I heard a lot of bad stuff about Brave and their CEO lately and am now unsure if the search engine is any good? Do they censor stuff? Is any data collected? Can it be considered private?

If you’d not recommend it, what are good alternatives and why? I was a long time duckduckgo user before, so anything similar to it or brave search would be great. I’m not into self hosting.

  • glacier@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    1·
    1 year ago

    trustworthy

    They are recommended on privacy guides: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/search-engines/#brave-search I generally trust privacy guides, although I don't use Brave Search.

    CEO

    Their CEO is anti-vax and homophobic. Brave Browser (not search) has had some controversy around including crypto, replacing ads with their own, and having had inserted affiliate links into the URL bar in the past.

    censor stuff

    Hard to say, the job of a search engine is to show you what you want to find.

    data collection

    There is telemetry that can be turned off.

    • ReversedCookie@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      replacing ads with their own,

      Wrong. It was planned, but as they got very negative feedback on that, they throw this idea away.

      has had some controversy around including crypto

      It's optional, and crypto has it's good and bad sites in terms of privacy.

      data collection

      I want to add, as far I know they collect just basic anonymous telemetry, so nothing to worry about and you can turn it off (Which I still recommend, if you care much about privacy)