This is Google’s core business, its bread and butter, what put it on the map in the first place. Let’s face it, nobody’s using Bing no purpose. Well, at least until recently. Bing often provides better results than Google, but Microsoft is another privacy nightmare.
Everything here is better for your privacy than Google. They don’t spy on you across websites, but they also don’t control half the smartphone market. They also don’t offer a multitude of useful services across the internet that they spy on you in. That’s all obvious, but these options (except maybe Perplexity) also don’t store your queries along with your PII. But there are some that are more dedicated to privacy than others.
Of course, you can always use Google’s search without being logged in. This at least prevents them from tying your search queries to your Google account. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.
This is important, it’s because Google shares search history with law enforcement. Prosecutors have used it as “evidence” in the court of law. Curiosity should not be illegal. Searching something, for whatever reason, should not be used against you. We’re already on the road to idiocracy with curiosity steadily on the decline. This is despite the fact that everyone has the entirety of the world’s knowledge in their pockets.
But first, a rant.
The trend of using AI chatbots in search is very troubling. Getting a quick answer from a chatbot is much easier and faster than sifting through links. Especially with attention spans how they are and people generally not reading anymore. The idea of AI summarizing the results and giving you a quick, easily digestible answer is great. Problem is, this can starve publishers and independent content creators.
If no one clicks on your website and sees your ads, you don’t get paid. That’s why websites have been using more and more ads lately, or pay-walling their content. It’s a terrible position for any industry to be in, and written content is dying because of it. This is why I’m hopeful in Yep reforming the online economy.
Google has ruined the internet by normalizing the ad-based economy. The only way to survive on the internet now is by forcing your audience to see ads. I for one refuse to do this, so this problem doesn’t affect me. But I certainly stand to gain if Yep takes off, as does the entire internet and every single content creator.
Privacy-focused
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is the most popular private alternative to Google. It does not collect any personal information or store any information at all. It uses Bing for search results, which requires sending queries to Bing. Unfortunately this is unavoidable when using another search engine’s index.
DDG also shows results from the dark net, not only the clear net.
Recently, DuckDuckGo launched a privacy-friendly web browser. StartPage, Ecosia, Qwant, and Swisscows had already beat it to the punch.
StartPage
What I’ve been using for years. StartPage first caught my eye for using Google’s index, which was unheard of prior. What rounded it off for me was Instant Answers. This feature is like Google’s rich results that appear above the list of results. Google uses these for things like unit/currency conversion or business listings. They’re particularly useful for music, moves and people, often including snippets from Wikipedia. StartPage’s aren’t as polished, but they definitely get the job done.
By default, StartPage protects your privacy in many different ways. but they can still be seen by your employer or ISP. For greater privacy, they offer a “Anonymous View” option, identified by a goggles icon. This essentially uses StartPage’s servers as a proxy and shows you a screenshot of the webpage. This means it can take a little longer to load, but the website has no idea you’re the one looking at it. Perhaps more importantly, neither does your ISP, your browser’s history, or anybody else. The trackers and cookies never reach your computer.
Of course, it’s not perfect either. I find the UI to be a bit uninspired. It lacks Google’s filtering by a specific date range and images by license. That said, they also have features that Google lacks, like the aforementioned goggles. Regional results are also useful to bypass bias or get a different perspective.
Oh, and they have a privacy-friendly web browser for mobile devices.
Mojeek
Mojeek is the independent search engine with its own crawler and index. This means it doesn’t rely on (and share data with) any other search engine for its results. It also gives it a unique perspective on the web, uncovering content missed by larger players. The downside of this independence is a smaller index, as it crawls more websites. Also, website owners have no way of manually adding their content to its index like Google and Bing allow.
Mojeek proudly boasts an ad-free experience, ensuring unbiased search results without commercial influence. One distinctive feature is its “Emotional Search”. The idea is to filter results based on emotions like love, laughter, surprise, sadness, or anger. While an interesting concept, its accuracy and usefulness are questionable. As with the search engine’s utility over all, this feature is likely to take time to get better.
Qwant
Qwant is a European option focusing on privacy and UI. Like Mojeek, Qwant also boasts its own index, though it sometimes supplements with Bing results.
Qwant’s standout feature is layout, presenting image and video results alongside traditional links. They also offer specialized search verticals like Maps, Music, and Junior (for kids). They also offer a dedicated privacy-friendly web browser for mobile devices.
Qwant is subject to Europe’s stricter data privacy regulations compared to US ones. This alone makes it a safer and more private choice.
2024 Update:
Qwant has been geo-blocked to European IP addresses. More importantly, sketchy behavior and lack of transparency disqualified them from being on my blog. They’ve never actually been pro-privacy.
