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.
Which search engine is better?
@K2 it depends on your needs. I suggest try each one on this page and pick the one you like.
So, I hope this isn’t too big an ask, but: I’ve seen you do different articles dedicated to one or two particular services. I would like to request that you consider doing one on Ecosia, especially considering the move to become a steward-owned company (https://blog.ecosia.org/trees-not-profits/) several years back. I’ve only heard about this change from them, and I’m bad at searching for stuff online due to ADHD (thanks so much for making this site on that note, it really helps me inform myself on privacy and is an essential resource I’d recommend to anyone), so if you would make an article about Ecosia covering stuff like that with third-party resources, I think it would help me decide whether to stay with it or switch to something else. I’ve used Ecosia for a few years and it’s a charity with wonderful goals that I’m happy to support, but the fact that contributing to it is as easy as making a few dozen searches on it makes me suspicious. Explaining how that works, if you think you can, would be very helpful as well.
According to Snopes, it’s legitimate so go ahead and use it. I think the best way is to whitelist Ecosia and create account so you don’t block Ecosia ads, trackers or cookies for data collection and tree counting. On average—depending on time and place—50 searches are required to plant a tree. A tree costs about €2.50 if you prefer to pay directly. If you’re comfortable with Ecosia search providers (Bing or Google in the future) collecting your data, you may use Ecosia. Ecosia itself doesn’t collect data.
Having used Kagi for the past two months, I’ve got to agree with other comments that Kagi should absolutely be on this list. Out of all the search engines that I’ve used, Kagi currently has the best and most accurate results. It’s almost as good as “good ole’ days” Google. Yes, yes, I can already feel the stones being thrown at me by other commenters for recommending a paid search engine, but I feel that the results I’m getting really are worth the price!
October 4 2023
Search engine index and private way to search using proxy or frontends
Main search engine crawler and index:
1. Google
2. Bing
3. Yandex
4. Mojeek
5. Brave
6. Right Dao
7. Yep
8. Common Crawl (non-profit)
9. Togoda
* Gigablast is no longer operational since few months ago
A few search engine crawler and index focusing on small/retro/tracker-free/non-commercial/non-SEO spam websites:
1. Wiby
2. Marginalia
3. Teclis
Private proxies or frontends to access the search engines especially non-private ones (Google, Bing, Yandex)
Google only:
1. QuackQuackGo
2. Presearch (?) as well as DSearch (?)
3. Whoogle
4. LibreX (inactive?)
5. LibreY – fork of LibreX
6. Kagi
7. Breeze (free)
Bing only:
1. DuckDuckGo
2. Metager
3. Swisscows
4. Qwant
5. Ghostery Search (?)
6. Search Kin (?)
7. You.com
8. Breeze (premium)
9. Tempest
10. Torry (?)
Yandex only:
1. Epic Search
Mojeek only:
1. N/A – Mojeek is already private. It can be accessed via metasearch engines below
Brave only:
1. N/A – Brave is already private. It can be accessed via metasearch engines below
Right Dao only:
1. N/A – Right Dao is already private
Yep only:
1. N/A – Yep is already private
Common Crawl only:
1. ChatNoir
2. Stract
* Bonus: DuckDuckGo only:
1. FrogFind – made for retro computers
Metasearch engines collect results from multiple engines or indexes, usually users are able to select sources according to preferences. List of private metasearch engines–Yandex too can be accessed here:
1. eTools.ch
2. Searx
3. SearXNG
4. StartPage – now uses Google and Bing
5. 4get.ca
6. Websurfx
Eco friendly, green or charitable search engines generates revenue from ads to support environmental or charity projects. They are not exactly private because they run on ads and some tracking to generate money. Most are powered by Bing:
1. Ecosia
2. Whaleslide
3. giveWater
4. Ekoru
5. Lilo
6. Givero
7. Goodsearch
8. Elliot for Water
9. YouCare
Below are AI powered search engines which combine Large Language Model (LLM) with live data. The search index used may come from Bing or Google while LLM from static data or models. Privacy varies but many below are private:
1. Andisearch
2. You,com
3. Perplexity
4. Phind
5. YottaAnswers
6. AISearch.vip
End of info collected so far.
