In today’s world, search engines are a necessity to find what you’re looking for online. Unfortunately, however, there are two big problems you will likely encounter:
- Search engines that violate your privacy.
- Search engines that censor search results.
This private search engines guide will thoroughly examine both of these problems and provide you with the best reliable solutions and alternatives we can find. So let’s begin by examining the first problem with search engine privacy.
The search engine privacy problem
Unfortunately, most of the big search engines today serve as data collection tools for advertising companies. That’s right, they collect your private data and use it to make money with targeted ads. This is a booming industry where your data ends up in the hands of third parties and you are the product.
Here is the information being collected by some of the larger (not private) search engines:
- Source IP address
- User agent
- Location
- Unique identifier (stored in browser cookies)
- Search queries
The items you enter into a search engine can disclose highly personal information about you. Things like as medical conditions, employment status, financial information, political beliefs, and other private details. This data can be collected, stored, and linked to detailed digital profiles which can even contain your real identity. The only way to ensure that your data is safe is to keep it out of the hands of the data collectors. To do that, you need to use a private search engine.
Search engine censorship
Many people are getting fed up with online censorship, particularly when trying to find specific information that was previously available. Censorship can take many forms. With search engines today, censorship can come from filtering, manipulating, and/or blocking certain search results from appearing.
Unfortunately, the censorship problem affects many of the private search engines for these two reasons:
- Censorship flows downhill. Many of the alternative and private search engines are nothing more than private proxies that deliver the same search results from the big players. This means that when Google and Bing (Microsoft) engage in censorship and search result manipulation, so will your alternative search engine that delivers those same results.
- Alternative search engines themselves are also engaging in censorship. Recently the CEO of DuckDuckGo announced that they will “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.” We can see both sides to the question of whether or not to engage in censorship given today’s geopolitical events. Nonetheless, this amounts to censorship, which is what many people are trying to avoid.
An exception to this may be with independent search engines that deploy their own crawlers, such as with Mojeek, or Brave Search. Additionally, with Searx, you can select which engines it uses.
So let’s examine some alternative private search engines you can start using today.
The best private search engines
Finding the best private search engine for your needs is a subjective process. Your circumstances and goals are unique, meaning there’s no one-size-fits-all. Things to consider include:
- Where is the service based?
- Where does it get its search results?
- Can you run your own instance?
In a perfect world, a search engine would give you great results while also respecting your privacy. Unfortunately, this isn’t a perfect world. Any of the private search engines in this guide could be the best solution for you. But you will need to test drive the ones that look the best to you to see which is really the best fit. Before we start, there is one issue you need to be aware of:
Metasearch vs search: Most private search engines are technically metasearch engines. While a search engine crawls the internet and gathers its own results, a metasearch engine pulls its search results from other search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yandex.
There are also a few search engines that fall in the middle by deploying their own crawler, but also pulling results from other search engines.
Here are the best private search engines:
Searx – Open source and uncensored search engine
Jurisdiction: Not applicable (open source, not based in any one location)
Search results: Fully customizable! You can choose from a large selection of engines to display results.
Searx is an open source metasearch engine that gathers results from other search engines while simultaneously respecting your privacy. Even better, you control which search engines Searx pulls results from, as well as specifying the categories for search results.
Searx customizability comes in handy since Google has been known to block Searx requests. We haven’t seen a good solution to the problem, but you can avoid these kinds of problems by telling Searx to avoid Google (or any other source that causes problems).
Searx also allows you to run your own instance of the search engine. The drawback with your own instance, however, is that your search results won’t be mixed with other users. Searx is open source and available on GitHub.
Be careful with public instances
Because Searx is open source and freely available for anyone to use, there are a number of different public instances you can utilize for private searches. However, just like with Tor nodes, anyone with bad intentions can set up a “rogue” instance and potentially log user activity, as Searx explains here:
What are the consequences of using public instances?
If someone uses a public instance, he/she has to trust the administrator of that instance. This means that the user of the public instance does not know whether his/her requests are logged, aggregated and sent or sold to a third party.
Unfortunately, the Searx project does not run an official public instance. They do recommend public instances that are operated by various individuals or entities. But how do you know those instances aren’t logging your search results on their server? You don’t!
For all we know, a public instance might run by an advertising company, or perhaps a domestic or foreign intel agencies, or just some creeps looking to spy on your data. The only way to be sure is to run your own instance.
Searx Github Page >
Searx.space (list of public instances)
Brave Search – A new search engine from the Brave browser
Jurisdiction: United States
Search results: Uses its own crawler!
Brave’s new private search engine, Brave Search, looks very promising. It is brought to you by the makers of Brave, which is a secure browser with built-in privacy that runs on open-source Chromium. Unlike most of the other private search engines in this guide, Brave is using its own search index, rather than relying on Bing or Google.
Here is a brief overview of the Brave Search project from their website:
Brave Search is the world’s most complete, independent, private search engine. By integrating Brave Search beta into its browser, Brave offers the first all-in-one browser / search alternative to the big tech platforms. Brave Search beta is also available in other browsers, at search.brave.com.
You can learn more about this search engine on the FAQ page that answers some questions. We are excited to see this project develop as it appears to be a strong alternative from a well-regarded organization. We’ll keep an eye on it as things progress.
https://search.brave.com/
MetaGer – An open source metasearch engine with good features
Jurisdiction: Germany
Search Results: In our tests, most Megater search results came from Bing, followed by Scopia and Infotiger, another start-up search engine based in Germany. It also displays some results from Yandex and Yahoo.
MetaGer is an open source search engine (metasearch) based in Germany. It gets search results from Bing, Yandex, Yahoo and others, as well as having its own web crawler. This interesting project started in 1996. It is now operated by a non-profit foundation in Germany called SUMA-EV (Association for Free Access to Knowledge). I tested MetaGer for this guide and found the results to be decent, with some nice features as well:
- Every search result shows the source it came from
- Search filter options (date, safe search, and language)
- Proxy viewing options “open anonymously”
- A new News/Politics results type
MetaGer search engine does a decent job of protecting your privacy, as they explain here. MetaGer converts search requests into anonymous queries through a proxy server, which also provides the “open anonymously” viewing option with all results. With that being said, your IP address is being logged, as they explain in the privacy policy:
We work with Microsoft Clarity and Microsoft Advertising to bring you free Yahoo search results and advertising. For this purpose, usage data for statistical purposes including your IP address is recorded on the MetaGer results page.
MetaGer Privacy Policy
This is again why we urge people to always use a good VPN service that hides your IP address, such as NordVPN or Surfshark.
For operation stability and security, MetaGer search engine does keep some logs on their own servers, but this data is kept no longer than 96 hours and is automatically erased. MetaGer finances operations from user donations, as well as ads that are served through partner networks, such as Bing. These ads appear at the top of the search results. However, you can get completely ad-free search results by signing up for an MetaGer membership. (Without memberships and personal donations, MetaGer states they would not be able to continue operations.)
MetaGer runs all of its infrastructure on servers in Germany, which is a good privacy jurisdiction with strict data protection laws. The service is completely open source. For those on the Tor network, MetaGer also hosts a .onion site.
You can read more about using MetaGer as a search engine, as well as their apps, plugins, and features, on their website. We’ll close here with an interesting quote from MetaGer’s website (translated from German):
Did you know that according to the Patriot Act, all internet servers and search engines physically located in the jurisdiction of the United States are obligated to disclose any information to the intelligence services? Your personal data is at risk even if the servers and search engines don’t store any information: it is sufficient if the intelligence agencies read and store everything at the internet point of connection. All MetaGer servers are located in Germany.
https://metager.org/ (English)
https://metager.de/ (German)
Mojeek – A crawler-based search engine with more privacy
Jurisdiction: United Kingdom
Search results: Mojeek uses its own crawler and is not dependent on others!
