Brave Search is NOT good

Brave Search
1

Hi guys,
A Firefox user for many, many years, I switched over to Brave probably around 2 - 3 years ago.

I like many features of the browser. But there is one huge glaring problem…the search engine. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s lame, as in it does not return relevant results for many of my searches. Instead, its search engine behavior is similar to the other mainstream browsers, like too similar. I’m talking about Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Bing, etc. I have experimented with many other browsers’ search function as well, all in an effort to find one that actually goes out and gets relevant information on the thing I’m searching for. Brave essentially does the same thing all these other browsers do with search, which is to, most of the time, return irrelevant search results, having little or even nothing to do with the topic I entered into the search field. For that reason, I have all but abandoned Brave search in favor or Yandex. This should not be. Brave has an awesome feature set, looks great, and is intuitive. But until the devs fix the search function, so it actually does the thing I want it to do: y’know, go out and retrieve the thing(s) I’m searching for, I will refrain from using it. And if this trend toward sub par search results continues, it’s a safe bet that I’ll be switching to Yandex (or another equally sufficient search engine) not just for my search engine needs, but for all my browser needs in the future.

Brave is cutting edge in everything else. But at the end of the day what I really want is a search engine that doesn’t filter my searches, returning a bunch of generic drivel having little or nothing to do with what I searched for. Brave devs please fix this.

Thank you!

Mac Ventura 13.4
Version 1.52.117 Chromium: 114.0.5735.90 (Official Build) (arm64)

2

  1. You don’t have to use Brave Search, you can use Google or Bing if you want.

  2. If you want to help to make it better you can turn Web Discovery Project on, and then with your history and searches even in other Search Engine, you will help indexing and fixing Brave Search, complaining is not the way you will fix it. brave://settings/search

  3. You don’t need to marry to a Search Engine, if you find the information easier in another one, you have to do it, with WDP, you will still help Brave Search, without using Brave Search, so the more WDP users the better. The Search will not get better by itself. WDP only works in normal windows, that’s all you need to do when you use Brave.

  4. Brave is currently only two years old, just look at other Search Engines with their unique indexer, for example Gigablast; Brave actually makes a better job, but since they removed Bing API from Brave, seems like some searches are not as good as before in many cases, but in some cases they are better than Bing, even with all their years and users using it (including DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Ecosia, Swisscows and others that use Bing API)

  5. Yandex is the only good non-Google or Bing alternative, it is a known fact, they don’t censor as much as others do, and Brave always have based their searches in either Google with the mix results or Bing API which they stopped paying weeks ago, but getting rid of Bing was a good decision for the future, but sometimes going the ‘private alternatives’ has a price, which has been shown in so many ways like the translation service, the Brave Chat AI and Brave Search.

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3

Emi,
Thank you for your very detailed response. I super appreciate it. I really do.

But you are wrong…in one point. My complaint did indeed yield a helpful result. Legitimate constructive criticism does help. And your response to my criticism is the proof, as you put a spotlight on my ignorance of the situation.

It should be obvious that if you’re a part of a community, there are going to be criticisms. Some will be legitimate. Some won’t. But it’s the legitimate ones that help us improve what we do. I’ll point out that not everything I said in my post was critical. If we we are doing something well, then we should be lauded for it. But if something needs to be fixed, it should be addressed. As the Brave community guidelines state: “Constructive criticism is welcome, but criticize ideas, not people.”

To that end, I again thank you for your helpful response. I will, indeed, employ the Brave Web Discovery Project in my Brave browser, as I would like to be a part of the solution to this problem, not just someone who bitches about everything lol.

I wish you well.

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