👏
October 12 2023
ADDENDUM
Correction:
1. Kagi is not Google only but Google, Bing, Mojeek, Teclis
Addition:
1. AI search engine – Komo Search
Azokle is a new private search engine thats give first priority to there users. [https://azokle.com]
Just gave up on private search engines because the bottom line is that your data has to used by any search and any third party. affiliates. Now I use a combo of Metager,Swiss-Cows, and Qwant. Now this has nothing to do with private/secure search engines but has anybody taken a close look at NoScript lately? By default it allows a large amount of earth’s worst trackers,data stealers, and privacy invaders as TRUSTED, like google,yahoo,facebook,, ebay…..do they receive income from those companies?
What’s wrong with Mojeek?
recent Metager change. Now you are required to pay to prevent ads and tracking etc. I only pay if anon prepaid card option available…(rarely if ever offered), and the charge would need to be very low as it would soon mount up if required on ever increasing numbers of websites. I accept that some income is required by such sites, but I can only accept generalised non-geographical (more specific than my country) or non-interest-based targeting
Metager now seems unusable, and not compatible with your objectives or mine.
Is my comment right or wrong? I could be wrong – my knowledge is not at expert level.
Some of us, especially those who have their own websites or blogs online, would like to know what AVERAGE, TYPICAL people are seeing when they search for certain search terms. Typical people neither know nor care about “privacy stuff”, they use Google Search.
So what I’d like to see here, is an article explaining how to use Google Search, to see what the general public sees for certain search terms, but without being tracked by Google in the process. (Presumably some indirect/proxied way of using Google, but do they detect that?) I’d like detailed instructions on how to do this. Maybe call it “How to do a privacy-oriented indirect google search” or something like that. Thank you.
Startpage should give you what you are looking for.
I tried the 10 and only Mojeek and Yandex did not censor or MIS-direct my search.
No mention of Gibiru? They’ve been around since 2009 and practically invented the concept of the private search engine. I’m shocked that they weren’t even mentioned in this list!
@Jack Sparrow Correct + pertinently noted point, as Gibiru is def. at forefront of PSE inception.
Oh, PSE = Private Search Engine
I just tried it and liked it 🙂
I don’t know their history or their real privacy concerns though…
Hi RP community
It was 2019, when we discarded Startpage due to system 1 issue.
Now, long time passed.
Is there any news or evidence or rumours, that sys1 did some wrong, violating SP’s declared privacy policy (which is still same as before) ?
I didn’t find any recent info on net (positive or negative). All available, are old posts.
Privacytools.io relisted SP on their site, but silently, without any extra comment !
https://www.privacytools.io/private-search
Anyone with any information (positive or negative), please share.
Rather than any bigger problems, there are ads included, but this is pretty much same with other services.
I still believe in Startpage, as it’s EU based service, compared to DDG and Brave Search (based in US, may be forced to share information)
Might be as docile as swisscows.com but who can say. Seems to me your browser engines are from the same molds, meant as they can all hype up different privacy venues. I feel your privacy is lost from the way devices talk to the web. Then again by sub-companies and partners to browsers and search engines, that just by using them will give them rights to your information. So as well as upstream and from where your initial splash into the web happened. You have little defense against the way things are structured. Meant self privacy is only a dream in this new digital age. . .
It’s the way the public found out about it after the fact, coming from a privacy preaching company that showed us how much they respect their current user base at the time. No heads up – people.
That was to me like bedding down the enemy, beings the main loss in privacy is from the ad networks, etc…. Imagine Russia and Ukraine having a child that the US has problems from, thats not far off thinking still from bed mates like startpage and system1 child for your internet you get/settle for just by using it!
Understand, it’s a respect thing as well as a privacy issue. Forgive me it still makes me mad!!
Hi Sven Sir,
Neeva Private Search Engine is shutting down. According to CEO it is very difficult to convince users who don’t even know the difference between a browser and a search engine to switch to a search engine and pay for it.
I am very sorry and sad about it. I was enjoying a lot using Neeva. Now I don’t even know what alternative to go for.
Check these out:
You.com
Kagi.com (requires account)
Searchkin.com (requires account)
eTools.ch
Andisearch.com
hi Jessica
I used you.com but 😥 its more centralized power I mean they focus more on you signing into all you apps through it & they’ll have every password to each site, I liked it in the beginning though. Now I used youcare try it I think you’ll love it. [https://youcare.world/]
@Jessica Ma’am thank you for the valuable information. Yes these are good alternative search engines. Kagi is infact quite good but Kagi is monitized by subscription and it is very expensive. While on one hand we have free and good search engines like Google which can be used privately with Adblocker, cookie auto delete and preventing URL conversion, I feel spending 25USD per month on Kagi is not justified.