Unlike some of the other private (meta) search engines, Mojeek is true search engine with its own crawler. According to the Mojeek blog, the service surpassed 4 billion pages indexed in 2021. If you want complete search independence from the corporate data monoliths of Google and Bing, Mojeek offers an interesting proposition.
In terms of privacy, Mojeek does pretty well. It claims to be the “first ever no tracking/privacy orientated search engine” from when it first started. The Mojeek privacy policy details how user data is generally protected:
Mojeek doesn’t implement any kind of specific user tracking, whether that be at the time of visit or subsequently via standard logs, which Mojeek does keep. These logs contain the time of visit, page requested, possibly referral data, and located in a separate log browser information. IP addresses are not recorded, instead the IP address is replaced with a simple two letter code indicating the visitors country of origin. By doing this, Mojeek removes any possibility of tracking or identifying any particular user.
Hopefully Mojeek can continue to improve their search results and one day rival the big players.
https://www.mojeek.com/
Swisscows – A Switzerland-based private search engine (no adult content)
Jurisdiction: Switzerland
Search results: Bing
Swisscows is a Switzerland-based private search engine that does very well with privacy and security. They promise no tracking or data collection, and even have a “Swiss Fort Knox” data center for their server infrastructure. From their website:
- have our own servers and do not work with cloud or third party!
- have our Datacenter in the Swiss Alps – THIS is the safest bunker in Europe!
- have positioned everything geographically outside of EU and US.
In terms of privacy, Swisscows is one of the top choices. You can catch up on their privacy policy here. In testing out Swisscows for this guide, I found it to provide good results, which are primarily sourced from Bing.
Family-Friendly content – One unique aspect of Swisscows is that they are passionate about family-friendly content. As they explain on their about page:
- We promote moral values.
- We hate violence and pornography.
- We promote digital media education.
While some people may not like the fact that Swisscows is censoring some adult content, others may see this as a great feature, especially those who have young children.
Because Swisscows does not pass on user data from search requests, they are unable to effectively monetize their service through ad partners, which means they largely rely on donations and sponsorships to maintain operations (sponsors can get a banner ad at the top of results).
Website: https://swisscows.com
Qwant – A private search engine from France
Jurisdiction: France
Search results: Bing
Qwant is a private search engine based in France. Being based in Europe, it is held to data privacy protections that are much stricter than those in the United States and many other countries. Qwant promises to protect user privacy (no tracking) and keep people from getting stuck in the filter bubble.This is all good since Qwant primarily gets its search results from Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Qwant’s privacy policy has changed since we last reviewed their service. Here’s an excerpt that shows their commitment to protect your privacy:
Qwant is committed to protecting your privacy, and that’s at the heart of our philosophy. What you do with Qwant is your privacy and we don’t want to know about it. We don’t keep your search history and we don’t create an advertising profile to target you. With Qwant, you are of course entitled to the rights guaranteed by the European General Data Protection Regulation of April 27, 2016, known as the “GDPR”, but most importantly, we ensure maximum respect for the principles of data minimization and “privacy by design”, i.e., we implement design methods for our services that allow us to collect and process only the data that is strictly necessary. We never try to find out who you are or what you do personally when you use our search engine.
However, when Qwant does not have the answers to your queries, they will pass along pseudonymous data to Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited. Microsoft provides search results, along with “contextual advertising based on the keywords you entered and your geographic region.”
In addition, for purposes of security and reliability of their partner Microsoft’s services, Qwant “may also collect and transfer to this partner your full IP address.” The data transferred to Microsoft is processed under the rules of article 6.1.f of the GDPR, and may be retained in accordance with Bing’s Privacy Policy for a maximum of 18 months.
While the GDPR should protect your data from abuse by Microsoft, if you don’t want Microsoft to know what you are searching for online, you need to be aware that Qwant may share that information with Microsoft under certain circumstances.
Putting that aside, Qwant has good search filtering options. You can filter results by different categories (web, news, social, images, videos, and shopping) as well as by dates. The Qwant homepage includes news stories, trending people, events, and other interest stories. According to their website, Qwant serves 189 million results per month.
Overall, Qwant is a good option for a private search engine, with many features in place to protect user privacy.
https://www.qwant.com/
DuckDuckGo – Popular private search engine based in the US
Jurisdiction: United States
Search results: Primarily Bing, but there are other sources as well.
DuckDuckGo (a.k.a. DDG) is perhaps the most popular private search engine. It’s popularity has grown greatly since our last review. For many people, the first thing to do when installing a new web browser is to set its default search engine to DuckDuckGo.
Based in the United States (not the ideal location from a privacy perspective), DDG was started by Gabriel Weinberg in 2008. It generates search results from over 400 sources including Wikipedia, Bing, and Yahoo. DuckDuckGo has a close partnership with Yahoo (now owned by Verizon).
In March 2022, DuckDuckGo made two interesting announcements in the wake of the situation with Russia and Ukraine.
- They will censor and “down-rank” search results that they feel are related to “disinformation” — see the Twitter announcement here.
- They will no longer source search results from Yandex, according to reports.
We’re not going to attack DDG for its decision to “down-rank” some websites, because we can see both sides of the argument, and this website is not political. However, we will point out that these actions amount to censorship, which DDG previously denounced with other search engines.
To finance operations, DuckDuckGo generates money through advertisements and affiliate programs, which is explained here. Similar to Google and other search engines, DuckDuckGo will display ads at the top of your searches. DDG has partnered with Amazon and eBay as affiliates.
Searches are saved – DuckDuckGo’s privacy policy reveals that DDG is saving all your search queries:
We also save searches, but again, not in a personally identifiable way, as we do not store IP addresses or unique User agent strings. We use aggregate, non-personal search data to improve things like misspellings.
While it would be great if DDG didn’t save any search information, saving this data without IP addresses or unique User agent strings should protect your privacy just fine.
https://duckduckgo.com
YaCy – The decentralized, open source, peer-to-peer search engine
Jurisdiction: Not applicable. (Being a decentralized and open-source platform, YaCy does not appear to fall under any particular jurisdiction, similar to Searx.)
Search results: Peer-to-peer crawler model
YaCy is an open source private search engine created in 2004 by Michael Christen. It can run stand-alone or as part of a decentralized peer-to-peer network. Here is a brief description from YaCy’s website:
It is fully decentralized, all users of the search engine network are equal, the network does not store user search requests and it is not possible for anyone to censor the content of the shared index. We want to achieve freedom of information through a free, distributed web search which is powered by the world’s users.
With YaCy, there is no central server, which could be seized or tapped by authorities. Rather, all peers in the network are equal and can be used for crawling the web or in “proxy mode” to index pages for other users. To use YaCy, you need to download the free software on your operating system, available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. There is a demo portal here to test things out.
https://yacy.net/
Ecosia – The search engine that plants trees
Jurisdiction: Germany
Search results: Bing
Ecosia is a unique private search engine on our list in that it donates a portion of profits to charity and is strictly focused on planting trees. It is based in Germany and claims to be a private search engine. However, some of the things it does make it unsuitable for our main list of truly private search engines.
One issue is that Ecosia collects all search queries and then anonymizes this data after seven days. Another is that they do a fair amount of data collecting through website analytics, including your IP address, browser agent, location, and more.
