This new and improved guide aims to be the most in-depth resource available on private search engines. We’ll examine the best private search engines for 2020, how to keep your data safe when searching, and also some search engines to avoid.
Search engines may help you find what you’re looking for, but it often comes at a price: your privacy.
Most of the big search engines today are essentially data collection tools for advertising companies. Collecting your private data helps these companies to make money with targeted ads, which is a booming industry. Unless you are using a private search engine, your data is ending 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
Using a search engine can disclose highly personal information about you, such as medical issues, employment status, financial information, political beliefs, and other private details. This data, of course, can be collected, stored, and linked to your data profile (and real identity). The only way to effectively “opt out” is to keep your data safe and out of the hands of the data collectors.
In this new and improved guide, we’re going to take a deep dive into the world of private search engines, while also covering some FAQs and best practices for keeping your data safe and private. Table of contents:
- Best private search engines for 2020
- “Private” search engines with ad-tech owners
- 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
All recommendations in this guide are my own opinions based on extensive testing and research.
Best private search engines
Finding the best private search engine for your unique needs is a subjective process and there’s no one-size-fits-all. You have many factors to consider. Ideally, a search engine would return great results while also respecting your privacy. Unfortunately, there is often a tradeoff here, so it really comes down to the user and what you determine works best for your situation.
Any of the private search engines in this guide may be the best fit for your needs. You can test them all to see which one is the best fit.
Metasearch vs search: Most of the private search engines discussed below are technically metasearch engines, because they pull search results from other search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yandex. The one exception to this is Mojeek, which is a true crawler-based search engine with its own index (discussed below). 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.
Note: This list is not necessarily in rank order. Choose the best search engine for you based on your own threat model and unique needs.
Here are the best private search engines:
1. MetaGer – Open source metasearch engine, great features
MetaGer is an open source metasearch engine based in Germany, which gets search results from Bing, Yandex, Yahoo and others, as well as having its own web crawler. It is an interesting project, which started in 1996, and is now operated by a non-profit foundation in Germany called SUMA-EV (Association for Free Access to Knowledge). I tested out MetaGer for this guide and found the results to be good, 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”
MetaGer also does well in terms of privacy, as they explain here. Similar to Startpage, MetaGer converts search requests into anonymous queries through a proxy server, which also provides the anonymous viewing option with all results. User IP addresses are truncated for privacy, although user agent info is passed along to their search partners. MetaGer does not utilize cookies or any other tracking methods.
For operation stability and security, MetaGer does keep some logs on their own servers (in Germany), 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, which appear at the top of results. If you purchase a membership, however, you can get completely ad-free search results. (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. Like Searx, MetaGer is completely open source. For those on the Tor network, MetaGer also hosts a .onion site. You can read more about using MetaGer, as well as their apps, plugins, and features, on their website. We’ll close here with an interesting quote I found on their site (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.
Jurisdiction: Germany
https://metager.org/ (English)
https://metager.de/ (German)
2. Swisscows – Switzerland-based private search engine with zero tracking
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, arguably better than many other private search engines. From their privacy policy:
We do not collect any of our visitors’ personal information. None whatsoever. When using Swisscows neither your IP address is recorded nor is the browser you are using (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) collected. No analyses are made, which operating system our users use (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.); your search are not recorded either. We record absolutely no data from our visitors. The only information we store is the number of search requests entered daily at Swisscows, to measure the total overall traffic on our website and to evaluate a breakdown of this traffic by language and mere overall statistics.
Swisscows completely does away with statistics and analyses on its visitors in order to protect your privacy. Given that we do not collect any information on our visitors, we are also not able to identify your place of residence. Swisscows does not conduct any geo targeting.
Swisscows does not use Cookies which can be used to identify of a user.
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 filters some adult content, others may see this as a great feature, especially those with 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):
For the reason that Swisscows does NOT monitor users, thus doesn’t spy out data and NO data is sold to advertisers, only few companies are interested in advertising on Swisscows. This revenue unfortunately doesn’t cover the expenses on data center, development, employees, etc.
Jurisdiction: Switzerland
https://swisscows.com
3. Searx – Open source metasearch engine
Searx is an open source metasearch engine that gathers results from other search engines while also respecting user privacy. One unique feature of Searx is that you can run your own instance. 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.
Another great aspect of Searx is that it is very customizable. You can modify exactly what search engines Searx pulls results from in the user preferences area. You can also narrow down results with different categories. It’s all under your control.
One drawback with Searx is that it’s been getting blocked by Google because it scrapes Google results. There does not seem to be a good solution to this issue at this time, other than using other sources for your search results.
SearX can still pull results from other search engines, however.
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. However, just like with Tor nodes, anyone could 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.
This might mean that governments and other rogue third parties are operating instances, but that is pure speculation.
Jurisdiction: Not applicable (open source, not based in any one location)
https://www.searx.me (gives info about the project and list of instances)
Unfortunately, the people behind the Searx project do not have the resources to run a public instance. Instead, they recommend other public instances run by various individuals or entities. But how do you know they aren’t logging your search results on their server? (You don’t!)