No one will go to pay, as there are lots of free options described in the article above.
For dependable Searx public instance, look here –
https://searchengine.party/,
https://privacyscore.org/list/330/?categories=privacy%2Cssl%2Csecurity%2Cmx
Hi super Sven can I help by giving you my personal choice I been using Youcare search engine for 2 yrs & its very good with privacy 🔏 they’re very strict & they get their results from bing they have their own browser too, but I use it in my soul browser as default page, try BTW your search can help animals or the earth they’re not a woke company so give it a go based in France too. 🥳 [https://youcare.world/]
Thank you Bill Sir. Yes you are right, YouCare search engine is good. The thing is I use search engine for a lot of academic queries and for this Bing based search engines which don’t have additional features like instant answers provided by Google makes me slow and work extra for getting satisfactory answer for each query as now I will have to open and load multiple web pages in multiple windows.
What I have decided is to use Google search engine with Adblocker, VPN, blocking Cookies and preventing URL conversion. I use Firefox browser and my overall setup works well. Google does censors search results and is biased since years but for general not divisive queries it is good.
Hi there Super Sven- I found this dialogue to be open & refreshing but alas I am but a technically challenged Bubbe from michigan who would like to change her search engine & browser. I am finding old reliable DDG just might be off the reservation. I will never return to Google nor bing because of their ownership.
What is a poor gal to do? Please enlighten and educate me for my future academics goals.
Mullvad’s Leta Thoughts – https://www.techradar.com/news/mullvad-aces-security-audit-with-this-new-privacy-tool
Shame it’s tied to a VPN subscription.
What about this as a possible workAround? https://www.torry.io/
How Torry Works – https://www.torry.io/works/
Tor Network protects against tracking, surveillance, and censorship.
Use the Tor Anonymous View button next to every search result to visit websites in complete privacy through the Tor Network.
Sven Sir you should once try out Neeva Premium search engine. It is very Good, I have been using it extensively for quite some time and I like it a lot. It is so good that I am not missing Google at all and have completely stopped using Google Search even though I have tools and means in place to use Google Search privately.
Also I am using Neeva gist app on my android smartphone as my assistant app and it is leaps and bounds more useful and desirable than Google Assistant for my use case and the way I prefer things. When I got Neeva Premium via Dashlane Premium for 1 year I was skeptical whether I will ever use it and was using Duckduckgo for some time but after using Neeva and further after subscribing to Neeva Search I feel it is the best search engine and it is turning out to be one of my best and most useful digital subscription, along with Evernote and Dashlane Password Manager. Neeva has made searching the web fun.
Unfortunately, Neeva is shutting down https://neeva.com/blog/may-announcement
A shame since their results were some of the best I found.
This is by far the best analysis made about private search engines. I really appreciate your impartial point of view. Most sites are sponsored. I discovered a few thanks to you.
This article is the most comprehensive and informative content regarding search engines available along with their pro and cons. I have been seeking for search engines that do not censor results or inundate the page with ads. Personally, any engine that uses results from Bing, Google, and Yahoo return the same censored ads as the the mega corporations. Thanks much for the information provided.
I compared Neeva Search Premium, Brave Search and Duckduckgo. In my experience Neeva Search > Brave Search > Duckduckgo. Neeva Search has best interface and provides great search results and its Neeva AI although in Beta is path breaking and extremely useful. Also Personally I am a Neeva Search user. Brave Search which also has an optional paid tier for going ads free is not as good as Neeva but is surprisingly quite good specially considering that it is a recent product. Duckduckgo is not bad but I would say it is not great and is very 2010 that is 10 years behind in terms of overall search experience although I acknowledge that it is customizable and has some nifty tricks. Also interface of Duckduckgo is not very good and I did try to customize it via settings. Duckduckgo also does not has a paid option and displays advertisements which makes it not very private if one clicks on those ads which are the top search results, unless of course one blocks them via adblocker which one can do even on Google and Bing directly or disable them via settings. I would say Neeva, Brave Search and Swisscows all three have paid tier and are not ads heavy even when using the free version are much better than Duckduckgo.
