence on Bing in less than two years but DuckDuckGo hasn't | been able to do it in a decade. | potatofrenzy wrote: | DDG probably doesn't want to? On the time horizons they're | thinking about, it's probably more expensive to develop | competitive tech and keep it working than it is to pay for API | access. | logicalmonster wrote: | DDG is too busy adopting the censorship policies of Big Tech to | innovate against them. | lisasays wrote: | You mean in not caving to conservative-friendly "free speech" | preferences? Its decision to downrank state-sponsored | disinformation? | | One can question the wisdom of these decisions - but | ultimately it's a matter of editorial control, not | censorship. | eYrKEC2 wrote: | I want search, not editorial guidance from a search engine. | lisasays wrote: | Then use a different search engine. | | To call what DDG is doing (or what a newspaper does when | it chooses not to print your foaming, incoherent editor | to the letter -- as is, you know, its right) "censorship" | is just silly. | arp242 wrote: | It's a search engine's job to rank results; there is no | other way to do it: only one link can be in position #1, | only one link can be in position #2, etc. | | Or in other words: "editorial guidance" is pretty much | the entirety of a search engine's job: you give it a | large set of documents (the internet), some user input | (what you typed in the search box), and it ranks - or | "editorializes" - the set of documents to something | useful for you. | | And at the same time you also have to account for SEO | haxx0rs and outright malicious actors who will try to | phish your CC details. | | Do you want some crackpot website if you search for | "Barrack Obama" which claims that he is _literally_ the | anti-Christ to be at #1? Or even on the first page at | all? Or rolexxxx.com if you search for "buy rolex"? Or | bank-of-amerrrica.ru if you search for "Bank of America"? | Probably not. A naive ranking algorithm will end up with | that. | | There is no perfect way to do this; it's a hard problem. | Platitudes like this make it sound easy, but it's not. | mardifoufs wrote: | There is a massive difference between ranking stuff based | on relevance and not getting RT articles when... | searching for RT. (They rolled back the block pretty | quickly, so they seem to agree with that too) | | You are basically arguing for a slippery slope argument. | Because they already need some editorial control to | filter spam and obviously irrelevant material does not | mean that every type of filtering/block listing is ok. | | I personally totally get how it can be offputting to | people if a search engine starts hiding websites while | openly saying that they do it for a political reason. | Downranking would be fine, but blocking a news source (as | bad as RT is at being that) that isn't spammy or playing | with SEO is just different. | | Yes, I know, everything is political and all. But that's | the point! Blocking RT was obviously more so about | politics than filtering fake news or trash results. | marginalia_nu wrote: | I don't think what you want exists or has ever existed. A | search engine that does not exercise judgement about | relevance and quality will just return noise. | poszlem wrote: | > but ultimately it's a matter of editorial control, not | censorship. | | So is all censorship. | | No censor calls censorship "Censorship". An example from my | country of birth: | | Main Office of Control over the Press, Publications and | Performances, since 1981 the Main Office of Control over | Publications and Performances - the central office of state | censorship in the Polish People's Republic. It was a | censorship body (analogous institutions were present in all | countries of the so-called Eastern Bloc) examining all | forms of official information communication from the | perspective of their compliance with the current state | policy, and prohibiting the dissemination of unwanted | information and content by the ruling communist party. | | The name "The Censors" was only adopted after the collapse | of communism. | | I rub my eyes in amazement every time I read people on HN | praising censorship and rejoicing that someone will decide | for them what they can read and what they can't. | | I am not able to understand how foolish one has to be to | not realize that eventually the censorship organs will be | used against you too. | | Perhaps you think you will always hold the "correct" | beliefs in which case I admire your lack of imagination. | | I miss "hackers" from the 90s with some actual backbone. | HeckFeck wrote: | > I miss "hackers" from the 90s with some actual | backbone. | | https://philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html | | It was a good time indeed. | lisasays wrote: | _So is all censorship._ | | Sorry, but that's not what the word means. By definition, | it refers to the interception of communications _between | others_. That 's now what's happening here. | torial wrote: | That isn't the only definition. For example Cambridge's | definition of censorship (https://dictionary.cambridge.or | g/us/dictionary/english/censo... ) | | "the action of preventing part or the whole of a book, | movie, work of art, document, or other kind of | communication from being seen or made available to the | public, because it is considered to be offensive or | harmful, or because it contains information that someone | wishes to keep secret, often for political reasons:" | metalliqaz wrote: | what do they censor? | nostromo wrote: | After the invasion of Ukraine they announced they would be | removing sites "associated with Russian disinformation." | They haven't provided a definition of what that includes. | | Lots of DDG users were upset because this is the type of | thing they objected to with Google. | nugget wrote: | The search index is relatively easy, the ad marketplace is | hard. DDG is likely hooked on tens or hundreds of millions of | dollars in Bing revenue which is a tough habit to kick. | jacooper wrote: | They bought the search engine when it went bankrupt. Still | quite a feat and its results are actually better than ddg and | bing. | KomoD wrote: | Interesting, any links to info about that? | tyingq wrote: | https://brave.com/brave-search/ | | _" Today Brave announced the acquisition of Tailcat, the | open search engine developed by the team formerly | responsible for the privacy search and browser products at | Cliqz, a holding of Hubert Burda Media. Tailcat will become | the foundation of Brave Search..."_ | ticoombs wrote: | The same cliqz [0] that got shipped to Germany Firefox | users? | | [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing- | cliqz-i... | cush wrote: | Why assume that's one of DDG's goals? | smoldesu wrote: | Their cut of BAT tokens is probably pretty significant. The | number of people I met who thought they were "beating" the | system by paying Brave 30% of their ad revenue was surprisingly | high. I wouldn't be surprised if that surpassed whatever | funding DuckDuckGo is able to raise. | | If you want a personal indexer, host Searx. | cacozen wrote: | [flagged] | doodlesdev wrote: | [flagged] | mempko wrote: | [flagged] | KomoD wrote: | [flagged] | mempko wrote: | [flagged] | dang wrote: | Wanting to avoid tedious repetitive flamewars, of the | sort that destroy an internet forum, is hardly to favor | Hitler. | | Internet forums have a strong default tendency to burn | themselves to a crisp. The idea of HN, for 15+ years now, | has been to try to stave that outcome off as long as | possible. | | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true& | que... | cactusplant7374 wrote: | As if every product you use isn't run/developed/maintained by | legions of people you disagree with on at least one political | issue. | | This is brought up every time there is a post on Brave. It's | rather tiresome. | mixmastamyk wrote: | Also an ancient quote by Buchanan is a lousy way to | criticize Eich. I expect more from HN. | doodlesdev wrote: | > As if every product you use isn't | run/developed/maintained by legions of people you disagree | with on at least one political issue. | | That's true. I still use Brave Search. > | This is brought up every time there is a post on Brave. | It's rather tiresome. | | And yet a lot of people still don't know about it. | minsc_and_boo wrote: | There's absolutely nothing wrong with choosing products and | services that don't align with your views either. Just look | at conservatives trying to cancel budweiser & disney. | | I wasn't aware of Ein's outspoken and proactive homophobia, | so this is still news to some. | cactusplant7374 wrote: | Outspoken and proactive? Now you're reaching. | negidius wrote: | I don't care if people disagree with me, and I wouldn't | have anything against him if he was just personally bigoted | and wrote about how much he hates gay people on his blog or | something. | | I don't think people should be canceled for expressing | opinions, but that's not the same as funding an effort to | actively harm people. He is entitled to his opinions, but | he is not entitled to enforce them on other people. | cactusplant7374 wrote: | People have opinions and inevitably their offspring | usually adopt their opinions. There will be exceptions | obviously but exceptions make the rule. For the most part | that is probably how society changes over time. A high | birthrate of Amish