Brave is launching its own search engine with the help of ex-Cliqz devs and tech
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
It was actually very impressive in terms of semantic understanding, but the index was pretty awful. I either got exactly what I was looking for, or no hits at all. I can imagine that they'd get massive value by focusing on more information-rich natural language sources and de-prioritising images or structured/knowledge queries for the time being. Some good partnerships to provide instant answers a-la Duckduckgo's goodies would be excellent.
I also can't express how much better the Brave brand will be for them - even 'Tailcat' is a much better name. Cliqz sounds too much like an off-brand, gutter ad seller to ever have credibility, and I say that as someone who was fairly impressed with their tech.
I am worried that they're currently pitching this as a general purpose search engine at the moment when it will be a while before it can even pretend to compete with Google. I would advise for them to find a niche where they can whip Google into next week, and then expand on scope from there.
That's because they were. The parent company was in adtech and they even had another subsidiary that was hawking browser toolbars.
Frankly though, the Brave brand has no better reputation with me however, so it still means seeing whatever promise the tech might've had consigned to the same headspace as the rest of the scamweb.
Ahh yes, the lowest circle of adtech hell. I didn't know that kind of annoyware was even still a thing.
Can I ask why? I've been de-googling my life and recently switched from Chrome to Brave.
- trusted product reviews - left biased media/right biased media - my cooking sites.
This is something we've been doing for a while in Insight (YC W19) (https://insightbrowser.com/) and our users really like creating and sharing them. They work on top of Google, DDG or whatever your search engine is. We suggest useful filters as well.
It's cool to see that idea proliferate — it could be a part of every search/browsing experience soon. All modern search engines try and guess intent that that's an increasingly difficult guess to get right.
Also, I probably should have quit developing this years ago, I know, but it is an obsession. :)
https://www.gigablast.com/search?c=main&qlangcountry=en-us&q... https://www.gigablast.com/search?c=main&qlangcountry=en-us&q... https://www.gigablast.com/search?c=main&qlangcountry=en-us&q...
My only feedback is that it would be good if the source of the instant answer was displayed and linked to so that I could go to the underlying webpage source directly.
I would much rather have a more detailed index for a specific topic than a generalized index covering everything. Looking forward to trying this out more.
Interestingly, it works even better than DDG on a recent query of mine: "carving a violin bridge".
Your search engine found the exact article (from triangle strings) I was looking for. DDG seems to have not indexed the page at all.
Ye gods. It's actually a useful search engine. So useful I'm going to try it as a default for a while.
And it is a lone horse effort? My hat off to you sir.
Uses Google index for organic search, but respects quotes unlike Google, Bing, or DDG. I'm the creator.
Gigablast also mentioned here is very cool as well.
The search space absolutely needs more participants which will only help the experience for all internet users worldwide. This is very exciting for the search space.
I’m also involved in this space so I wanted to let the Brave team know - if you’re interested in collaborating in any way with Private Search [1] I would love to chat.
What exactly is legendary about Eich?
Brave is a new browser and will continue to improve. Take a step back and look at history - when has there ever been something awesome that simply was always awesome without bumps along the way?
Finally, while some of Mozilla's more recent decisions have been brought to light on HN, during Brendan Eich's tenure, I assure you we all loved it.
I salute the little guy taking on the big guy. Now, that's Brave.
It made popular language design even worse. It also can't be implemented efficiently or quickly, and on its own more than likely contributes to a sizeable portion of world carbon emissions.
> but he pioneered this movement.
What movement? The "worse languages than R6RS" movement? That's been going on for a long time; he didn't start it, he'll be long-gone before it's finished.
> This deserves respect.
There are plenty of people who have made programming languages. Few people have created as bad a language as Javascript. It deserves no respect.
> when has there ever been something awesome that simply was always awesome without bumps along the way?
CHIP-8. Plan 9. Inferno. Anything that Chuck Moore touched for the first forty years of his career. Gopher, up until the organization that owned Gopher decided to make it proprietary. Most of the things Alan Kay has released. VAX.
