this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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“Brave Search users can now search for images and videos without being redirected to Google or Bing, though some advanced search capabilities are still absent.”

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[–] kostel_thecreed@lemmy.ca 59 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"Brave releases its own privacy-preserving crypto-included image and video search" there, fixed it.

[–] ChiefGhost295@lemmy.one 36 points 1 year ago

They need to make money somehow, and regardless, all the crypto stuff is actually turned off by default, so criticizing Brave for this makes little sense to me.

[–] Thorned_Rose@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think that's just with Brave browser, not Brave Search. At least, I can't find anything related to crypto in Brave Search settings that are there in Brave Browser (I'm using Firefox with Brave Search).

EDIT: With Brave Search (not using the browser), I'm more concerned that the results are still being curated and some results censored. Whereas using something like Kagi, I can see the results are exactly what I would expect to be served, uncensored and uncurated (i.e. how Google and all the rest used to be before they decided they knew better than us what we wanted to search for.)

[–] wagoner@infosec.pub 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Thorned_Rose@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

EDIT: I just realised my brain got confused between two conversations I was having at the same time. One was this one - the difference between Brave BROWSER and Brave SEARCH. And another one where I was talking about Duck Duck Go curating search results 🤦🏻‍♀️ Sorry for the confusion!


https://www.pcmag.com/news/duckduckgo-to-down-rank-sites-associated-with-russian-disinformation

Curation of results. Yes, you can argue it's for a good reason. My issue is that they curate results based on ideologies at all. If they intentionally downrank some results based on their own beliefs for one thing, how can we trust them not to do it with other things? They weren't exactly transparent about it either.

I just want a search engine that serves me results based on what I have searched for. I can use my own brain to curate out or downrank results I don't want. I'm not interested in a search engine that thinks it knows what's best for me.

[–] wagoner@infosec.pub 4 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate the risks but I like my search engine to have some standards rather than no filter at all

[–] Melpomene@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Thorned_Rose@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Sorry for confusion, I was having two different conversations going on at the same time and my brain was mixing them up a bit. I was referring to Duck Duck Go curating search results.

That said, Kagi does give me more relevant search results than Brave does. I know Brave Search says it doesn't censor, curate (downrank), etc. And yet, I still find controversial topics lower in the search results of Brave than I do with Kagi. (Not saying I'm siding with any controversial ideas, but rather I use controversial topics to test search engines for curation and censorship.)

Again, sorry for confusion!

[–] Melpomene@kbin.social 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In fairness to Brave, Google has been scaling back search features too, over time. Do you remember when it would allow you to search a date range? Melpomene Farms remembers.

[–] legion02@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just pulled it up to make sure I'm not dumb. The date range feature is still there. What am I missing?

[–] Thorned_Rose@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

It's possible they're currently doing AB testing and removing it for some folks and not others to see how much it's used or if they can get away with not having a date range.

[–] Melpomene@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There used to be a "custom" option that allowed you to specify a date range... unless something is up from my end or they locked that feature behind a login-wall?

[–] legion02@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I still have that option is what I'm saying.

[–] Melpomene@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What platform / browser, if you don't mind my asking? Are you logged in? Just trying to narrow down the behavior.

[–] legion02@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Logged in. Was using brave at the time but it doesn't seem to matter which browser I'm on.

[–] Riker_Maneuver@startrek.website 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What is the reason for removing search functionality? Is it really just to make it harder to find what people want and potentially be served more ads? Hopefully site:whateverbutprobablyreddit.com never goes on the chopping block.

[–] glacier@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago

People will search for something, won't see it below a bunch of ads, then go back and make a more specific search so they can be served more ads.

[–] Melpomene@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I've tried site and my results on images seemed... less than optimal, but I'll try again tonight.

I'm at a loss at to why. Isn't search supposed to be capable of... you know... searching?

[–] MediaActivist@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not interested in any company that welcomes Brendan Eich as CEO.

[–] gunnm@monero.town 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol you should learn a little about Lemmy developers.

[–] dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 1 year ago

I'm absolutely shocked that someone with an account on a crypto-themed instance is equivocating being a communist and egregious homophobia. Lmao.

[–] spiderman@ani.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I wonder who co-founded Mozilla...

[–] MediaActivist@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

My point exactly.

[–] sphere_au@reddthat.com 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Brave Search is now frequently beating DDG and Startpage for accuracy of search results. It's like using Google 10 years ago when it was actually good but without the ads, tracking and pestering to "log in". Good stuff.

[–] Fungah@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

DDG, Google, bing, starypage (which uses bing / Google I believe) are all god awful and getting worse by the day.

The only one worth a damn is kagi. And it costs money.

I talked at the idea of paying for a search engine at first but the peace of mind that comes with not being tracked by an out of control hunter seeker dumpster fire is worth it.

[–] Skimmer@lemmy.fmhy.net 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Kagi is easily the greatest search engine I've ever used, no exaggeration, the results are just consistently so good, I love all of its features too, like the tracker detection and details on results. I just wish it was cheaper, its really hard for me to justify paying $10 a month for a search engine. If it was cheaper, I'd buy it in a heart beat. Just been using Brave Search in combination with DDG for the time being. Brave Search's CAPTCHAs just drive me nuts, been running into them a lot lately for some reason, that's my biggest problem with it, especially how they require WASM to be enabled every time which is a security risk too.

[–] HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Brave has been great. There have been barely any times where I had to switch to Google because I didn't find something, whereas this happened with DDG quite regularly. DDG has one upside with the bang operators making searching something very easy via other search engines

[–] thecam@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I find the image search accuray not that good but in time I know it will beat DDG and Startpage/Google

[–] jacktherippah@lemdro.id 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Say what you want about Brave as a company, their browser and search engine products are pretty damn good.

[–] LambLeeg@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, usually that happens when Americans come it. They freaking love to add politics to anything. Since they are mostly leftist, they bash anything they don't like out of the sake of doing so. Brave is great, I have been using its search engine from the beginning and the browser when Blink engine is enforced, and I cannot use Firefox.

[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 9 points 1 year ago

US politics is considered quite conservative, actually. The Democratic Party certainly isn't "leftist" by anything other than warped American standards.

[–] NightOwl@lemmy.one 6 points 1 year ago

First time hearing America described as mostly leftists.

[–] nodsocket@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] HughJanus@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

"and" nothing? That's it.

[–] privacyfalcon9899@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

I think this is one of the most relevant news as also other users point out in the comments. I was using ddg just because brave search did not support image and video search.

[–] Mohamad20ZX@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey aren't these features removed from the beta than they added them back

[–] privacyfalcon9899@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

No, it was proxying from bing at first place. Then they removed it.

[–] Im28xwa@lemdro.id 1 points 1 year ago

And I was wondering where did the previous image and video search functionality go! Anyway good news nonetheless