As for the details of search engine comparison basically one can try using all the three and one would see how Duckduckgo just draws from Bing and provides website links and some text as search results and the experience is not very modern and rich.
Sven Sir I have to say it is better to pay for a search engine for security and privacy. As free search engines, even the privacy focused ones, are monetized by advertisements. And it is not clear what agreement is there between Ads-Sense companies and these search engines like Duckduckgo. They never disclose it. So for example Duckduckgo itself might not be tracking users and provides generic Bing search results, but the ads although based on search query, are the top results and when clicked share user information and direct user to advertisers. If that Ads-sense company which provides ads on Duckduckgo is Bing or Google then there is no privacy benefit of using Duckduckgo over using Bing or Google Search directly unless one avoids and blocks advertisements on Duckduckgo which is not conducive to the survival of Duckduckgo. If that Ads sense company is something less trustworthy than Bing or Google then Bing Search or Google Search happens to be more private and secure as in spite of data collection high standards are followed than an untrustworthy Ad-sense company and one would also get better experience than Duckduckgo.
Sven Sir I have been using Neeva Search engine Premium for quite some time and I am very happy with it. It is a very reliable search engine and gives great results. What are your views on Neeva from privacy standpoint?
Wow you really REALLY liked Neeva.
Very Awesome. Good information. There are ways around everything. I knew DuckDuckGo was compromised and searching for better search engines lead me here. Just glad to see that more people are catching on to what the turds in tech are doing. The core of most of the worlds problems is greed and woeful ignorance. If nobody could be bribed and if most people didn’t live inside their indoctrinated bubble of “They wouldn’t do that” or go in complete denial of just how screwed up the world really is not wanting to live in the actual truth of the way things really are, we would be way better off.
Bravo to this comment! I think I want to print it out, frame it, and hang it on my wall (next to the computer and television).
Any info on freespoke?
brave search tracking added to easylist.
https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commit/0995da17e278d438a685e6784d6ba8870b005b45
https://github.com/easylist/easylist/issues/15235
Tells a little more.
Hi everyone!
-Okay so everyone here seems well informed and kind. So at the risk of sounding dumb I will ask. Any suggestions on Apps/search engines would be awesome…
Just an FYI I use my cellphone and iPad. Not laptop or computer savvy. So iPhone mainly, if not exclusively for research on seeking different points of view & angles on touchy subjects. Truths that are available on Google.
-I suppose As in “conspiracy theories” & out of the box information/content that Google simply won’t show, because that’s not on the agenda for them obviously. They either won’t show anything I search for, or they do show results/websites etc on them, but they are always fact checking topics. Only showing results opposing these type of topics/ideas. Showing one sided info, & not the whole story.
I want to be shown unbiased results to choose from when it comes to world news, hidden away or censored helpful information, well you get what I mean.
As you probably know, TikTok may be taken away soon. And I use it mainly to hear and see different opinions/views on odd or worldwide centered subjects. Things that are really helpful that I can make my own assumptions on. Non biased results when searched.
I use Google for simple, basic normal searches. But not for politics, religious, or coverage on sometimes strange things, centered around exposing various things.
I currently use Qwant. I like it and it doesn’t hide information as much. But sometimes it’s very limited to what I’m seeking.
Willing to download multiple search engine apps to juggle between them for things. Thought about Brave? I’ve tried to do research on all these different ones and it’s overwhelming and frustrating…so any suggestions to ones that actually gives you alot of websites/results while still being open?
Thank you,. Also I realize I just repeated myself a lot in different wording. I’m working on hardly any sleep lol.
Typo ^^^^ I meant to say “…truths that *aren’t* available on Google..”
Also any suggestions to apps similar to TikTok that has a platform for freely speaking on things? (Well, as much as they allow.. when videos aren’t actually being taken down for going again their so called “community guidelines”.)
But yeah, just a good alternative to TT I guess.
What are your thoughts on Presearch?
The search results on Presearch aren’t good and I prefer to stay away from crypto based search engines. If you need the crypto touch points and price news then use http://www.search.Brave or https://www.Torry.io both have crypto results by default
Also, Presearch uses IP tracking to throttle users that gamify their crypto earning system. Many users search to earn PRE coin. So the unintended consequences of this is Presearch ingests all users searches and their IPs to protect agains users gaming the system.