One solution to this is to host your own private instance. For most people, however, this is not a practical solution.
4. Qwant – Private search engine based in France
Qwant is another private search engine that is based in France and primarily sources search results from Bing. Being based in Europe, the data privacy protections are much stricter, as compared to the United States, for example. Qwant promises to protect user privacy (no tracking) and keep people from getting stuck in the filter bubble. Here is an excerpt from Qwant’s privacy policy:
When you use Qwant as a search engine, we don’t put any cookie on your browser that may allow us or others to recognize you or to follow you everywhere on the Internet. We don’t use any tracking device (pixel, fingerprinting…). We don’t collect and we don’t store any history or your searches. When you search, your query is instantly anonymized by being dissociated from your IP address, in accordance with what the French data controller advises. Long story short, what you are doing with Qwant is part of your privacy and we don’t want to know.
Qwant also has good search filtering options, to filter results by different categories (web, news, social, images, videos, and shopping) as well as date filters. The Qwant homepage also includes news stories, trending people, events, and other interest stories. Qwant continues to grow, with over 10 million searches per day, and is one of the most popular websites in France (top 50).
Overall, Qwant is a good option for a private search engine, with many features in place to protect user privacy.
Jurisdiction: France
https://www.qwant.com/
5. DuckDuckGo – Private search engine based in the US
DuckDuckGo is a US-based search engine that was started by Gabriel Weinberg in 2008. It generates search results from over 400 sources including Wikipedia, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo. DuckDuckGo has a close partnership with Yahoo (owned by Verizon), which helps it to better filter search results.
In testing out DDG for this private search guide, I found it to work pretty well, with relevant search terms being displayed for most tests. Search results for DuckDuckGo are primarily sourced from Bing.
To finance operations, DuckDuckGo generates money through advertisements and affiliates, which is explained here. Similar to Google and other search engines, DuckDuckGo will display ads at the top of your searches. DuckDuckGo has partnered with Amazon and eBay as affiliates.
Searches are saved – DuckDuckGo has a verbose privacy policy that mainly discusses other search engines. It’s only when you get toward the bottom that you learn 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.
Why is DuckDuckGo saving your search queries?
The privacy policy states, “We use aggregate, non-personal search data to improve things like misspellings.”
History of Duck Duck Go search
In researching the background DuckDuckGo, I uncovered some interesting history. The founder of DDG, Gabriel Weinberg, was also behind a social network called Names Database, which collected the real names and addresses of its users. He then sold Names Database (and all the user data) to Classmates.com for “approximately $10 million in cash” in March 2006.
DuckDuckGo was launched a few years later, in 2008 and was branded as a privacy search engine. It rose to popularity in 2013 following the Snowden revelations. DuckDuckGo remains one of the most popular private search engines to date and is well-regarded in the privacy community.
Jurisdiction: United States (runs on Amazon servers in the US!)
https://duckduckgo.com
6. Mojeek – A true crawler-based search engine with more privacy
Unlike some of the other private (meta)search engines on this page, Mojeek is true search engine with its own crawler. In an open reddit discussion, Mojeek claimed to have indexed 2.3 billion pages, with the goal of doubling that by the end of the year.
For those who want complete search independence from the corporate data monoliths of Google and Bing, Mojeek offers an interesting proposition. When I tested out various search terms, the results were hit and miss. Mojeek staff informed me they will continue to fine tun the search algorithm to improve results.
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 browser information. IP addresses are not recorded (except in rare circumstances[1]), 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.
[1] Mojeek does make one exception to this rule, if a search query is deemed related to illegal and unethical practices relating to minors, then the full log including visiting IP address will be kept and gladly handed over to any official authorities that ask. If you’re at all concerned about this exception then Mojeek is not the search engine for you.
Mojeek staffed explained to me via email that this last section relating to illegal content is meant to act as a “deterrent” where they “reserve the right” to log IP addresses. Overall, not a bad privacy policy.
Hopefully Mojeek can continue to improve their search results and one day rival the big players.
Jurisdiction: United Kingdom
https://www.mojeek.com/
7. YaCy – Decentralized, open source, peer-to-peer search engine
YaCy is an interesting private search engine that distinguishes itself from others in that it runs on a peer-to-peer network (decentralized). It was created in 2004 by Michael Christen and is entirely open source. 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 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 (but there is a demo portal here).
Jurisdiction: Not applicable. (Being a decentralized and open-source platform, YaCy does not appear to fall under any particular jurisdiction, similar to Searx.)
https://yacy.net/
Other search engines worth mentioning…
Any of the private search engines above may be a good choice if you are looking for more privacy.
With that being said, there are other search engines on the market that offer varying degrees of privacy, tracking protection, and encryption.
Below are a few search engines that fall into the middle ground:
- They are better alternatives than using Google or Yahoo search; but
- They also don’t meet all the requirements to be featured as a full “private search engine” – for various reasons.
Since people may have questions about these search engines, we’ll take a close look at each option below.
