← Search Engines
B

Brave Search

Some concerns
Brave Software · 🇺🇸 United States
PolicyApp PermissionsNetwork TrafficFirmwareRegulatory
Technical details
Manufacturer: Brave Software

The bottom line

Brave Search genuinely doesn't track you and runs its own index. But it's made by the company caught injecting affiliate links and running its own ad network. You can opt into sharing searches to build Brave's index. It's anonymous and open source, but you're still sending queries somewhere.

Legal jurisdiction
🇺🇸 United States (headquarters)
⚠CLOUD Act read more →
US govt can demand your data from this company even if stored overseas
⚠FISA §702 / PRISM read more →
NSA collects stored emails, photos, messages without individual warrants
●Geofence warrants read more →
Police can demand location data for everyone near a crime scene
Spying
2/4 MODERATE
Is someone spying on me?
Data Sharing
1/4 LOW
Who gets my data?
Security
1/4 LOW
Is it actually secure?
Honesty
1/4 LOW
Can I trust what they say?
ACCEPTABLE Moderate concerns. Standard privacy hygiene applies.
3Contradictions
0Critical
0High
2Medium
2Sources
Findings by concern
Spying 2/4 MODERATE 2 findings
⚫ mediumfirmware analysis vs policy claims
You can opt into sharing searches to build Brave's index. It's anonymous and open source, but you're still sending queries somewhere.

What they claim: Web Discovery Project is fully anonymous.

What we found: Opt-out by default. Contributes queries, URLs, time on pages. Code open-sourced. Data deleted after 1 year. But sharing queries to any company requires trust.

✔️ lowpolicy claims vs firmware analysis
Brave runs its own index without ad manipulation. For obscure queries it falls back to Google or Bing, but it's genuinely more independent than DuckDuckGo.

What they claim: Brave Search provides unbiased results.

What we found: No ad-based ranking. Independent index. But smaller, some queries fall back to Google/Bing. Brave Ads exist but separate from organic results.

Security 1/4 LOW 1 finding
⚫ mediumpolicy claims vs regulatory findings
Brave Search genuinely doesn't track you and runs its own index. But it's made by the company caught injecting affiliate links and running its own ad network.

What they claim: Brave Search is fully private and independent.

What we found: Independent index (genuine). No tracking. SOC 2 Type II. But: US jurisdiction. Parent company: affiliate link injection (2020), Brave Ads. Trust issues carry over.

Sources