Brave Acquires ‘Tailcat’ Search Engine to Gradually Shy Away From Google
Last updated June 28, 2021
- Brave is soon to introduce its very own search system, based on the Tailcat search engine.
- The browser wants to offer something truly privacy-conscious and practically competitive to Google.
- The new search system will support a paid ad-free or a free ad-supported experience.
Google is the world’s most successful internet search engine, but it’s not the best choice out there when it comes to user privacy. In fact, it’s maybe the worst, as Google is basically an ad company caring dearly to profile all users, dig into their interests, and serve them the “right things.”
Brave, being a privacy-focused project, isn’t happy with that aspect of its functionality, so they're planning to do something drastic about it. Today, they announced the acquisition of "Tailcat," an open search engine developed by a team of people behind "Cliqz," a privacy-oriented web browser.
Brave wants to introduce a new searching system called “Brave Search” soon, and Tailcat is going to serve as the basis of it. Tailcat will offer a pretty competitive index while respecting people’s privacy by not tracking anything about them.
So, there will be no IP address collection, no PII profiling, and nothing to improve search results or make them more relevant to the specific user. Still, Brave Search is expected to be able to deliver quality results.
Brave Search will be transparent in the sense that it won’t use secret algorithms and will be open for any other project or web browser to use. The feedback and contributions from the growing userbase of Brave will help in making Brave Search better and more refined, without having to spend billions of dollars to deploy a mind-boggling number of web crawlers that constantly search the internet for new entries.
Of course, advertising won’t be thrown out of the window entirely, but ad networks will just take the back seat. Brave Search will offer users the option to pick between an ad-free paid search experience or an ad-supported search. For the latter, users will get ads that still respect their privacy, just like the case goes with "Brave Ads."
Brave Search is not ready yet, obviously, but you can help get it on track by trying out the beta and providing your feedback. To do this, sign up for the wait-list on this webpage, and you will be among the first to try the new feature out. And finally, according to Brave, there’s one more feature coming soon on the platform, as they’re currently testing a privacy-preserving video-conferencing service.
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