The search engines below may be great choices depending on your threat model, needs, and preferences.
8. Givero – Search with more privacy, plus charitable donations
Another interesting search engine out of Europe (Denmark) is Givero. The basic philosophy behind Givero is to donate a share of gross profits to charities, which the user can specify. (Money is generated through ads, like most search engines.)
In terms of privacy, Givero has both pros and cons. For pros, Givero is based in Europe (with full GDPR privacy protections) and does not log search history or store profile data. By default, however, Givero does not offer the full protections of the private search engines above. This is clear from their privacy policy, where we read:
To display relevant search results and to prevent fraudulent activities, data is transferred to our search partners who only use it to provide better search results on Givero – read more below. [The partners are Bing and CodeFuel.]
The following data is transferred to our search partners when you submit a search request: IP address, user agent string, search term, country and language settings, filter settings for adult content, active search filter settings (e.g. page number information), an optional Bing ID (read more below) and the ID of the organization that should benefit from your search.
This is one drawback with metasearch engines that get their search results from other providers, in this case Bing. Some private search engines are able to work with search partners without compromising any data. Givero is not there yet. (Previously, the people behind Givero worked to create their own search engine called Findx, based on Gigablast, but could not make the project work for various reasons.)
Brian Rasmusson, co-founder of Givero, told Restore Privacy that Bing currently will not allow Givero to mask user IP addresses, but may consider doing this when monthly searches reach a certain threshold. However, Rasmusson also explained that Givero has successfully incorporated other privacy protections for its users:
What we have done is to make them [Bing] turn on their internal “privacy flag” that Bing operates with. This means that data from our users is not used for remarketing, and solely used for the Givero service (e.g. for fraud prevention). So that is always on, and cannot be changed on a user level unlike the Bing ID, which controls personalized results (the “filter bubble”).
Givero has also open sourced their Instant Answers (like DuckDuckGo) and their list of Search Bangs (unlike DuckDuckGo) on Github here.
Main drawbacks:
- Not a “private search engine” by default
- Bing ID is utilized (but can be disabled)
- User IP address passed on to Bing (use a good VPN)
Juridiction: Denmark
https://www.givero.com
9. Ecosia – The search engine that plants trees
Similar to Givero, Ecosia donates a portion of profits to charity. Unlike Givero, however, it is strictly focused on planting trees. Ecosia is based in Germany and it’s promoted as a private search engine. While Ecosia does offer more privacy than the big search engines, it is also lacking in a few areas.
First, Ecosia collects all search queries and then anonymizes this data after seven days. There’s also a fair amount of data collection through website analytics, including your IP address, browser agent, location, and more. Lastly, Ecosia is assigning 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 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 are saved for seven days
Jurisdiction: Germany
https://www.ecosia.org/
ALERT: These search engines have ad-tech owners
Now we will examine a few search engines that are at least partially owned by advertising companies.
Why is this important to understand?
Because the business model of advertising companies is to collect as much private data as possible. A “private” search engine could be a massive data collection tool in the wrong hands.
So can ad-tech companies be trusted to run a private search engine and not collect your data?
Can the fox be trusted to guard the hen house?
Proceed with caution.
1. Search Encrypt – A search engine with some big red flags
Search Encrypt is another interesting search engine that claims to offer better privacy by default than DuckDuckGo. Like DuckDuckGo, Search Encrypt uses Bing for search results. Search Encrypt describes the following features on its website:
- Expiring browsing history: Encryption keys for your searches expire when you are done searching.
- End-to-end encryption: Searches are end-to-end encrypted using AES-256 and HTTPS/SSL encryption.
- Privacy-friendly maps search
- Privacy-friendly video search
While Search Encrypt does have some interesting features, the privacy policy has a few red flags. It begins with:
Search Encrypt does not track search history in any user identifiable way.
This cryptic sentence suggests that Search Encrypt does indeed track search history, but attempts to anonymize the data. Their privacy policy further states:
Additionally, we store aggregated search data to improve product performance, but never store IP addresses or unique user identifiers in connection with such searches in order to ensure that none of the information collected in connection with your search activity is personally identifiable.
This is a pretty convoluted statement. Here are a few takeaways:
- “Aggregated search data” is being logged and stored.
- They claim to not store IP addresses “in connection with such searches” – but this does not mean that IP addresses are not getting logged and/or passed on to third parties. Rather, they are merely stating that IP addresses will not be associated with searches. Therefore it appears that IP addresses might be getting logged (another reason to use a VPN).
Search Encrypt also discloses in their privacy policy how they may share data with third parties if you alter the default settings in any way:
In circumstances where you have chosen to alter the default settings, then your personally identifiable information may be shared with third party site operators.
Lastly, it also appears that Search Encrypt may be operating out of the United States. From their Terms page:
Choice of Law and Venue.
This Agreement shall be interpreted and enforced in all respects under the laws of the State of Florida, United States as applicable to contracts to be performed entirely within Florida.
Who’s running the show?