> during Brendan Eich's tenure, I assure you we all loved it.
You're speaking collectively but your perspective is flawed and easy to prove as wrong. I didn't, for example. Nor did anyone who actually cared about freedom: Mozilla allowing DRM into Web standards permanently was incredibly close if not during Eich's tenure, and Mozilla had already been doing most of everything wrong before that.
> I salute the little guy taking on the big guy.
The little guy is Ekioh. Not someone repackaging Chromium with a few half-working extensions and a new UI.
Regardless of everything you're saying here, you still use Firefox, so I know you respect Brendan.
We're probably not going to get anywhere arguing about the importance of a programming language, etc., but thank you for this conversation and sharing your thoughts, as it did open up my eyes to differing opinions.
Cheers!
I really don't. Eich didn't make Firefox. I have respect for the three people who did make Firefox, but none for Eich. Eich hasn't done anything to earn respect.
V8 JIT is pretty efficient. It's not perfect, but Eich designed JS with JITs in mind.
Paper on the search engine: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-B3ZvHpbnxsT2OdnUH8vS3-tvTv...
- trusted product reviews - left biased media/right biased media - my cooking sites.
This is something we've been doing for a while in Insight (YC W19) (https://insightbrowser.com/) and our users really like creating and sharing them. They work on top of Google, DDG or whatever your search engine is. We suggest useful filters as well.
It's cool to see that idea proliferate — it could be a part of every search/browsing experience soon. All modern search engines try and guess intent that that's an increasingly difficult guess to get right.
So, as a "privacy focused" browser, what's your revenue model?
But Brave + Cliqz is good?
I thought the whole argument was a browser shouldn't be owned by the same company that runs a search engine, or for-profit organization
Not sure why these pages aren't removed from the result lists?
- Inserting affiliate links[1]
- They tried blocking ads, but then injecting their own[2]
- Taking tips for people without consent[3]
- Including Tor, but Leaking DNS[4] which is now fixed but a false sense of security is a dangerous thing
Not to say I don't have some respect for what they are doing, and for Brendan Eich's work, but I wouldn't say 100% blindly trust Brave either. It's had a sort of complex relationship with many people.
- [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-aff...
- [2] https://www.wired.com/2016/04/brave-software-publishers-resp...
- [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999
- [4] https://www.coindesk.com/brave-browser-leak-exposed-user-dom...
#2, for example, is just false. Brave doesn't block ads and then inject their own; they block 3rd-party ads, and have an opt-in ad network. Doesn't replace or inject anything.
#1 gets brought up a lot on HN it seems, but sounds like it was an oversight and was fixed quickly. Same with #4. Every product has its issues, and as long as they're fixed quickly, it's understandable in my opinion.
If #2 is patently false, then apologies for spreading it further.
> as long as they're fixed quickly, it's understandable in my opinion
That's generally true, and I did mention the Tor thing had been fixed, but at the same time - it is very relevant to the trust question because for example people might well have visited sites that are illegal to do so within their countries under the premise of anonymous browsing via Brave, only to have their trust broken. I guess that's the risk you take if you do things like that, but it has an impact on trust of Brave.
Personally I'm more interesting in Coil and to some extent Scroll in terms of replacing ads with micropayments, than Brave's BAT - but I'm glad they are at least trying to do something that could act as an alternative to ad funding.
Micropayments have failed, digital subscription conversion is a lowly 1-3% even at publishers like NYT and WSJ, ad markets are owned by Google and Facebook...
The Atlantic took off like a rocket with this approach. Why don't other publishers follow suit and reduce their reliance on digital advertising? Why even consider micropayments then?
I'm not sure yet whether we can say that micropayments have failed because there is still a lot of innovation in the space, and I think it is only beginning to see any seriously mature offerings. The interledger protocol, used by Coil, being one of the tools that might actually be workable and international.
Segmented subscription products might well be a better avenue, but I think we have not seen the end of innovation here and I think micropayments are preferable to things like the Australia Facebook(and others) solution.
Right now it is. It was not at some point.