Swisscows
Swisscows is a Swiss search engine that prioritizes family-friendly and safe search results. It employs a hardcoded strict content filter to block explicit or harmful content. And uses “semantic technology” to understand the context and meaning behind search queries. In theory, this allows for more relevant and accurate results. I’m not sure how this interacts with Bing’s index.
Hopping on the current trend, Swisscows has an AI chatbot that can summarize results for you. It also employs the “goggles” feature popular among the privacy-oriented options. Unlike other search engines though, Swisscows’ content filters don’t only block pornography. They also block violence, hate speech, and other potentially upsetting material. All through a clean and simple interface that’s easy to navigate.
Meta
There are a few meta search engines to choose from, like All the Internet and MetaCrawler. There’s also Dogpile that I used as my main search engine for a long time around 15 years ago. They all work very well and in most cases offer better results than Google. The only downside is of course the lack of rich results.
Searx
Searx is the self-hosted search engine. It gets its results from several search engines that you can choose from. You can configure it to be as private as you want, as accurate as you want, or both.
It’s definitely a bit involved to self-host, but you can still use its public instances. Some are even included by default as an option in some browsers.
Presearch
Presearch is another meta search engine that aggregates results from different sources. What sets Presearch apart is its “web3” branding. When you self-host it, you are effectively running a node of their blockchain. This of course allows you to earn whenever someone uses your node, presumably.
The catch is that you have to “stake” a certain amount of tokens for the privilege of running a node. That makes it a bit suspicious. More so is that it launched in 2021 and the documentation is still very lacking.
Causes
Ecosia
Ecosia is a good looking, privacy-focused search engine. It uses ads, but the proceeds go to planting trees rather than enriching shareholders. It primarily uses Bing’s index for its results
Of course, Ecosia has also implemented an AI chatbot to summarize results in a conversational tone.
Ekoru
Like Ecosia, Ekoru has pledged 60% of its revenue towards environmental causes. Specifically for ocean reforestation and cleanup. The results are fine, using Bing. Video search opens a Bing search window, and the Maps search opens Google Maps.
Ekoru supports the global efforts of Big Blue Ocean Cleanup and Operation Posidonia. The funds go to cleanup teams, research on microplastics, and replanting seagrass meadows. Seagrass plays a vital role in marine ecosystems. It provides habitats for marine life, improves water quality, and captures carbon dioxide. In the past, Ekoru has also contributed to terrestrial tree-planting and animal welfare.
What’s weird is that it doesn’t have a public search engine that you can use. You have to install a browser extension that takes over your “new tab” page. I understand that this is easier for the average person than manually using a search engine. It’s weird though.
Yep
Yep is an Ahrefs effort, the SEO optimization platform. They’re trying to save the internet by reworking the entire ad-based economy. Rather than plastering ads on every bit of whitespace on the web, Yep shares 90% of its revenue with us. The people behind the websites that show up in its search results. This makes so much more sense than the current model. This effort might single-handedly save the publishing industry and written content in general.
This is not only great because it makes the industry viable and even profitable again. It takes it a step further by encouraging quality content to fester. Of course, that’s assuming Yep mitigates clickbait and SEO hell that Google incentivizes. After all, that’s one of the major contributors to the sharp decline in Google’s search quality of late.
Yep’s answers to Google’s Rich Results and StartPage‘s Instant Answers is “tldr box”. As the name implies, it provides a quick summary of your search, and even references its sources. Their AI chatbot sucks, but it should even exist.
Particularly unfortunate is that they hopped on the AI trend. It’s contradictory to their goal of funneling clicks to creators since the chatbot eliminates the need to click results. That said, they are still in beta as they improve their results and find their footing. As such, they have not yet began monetizing with ads anyway.
Other
Perplexity AI
Perplexity is the new kid on the block. It was born in the age of AI and as such, it predictably features AI front and center. There are no “search results” in the traditional sense to scroll through. Instead, you ask it stuff and gives you summarized answers, with references. It echoes how other search engines have implemented AI chatbots, except they’re usually secondary to the main results list.
This streamlined approach is definitely interesting. Right off the bat, you can’t completely trust what it says, like with any other AI. But the fact that it highlights references (above the answer itself, in fact), is very helpful. This not only makes it more likely to actually click on the results, it also offers a quick way to assess the AI’s answer. If there are no references in the answer, it’s likely made up or unsubstantiated.
Openverse
Openverse is completely different from everything else on this list. It doesn’t search the web and return a list of websites as results. Instead, it searches for copyright-free content that is free to license. Their filters also allow you to search by license type, attribution, usage rights, etc.
Currently, Openverse only searches images and audio files. It’s possible they could add other media types in the future.