And one more thing…
Ecosia assigns a Bing tracking ID to every user:
Ecosia also assigns a “Bing Client ID” in order to improve the quality of the search results. This value is a user-specific ID which enables Bing to deliver more relevant search results also based on previous searches. The ID is saved in the Ecosia cookie and retrieved during future visits.
While the “Bing Client ID” can be manually disabled by the user, most people probably are not even aware of it. This is because Ecosia has done a good job burying this information in their privacy policy. To read the full privacy policy, you will need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the privacy page, and then click a light blue “READ MORE” button, which opens up more information.
Does Ecosia meet the criteria to be a “private search engine”? Probably not, but it’s still a good alternative to the big search engines, with commendable charity goals.
Main drawbacks:
- Not a “private search engine” by default
- Bing ID is assigned to users (but can be disabled)
- Search queries, with IP address, are saved for seven days
https://www.ecosia.org/
Yandex.com – A search engine in Russia
Disclaimer: Yandex is a Russian search engine that also engages in censorship, as we see with most Western-based search engines, such as Google and Bing. However, if there is information that you seek, and Western-focused search engines are of no help, then Yandex.com could be a solution for finding what you need. Proceed with caution!
Operating in Russia, we need to point out that Yandex is legally obligated to censor search results. In fact, as we mentioned in our guide on VPNs for Russia, there is massive censorship that is mandated by the government. This is the other side of the censorship coin.
We have also previously pointed out that there is a growing need to unblock websites in Russia given all the censorship lately. In fact, Russia has been actively blocking websites since 2012 and the are now blocking major social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, as well as international news sites, such as the BBC.
So why discuss Yandex if they also engage in censorship? Answer: If you can’t find what you’re looking for with Western-based search engines, then Yandex may be useful.
https://Yandex.com
Startpage – Private search engine that gives Google and Bing search results
Startpage is a privacy-focused search engine that is gaining recognition for its commitment to protecting user data. Unlike mainstream search engines that track and store user information, Startpage operates on a different principle. It does not collect or share personal data, ensuring that your searches are completely private and anonymous.
Established in 2006 in the Netherlands, Startpage provides search results from Google, which makes it an ideal choice for those who prefer Google’s search results but aren’t comfortable with their tracking practices. Startpage acts as an intermediary between the user and other search engines, removing all identifying information from your query before submitting and returning the results to you.
While Startpage previously relied only on Google for results, it now utilizes both Google and Bing:
For example, Startpage submits your query to Google and Bing anonymously on your behalf, then returns the results to you, privately. Google and Microsoft do not know who made the search request—instead, they only see Startpage.
– Startpage support documentation
In addition to its privacy-focused search, Startpage offers a free proxy service. This allows users to browse websites anonymously by making it appear as though the Startpage servers are visiting the site, not the user’s computer. This feature adds an extra layer of privacy, preventing websites from tracking your IP address or location.
Note: Startpage is now owned by System1, an ad-tech company based in the US.
Jurisdiction: Netherlands (officially, but at least partially owned by a US company)
https://www.startpage.com
Private search engine FAQs
Here are some FAQs (frequently asked questions) with regards to private search engines:
- How do private search engines make money?
- Are US-based search engines safe?
- How to keep your searches private
- Considerations when choosing a private search engine
How do private search engines make money?
Private search engines make money in three ways: contextual advertisements, affiliates, and donations. Let’s examine each of these revenue streams on their own.
1. Contextual advertisements
Just like with Google and Bing, many private search engines make money by placing advertisements in the search results, usually based on the search terms you entered. The difference between private search engines and Google or Bing is that private search engines should only be serving ads based on your search term, rather than from all other data collection sources (email, browsing, etc.).
Note: Some private search engines pass a truncated (anonymized) version of your IP address to the search partner, in order to serve relevant ads for your general location.
2. Affiliate revenue
Many private search engines make money through affiliate programs. DuckDuckGo is an example of this; they are a member of both the Amazon and eBay affiliate programs:
DuckDuckGo is part of the affiliate programs of the eCommerce websites Amazon and eBay. When you visit those sites through DuckDuckGo, including when using !bangs, and subsequently make a purchase, we receive a small commission.
You may also see “online shopping” options above your search results, which are another form of affiliate revenue. Both Qwant and DuckDuckGo use affiliate “shopping” results as sources of income.
Note: When you buy something through an affiliate link, it never increases the price you pay. Rather, it simply transfers a small percentage of the profits (i.e. a commission) to the affiliate, which in this case is the private search engine.
3. Donations
Private search engines may also make money from donations. Anybody can donate to the project, regardless of whether it is an individual developer, a non-profit organization, or a private for-profit business.
If a search engine does not have other sources of revenue or good advertising deals with partners, donations become very important to ensure continued operations. For example, Swisscows, MetaGer, and YaCy all have donation options.
Are US-based search engines safe?
Choosing a private search engine is all based on your unique needs and threat model. Therefore a private search engine that Bob considers to be safe, may not be adequate for Alice.
With regards to US-based search engines, and any other US businesses that handles (or has potential access) to private data, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- The United States has extensive surveillance programs, which are carried out by various branches of government, such as the NSA.
- The US has a long history of working with (and forcing) private tech companies to facilitate bulk data collection efforts – see the PRISM program for details. (This raises questions about private search engines that are being hosted on Amazon infrastructure, a large US-based company.)
- US companies could be served National Security Letters or other lawful data collection demands, while also being prohibited from disclosing this due to gag orders.
These laws and capabilities essentially give the US government the authority to compel a legitimate privacy-focused company to function as a data collection tool for state agencies.
If a privacy-focused business were to be compromised, it would likely happen behind closed doors, without a word (or warning) to the users. This was the case with Lavabit, and rather than comply with the data requests, the founder was basically forced to shut down the business.
As a general rule, RestorePrivacy does not recommend services that are based in the US. Nonetheless, it all depends on your threat model and how much privacy and security you need.
How to keep your searches private
Here are five basic tips for keeping your searches (and data in general) more private.
1. Use a private search engine
Using one of the private search engines in this guide will help keep your data safe from third parties. See the reviews to determine which private search engine best suits your needs.
2. Use a private and secure browser
Just like with search engines, your browser can also reveal lots of private information about you to third parties:
- Browsing history: all the websites you visit
- Login credentials: usernames and passwords
- Cookies and trackers: these are placed on your browser by the sites you visit
- Autofill information: names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.
- Metadata, which can be used for tracking and identification (browser fingerprinting)
Many of the private search engines in this guide offer browser extensions to replace the default search engine for your browser. DuckDuckGo has even become listed as an alternative search engine for browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome.
See our guide on secure browsers here.
3. Use a good VPN service
If you use a good VPN service, you won’t have to worry about search engines logging your IP address and location. A VPN will encrypt your traffic for safe transit across the internet, while also replacing your IP address and location with that of the VPN server you’re connected to. There are many other uses for VPN services and they are an important privacy tool, especially since internet providers in many countries are now collecting browsing history.
Below are my top VPN recommendations:
- NordVPN: A fast, secure, audited VPN with advanced privacy features and a strict no-logs policy, based in Panama (with a 74% discount coupon).
- Surfshark VPN: A no-logs VPN service with a large lineup of privacy and security features, based in The Netherlands.
- ExpressVPN – A reliable, secure, and user-friendly VPN service that is based in the British Virgin Islands with a no-logs policy (audited twice).
