Brave said the change would take effect in the U.S., UK, Germany, France, and Canada. Support for more regions is reportedly coming soon. It’s worth pointing out that Brave Search is replacing Qwant in France and DuckDuckGo in Germany. This is a significant boost for Brave’s search engine, which launched in beta earlier this year. “As we know from experience in many browsers, the default setting is crucial for adoption, and Brave Search has reached the quality and critical mass needed to become our default search option, and to offer our users a seamless privacy-by-default online experience,” Brave CEO and co-founder, Brendan Eich said.
Brave Browser has close to 40 million monthly active users, the company said
Eich went on to say (via) that Brave now manages close to 80 million queries per month. However, it’s still not close to competing with the likes of Chrome, Opera, Safari, and so on, according to StatCounter. Despite the odds seemingly against Brave, the company said it has around 40 million monthly active users. Brave Browser came into prominence for its no-nonsense approach towards privacy. It blocks trackers and third-party ads automatically, making it a viable alternative to most mainstream browsers. Meanwhile, Brave Search is built on the company’s own online index. However, the company acknowledged that it would bring up results from other providers when it doesn’t have enough of its own. Brave further said it would implement an opt-in system, allowing users to contribute data to improve search results. The company also claims that its Web Discovery Project gathers browsing and search data without compromising individual users. This means that none of the user’s data is accessible to the authorities or advertisers. In its current implementation, Brave Search is free to use and doesn’t contain ads. The company will soon launch an ad-free premium version in the future accompanied by a free ad-supported experience. Google’s search engine dominance has been curbed to a certain extent, notably after being fined $5 billion by EU regulators. The company now has to provide search engine choices across Europe.
