From Brave’s news announcement:
Every Web search result seen in Brave Search is now served by our own index. We’ve removed all search API calls to Bing, which previously represented about 7% of query results.
I previously raised some questions about a particular aspect of Brave’s claims to independence from Bing. However, I noted that Brave does return different results than Google and Bing, buttressing its claims to independence. While I like Mojeek, another independent search project, Brave is the closest independent search engine to being a stand-in replacement for Google, Bing, and the universe of Bing derivatives (e.g., DuckDuckGo and Qwant). I applaud Brave for removing the last vestiges of Bing, which continues to arbitrarily blacklist The New Leaf Journal without explanation or recourse, from its search engine. We have received decent Brave traffic since the summer of 2022, and it is now our second-most common search referrer after Google (so long as the Bing ban persists). I plan to write more about some of its features this year. For the time being, you can read my article on creating a timer search engine shortcut in Brave and DuckDuckGo (see separate post on Google).