Brave search engine exits beta, rolls out Goggles to give users more control over search results

Privacy-focused Brave search engine that was launched last year has exited beta phase after recording 2.5 billion queries in one year, said Brave Software Inc in a blog post. Brave expects the search queries to double in the next one year. The company also owns the Brave browser.

Brave Inc also released a new feature called Goggles that will allow its search engine users to customise which web pages will show higher in search results.

Like all search engines, Brave also uses a search Index to rank webpages in search results. However, Brave has maintained that it doesn't manipulate its algorithm to filter or down-rank results unless it’s asked to do so by law, unlike the likes of Google and Microsoft Bing. 

Having said that, Brave also acknowledges that all search engines have some level of intrinsic bias.

Goggles will allow users to overcome these biases by creating sets of rules and filters that will alter the order in which search results show. 

Josep M Pujol, chief of Search at Brave, believes Goggles will alter the way search has traditionally been done and will put "users in charge" at last.

"The world is too diverse for a single ranking, so Goggles opens search ranking and filtering transparently for everyone to use, share, and improve," Pujol added. 

Goggles is available in beta for now and can be accessed by starting a search at search.brave.com and clicking on the Goggles tab on the results page.

Brave indicates this will provide a level playing field to bloggers and small publishers. 

Further, Brave claims that other search engines like Google took more than a year to reach 2.5 billion queries, while other privacy focused search engines like DuckDuckGo took more than 4 years.

"The Web is changing, and our incredible growth shows that there is demand for a new player that puts users first,” said Pujol.