Normal search engines don’t check users historical usage to make sure they aren’t gaming the system for PRE. So why exposure yourself to that attack vector.
Thank you for sharing all of this!
This is a good update and a demonstration of how AI can be used to generate and explain results in an un-biased way. Also, good to know users can disable the “Summarizer” feature too.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/brave-search-launches-ai-powered-summarizer-in-search-results/
Hi RP Community,
This discussion I forward is about Startpage as a Google Search alternative.
My experience is:
Brave Search returns poor results in my part of the world;
Bing Search lacks the power of Google Search for very specific or technical queries.
DDG is perfectly adequate in my part of the world for general quiries and have had a very good experience with DDG on LibreWolf.
For me, Google clearly returns the best results for very particular or technical quieries.
My question is what is the best way to acess the power of Google Search in the least privacy offending way?
Before posting, I have read this article, the RP articles:
https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/comment-page-1/?unapproved=624909&moderation-hash=dee17a1f215a1a62129739b5a2329d83#comment-624909
https://restoreprivacy.com/google-alternatives/; and,
https://www.startpage.com/en/privacy-policy/?t=light;
https://www.startpage.com/privacy-please/startpage-articles/how-does-startpages-private-search-engine-work.
Notably, the final link above states:
“Consider Startpage your middleman. Any search query you make gets sent to a cloud server that doesn’t know you and communicates with Google. Search results are then returned to “premise servers” that are locked in cabinets, rather than going directly to your browser. This middle step better protects you by hiding you behind this privacy wall. We partner with Google because they have the industry’s best search technology compared to Yahoo or BING (which are widely used by other private search engines).”
So for accessing Google Search in the least privacy offending way should I use Google Search, Starpage Search, or an alternative that accesses the power of Google Search without Google limiting or blocking the queries?
G.L. all,
P.S. for anyone interested, in my use of a four browser setup, two things:
Using Brave as a JS disabled browser as a first browsing option didn’t work well for me, I just found myself using my second browser (LibreWolf) nearly all the time;
For people like me who watch YouTube alot, segmenting that activity solely to Ungoogled Chromium is working very well.
Given these two things, repurposing Brave to a browser used exclusively as search tool accessing Google search is my new goal.
Good points BoBeX.
But the problem is, Startpage don’t support VPN connection, as in my case Proton VPN.
Only DDG works smoothly.
So I use a Searx public instance – https://searx.namejeff.xyz/searx/ to fetch Google search results anonymously.
It has a privacy policy, though with very short info, but for any explanation, quarry or complaints there is an easy provision to contact with the maintainer through e-mail, and he is quite responsive as I’ve experienced.
https://northboot.xyz is more better.
Hi, @shr, thank you for your kind words and advise.
With Searx I don’t know how to navigate my way safely to safe servers, or how to check / verify.
I note your recommendation of an instance, but how do I do that myself?
Is it purely reputationally based?
With https://northboot.xyz, on my first inquiry it notified that my inquiry was blocked by Google.
So seems not a solution for me.
Thank you for your reply or further reply.
Right now, I think best for me is LW with DDG and Brave with Google search on hand as a secondary.
Any further suggestions from you or RP community are welcome.
GL,
Neeva is currently the best private search engine for me.
DDG is anything, but private, Brave, Quant find nothing.
Swisscows censors everything, even brown sugar, rolf.
Hi, I am using Neeva search engine, it is very nice. I would like to continue my subscription and keep using it. I am getting very good search results.
@TairikuOkami
Neeva is Shutting down. What are your views on this?
With this announcement of Google using AI, it means the company can more easily hide biased search results.
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2023/02/06/google-ai-bard-chatbot-chatgpt/7011675723089/
Hi @Mike, I tried ChatGPT and it fully has the capacity to sensor answers. It blocked my inquiries extensively, saying ~”potentially unethical / illegal activities” It wasn’t wrong it was exactly right.
I am not unethical I was just testing ChatGPT. It certainly has the potential to sensor.
(Actually it couldn’t censor me after I refined my inquires asking the question a different way)
The tech is so powerful.
@BoBeX Elon Mush is gathering a team of researchers to create an open-source AI. I hope he’s successful since this censorship and downranking search results needs to stop.