And you can get more information on our top recommendations of the best VPN services here. Our ExpressVPN vs NordVPN comparison also examines these two top services in back-to-back tests.
4. Use a good ad blocker
A reliable ad blocker is another important privacy tool since ads have become a major threat to your privacy. Many ads now quietly collect data for third-party advertising networks. Other ads (known as malvertising), actually install malware on your computer or mobile device. The best thing to do these days is to simply block ads and tracking networks.
There are of course many other privacy tools to consider. However, a good private search engine, a secure browser, a reliable VPN, and a safe ad blocker are the top priorities for basic digital self defense.
5. Log out!
Lastly, whenever possible, stay logged out of Big Tech accounts (Gmail, YouTube, Amazon, etc.) when surfing the web, since their trackers will record your browsing activity and link this to your data profile.
Another option is to use one browser for staying logged into various accounts, but then use a separate browser for general browsing activity (this is known as browser compartmentalization).
Important considerations for choosing the best private search engine
Here are some things to consider when looking for the best search engine for privacy:
- Search results – Some search engines may do well in the privacy category, but they don’t return very good results. Some will actively engage in censorship, or display censored search results from Google or Bing.
- Privacy – Consider what information the search engine is logging, as well as the data that may be passed off to third parties and search partners (such as Bing).
- Jurisdiction – Jurisdiction is an important factor to consider because it ultimately affects your data and privacy. Services based in the US, for example, are subject to the Patriot Act, National Security Letters, and may also be forced to collect user data without being allowed to disclose anything (due to gag orders).
- Features – Some private search engines offer useful features, such as anonymous viewing (via proxy servers), search result filtering options, plugins, extensions, and more.
- Mobile apps – More than a year ago, Google reported that they process more search requests from mobile devices than they do from desktops. We live on our mobile devices, so a search engine that offers a mobile app for your specific device could be a big benefit.
- Trust – Trust is difficult to quantify and measure, but it’s a very important consideration. When considering the trust factor, you may want to look at the history of the company and the individuals behind it.
Finding the best search engine for your needs is a subjective process, and there’s no single “best private search engine” that applies to everyone. Check out our reviews, the test drive a few different options to find the best fit for you.
This private search engines guide was last updated on April 26, 2024.
I don’t understand why an email address is required (note the * beside the email box). Nevertheless, I used a real email address because I’d like an answer to my question, please.
I am using a VPN. I would appreciate knowing what IP address you can see when you got this message. Thanks for your response, if any.
I do use Brave as one of my browsers and will try their search engine and see if it works better than DuckDuckGo. I did not know DDG relied on Google and Bing. I will also try the OpenSource search engine you mentioned and compare the search results with Google, Bing and others.
Thanks for the article.
Hi Fraunt Hall, You do not need to supply a real email address to receive a reply, a reply can be placed here in the chat. The easiest way to see your public ip is to search “what’s my ip address.” There are tools to test if your vpn is leaking data including your ip address. Restore Privacy has produce this guide which may assist you: https://restoreprivacy.com/vpn/test-check-vpn-working/.
GL,
Its worth pointing out that SEARX doesn’t for example support the negative words on search (aka, “-dog -cat”).
This really kills its usability, since the internet now is flooded with bot sites.
Hi Someguy, I agree. I haven’t been through and tested this comprehensive list but I agree Google search is the best for functionality from my experience. My solution is to dedicate a browser for Google products (e.g. YouTube) and Google search. So if my search engine is annoying me, I switch browsers find what I want then go back to my ‘everyday’ browser. If I am researching something where I would like to use Google search a lot I use a VM.
I WAS interested in the YaCy search that you included in your list. I am NOT interested any more! Why? Because it is NOT a “search engine” that one installs IN ones browser. It requires JAVA JDK which is for DEVELOPERS AND the YaCy site leads to NON-JAVA sites. For non-developers this is a HUGE DEAL KILLER!!! To include YaCy in this list is just plain and simple deliberate stupidity.
I won’t be back here to this site ever again. You have destroyed any trust that anyone can have in you.
Bye. Oh, and why does a search engine have to be installed in the browser? Hopefully you’re “back here” just once to answer my question.
Any tips for installing DHCP and DNS in my browser?
I know this a view in direct opposition to an extremely popular, even faddish, position, but any review touting “open source” as a positive loses me the second it mentions… “open source.”
In what way is there *more* security in a search engine, which is basically a huge program – or any other “open source” program – having its source code openly available for any random coder on Earth to go in and modify with who-knows-what, and then present to the world as legit? A given company may keep its source code locked as proprietary, but with a single company you have a.) a single, known entity to deal with rather than the prospect of any one of countless, faceless millions, and b.) an entity which presumably wishes to stay in business and therefore has an instant disincentive to marketing shady products. So though trust is an issue with every possible vendor, a single, known one is preferable to random anonymous millions. So unfortunately I have to scratch SearX and MetaGer off the list from the outset.
But thank you for clearly identifying the sellout of Startpage to the ad company System1 – basically the worst 180 nightmare for anyone to whom online security is a primary goal. I consider inclusion of Startpage as an option on any of these online “best secure search engine” lists as a built-in litmus test: If it’s included as a legitimate option with no mention of its new ownership, it’s an instant disqualifier for the whole “best of” list. And there are a surprising number of online “best privacy search engine” lists that include Startpage, straight-facedly.
while yes, open source software can be viewed and exploited by anyone, there are more people that are looking to fix bugs, than to exploit them. It is more secure precisely because everyone can see it and patch bugs, peoples motivation for this is obviously that they themselves use the software and so will naturally want to fix it. Proprietary software, on the other hand, is devastating when it does get exploited, because a small team at a company are the only people responsible for fixing it, which is why proprietary exploits generally remain open for longer.
I wish people would stop listing DuckDuckGo. As soon as they had even a small spotlight on them they issued a statement saying they were down ranking Russian disinformation. The problem with that is that the government has completely lost my trust on what the word disinformation means. As far as I can tell it’s just anything they don’t want you to see to manipulate the vote and do a power grab. Just don’t censor. If it’s not illegal then don’t censor it because I don’t trust who is determining what misinformation is anymore. good job Biden administration.
The anonymous search engine [https://tuxdex.com], without advertising and cookies, is missing in the list!
Fell into some interesting info but first this seems promising for your fuller search results.
https://www.izito.com/ andihttps://www.zapmeta.com/ is a brand of Visymo Universal Search Group.
Most of the time search engines allow you to only search for one type of information at one time. They may have billions of web pages to display, but they only show one set of results. For example, text that is found on the relevant web pages. The above two searches do multiple types of information from multiple sources to generate optimal results. In just one overview, you are able to get web pages, videos, news, products and results seen from Wikipedia. This enables you to obtain a clearer and complete picture of what the web has to offer. With one entry you search for the answer in the worlds largest search sources and therefore get better and more results!
A list of major metacrawlers. Unlike search engines, metacrawlers don’t crawl the web themselves to build listings. Instead, they allow searches to be sent to several search engines all at once.
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2005/03/23/metacrawlers-and-metasearch-engines/ is seemingly an old resource for info, but proves interesting. Lot of the sites it links to are something else now or gone as this info dates back to the early 2000’s. I didn’t try them all so that’s clear but over 12 I for sure…tried.
But some of the companies listed go to Vivisimo and each & every link opened the DuckDuckGo search page. Still more of these listed companies and links lands at the Popular metasearch site owned by InfoSpace. Which is best understood as System1 LLC and its affiliates and subsidiaries (including Infospace Holdings LLC, Qool Media Holdings LLC, Dotzup Holdings LLC, Concourse Media Holdings LLC, MapQuest Holdings LLC, Privacy One Group Limited and System1 Waterfox Holdings LLC).