compared to the rest of the population | could completely change the political landscape. | | Anyway, there isn't any proof that Eich hates gay people | in the way you imply. He didn't lead any anti-LGBT | changes at Mozilla and there haven't been any at Brave. | The commentary is that he did one thing that really | offended a bunch of people. There just aren't compelling | reasons to think he's a monster. | bmarquez wrote: | > he is not entitled to enforce them on other people | | In 2008 when Proposition 8 was on the ballot, that Eich | privately supported, even President Obama (candidate at | the time) was publicly against gay marriage. | | There needs to be some historical cultural context, | supporting Prop 8 in 2008 is different than supporting | Prop 8 in 2023. Now if Eich said he would support it in | 2023, that's a different matter. | | But I would still use Brave browser and search since it's | a good product. | negidius wrote: | I don't think there need to be any historical cultural | context. It was just as wrong and bigoted then as now. | It's not an excuse that most people agreed with him at | the time. | | If I accepted that agreeing with the majority makes | everything okay, I couldn't criticize the many horridly | immoral things the majority still agree with today. | | I still use Brave sometimes, and I would probably still | use it if he did the same thing today, but I will | continue to think he is a bad person unless he at least | donates the same amount (adjusted for inflation) to a | charity that supports LGBTQ+ people. | KomoD wrote: | I tried it, and honestly it sucks, all the rankings are terrible, | I searched stackoverflow and I got seo spam as one of the top | results, the title or meta didn't even include "stackoverflow". | | I also hate how it's not full width. | pythux wrote: | Hi, Brave engineer here, | | We're always on the look-out to improve our search ranking. | Would you be able to share some of the queries you made that | did not return satisfying results? (or use in-page feedback to | report them automatically to us). It would be very useful. | | Thanks! | brianbreslin wrote: | How does Brave monetize this? How do they monetize their app in | general? Is there a ppc ad platform they're offering? | riskycodes wrote: | Yeah, but you opt in, and you receive a share of it (in their | altcoin) if you do. | metalliqaz wrote: | they lost me at "altcoin" | Method-X wrote: | Yes, it was launched at the beginning of April (I signed up). | Also, they offer a subscription plan for $3 per month. | Flimm wrote: | I've set Brave Search to be my default search engine for private | windows (incognito mode). I've grown annoyed by the cookie | consent dialogs and captchas that are presented to me by Google | when I open Google's search engine in a private window. Brave | Search doesn't have those annoyances. | TigeriusKirk wrote: | It's been my default search for months. I go to Google for | images and maps, but Brave search serves most of my needs quite | well. | | But throwing a monkey wrench into the whole thing is my | increasing use of Bing Chat. It's not really a general purpose | search replacement, but it does do a more efficient job of | answering basic questions succinctly. | artificial wrote: | Have you tried Yandex for image search? It supports searching | by specific sizes like the Google search of yore. | moremetadata wrote: | [dead] | bogtog wrote: | Sadly didn't pass my test, looking up sports info like "UFC | Schedule" and getting a custom built interface. For example, | | Google's: | https://www.google.com/search?q=ufc+schedule&rlz=1C1GCEU_en&... | | Bing's (doesn't have UFC Schedules but has "NFL Standings"): | https://www.bing.com/search?q=NFL+standings&qs=n&form=QBRE&s... | jacooper wrote: | > Announcing the Brave Search API | | > In continuing our mission to offer alternatives to Big Tech, | Brave is planning to release the Brave Search API. Through it, | developers and companies will be able to build search experiences | that compete on quality with Big Tech. Those interested should | stay tuned for more details, or contact us at bizdev@brave.com. | | That's going to be very important for search engines like phind | which rely on the bing index service. | riku_iki wrote: | they have 200 employees on linkedin, many of whom are not | engineers. How they can carry two such major and complicated | projects(browser and search) with such headcount? | jraph wrote: | Can't say for search (it seems like massive work indeed - or | maybe you can actually build a decent and comprehensive | search engine with few people but with a massive amount of | money), but for the browser they really provide a browser | _UI_ (and I 'd