Brave’s privacy-focused search engine can now find images and videos

Brave’s search engine no longer requires that you jump to Bing or Google just to find photos or videos. The company has introduced image and video queries to Brave Search, helping you find media while maintaining the same levels of privacy and freedom of access. You won’t have to worry about being profiled through your picture hunts, or risk missing politically sensitive content (if unintentionally) pulled from another engine’s index.

You’ll still have the option of continuing searches through competitors, at least for a while. Brave notes that some search features, such as filtering by aspect ratio or license, aren’t ready yet. The choice helps you get the results you’re looking for, so long as you don’t mind using a major engine. It’s more important to have a “clear alternative” than absolute feature equality, Brave argues.

Anyone can use Brave’s search engine in the web, although it’s set as the default in the company’s browser. The firm hopes to expand its reach by asking users to contribute to an anoynmous Web Discovrey Project.

The relative newcomer launched its homegrown search in 2021, but has stood out from similarly privacy-oriented challengers like DuckDuckGo by trying to avoid the use of third-party indexes. Brave stopped using Bing’s search index in May. That cut seven percent of results, but also gave Brave more control over its results.

This won’t necessarily lead to a surge in market share. Brave doesn’t even register in StatCtounter’s browser market share statistics — it’s not in a position to upset heavyweights like Chrome, Edge and Safari. However, this does eliminate a major objection if you’re an enthusiast determined to minimize data collection at much as possible.