I’ve been using Brave Search supplemented by Startpage for the past 2+ years. When I search for something, I want to get results for credible webpages, not a summary of unknown quality. I liked the previous AI inclusion because it was instant, didn’t take up much space, and I could quickly navigate to the websites referenced in it, but with the new feature it takes up more space, is slower, and not really what I want out of a search engine.

As soon as the feature was rolled out I disabled it in settings, but the AI button stays visible, I get autocomplete specifically for Answer with AI and I get frequent notifications to try out the new AI feature. An opt-out toggle should not mean that I still am pestered to use the feature I opted out of.

This is really annoying, and I’m probably going to end up switching to Startpage or SearXNG or something.

Some images (opted out of AI features):

    • tourist@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      If you want a privacy-focused web browser, use Firefox or Vivaldi.

      I thought Vivaldi was also shady? Did I maybe confuse it with Opera?

      • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Probably.

        Opera is shady. Vivaldi is developed by the people who used to develop Opera, back when it was its own thing and before it sold out to Chinese investors.

          • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            I dunno. Everything I’ve seen and heard seems perfectly legit.

            But it’s yet another chromium fork, and I don’t use it.

            I did for a while, as it has some very nice features, but it would consistently open without resuming my session. It would work for months and then just out of nowhere it would open up as if it was just installed. Everything gone. Utterly unacceptable.

    • best_username_ever@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      I tried it a long time ago and found out that they were injecting links to their shitcoins inside the web pages. Like, additional links in some web sites.

      I’m still dumbfounded that there was not more protests about it because it should never happen.

        • Mojeek Search Engine@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          4 months ago

          sorry for taking a while to get back, raising this one on our feedback board; if you have any others there is a submit feedback button on the results pages you can use to just send it our way, not post it on a forum 🙏