After several months in development, Brave Software, the maker of the Brave web browser Brave Software, will index and serve its own images and videos in an effort to end its dependency on other search engines, such as Google and Bing.

The company said its recently released Brave Search API will also include these image and video results.

"We realize that the redirect option was not popular with some of our users, and thank them for their patience during this transition," the company said. "This was a temporary decision to help users find results with minimum hassle, while we worked to offer a sustainable, privacy-preserving, and independent image and video search option."

Google continues to dominate the U.S. search market, with more than 90% market share in June 2023, followed by Bing with 5.53% share, according to Similarweb.

Brave cut ties with Bing search in June and then removed server calls to Bing's search API for images and videos in May. Bridging the gap between the removal of Bing, which the company said only accounted for 7% of results, and providing its own services, Brave gave users the option of an alternate image and video search feature via redirects to Bing or Google.

The change should allow users to benefit from increased speed and privacy, compared with other search engines that rely on third-party providers. The company also points to a type of "censorship,” citing an example from 2021, when Microsoft Bing found an error that led to omitting images for a search for Tiananmen Square “tank man.”

Brave said the change is part of its mission to build "a user-first Web." With the release of image and video search, the company continues to "innovate" in the search industry to provide what it calls "viable and preferable products for users who want choice and transparency in their search for information online."