System1 operates the most dynamic Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platform connecting high intent customers with advertisers at scale. RAMP for short, is our best-in-class technology & data science powering our Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platform. RAMP is omni-channel & omni-vertical, and built for a privacy-centric world. RAMP enables us to build powerful brands across multiple consumer verticals, develop & grow our suite of privacy-focused products, and deliver high-intent customers to our advertising partners.
Search engines are programmed to rank websites based on some combination of their popularity and relevancy, empirical studies indicate various political, economic, and social biases in the information they provide and the underlying assumptions about the technology. These biases can be a direct result of economic and commercial processes (e.g., companies that advertise with a search engine can become also more popular in its organic search results), and political processes (e.g., the removal of search results to comply with local laws).
The number of Internet pages is extremely large; even the largest crawlers fall short of making a complete index. For this reason, search engines struggled to give relevant search results in the early years of the World Wide Web, before 2000. Today, relevant results are given almost instantly.
Crawlers can validate hyperlinks and HTML code. They can also be used for web scraping and data-driven programming.
System1 throws around the term “privacy-centric world” (almost as mockery or hype), because I think people use the likes of StartPage and the other Privacy claiming searches they have tied to with their RAMP – Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platform. The claim of privacy may be real on the search sites page end as it can be. But by way possibly in System1’s metasearch (possibly other meta’s) being owned by InfoSpace. System1 has got you pegged by your clicking on any of the links shown from the private searches their being in bed with through business. This may ring true but how to weed out and know anymore than speculation?
Ran across this Web Crawler by System1 believe same as ties with the Startpage System1 .
Infospace Holdings LLC, A System1 Company – [https://www.webcrawler.com/]
Contact Us: [https://system1.com/contact]
Interesting find, thanks JMO.
Thanks for this list, I appreciate it not being just another cone of the same crapola that most websites have. You can tell they just take everything from each other, make a near clone and paste the same dam link repeatedly It’s infuriating. Excuse the fake email … because of email bots sending spam.
There is no privacy on the WWW any more. The search engines are ALL censored. Try and find anything against certain sexual agenda, you wont. Then you’ll find Cloudflare IP addresses track us via most websites. There’s also Google’s hidden ReCaptcha that lurks behind many websites.
It’s over.
yep your a moving target as that’s the monopoly of web02 big tech and ad networks controlling the web. you know this is why an industry of data brokers sprang up within this big data era, profiling people in something of 1500 pieces as personal information on each person using the internet. It wasn’t long till it was a multi-billion dollar industry in the mining of people infosec data.
I have this same opinion. I’ve already had my own experience, looking for some subjects that go against the current modernist agenda, and I can’t find answers in the search engines I used (DDG, StartPage, Brave Search, Google, Bing, etc. ). The DDG is the worst, in my opinion.
I believe censorship is all over the Internet.
With regard to Startpage, the money System1 gave Startpage was an investment and not to acquire the company.
https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/18/startpage-replies-to-questions-about-ownership-change/
That’s right Mike, but nowadays I saw that start page don’t support VPN smoothly, behaves like google, stops working now and then, wants capcha, VPN provider’s name etc.
DDG or Searx (what I use mostly) don’t have such problems.
Half way – so is it half empty Or half full?
When it comes to privacy – your own PRIVACY it’s half gone period.
Shame the leadership-owner at StartPage didn’t look to it’s customer base for help and/or a direction in help.
Clear as H2o money is money – it is power besides a strong influence/motivator and usually has to be paid back at a premium. For a privacy built business as borrowing money from an entity capable of the most harm they are to protect their user base from is just nonsense. No don’t trust it as they have stained their karma for life…
I wanted to introduce you to an anonymous search engine [https://tuxdex.com]
A cookie is not even necessary for the search and the search query is not visible in the address bar.
Thanks! Make sure it stays that way, and remember to ask for donations to stay afloat.
Does anyone happen to know anything about QuackQuackGo (https://quackquackgo.net) ?
did you mean duckduckgo?
if you did, I use it, you can also get a free email that deletes trackors then forwards it to your normal email and at the top of the page it tells you how many trackors they had to delete. I love that feature. I’m still checking out duckduckgo.
duckduckgo sold out and a advertising company owns part of it now (just like startpage) so they may track you now. 🙁
What do you know about Freespoke?
It’s bizarre. An endless scrolling news site with a search field on top. Specializes in stories that ostensibly have been censored. Interesting to peruse, I bookmarked it, but not a search engine in the usual sense.
brave search had some hidden telemetry, thanks for ad filters, to block such:
https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardFilters/commit/f8d515a942c5d5e431606bd50d3cb8e4f616c14f
There is still no better alternative of Adguard.
It save us every time.
In the present era of smartphone, when it is practically impossible to avoid using that privacy snatcher device (specially android) none should use it without setting dns.adguard.com in private DNS.
For recapitulation of Sven’s authentic article – https://restoreprivacy.com/best-ad-blocker/
uBlock Origin is wonderful, I love it, I use it along with Vivaldi. <3
Not much to understand from your link.
Maybe this will help.
https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardFilters/issues/125571
If your interested:
The modern web relies on lots of security standards and features to keep you and your data safe as you surf the web. How effective they are at protecting you depends on how well your web browser implements them. If the browser behind your search engine choice contains bugs, it might not be doing everything it can to keep you safe.
#1 Sites usually use Javascript to display interactive features, like video games or web forms…Javascript is supported by all major browsers. JavaScript should not be enabled on random websites because you run a risk to the session hijacking vulnerability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipboard_(computing)#Computer_security
Check with – BrowserAudit.com, (virustotal) = 0/88 No security vendors flagged this URL as malicious. Click the Test me button to start running a collection of over 400 tests; after a few minutes, you’ll be given a personalized report describing what’s good and bad about your web browser’s implementation of these security features.
Fix – In your browsers search window type, brave://settings/content & then scroll down for the Javascript default adjustments (on-off) and a specific websites customized JS behaviors:
Sites listed below follow a custom setting instead of the default:
Not allowed to use Javascript
Allowed to use Javascript
#2 Operating Systems Clipboard – Google Chrome or another Chromium-based web browser allows websites to push (as write) anything they want to the operating system’s clipboard without a users permission or any user action on a sites window opened in your browser.
As well, Google Chrome (and the Chromium family of web browsers) deploys “all of your login information decrypted into plain text” and “all of your unique, sensitive data” such as session cookies. These are stored in ram till the browser is closed out (shut down), that is this sensitive info. as had been written to the OS clipboard during an active web session window on chromium based browsers.
Fix – Sites usually read your clipboard for features like keeping the formatting of text you copied.
In your browsers search window type, brave://settings/content/clipboard & then scroll down for the Default Clipboard behavior, set it to – Don’t allow sites to see text or images on your clipboard.
Your welcome to setup a specific websites customized Clipboard behaviors as well
We all are waiting for RP’s Searx instance.
In the meantime I’ve gone through some instances looking on –
1) privacy friendly jurisdiction,
2) good search results,
AND
3) option to contact directly with the maintainer.
I’ve got some positive and/or transparent responses about their ‘privacy policy’ from some of them (many ignored my quarry about what they logs).
Listed below as per my personal favorites.