Another question with Search Encrypt is that there isn’t much information about the company. The contact page shows an address in Cyprus and the legal venue is Florida (United States). The developer for the Search Encrypt Firefox extension is “SearchIncognito” – with a history of other “private search” extensions:
How does Search Encrypt make money?
Like some other private search engines, Search Encrypt makes money through affiliates, as they explain here:
In some circumstances, we may append an affiliate code to certain sites linked to our Search Encrypt product, either directly or through search results delivered to you. In doing so, we may collect a small commission in connection with your activity, but do not pass any of your personally identifiable information to any such third party sites.
This of course could be quite profitable with the right deals and enough users. DuckDuckGo also utilizes affiliates with Amazon and eBay for revenue, in addition to advertisements. (We’ll explain more about how private search engines make money below.)
I reached out to Search Encrypt asking for additional clarification on their data collection and user privacy policies. My emails were not answered.
Main drawbacks:
- IP address and other data may be collected
- Data may be shared with third parties if you modify default settings
- Runs on Amazon servers in the US
- Non-transparent company
Jurisdiction: Contact address is in Cyprus, legal venue is in the United States (owners in China? below)
https://www.searchencrypt.com/
Update: My suspicions proved to be warranted. An article on Medium has revealed that “Search Encrypt” is basically a Chinese data collection tool for advertising companies.
How a Chinese Company Built a $250 Million Search Hijacking Empire
2. GhostPeek – A clone of Search Encrypt?
It appears that a carbon copy of Search Encrypt has been unveiled, which they are calling “Ghost Peek” and claim to be another “private search engine”.
Someone on reddit did some digging and found the same pattern and ties to China that we saw above with “Search Encrypt”
Ghostpeek, the supposedly “private” search engine, is run by a sketchy shell corporation, which in turn is owned by a personal and mobile data aggregator based in China
3. Startpage – Acquired by US ad-tech company in 2019
Startpage was previously one of my top recommendations for private search engines. However, news surfaced in October 2019 that Startpage was at least partially acquired by System1 and the Privacy One Group. As described in my article on Startpage and System1, there are some remaining concerns:
- The fact that System1 has acquired a large stake in Startpage.
- The history and business model of System1, which includes gathering “as much data as possible” and profiling users.
- The board of directors change at Surfboard Holding BV (parent company of Startpage), to appoint the System1 co-founder and an outside investor.
- The long delay in alerting the public to these changes.
- The contradictory business models of System1 and a private search engine.
Of course, choosing the best private search engine is largely about trust, and only you can decide who to trust.
Jurisdiction: Netherlands (officially, but at least partially owned by a US company)
https://www.startpage.com
Private search engine FAQs
Below we will answer 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?
Generally speaking, there are three ways private search engines make money: 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. Unlike with Google and Bing, however, private search engines should only be serving ads based on your search term, rather than from all other data collection sources (email, browsing, etc.).
With some private search engines, IP addresses or truncated (anonymized) IP addresses are passed off to the search partner, in order to serve relevant ads for your general location.
2. Affiliate revenue
Another way that private search engines make money is through affiliates. DuckDuckGo is an example of this, with both Amazon and eBay:
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 utilize affiliate “shopping” results for revenue.
Side 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 handls (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 into 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, Restore Privacy 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. Choosing the best search engine all comes down to your unique preferences, needs, and threat model.
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)
And speaking of browsers, many of the private search engines in this guide offer browser extensions to replace the default search engine for your browser.
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 and anonymize your traffic, 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 the top five recommendations from the best VPN list. Hit the VPN name to read the review.
- ExpressVPN [49% discount + 3 month free]
- NordVPN [68% discount coupon]
- Surfshark [81% discount coupon]
- VPN.ac
- Perfect Privacy
4. Use a good ad blocker
A reliable ad blocker is another important privacy tool since most advertisements pose a major threat to your privacy by quietly collecting data for third-party advertising networks. Generally speaking, ads are tracking and data collection tools. Ads can also be a security threat (see malvertising), so it’s best 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, it’s also good to stay logged out of your accounts (Gmail, YouTube, Yahoo, etc.) when surfing the web, since trackers will record your browsing activity and link this to your data profile.
Another option is to utilize a specific browser for staying logged into various accounts, but then use a separate browser for general browsing activity (browser compartmentalization).
Considerations when choosing a private search engine
Here are a few different considerations 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.
- 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.
- 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. Test and research the different options to find the best fit for you.
Last updated on September 9, 2020.
This article is appreciated. Thank you for the updated info, particularly with the likes of Startpage. They all keep claiming they don’t exploit users of their services. Hah. So much manuevering afoot it’s getting harder to navigate through it. Reading this, one has to wonder about our expectation of any right to privacy.
Mojeek: uh, isn’t UK five-eyes? Sounds interesting otherwise.
DuckDuckGo is troubling since they appear to have little reason to retain searches, even in the aggregate. What is up with that, really?
Are there other non-metasearch engines? It would be nice to have some not under influence of Big Tech. More scholarly search engines?
