Google Competitor Brave Search Officially Launches In Global Beta

Independent Google rival Brave Search is finally in global beta after being in the testing phase for several months.

Brave Software Inc. announced on June 22 that it launched the Brave Search in global beta. It is expected to rival Google Search, which is currently reigning in the market, reported TechCrunch.

The company also unveiled its plan to make Brave Search its default search engine in its browser later in 2021. The brand is building an independent web index that veers away from the search engine norm. Currently, search engines simply repackage search results from Google and Bing.

Since Brave is still in its early stage and may produce results that are not yet good enough, it will still be dependent on Bing in some areas such as images. People may also consider merging the results gathered from Google with Brave-gathered data by enabling the search engine blending feature, CNET said in a report.

According to the company, the search engine has been tested by more than 100,000 "early access users."

Brave's subscribers have grown from 25 million to 32 million since March. The subscription count includes Brave News and its Firewall VPN service. The company currently offers Brave Ads as well. The program is intended for businesses targeting users that prefer privacy, among other features.

In March, Brave shared that it would launch its search engine. The announcement came after the company acquired Cliqz, a browser with anti-tracking features and a built-in search engine.

The company promised that Brave Search would not rely on IP addresses and personal information to come up with better search results. Moreover, the new search engine would allow users to remain anonymous when browsing.

During a time when privacy has become a top priority for companies, Brave has taken a step to ensure that customers' privacy is valued—just like what big firms like Apple have done.

Apple has been open to the public in its move to make sure iPhone, iPad and mac users' data are not compromised. In fact, the tech giant recently tweaked its regular application prompt, giving the users options to prevent the installed apps from tracking their online behavior.