[solso]

Mixing with Google results only can happen after opt-in and only in Brave browser. You can see if a single query has been mixed clicking on the `Info`, or check the independence metrics on the `Settings` tab.

The fact that you see results similar to Google for popular queries is a by-product of the fact that our ranking is trained using anonymous query-log. There is plenty of references to the methodology (https://0x65.dev/).

The fact that we are similar to Google on certain types of queries, is good (at from the perspective of human assessment). It's easy to find other types of queries for which we are not similar to Google. It would be rather stupid if we were to "use google" on easy to solve queries but not on the complicated ones, don’t you think? In any case, very nice article besides a couple of miss-conceptions (like this one), will bookmark.

Disclaimer: work at Brave search, used to work at Cliqz

[Seirdy]

That makes a bit more sense; I just read the blog posts. I'm concerned about the effects of optimizing against Google (namely, the extremely similar results); I don't think I understand the point of an alternative if it tries to replicate a competitor to this degree. The whole idea I was going for in that article was a diversity of information sources: if one engine isn't giving the results you want, try another.

Right now, users who want Google results and privacy can use a Searx instance or Startpage.

I updated the article to fix the inaccuracy. Diff: https://git.sr.ht/~seirdy/seirdy.one/commit/ddeeb36248ce5318...

Any other fact-checks are welcome.

[solso]

You bring a very good point on the diversity of information sources, which is something we plan to attack in the near future with open ranking [0]

In my opinion having similar results to Google will facilitate adoption. After all, Google is pretty good for many types of queries (not all), and people in general have strong habits.

The fact that we are similar with our own index is great. It means that we have the power of deviating from it when needed, as we mature/evolve.

Allow me to repurposed your statement on why not use startpage if you want Google-like results: if tomorrow Google disappears (or for some reason becomes unusable), brave search will continue to operate as normal (similar to old Google). What will happen to searx or startpage? What till happen to ddg or swisscows if the provider turning bad is Microsoft. IMHO, no matter how much reranking or nice features they you put on top, unless you do not control the search results themselves, diversity can only be superficial.

Sorry for the "rant". Thanks a lot for the inputs and for updating the doc, appreciate it.

[0] https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/goggles.pdf