Just within the last week a televised report says a certain govt official is known to go pawing through online searches of everyday Americans with certain access to intelligence agency resources. Person running for office against him says it is perverse — and it’s hard to argue. Look what the Patriot Act has wrought. Somehow we allowed this to become codified into law, all in the name of peace and safety. War on terror. Right.
[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/sep/3/nsa-phone-surveillance-ruled-illegal-by-appeals-co/]
Order should be-
Searx
Qwant
Swisscows
Metager
What about [https://gogoprivate.com] ? The results are like Google and it’s incredible fast
Hello,
Can anyone tell me about ekoru.org privacy?
They claim to never keep history, ip or sell informations but i am doubting they sincerity
If anyone has some infos about it, I am interested
Thank you
Hey restoreprivacy someone likes your article and links to it.
Recommended Articles
Purpose: To share articles, websites, or information that is educational, well-written, and informative.
Private Search Engines – The Ultimate Guide
[https://rainheaven.neocities.org/recommended-articles.html]
Thanks for the aritlce. I enjoyed the outlink to NearCyan´ article about privacy-respecting alternatives to Google´s ReCAPTCHA.
I hate the website status quo, on subjecting the user to Google´s prying eyes.
https://nearcyan.com/you-probably-dont-need-recaptcha/
So, how about mojeek, looks the safest but its in uk. So, can we trust them? Swisscow too.
Infinity Search is another one
Link please. So, is mojeek safe.
Product onesearch claims Privacy-Focused features of
No cookies, No user tracking, and No search history.
With ~ Pure, unfiltered results, also able to Share links with confidence.
Suggests of offering Keyword encryption. (Enter your search term, and we’ll encrypt it.
Normally, your search terms appear in the URL, available for anyone to track or exploit. Toggling on OneSearch’s Advanced Privacy Mode, your search terms won’t be spelled out for the entire world to see. On top of that, any links you share with search results will expire in an hour.)
Onesearch is by Verizon Media and for the US in it’s T&C reads,
(Oath Inc. and all of its brands listed in Section 13 (including Yahoo and AOL brands) and the corporate entities listed in Sections 13 and Section 14 (collectively, “Verizon Media”, “us,” “we” or “our”) are part of the Verizon family of companies. Our brands, websites, apps, products, services and technologies (“Services”) are provided by the entities listed in Section 13 below. Please carefully read Sections 1 through 13, 14.1, and 14.2, which are the sections that apply to you.)
Question is are they Trustworthy or Not?
If it is owned by Verizon Media, I would definitely avoid. Verizon/Oath is no friend of privacy:
Oath agrees to pay $5M to settle charges it violated children’s privacy
Verizon’s Oath Will Still Scan Your E-mail For Advertising Purposes
Remember, search engines can be data collection tools for the owners, so tread carefully.
Isn’t this at least generally going in the right direction of concept in users privacy for less savvy users? Or is it all new marketing hype- (Keyword encryption) that we’ll see more of from the other private search contenders to offering encryption of search terms?
The only thing I know is to wait for the security guys to figure out how Onesearch is collecting data, what that data is, and how much it’s going to be worth against anyone regarding their own privacy highly.
I take it you can’t do these tests yourself – or have time resources for it / right?
I would still have to agree that any new Verizon product(s) be vetted against their old past brand that was known to being toxic in this users privacy subject.
As you can’t find any mention that the new Onesearch is even on Verizon’s effort outside of, and it still implies to their currant users privacy policy.
Herein lays the problems, many of Verizon’s other promises (like its promise not to use the engine to build detailed profiles on you) requires some significant trust in Verizon. Where it hasn’t been independently verified by state or federal regulators (facebook case) nor the privacy focused security community. Though I’d give a gain of salt of that outcome because of Verizon’s ultra-cozy no questions asked relationship with the NSA. Which erodes my consumer trust in them even further.
In 2017 Verizon lobbied aggressively to convince Congress to kill some modest broadband privacy rules at the FCC level. Later that same year Verizon successfully lobbied the Trump FCC to effectively neuter its oversight of broadband providers entirely.
Undoubtedly having created a consumer protection vacuum. Verizon then lobbied to ban states from filling that vacuum and protecting their home state consumers.
Great coverage. Thanks!
According to this recent investigation, Qwant would finally be a simple interface to Bing supported by mafia group and the head of the French State…
https://twitter.com/LeMediaTV/status/1262387464687190016
https://blog.privacytools.io/relisting-startpage/
Any opinion? Could this provider be trust after all?
https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/#comments
I’d be very interested to know your thoughts on Searchonymous, a chrome and firefox extension that claims to be able to keep your searches anonymous while using Google by blocking certain cookies and keeping you signed out. If used with a VPN could this be a solution for those reluctant to give up the convenience of the search behemoth? Thanks for the work you do.
I looked at its GitHub page and found out since Nov 2019, there’s an issue with Google My Activity still recording search results that are clicked despite not recording search made. So the extension is not working as intended right now.
