It's a Brave new world – Brave's tracking-free search engine is now live

By Oliver Haslam
published

Brave Imore Search Screenshot
Brave Imore Search Screenshot (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Brave's new privacy-first search engine is available in beta.
  • The search engine is available at search.brave.com.

Brace's privacy-first and tracker-free search engine is now available in public beta, meaning anyone can take it for a spin right now. You don't need to be using the Brave web browser either – just point your app of choice to search.brave.com and be on your way.

As shared by Brave, the new search engine is based on an independent index of the web which means you won't be seeing the same results as you might on Google or Bing – this is all-new. It's also a step in the right direction for the ultimate goal of complete iPhone privacy.

Starting today, online users have a new independent option for search which gives them unmatched privacy. Whether they are already Brave browser users, looking to expand their online privacy protection with the all-in-one, integrated Brave Search in the Brave browser, or users of other browsers looking for the best-in-breed privacy-preserving search engine, they can all use the newly released Brave Search beta that puts users first, and fully in control of their online experience. Brave Search is built on top of a completely independent index, and doesn't track users, their searches, or their clicks.

The new search engine has been tested by more than 100,000 early beta testers and feedback appears to have been positive. My early testing has iMore search results working as expected and a quick vanity search returns my various online profiles and places of work, so that's good. The knowledge that none of that search data is going to be used against me helps as well.

Brave's web browser is already one of the best iPhone apps in terms of browsing the web on the go and now we have a new search engine that'll back our privacy, too. Throw Brave's VPN service and the outfit has pretty much every corner of your internet life covered – all without tracking you across it, too.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.