guess most of it is actually built by Google | too). It requires work, but it's not _massive_ like a | browser. | | There are many browsers out there, maintained by a few devs, | sometimes in their free time. | | Konqueror, Gnome Web, qutebrowser, WebPositive... | | Whatever the SerinityOS is doing, reimplementing a browser | engine from scratch for their browser Ladybird [1], is vastly | more impressive. | | [1] | https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Ladybird | eitland wrote: | search.marginalia.nu consisted of 1 Swedish engineer and 1 | server last I heard and still managed to outclass DDG in a | number of query types relevant to me. | | In fact, back when I used DDG I think I fell back to | marginalia more often than I fell back to Google, partly | because of my dislike for Google and partly because Google | doesn't respect my queries - which of course is a | contributing reason for my dislike for them. | | Let's say 100 of the Brave employees are engineers and 50 of | them work on the Chromium skin, that still leaves 50 to work | on search and related efforts. If 5 of them are as good as | the marginalia guy and they are allowed to work with equally | clear direction, lack of interruptions and more funding, I | think that could almost explain a working search engine. | | Remember: In the first 20 years of Google existence (or in | any 20 years of the semiconductor age until recently) Moores | law had over 13 cycles. A lot of what used to be hard | problems before isn't anynore. | marginalia_nu wrote: | > search.marginalia.nu consisted of 1 Swedish engineer and | 1 server last I heard and still managed to outclass DDG in | a number of query types relevant to me. | | Still just 1 dinky lil' consumer hardware server in my | living room. I think what is limiting the project the most | is the hardware. Like I can definitely squeeze more out of | it, but I could probably do 100 times more if I had any | sort of operational budget. | | But at least the development is funded for the moment. | We'll see where I am when the NLnet money runs out... | jraph wrote: | > Remember: In the first 20 years of Google existence (or | in any 20 years of the semiconductor age until recently) | Moores law had over 13 cycles. A lot of what used to be | hard problems before isn't anynore. | | The web also grow tremendously, and probably user | expectations too (in the beginning of the century we were | told in school not to speak to search engine like we would | to a human, but with keywords and operators). We also do | and search for many more kinds of things | eitland wrote: | If anything my expectations sunk massively between 2009 | and the introduction of Kagi. | | To be blunt: for me, mainstream search engines Google and | Bing very much feel like the things they replaced, | Altavista and Yahoo, just with some fancy bolt ons like | maps etc. | | I understand some people like to be able to write | sentences to their search engines, but as long as the | results have worse quality than they had 15 - 20 years | ago, that "understanding" is just another fancy bolt on | feature. | | The only things that exist today that could threaten | Google quality is Kagi which has gone all in on quality | and ChatGPT (and other similar solutions) which finally | have produced a working "answer machine" instead of | breaking perfect or at least working search engines. | slig wrote: | Meanwhile, Twitter had 7500 and Dropbox, 3000. | rushingcreek wrote: | Yep, we're definitely interested in this here at Phind.com :) | xarthna wrote: | I have been using Brave Search for a year now. It has been great. | It provides relevant results and I love how Brave AI floats a | summarizer to the top with cited and hyperlinked material when | applicable. | | Very rarely I will need to hit the Find Elsewhere 'Google' | button. This is usually done for niche technical searches where | Google prioritizes some forums dedicated to the topic like Reddit | or Stack Overflow. I _could_ re-search with the site operator, | but after scrolling down with the Google escape hatch there, the | flow just seems more natural. | | Just as an aside, I have also been experimenting with SearX | searches. The experience isn't as streamlined as Brave Search, | but I can incorporate Brave Search into my results. I find the | value proposition interesting for SearX, but implementation still | lacking. | Flimm wrote: | This is about the Brave Search engine, which you can use in any | browser: | | https://search.brave.com/ | alx__ wrote: | Glad there are more options for search tools. Seems pretty good! | | But still very happy with how Kagi works ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-27 23:00 UTC)