The way I see, alternatives to this extension would be:
– manually sign out of Google account whenever you want to do Google search, or;
– do Google search on another browser which has ad blocker and canvas fingerprint defender (it’s good practice to have multiple browsers), or;
– do Google search using proxy such as Startpage, Runnaroo or Searx, or;
– use search engines other than Google especially private search engines.
VPN doesn’t really help here because the point of that extension is just to make sure you are signed out when Googling.
SwissCows is now suggesting to create an account for “better services” (along with a special cookie…)
System1 has bought or have invested in, and therefore influence not only StartPage, which was excellent, info.com (another search engine), Waterfox browser, as well as MapQuest. So they know what you search, which websites you visit, and everywhere you go if you use the aforementioned products. There is a reason they buy these companies, and it is not to lose money or protect your privacy.
Their history and business model tells you what you need to know.
Oh gosh! I interrupt my reading on search engines with this comment: DuckDuckGo is using Amazon!!??. I recently read the Amazon nothing-is-private policy. This may explain strange gaps in my privacy. So, no more Duck for me.
What do you mean, “DuckDuckGo is using Amazon?” In what sense is DuckDuckGo “using” Amazon? Is DDG buying stuff off Amazon? I do; I “use” Amazon.
Hi Sven, I find your articles extremely helpful…thanks for sharing your knowledge. I’m trying out the MetaGer search engine. I see it is offered as a Plugin on their website and also offered as an Extension on the Mozilla website. Please, can you tell me which one is more secure and private: a Plugin or an Extension (or are they equal)?
I loaded the Plugin from their website, made it my default search engine and it works fine. However, it doesn’t show up as a Plugin (or an Extension) under the Firefox Add-ons menu items…so, I’m not sure where it resides. It does show up in the Firefox Options > Search menu under One-Click Search Engines and I can remove it there…so I assume selecting that action will permanently uninstall all traces of it from my browser.
Reply to Restorer’s comments on April 28/29, 2020 (I hope this appears in the right spot in the comment tree) —
You wrote, as a reply to an earlier comment by me, that “Metager probably used Yandex back in the day. Now it’s just Bing and Scopia.”
Please see my June 6, 2020 comment describing how I found out how to use Metager to search with Yahoo, Yandex, and others, in addition to Bing and Scopia.
This is a follow-up comment to my April 28, 2020 comment where I asked about MetaGer’s search engine sources.
I wrote that MetaGer was only showing me results from Bing and Scopia, and I asked why Sven had written in the above article that MetaGer uses Yahoo as well:
“…you wrote, “MetaGer is an open source metasearch engine based in Germany, which gets search results from Bing, Yandex, Yahoo and others.” Is it still the case that MegaGer uses Yandex, Yahoo, and others? I don’t necessarily want to use Yandex, but I would like a way to see Yahoo results in a relatively private fashion. Does MetaGer have this option now? I have noticed when using MetaGer (in the English language) on my computer browser that the only two search engines it references are Bing and Scopia. Additionally, those two search engines are the only ones they claim to use (on my desktop searches): On any MetaGer search page in my browser, at the top of the results are some buttons for “settings” and “filter”, and when “settings” is clicked, it goes to an informational page where MetaGer says, “Below are all the search engines available for this focus. Bing, Scopia” ”
I also said that I had recently set up a tablet for a relative and recalled that one of the search engines that I had accessed on that tablet was showing me Yandex results, and I thought it had been MetaGer, but none of my other experiences with using MetaGer had involved Yandex results: “When I was seeing so many Yandex results, would I have unwittingly been looking at a different iteration of MetaGer than I have got now? I do remember that it was on a search engine that labelled each search result with the primary source for it, which is the only way that I could have known that they were pulling results from Yandex.”
Well, tonight I was using MetaGer to do some research, and I somehow got flipped over to the German MetaGer site without selecting it (it obviously works and looks like the English site generally, and I had studied German in school, so I could get around okay without needing to find my way back immediately to the English site), and I was suddenly finding so much better information on my search topic — but I only subconsciously registered that I was actually being shown results from Yahoo instead of Bing.
It wasn’t until I was about to shut the computer down for the night that it occurred to me how odd it was that I had been shown a lot of Yandex and Yahoo results on MetaGer, and I recalled that I had asked a question about that very issue here, and that I had even surmised that I may have been looking at different iterations of the MetaGer site, which it turns out *was* the explanation, although I didn’t test it out on MetaGer at the time because it hadn’t occurred to me that different MetaGer language pages would be served such different results (given that I wasn’t using a VPN and my location is in the US).
There was such a qualitative difference in the Bing results for my topic tonight and the Yahoo results. I’m glad to have found a way to get Yahoo results from a source that appears to offer some privacy.
To double-check that this is what is happening with MetaGer, I have just opened up the German-language site (metager.de) and put in a search topic, and yes, it is giving me results from Yahoo and Yandex (and also giving me a sprinkling of results that are tagged as being from Die Zeit, which is a major German newspaper) and no results from Bing or Scopia. In the Settings, it says that the following search engines are available in that focus (for the particular search term that I typed in):
Scopia, Yahoo, Bing, Netluchs, Yandex, Die ZEIT, OneNewspage, Qualigo.