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/fighting-woke-ai-musk-recruits-team-to-develop-openai-rival
Try Torry Private Search Engine. It is very Nice.
https://www.torry.io/
I’ve been using Torry. Mostly because it has no ads.
DuckDuckGo just got dinged for a “lack of disclosure and transparency” by a privacy ratings service.
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/381656/data-privacy-scores-weigh-heavy-on-some-search-eng.html
I searched “restoreprivacy Surfshark review ” on Bing and Bing based Neeva Premium, Quant, Duckduckgo and all flopped. All of them did not give a direct link to actual Surfshark review on Restore Privacy. But Startpage which is based on Google and Google itself gave the link to the actual article in their search result. Brave Search Engine did give the correct link but its indexing was wrong and gave the wrong date and the wrong title of the article. Google Search Engine is the best.
Mostly I get better search results on Google though for certain queries Bing and Bing based search engines can be useful where they provide plethora of lower quality results.
I use Quant and just tried your search – restoreprivacy Surfshark review – and it’s top of the page. Quant is ever improving so, what once didn’t turn up does now (as of 29 Jan ’23) 😀
According to makeuseof.com Duckduckgo is more pruvate than Quant
Qwant vs. DuckDuckGo: Which Search Engine Is More Private?
https://www.makeuseof.com/qwant-vs-duckduckgo-which-search-engine-most-private/
I use StartPage with VPN and Adblocker as my main search engine. And also use Google search in Firefox container on PC and on Android in Hermit Sandbox browser container, again with VPN and adblocker. Duckduckgo is my side search engine. It is noteworthy that Startpage many a times blocks VPNs despite being a privacy oriented search engine citing abuse as the reason while duckduckgo never does that, Google also blocks VPN and makes you pass a CAPTCHA test. But I rarely face a this problem with Nord VPN, and my other side VPNs like Surfshark and Atlas. Because these are good VPNs which don’t have problem of IP getting blocked like many other VPNs. Perhaps the above VPNs have lots of servers and IPs and they refresh them quite often. That is why one must opt of a good reliable VPN based on his or her own evaluation and experience.
Not surprised that duckduckgo is on the list. But after the Microsoft scandal it’s not safe to say they belong to this list. They are Microsoft partners, the search engine is on Microsoft servers. Part of five-eye-country big-tech. They have been making a fool of the public with all the pseudo-privacy marketing.
https://www.news18.com/news/tech/duckduckgo-faces-backlash-for-allowing-microsoft-to-track-data-5266729.html
Brave has a very cool way of showing ads without it compromising user privacy.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/brave-starts-showing-privacy-preserving-ads-in-search-results/
I’ve been using Qwant after discovering it in this article last year, but some recent changes have happened to it that have pushed me to switch to Brave, and I wondered if these changes had any relevancy to the article that might make it be questioned as a good private search engine option or not.
I don’t know if Qwant pushed ads previously or not, but just today I noticed ads at the top of search queries which were provided by Microsoft. Even if I used uBlock to remove them, they’d come back in another search. Ads did not appear on every search however, it depended on what I searched. If it was a search for a type of product, it was more likely to post an ad with it.
It could just be a change to the site that made ads sllp through my ad blocker, but if they weren’t there previously, then I question what happened here with the search engine and why it’s now starting to do this
It could just be a change to the site that made ads sllp through my ad blocker, but if they weren’t there previously, then I question what happened here with the search engine and why it’s now starting to do this
Nope, it isn’t you. I noticed exactly the same thing today. At first I thought it had to do with the different URL search switches I was using. When it didn’t turn out to be that, I too looked at my ad blocker and the Qwant “settings” menu. After all that, the ads persist, which made me conclude the journey was nice for as long it lasted, and this is a chance in policy “on the Qwant” side of things. I suppose things like that happen, and the caravan moves on…
It was a shame too cause I really liked Qwant. Though I did have a total arse of a time getting the elements I I wanted to remove to stick, cause for some reason they would keep coming back up (Like those stupid characters on the front page of the search engine). It took many attempts before Qwant finally gave up and let uBlock keep these things blocked, so I think it’s always been unfriendly to my adblocker. For a privacy focused search engine, I very much question why this is.
I’d argue a revisit to Qwant is in order for his article
That’s something guys.
I’ve been trying out iZito some, you might have a look and see what you think?
