Brave is very confident in its privacy-centric search engine -- so much so that it's giving Google the boot. As of today (October 19th), Brave will use the engine as its browser's default search tool, replacing Google in the US, UK and Canada. Your browser will keep its existing search engine settings, and you can always pick Google or another competitor if you're so inclined. The change in defaults is available across desktop releases as well as Android and iOS. Brave Search is effectively billed as the anti-Google engine.

Browser privacy is a big deal, as Google and other companies use your search data to serve you ads while you surf the web. While most users accept that tradeoff, others who believe strongly in maintaining their own data privacy. If you're one of these, Brave Software can help. On Wednesday the company said it's launching a search engine to compete with Google and Bing, with privacy as its first priority. Brave is buying Tailcat, an open search engine, and will add it to what it's calling Brave Search, a forthcoming search engine.