There is also an option for a Spanish-language MetaGer, and when I go to that option and put my same search term in, in the Settings, it says that the following search engines are available for that focus: Scopia, Yahoo, Bing, Netluchs, Yandex, Die ZEIT, OneNewspage, Qualigo (the same as the German-language MetaGer).
Maybe most of you folks already knew that this is how MetaGer works, but for those who don’t, I thought I’d describe here how to use MetaGer to access Yahoo results.
Good find Bobo. In addition, you can use https://etools.ch to obtain Yahoo (as well as others’) results privately, in English and not necessarily localized to Germany. There’s also https://onesearch.com which is Verizon’s (Yahoo owner) own private search engine. Probably as private as Qwant but less private than eTools.
Search engine list by nitrohorse of PrivacyTools.io (PTIO). Good info except no description of crawler used. https://searchengine.party/
How to choose search engines—A guide on search engine privacy: https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/search.html
Spoiler alert: most popular search engines you know are bad for privacy. Nothing on the Internet is 100% secure and private. Take home message is to never look for the perfect ones, instead look for the least harmful ones.
Regarding OneSearch:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21065640/verizon-onesearch-privacy-tracking-yahoo-breach-hack
Infinity Search is a privacy search engine: https://infinitysearch.co
Privacy-centric tool advice sites — Credibility examined — part 1: web search engines (DDG & Qwant):
https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/31487
DuckDuckGo’s privacy abuses – current, historic, and by proxy:
https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/31321
Sven, are any of these search engines any good regarding privacy:
Whoogle Search – get Google search results, but without any ads, javascript, AMP links, cookies, or IP address tracking: https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search
OneSearch: https://www.onesearch.com/
JoshWho – a search engine with end-to-end encryption: https://search.joshwho.net
Presearch is a decentralized search engine, powered by the community: https://www.presearch.org
Private.sh – the search engine that cryptographically protects your privacy: https://private.sh/
Runnaroo: https://www.runnaroo.com
Gomu is a search engine that doesn’t track you: https://gomu.ca
“… peekier – the most privacy-oriented search engine …”: https://peekier.com/
JoshWho private, forget it!
https://webbkoll.dataskydd.net/en/results?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.joshwho.net%2F
Really I don’t understand some guys here… Posting some “private” search engines without making some background search.
One is full of Google trackers another is not accessible via HTTPS, another is connected to the central collecting point Clouflare and so one.
All provided links can be checked on webbkoll
I can’t speak to the issue(s) Anon raises. However, a short time ago the head of Startpage was interviewed recently on the YouTube show TechLore and the issue of Startpage’s association with System1 was addressed during the program (link below). In my view, he addressed the concerns you have, Even, and, in my opinion, you should consider re-listing Startpage.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-3fW0w2ayg&t=2563]
FYI:
The website PrivacyToolsIO has been paid off to recommend search engines that are owned by US ad-tech companies. After delisting Startpage, System1 bribed PrivacyTools member Dan Arel with a job and payment to promote Startpage, which is now owned by System1 the ad-tech data collection company.
Another PrivacyTools member raised the alert about an obvious “conflict of interest” on Github, but PTIO members largely ignorred the warnings.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200215071131/https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/pull/1592
Dan Arel took System1’s money and now writes articles shilling Startpage on reddit and his website “ThinkPrivacy.ch”. This week PrivacyTools officially announced that it is “relisting” Startpage and recommending it once again. System1 has succeeded in paying off PrivacyTools staff to recommend their search engine, despite the privacy abuses of the parent company. They have lost all credibility.
Hi Sven
Just to let you and others know that privacytools.io is once again recommending startpage.com as a private search engine – with a warning.
Thinkprivacy.ch is also recommending startpage.com as a private search engine.
Yes, one of the Privacy Tools staff members (Dan Arel who runs ThinkPrivacy.ch) is now an employee of Startpage/System1 and gets paid to promote Startpage. I saw this on Github when another PTIO member flagged Dan for his “conflict of interest” – and now PTIO recommends Startpage again. So we’ve come full circle now with PrivacyTools.io member(s) on the System1 payroll.
Anon, I’ll agree it’s Simply Greed !
As the more webmasters to the web it has become – from their early rush to building the filter bubble’s as it’s absolutely driven by commercial interests to the return of your search queries. Early on it had become clearer and clearer that if you want to have lots of people use your website, you need to provide them with personally relevant information, and if you want to make the most money on ads, you need to provide them with personal interests relevant ads.
This had triggered a personal information gold rush, in which the major companies – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the likes – started competing to create the most comprehensive portrait of each of us to drive personalized ads for products. There’s also a whole “behavior market” that opened up in which every action you take online – every mouse click, every form entry – can be sold as a commodity.
