Brave, the major privacy-focused web browser, has acquired open search engine Tailcat to introduce its own alternative to Google Search later this year.
It has been reported that Brave announced that the company has acquired Tailcat, which is developed by a group formerly working on privacy search and browser products at Cliqz.
However, operating under the majority holding of Hubert Burda Media, Cliqz terminated its efforts on browser and search tech in May 2020.
The report said that Tailcat will serve as a foundation for the upcoming Brave Search, an inbuilt search engine designed to enable private and transparent web surfing.
Major privacy-oriented browser @brave is inching closer to introduce its own search engine with a new acquisition. https://t.co/mwO3TB7VKE — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) March 3, 2021
Brendan Eich, the CEO and co-founder of Brave, said that the firm expects to introduce Brave Search by summer 2021.
He added:
“Brave is now working on integrating this technology and making it available to all as Brave Search, first via early access for testers, and then for general availability by this summer.”
Currently, Brave browser relies on major external search engines, offering users the choice between popular search engines like privacy-mindful DuckDuckGo and Startpage, as well as mainstream tools like Google Search.
Brave stated:
“Nearly all of today’s search engines are either built by, or rely on, results from Big Tech companies.”
Likewise, Tailcat is built on top of a completely independent index and does not collect IP addresses or personal data to improve search results.
Thus, Eich stated that Tailcat developers have been working on privacy-preserving search “the last seven years, while at Cliqz, and then on the Tailcat project after the Cliqz closure.”
Source: Cointelegraph