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Add to SafariWhen comparing Brave vs Google Search, the Slant community recommends Google Search for most people. In the question“What are the best internet search engines?” Google Search is ranked 6th while Brave is ranked 21st. The most important reason people chose Google Search is:
Google makes it easy to quickly get your search results.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Free/libre software
Released to the community under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), this software respect the FSF's four freedoms, including the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute with or without modification freely.
Pro Option to disable additional privacy concerns
Like fingerprint tracking.
Pro Takes care of privacy and security
Takes privacy seriously by blocking ads and trackers and not tracking people's searches. Things like HTTPS everywhere and no tracking are standard with Brave. In most other browsers, things like these are optional at best.
Pro Built-in adblocking
Other apps make it difficult to block ads without rooting your phone or going through unoptimized add-on stores, but Link Bubble blocks them out of the box, making browsing much less crowded. Contains an optional "Allow Brave Acceptable Ads" So you can support the site you truly enjoy.
Pro Optional feature for you to get reimbursed for viewing ads
Basic Attention Token; you can decide to opt into a new blockchain-based digital advertising system, giving publishers a better deal and users a share of the ad revenue for their attention.
Pro Now supports Chrome Webstore
It's now a faster, less intrusive Chrome.
Pro Tor is available right in the browser
Private Window with Tor hides your IP address from the sites you visit.
Pro Faster than Google Chrome
Brave consistently beats Chrome in speed, might have to do with less tracking being run in the background.
Pro Very fast
The fastest browser out there.
Pro Sync is now available
Option to synchronize data between devices using peer-to-peer connections. No sign-in required, only a sync code.
Pro Option to pay supported sites based on view time percentage
Set up automatic micro-donations. Brave will automatically divide a monthly donation among the top sites you visit.
And/or, you can decide which sites get what percentage of your donation. It’s called pinning.
Pro Supports the latest technologies
Brave regularly adds new functionalities like decentralized domain support and a native crypto wallet long before Chrome considers them. These features to be disabled in settings.
Pro Developed by creator of Mozilla and Javascript
Pro Cross-platform Web Browser
Brave is available on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS
Pro Easy to use
Google makes it easy to quickly get your search results.
Pro Most relevant results
Pro Fast
Pro Still many times comes up with the best results
Pro Most widely used
google.com is the most widely used search engine.
Pro Best UI
Pro Many features
Pro SEO Friendly
Pro Can customize privacy
Has a site called privacy.google.com that you can use to make it more private
Pro Wikipedia at the top
Cons
Con Brave is an Ad company
Brave Software is a for-profit company (though users must opt into Brave ads and Brave doesn't track users.)
Con Download package is very large considering it as a browser
Brave takes on a lot of roles besides just browsing so it is understandably a larger file.
Con Useless built-in 'ad blocker'
Its adblocker is useless to be honest. Since the extension uBlock Origin is a great blocker by itself, the Brave ad blocker does not block every ad!
Con Quite intrusive advertisements, especially on Windows
Advertisements keep popping up in the Windows notification center. Must opt in to ad system, but no option to disable sound for ad notifications only.
Con Still dependent on Google
Since it's based on Chrome.
Con Uses much RAM
1 tab, 400+ RAM, also it depends on what website you're on.
Con Same security-holes as Chrome
On the desktop: Brave uses the same browser engine as Chrome, meaning it has the same security-holes as Chrome. Chrome is a big target for hackers (being the most popular browser in the world), and a webpage that will hack Chrome may also hack Brave.
However, Brave has security features that Chrome doesn't (such as a built-in adblocker). Those features will stop many hacking attempts.
Con Doesn't remove search engine ads
Con No reader view
Can be accessed with an extension though.
Con Dumbed down in the latest versions
In previous versions, Brave felt more like Firefox. Now it's been dumbed down, it feels more like Chrome/Chromium. For example: There's no menu-bar.
Con The iPhone version has some odd behavior
On reopening Brave, it often returns you to the "search results" page, rather than the webpage you had previously browsed to from the search results page. Might just be a specific configuration.
Con Cache dump
Doesn't clear cache well, shows same page even after emptying it until you ctrl+F5 to get fresh page every time you visit the page(s).
Con A browser for NFT-ers(?)
There would be less of a problem with using Web3 solutions if they weren't sometimes looking like an art for art's sake, a jerkcircle shoving down it's own topic down the users' throat. Replacing the Web 2.0 with another commercial solution is bound to end up as a reinvention of the wheel, where even more commercialization and direct monetization will push digital exclusion. Non-profit open source community has achieved great things while so far NFTs and cryptos are, not without a reason, ridiculed.
Con Sync issues
Unable to sync extensions, no cloud sync (only device sync).
Con Appearance
No options to customize apperance, and make the bookmarks appear on the home page, for instance.
Con Creator support limited
Most creators don't use it and so will not profit from the crypto system.
Con Poor Customer Support
Only customer support available in Brave community. Mods usually does not help.
Con Promotes search engines that track users such as Bing and Google
Google Search is the first search engine on the list.
Con Bookmark management
Bookmark management is not as seamless as other browsers.
Con No cloud sync like Firefox
Con Power hungry, uses much more battery power than other browsers
Per default Brave enables hardware acceleration which results in a much higher energy (battery) consumption than the most other web browsers.
Con Hypocritical/deceptive stance on privacy and advertisement
Brave is advertised as a browser that respects your privacy and blocks ads while still supporting content creators. However, at the same time the company is making deals with Facebook, Twitter and others to whitelist their trackers and ads
Con Bookmark button located on the left side of the URL bar and can't be moved
Con Potentially invasive of your privacy
Google records your searches. Use incognito mode.
Con Censors search results
Search "Was 9/11 an inside job" and compare the results to Bing's.
Con Google is becoming Big Brother
Google search, chrome, Gmail, analytics, streetview, android, YouTube.
Con Google promotes AMP websites
Google favours web pages that use AMP web technology, a technology that claims to lighten the load of web pages, but in reality in many cases slows down and is difficult to implement. And the worst thing is that it makes Google host and display the web page in AMP format from its servers.
Con Filters by who paid Google more
Ads always shown above organic results.