1) https://searx.namejeff.xyz/
2) https://searx.tiekoetter.com/
3) https://searx.mha.fi/
4) https://northboot.xyz/
That’s all I can do with my little knowledge base.
Expert’s opinions from RP community is needed for confirmation.
@shr I am sure they will get to it but Sven and the others behind this site are busy. It is going to take time. By the way, I suggest only using SearXNG instances. SearXNG is a fork of SearX but some improvements have been added that SearX proprt didn’t have. Plus a lot of the SearX instances I have used are down or no longer maintained. For example, PrivacyTools.io used to have a SearX instance but it is no longer available.
https://docs.searxng.org/
Yes Mike, these are all XNGs.
And thats right many times they are abandoned, probably the same problems like increased costs as you and Sven pointed out in browser section rightly.
Mentioned instances gives consistent good results as I observed them for the last 2 yrs; but certainly one or another could fail any time, so there I concluded to select more than one option and keep them ready with my hardened FF.
Another important point is the maintainers of mentioned instances are so helpful and rapid in response. They answered every silly quarry even not related with their instance, asked me to point out any privacy unfriendly features, so they can disable (which will be recognized better by persons like you than me) etc.
Qwant’s CEO has been found and sentenced by a French Court for spying on his co-CEO’s emails. Talk about trust in this industry (german article: https://www.heise.de/news/Qwant-Mitgruender-wegen-Ausspaehen-von-E-Mails-verurteilt-7177734.html) Will be avoiding this search engine
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who guards the guardians?) I used Qwant from time to time but, after developments like this, have less of a reason to. So far, my go-to search engines are Brave Search, Metager, and at times Yandex and I’ve been very satisfied with the results I’ve gotten.
After reading this article ( and many others ) I have come to conclude that a private search engine or browser is not possible on this planet, and I have found not one that does not share your data with anyone. Guess people’s best bet is just to go with the lesser of the evils…..you are gonna get tracked in some form or another!
Also I was wondering why this site uses getclicky.com, which many consider a tracking cookie?
We need to use basic analytics to see what is going on with the site. Without analytics, we have zero idea how the site is getting used and what content needs to be maintained and updated. I have tried not using analytics before (2019) and it did not work well. Clicky is a middle ground between no analytics and Google Analytics, which 99% of websites use today. It is not Google and it is a lot more privacy-friendly. Clicky anonymizes visitor IP addresses, conforms with GDPR privacy protection, and respects “do not track” browser preferences.
*Thumbs up* That’s fine with me. If possible have any cookies that get into our browser self destruct after like 3-5 days thanky.
Interested as you said, “I have come to conclude that a private search engine or browser is not possible on this planet” – followed with – ” Guess people’s best bet is just to go with the lesser of the evils”
Right now would that be Braves browser with same integrated search?
[https://privacytests.org/]
Duck Duck Go has been exposed, it’s not safe, please update your list to reflect that.
We have already updated this list with all of the known issues with DDG.
When Brave Search was announced, one magazine mocked it saying that no one would use the search engine. The growth of monthly queries and that it is not only no longer in Beta but features are regularly added to it proves that assertion was wrong.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/privacy-focused-brave-search-grew-by-5-000-percent-in-a-year/
I hear what you said and understand it’s early as their search is new ground for Brave.
But it’s crawler or bot used to search up more references to match inquires to needs to get busy!
I’m finding one or two pages of results returned is all on my input terms.
This passage is usually contained in a box like banner when this happens-
“Enable Google Fallback Mixing
For queries where Brave Search is not yet refined, your browser will anonymously check Google for the same query, mix the results for you and send the query data back to us so we can improve Brave Search for everyone.”
Bummer Man and what exactly does this mean…”your browser will anonymously check Google for the same query, mix the results for you and send the query data back to us so we can improve Brave Search for everyone.”
A. I’m a guinea pig helping crawl the web for brave.
B. ‘your browser will anonymously check Google ‘ – I wouldn’t think Brave Search is available to other installed browsers. So why they used ‘your browser’ when it’s all brave’s show (browser-search).
C. Find out more here – [https://brave.com/privacy/browser/#web-discovery-project]
D. Privacy Preserving Product Analytics Metrics [https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/P3A]
Thoughts I have are on their stated, aggregated information, anonymous reports are stripped of metadata, and aggregated with measurements reported by many other instances of Brave.
Seems Brave controls the aggregate and anonymity methods used and could reassemble the information even after mixing as claimed. Stripping the metadata they could also assign some ID as where is came labeling the report to your machine. Has there ever been tests conducted on Brave browser and search to vet/prove their claims. I’d like to see any…
All it takes is 1 update to change all the privacy Brave claims to the user. That’s like being on thin ice Mike. Frequent updates are bad for the user as you get used to them lowering your defensive guard.
So only when the major browse has a fix or security patch out. Then you should install that {privacy-centric} browsers fork version update put out to it’s users. Remember FREE is what we have here and that is hardly good for the user! Paid has no guarantee of your privacy either so that’s clear. But at least you would think your more important to them to deliver on their claim.`
I like bromite. what do you think of it.
I like Bromite a lot. However, can you take any further comments about it or other browser-related comments to the Browser section of the website, please?
https://restoreprivacy.com/browser/secure/
Qwant’s “New Improved!” interface is a complete joke. Doesn’t look at all like it has for eons as shown above, now a bunch of glitzy self promotion with a small search entry field on top. Looks like a dozen phone screens cobbled together. Customization is minimal, three settings, I believe, now. Long ago and far away, before Qwant began struggling financially, it was an excellent search engine and very customizable. Now it’s not even worth bothering with, just find a service that uses bing and doesn’t assail you with ads, ads, ads and more ads.
Seems almost all online stuff has degenerated to ads or ads with a lame service attached designed to attract users to, guess what, ads. Sites such as Restore Privacy with some actual content are becoming rare beasts.
That is too bad and thanks for the heads up. I used Qwant from time to time but now have less of a reason to. I have been using Brave Search, Metager, and at times Yandex and have been very satisfied with the results I’ve gotten.
I have also suggested to Sven that RP have it’s own SearxNG instance too. While I am sure he and the others behind this site are really busy, hopefully they will start one soon. I think it would be another good resource for visitors and help promote this website.
Quaint’s interface isn’t the only problem the bright colors and weird azz hell images they use border on fighting. Like the one featuring a person with a extremely creepy giraffe head. I think they’ve gone insane.
Cool! Brave Search now has features that allows users to filter certain topics or sources.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/22/23179067/brave-search-engine-apply-custom-rankings-filters-goggles
A couple of questions, and please forgive my limited understanding of how all this works. First, I’ve been using DDG, (note I search almost completely on my iPhone) and websites often ask me to accept cookies. I’ve read different things about cookies, some of which insist they’re necessary, and I’m still a bit unclear. How does accepting them affect my privacy, even on a private search engine, or does it?
Second, as I mentioned, I generally use my phone, and the private search engines don’t always have mobile apps. I know I can use them through safari, but I still have to have a search engine to pull them up. So, if I’m getting to searsx through DDG, does that matter? Additionally, what about the browser and even the device? I change privacy settings, but they still collect info no matter what you do. Btw, I appreciate your giving links, but it would be helpful in these articles if you also included whether or not they have a mobile app.