[https://www.izito.com/]
“This Privacy Policy (hereinafter: “Policy”) is used by Vinden.NL B.V., trading under the name Visymo, a company with limited liability under the laws of the Netherlands, with its registered office and primary place of business at Stationsdwarsweg 7, 7461 AR Rijssen, the Netherlands and registered in the register of the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce”
Sven Sir the best search engine is Google and it can be used as a private search engine by taking certain measures which are given below.
On PC :
1. Download Firefox Browser
2. Download Firefox Browser Container Addon
3. Go to manage containers in Firefox Browser Container Addon and add a container with the name Google Search and enable the option to always use container only for designated sites.
4. Set Google search engine to always open in Google Search container.
5. Download Do not track me Google Addon for Firefox which stops link conversion from Google Search to websites and prevents websites from knowing your search query on Google Search Engine.
6. Use a VPN like Nord VPN or Surfshark VPN, either the standalone application to also prevent ISP tracking or just Browser proxy Addon to prevent Google and Websites from tracking you.
7. Use an Adblocker addon like Adguard or Ublock origin.
8. Download Cookie Auto Delete Addon and enable it to delete cookies automatically from its settings.
9. Disable third party cookies in Firefox.
And voila! Now you are using Google Search Engine privately just like any other private search engine.
Google will still get your search query and your user agent which is Firefox Browser. But that’s all. It can’t get your true ip location, and will not be able to track your web activity across websites.
Each time you search in Google Search Engine this way it will show you search results normally. But each time you click on website it will open it in no container mode in a separate tab while your Google Search Engine will always open in Google Search Engine with no third party cookies, cookies deleted soon after you close Google search engine, advertisements blocked, ip address hidden, and Google Search isolated and no link conversion to websites while everything functioning normally and the additional functionality of websites opening in new tab.
Sir. I don’t agree with you. All the topics you said are just basic applications of the browser. Maybe I see your comments from my point of view. It is better to lose your works directly and learn from each other. It is also better to understand my opinion:
This is the browser I modified. Please share your feelings after use.
Centbrowser—Priavcy—V3.2（Beta）
https://github.com/LilyJone/OpenTools/releases/tag/Centbrowser%E2%80%94Priavcy%E2%80%94V3.2%EF%BC%88Beta%EF%BC%89
Sven Sir what do you think of Neeva search engine [https://neeva.com/]
It has been made by Ex Google Employees and is a paid search Engine.
It promises not to track users. Also it does not have advertisements. It uses its own crawler as well as Bing where it fails to fetch queries.
I think there are so many great non-paid solutions, it would be hard to justify a paid one.
What do you say about https://presearch.io/
Another privacy-centered search engine I have just learned about is You.com. It has been added to the Vivaldi browser as a default search engine option.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/new-vivaldi-version-integrates-mastodon-into-the-browser-sidebar/
Brave search introduced ads, easylist did block them:
https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commit/ca9f822dde799d7d0d45ac9057c8879f3abf2c88
There’s a Qwant boycott because of this tweet they posted:
#UkraineRussiaWar In accordance with the EU sanctions, we have removed the Russian state media RT and Sputnik from our results today. The neutral web should not be used for war propaganda.
12:23 PM · Mar 1, 2022 https://twitter.com/qwantcom/status/1498755728877801472
Qwant hiding or censoring search results isn’t being “neutral.” It’s the same censorship used by the large search monopolies like Google, Bing and many others that use Bing like DDG & Yahoo.
I just learned Verizon & Yahoo created a search engine called OneSearch that also uses Bing. Here’s a brief review about it & no I don’t endorse using DDG like this article recommends https://www.reviewgeek.com/33083/verizon-has-a-new-private-search-engine-but-you-should-just-use-duckduckgo/
I’ve been trying Mojeek.com, izito.com which is also Zapmeta.com, Metager.org, Neeva.com. Dogpile.com often doesn’t work with a VPN so I don’t use it that much.
thank you for this article. Jurisdiction is the most relevant point in this list in my view. Major search engines will pretty much censor, de-rank, shadowban the same things. If you live in a NATO country or affiliate, find something outside. For any nation, really. Find something neutral or “hostile”, something that doesn’t share the data with others. Use tor. Tools exist to monitor 90% and higher of all internet communications. Be wise!