An HTTP cookie (also called web cookie, Internet cookie, browser cookie, or simply cookie) is a small piece of data stored on a user’s computer by the web browser while browsing a website. Cookies perform essential functions in the modern web. For example, authentication cookies are the most common method web servers use to know whether a user is logged in, and which account they’re logged in with [1]. Unfortunately, cookies can also be used to track users. This is why it’s so important that cookies not be unique to a user (if they don’t have to be).
Brave Search only uses anonymous cookies. If you change settings in Brave Search, a cookie
will be set to remember this preference, and the value this cookie takes is linked to the
setting on the page. For example, if you see Imperial units of measurement (pounds, feet,
fahrenheit), but would prefer metric (kilograms, meters, celsius), then a cookie called
units will be set with the value metric. With Brave Search, every user will have the
same cookie names and set of cookie values. They cannot be used to identify anyone.
Here’s a list of the cookies we use on Brave Search:
- safesearch: Used to enforce a particular choice over whether—and how—adult
content is shown in search results. It can take one of three possible values:
off: adult results are shown normallymoderate: adult results are shown, but multimedia is notstrict: adult results are removed
- country: By default, we set your country as
us. If changed, a cookie with the new country code will be set. - units: These are the units of measurement for the search results
(e.g. temperature or distances). They can take the following values:
us: Imperial (pounds, feet, fahrenheit)metric: Metric (kilograms, meters, celsius)
- useLocation: If you opt out of local results, this cookie will be set with value
0. - olnt: Open links in new tab. By default it’s switched off and no cookie is set. If switched on, a cookie with value
1will be set. - geoloc: If you decide to manually set the location for results, this cookie will be set with the coordinates of the chosen location. Both latitude and longitude will be truncated to 3 decimal places.
- theme: The color scheme of Brave Search. If not set the system preference is used.
- fallback: If you use Brave Search from the Brave browser, for any query where
we may not return enough results, you can allow the Brave Browser to anonymously
check Google for the same query. The fallback mixer will present the results together
for you, and send the query result back to Brave Search so we can improve responses
next time. If you opt in, this cookie will be set with value
1. Learn more about Google fallback mixing.
Brave Search is designed to be private by default. We don’t collect personal information about you, your device, or your searches. We also don’t transmit information to the web that could be used to profile you, track you, or learn anything about you. Your searches are entirely private to you. Learn more.