A couple of other general comments on the subject. I miss the early days of search engines when you typed in key words and actually got what you were looking for. While I do object to the tracking on privacy grounds (I avoid google as much as possible), but combined with algorithms that are ad and trend driven, it’s much bigger than that..It affects the accuracy of results, can create a filter bubble, and can even result in people being misinformed because the results you get are based on what they think you want to see as opposed to unbiased information based solely on search queries I personally object to blanket censorship by a company because it takes control of information away from the public, which is only not Unconstitutional because our founders couldn’t have predicted the internet or that private corporations might someday be as big a threat to free speech as a government. DDGs decision to downgrade what they have decided is misinformation on the Russia Ukraine situation is a perfect example. An article that reports what Putin is saying, the explanation he’s giving for his decisions, is not misinformation as long as they don’t misquote him or take his comments out of context. We might object to his actions, or we might even think he’s lying about his motives, but the information itself is just the other side, and people have a right to see that and decide for themselves. Anyone who feels the need to suppress such information either has its own agenda or has decided we are all children who need our decisions made for us. It’s astounding to me that people can’t see what a slippery slope this is. Additionally, the tracking, trending etc ends up awarding large corporations over small businesses which affects our economy and our social structure. Think about the results you get when you’re looking to purchase something. How many of them are Amazon, Walmart, EBay, etc even when they don’t have what you’re looking for? People scream about these companies and the evils of capitalism, but these practices actually undermine the capitalist system because capitalism is based on competition. I’d like internet access, social media, etc that not only respected my privacy, but also gave complete control over the filtering of info to the user and that returned results based on search terms, with sites that included all the search terms prioritized and an option to remove any site trying to sell me something. Ok rant over.
On cookies
Unfortunately, the original intent of the cookie has been subverted by some unscrupulous entities who have found a way to use this process to actually track your movements across the Web. They do this by surreptitiously planting their cookies and then retrieving them in such a way that allows them to build detailed profiles of your interests, spending habits, and lifestyle.
Overall look
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
The other stuff asked maybe others know what you want to hear.
But to me being social on the internet is bad privacy because you give a base from which to learn about you the subject. So with the likes of how long you press a key, styling of your sentences and 1500 pieces of info trapped as a profile that you’ll never really thought about. There can never be real privacy in the e – verse as it was never designed in to it..
Lizzzy Blue
I like your thinking and the power of logic you deliver in your words. Filter bubble(s) are not the 360 realm of information the world wide web holds, but a search engines 15-% windows slit to it they let you access. Why? INFORMATION IS POWER HENSE TITANS PROFITS are search results that pull or generate their own revenue of said power holders!
Maybe someday a VPN (or like server) will be a closed, yet secured and private loop of the 360 single window (snapshot) in the whole web informational map that can’t be censored in anyway by the preferred search engine used. That way the only problems we’d have are human information overload.
Just in the subject of search engine here are some links for you and other readers.
From 2015 covers – 2010/2018 The History Of Google Algorithms Updates
All Search Engine List in 2021 https://www.linksmanagement.com/500-search-engines/
Updated 2019 – What are Different Types of Search Engines?
The purpose of a search engine is to extract requested information from the huge database of resources available on the internet. Search engines become an important day to day tool for finding the required information without knowing where exactly it is stored.
https://www.webnots.com/what-are-different-types-of-search-engines/
List of Internet Search Engines
https://techspirited.com/list-of-internet-search-engines
List of Search Engines Listed by Types of Searches
https://pwebs.net/2011/04/search-engines-list/
It is a really good search engine, because they don’t use cookies, they don’t get your IP and it use Bing, so you it is good for reach good.
Some interesting links for learn more about this search engine:
-https://www.noupe.com/business-online/peekier-new-search-engine-protects-privacy.html
-https://privacyblog.com/2017/01/07/peekier-a-new-search-engine-protects-your-privacy/
-https://www.bespacific.com/peekier-privacy-oriented-search-engine/
Also if you want to look something like peekier:
-https://alternativeto.net/software/peekier/
Thanks Raposo for the links. I appreciate your effort and help.
Swisscows is a Switzerland-based RUSSIAN-SWISS company,
with connections in Russia and Russian management.
Owner company of Swisscows is: Hulbee and his subsidiary company: Evrikon GmbH is located Russia.
I don’t konow how PRIVATE Swisscows (or Russiancows) search engine is, nobody knows 😉
So what you seem to imply is “Don’t use it, it’s Russian.” How about instead Russian-owned companies and products get tagged with red stars and Russians living, working or vacationing in Europe have to wear red stars like Jews had to wear yellow stars of David? Would that be enough to stop Putin?
Correctionnnnnn
Meant Swisscows mail – not swissmail.
Better still than duckduckgo, startpage or google.
This on top of their downranking websites deemed “Russian disinformation” after Gabriel Weinberg bragged on his Twitter account a short time ago scolding Google for their censorship will certainly make for tougher times for DDG.
https://www.techradar.com/news/duckduckgo-in-hot-water-over-hidden-tracking-agreement-with-microsoft
Any information concerning the search engine Peekier.com? Good, bad, not sure?
Keep up the great work Mr. Taylor.
Well, as far as startpage is concerned, I think that little can be said against its privacy policy (it can be easily be found on its website). It is true that its behaviour after being acquired by System1, was not as transparent as it should be, but it is also true that there is no evidence that they have ever sold user data to third parties or that they “are gathering as much data as possible”. Besides, they are under European privacy regulations (GDPR).
Incluiding Yandex in yourtop ten private search engines and not doing so with statrtpage, it does not make sense to me… Nevertheless I have always found this website very interesting despite the fact that sometimes I disagree with some articles
Interesting Rodrigo on your take with this.
Wouldn’t System1 and Startpage be in competing roles under one family banner?
I mean you have a proclaimed privacy defender and the other a data exploiter of personal privacy.
Bloods thicker than water with families so people sense this, then you have fool me once shame on you – when people left in droves. It wasn’t always this way but change was found out it as their lies got worst. So they say StartMail is not of the same family to – they lost peoples trust long ago.
I wonder if you’ve looked at presearch and what you think about it?
Keep in mind Startpage is a proxy for Google searches. I use it from time to time, but you still get Google results and they can be intentionally skewed.
I have noticed consistently broader results since trying Metager. With Duck I get results not on Google. With Metager I get even more variety of results. And I get useful information that was previously hidden from me. It makes my life better. I note that Metager formed as a non-profit. It seems most corporations cannot maintain ethical values in the face of greed. So many temptations to resist! Economics are a fact of life for nonprofits also. We should support those who help us, if we want them to survive. How many of us have taken Mozilla/Firefox for granted for years? They can be forced to become corporate by high demand with low donations. We all lose if that happens. Money talks. I will vote with my dollars. I am listing my costs and budget for privacy apps. I will include fair donations to valuable non-profits on my budget. The budget reminds me to follow my values. I encourage you all to consider doing the same.
Swisscows is not good for vpn
“429 Too Many Requests”
Hi Sven
Any comments, views, advice re revelations on the web today (25 May) that DDG has been secretly facilitating Microsoft trackers. Is it enough to stop long time users like me throwing DDG overboard ?
Yep, I’ll be covering this in an article coming out later today or tomorrow.
Hello,
I came here to find out about the Brave browser and found out so much more info!! Thanks!
I saw your reviews of VPNs but did not see Namecheap VPN. Is that one (being quite cheap) just a browser proxy, which you called another VPN, that is not doing as much as advertised? It works well for Netflix which is my main purpose, but I am getting more concerned about privacy, so I wondered if it is really private.
Thank you!
Hi Stephen, we have a Namecheap VPN review here — but it is now called “FastVPN”.
Yesterday my Opera Browser updated itself, and now when I try to access Duckduckgo.com in VPN mode, as I’ve done since adopting Opera for private browsing, Opera is blocked with a “tunnel error message”, no matter how many times, or how long I try. When I toggle VNP mode off, the search is carried out, and I can toggle VPN mode back on and open the hits. Can anyone make sense of this for me?
I would strongly recommend you completely avoid the “Opera VPN” feature as this appears to be a data collection tool based on our previous research and reading through Opera’s own privacy policy. Additionally, this is not even a “VPN” at all, but rather a browser proxy with a dubious data collection policy, as we explained in the Opera VPN review. This is the exact opposite of privacy. A reputable paid VPN service would be a much better idea.
Hi otropogo,
I hope you find value in the RP articles Sven recommends.
If you have the time, remember there’s heaps of valuable information here.
The “Privacy Essentials” articles are all gathered towards the top of the home page.
G.L,
BoBeX
@otropogo the Opera browser is a privacy nightmare itself. You might want to switch it for another browser since the company that owns Opera Software. is a Chinese IT firm. That means there’s a strong likelihood your data is being mined by China’s Communist government. Firefox and Brave are excellent choices or, if you still want an Opera-style experience, I suggest Vivaldi.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-opera-software-m-a-china-idUSKCN0XI1GN
(Sorry for the off-topic comments but I felt this really needed to be said. If you want I can move it… or you can. I realize your post is a little old and it’s not about search engines but nobody should get caught out like I did.)
I *was* a longtime Opera user. Drank the kool-aid from the start, banners on my home page, actively waved my little support Opera flag everywhere I went (lived in/or near Silicon Valley at the time), volunteered actively in the community, ranted about losing the tomato, had t-shirts, reported bugs, covered the boards, the whole nine yards. As time went on, I grew less active and real life took me away from that area and volunteering in that world.
What I didn’t expect was for them to SELL it. I blindly (and I read all privacy policies and TOS agreements!) just kept downloading Opera as one of a few browsers on my phone and/or computer for a very long time and then for FIVE YEARS…… For five years, they just sucked up my data for free because I was too ignorant to know they’d sold the bloody company!
I found out entirely by accident. Heck, it might have been here….I felt so blindsided. I never once thought that I needed to protect myself from them. We were a community. These were my people! I was dismayed. The selling my data for five whole years was just salt and iodine and acid in the raw, bloody, gaping wounds of my overdramatic soul. Yeah, I had it bad. When I love something, I really love something. Heck, I still use the same e-mail client I did back then! I’d use the same checkbook client if 64-bit hadn’t broken it. Being passionate and being super attached go hand and hand for me — even if it’s just a piece of software.
Do NOT trust anything Opera has to offer you. They will take eat you and your data for lunch and then regurgitate it to the highest bidders; endlessly.
To anyone thinking of using any Opera product:
Trust in Sven. He speaks the truth. Get a REAL vpn and AVOID Opera like the plague that it is. It is not even a decent browser any more. I haven’t tried it yet (funnily enough, I just downloaded it about fifteen minutes ago for the first time, try Vivaldi. Read their privacy policy. Read their security policy. Read their ABOUT page. They are pretty transparent about how they do their business. I haven’t done any further research on them beyond knowing that they are former Opera owners with some new people but they sound like they are doing good work and they are doing it the way that they did with Opera. (minus the selling but I don’t know that story.)
For search engines – to get back on topic: My faves are Metager, swisscows when I want it easy, the searX instance that someone posted recently with the acronym that is SFW called FYG – makes me laugh every time! – one day I’ll have my own….I like Gibiru but it gets my frustration levels up within the first ten minutes so I have to not use it as a default. I want to like Brave but it needs a couple years. Mojeek is okay. The rest..eh, they are either in bed with people I don’t trust or I don’t like who owns them or something else along those lines or I haven’t tried them yet or they bore me.
Ruins
Ruins
Whoogle Search;
“Get Google search results, but without any ads, javascript, AMP links, cookies, or IP address tracking. Easily deployable in one click as a Docker app, and customizable with a single config file. Quick and simple to implement as a primary search engine replacement on both desktop and mobile.”
https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search
https://pypi.org/project/whoogle-search/
The problem is, like Startpage, Whoogle is for Google searches. Google is politicizing their products, including their signature search engine.
I wonder if DDG censoring misinfo has to do with them being reliant on Bing (and advertisers) search results. I’m guessing whatever is censored on Bing is also censored on DDG. Also, isn’t every search engine censored to some extent?
I find it especially strange that some of the people calling out DDG’s censorship would jump ship to Yandex and gladly accept their censorship in return. I’m pretty sure Yandex censors a lot more stuff than DDG or Bing, and the people who want “uncensored” results really just want their personal biases confirmed.
Yandex acting as part of Russia’s “Great Firewall” is far worse than DDG censoring what they see as misinfo. From my experience, I still see a lot of news from the left and right on DDG. And the down-ranking of RT is definitely there. Great write-up Sven! You should check out Whoogle.
@Mx.Random. I agree with your thinking and think your comments are sensible
@Mx. Random Let me put it to you this way: The Russian government has little reason to try to identify me or even consider me a threat since I live so far away. Therefore, any information they collect on me would be worthless.
@Mike So you would still use Yandex even though they participate in nation-state level censorship? You should start using Baidu then.
In all seriousness: the issue is that Yandex is legally obligated by the Russian govt to censor all search results criticizing the Kremlin. They don’t down-rank search results like DDG or Bing; they outright remove it. Searching anything opposing the Russian govt would either give you propaganda or something completely unrelated.
Yes, the Russian govt may not be able to arrest you. But they are able to arrest ordinary Russian citizens who oppose Putin and/or the war in Ukraine. And considering how popular Yandex is over there, they’re effectively a tool for Russia to spread propaganda and stifle free speech.
Note that “down-ranking” can basically function the exact same as removal. If you can’t find what you’re looking for due to censorship and search result manipulation, the end result is the exact same.
So the question is what flavor censorship would you prefer? From what I have seen, it is easier to find censored information when using Yandex than any search engine that sources from Bing or Google. So ultimately, use the search engine that works best for you, and depending on what you are searching for, this can vary for each person.
@Sven Thanks and my sentiments exactly. What you describe has been my experience with Yandex and the reply Mx. Random gave smacks of the “Don’t use it, it’s Russian” mantra.
It’s because that we have so many choices on the internet that censorship is nearly impossible and even the vast amount of tracking can make it easier to protect one’s information due to corporate and even government technological overreach.
That DDG is even listed as a secure search engine calls the entirety of this review into question! DDG is about as “secure” as StartPage and other such Ad-tech surveillance engines.
You also neglected to mention OneSearch, although it is now owned by Yahoo/Verizon. The mobile phone version is a joke, however.
That Yippy now redirects to DDG is another travesty, although yippyinc.com directs you to Yippy corporate.
Please try to keep up!
Google appears to be still spying on DuckDuckGo. I’m doing some plumbing home repair and did a search for a particular plumbing component. An hour later I was watching Youtube and a video suggestion about that particular component came up. To say the least, I’m irked.
Has anyone evaluated Freespoke search engine?
2022 04 25: SwissCows is OUT. They blocked me from finding X22 Report on Bitchute so I wondered if it was X22 or Bitchute and tried again with just Bitchute and it was Bitchute that Swisscows censored me from because it suspected violence and pornographie. Bottom line = SwissCows censors. Bastards.
Swisscows as a whole is down for months now, so it seems.
You left out OneSeach a very good private search engine that I’ve use on my Mac for several years and I can highly recommend