This I observed back in 2016 when I became privacy aware to what happened to the web in that time – – fast forwards to today and it’s still the worst for your privacy and comparable as like someone digging through your trash. Most people have found by running an Ad Block program / extension in employs with EasyList filtering lists that helps. Where it’s defined how it’s roll in purpose is to ‘acceptable first-party tracking’.
https://easylist.to/2011/08/31/what-is-acceptable-first-party-tracking.html
These two links are from that 2016 time and still carry value:
“Our online information is the raw resource of the digital age, yet mining it can be risky for the new industrial giants”
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/01/profits-perils-drilling-data-oil-surveillance-online-information]
“Google and Microsoft have made a pact to protect surveillance capitalism”
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/02/google-microsoft-pact-antitrust-surveillance-capitalism]
As it’s the same ole’ same !
Hi Sven,
About DuckDuckGo, I don’t think that you have mentioned in this article something about DuckDuckGo that I learned about this week,
and I would like to suggest you add this info to your DDG section:
In the last few days (while I’ve been learning about my current search engine options) I have run across many comments on privacy/security-conscious discussion forums where the commenters seem to have no idea about the following situation, and they seem to think that somehow they are protected when using DuckDuckGo as a search “middleman” to let them search a second site (though they are actually not protected).
When doing a search with DuckDuckGo’s “bangs” feature (with an exclamation point “!”) which allows you to narrow search results down to one particular site, you aren’t protected by using the middleman of DuckDuckGo from having the destination site know your details. DuckDuckGo just places you in the second site, apparently, and the destination site will know various data about you as if you had simply gone to the destination site directly and not used DuckDuckGo at all.
This is from DuckDuckGo’s own description at https://duckduckgo.com/bang:
“Bangs are shortcuts that quickly take you to search results on other sites. For example, when you know you want to search on another site like Wikipedia or Amazon, our bangs get you there fastest. A search for !w filter bubble will take you directly to Wikipedia.
***Remember, though, because your search is actually taking place on that other site, you are subject to that site’s policies, including its data collection practices.***”
(I added the asterisks for emphasis in that quotation.)
Maybe most people are already aware of this, I don’t know, but I’ve read several comments by privacy/security-conscious people who say they really like the “bangs” feature of DDG (for example, to take them via DDG to Google to do a Google-only search) who seem to think that DDG is shielding them or presenting them with a proxy type of situation when apparently that is not the case.
Yep, DuckDuckGo bangs are not proxies but convenient shortcuts or quick links to access various search engines. Qwant and Infinity Search also employ similar features.
I recently discovered DuckDuckGo !Bang, which exists since 2008 and I’m late to the party. Very useful on a desktop.
https://duckduckgo.com/bang
I don’t pick a single search engine but use multiple, since they all are good at different things, that is, once you learn about them. Depending on multiple variables. Vast search topics, location/country/language, etc.
Wish it was mentioned more often.
And I am aware of pros/cons of using them.
Also use multiple browsers on Ubuntu.
I got no love or hate for “tools”.
Hi Sven,
In your description of MetaGer in this post, you wrote, “MetaGer is an open source metasearch engine based in Germany, which gets search results from Bing, Yandex, Yahoo and others.”
Is it still the case that MegaGer uses Yandex, Yahoo, and others?
I don’t necessarily want to use Yandex, but I would like a way to see Yahoo results in a relatively private fashion. Does MetaGer have this option now?
I have noticed when using MetaGer (in the English language) on my computer browser that the only two search engines it references are Bing and Scopia.
Additionally, those two search engines are the only ones they claim to use (on my desktop searches): On any MetaGer search page in my browser, at the top of the results are some buttons for “settings” and “filter”, and when “settings” is clicked, it goes to an informational page where MetaGer says,
“Below are all the search engines available for this focus. Bing, Scopia”
On the other hand, in the past couple of weeks, I recall having tried out a new search engine (that was not Yandex directly) which was bringing up a lot of results from Yandex, but I can’t remember what it was.
(…It was possibly on a tablet that I was setting up for an elderly relative.)
On my laptop/desktop computer, I haven’t noticed any Yandex results in my search engine experimentations of the past few days (where I’ve newly visited almost all of the search engines that you mentioned in this article).
When I was seeing so many Yandex results, would I have unwittingly been looking at a different iteration of MetaGer than I have got now? I do remember that it was on a search engine that labelled each search result with the primary source for it, which is the only way that I could have known that they were pulling results from Yandex.
Is MetaGer is the only search engine that labels the initial source of the search results so clearly?
Most search engines are based on third-party crawlers. There are only a few crawlers/spiders: Google, Baidu (China), Bing, Yandex, Naver (South Korea), Seznam (Czech), Mojeek, Cliqz, Exactseek, ActiveSearchResults and Gigablast. All other search engines are metasearch engines. Back in the day metasearch engines pull results from many sources; nowadays not many do that as most just focus on one source. I like to call one-source engines as proxies. These search engines (meta or proxy) have their own algorithms to aggregate and sort search results as well as inserting sponsored results (ads).
Proxies include:
– Startpage (Google)
– Gibiru (Google)
– Swisscows (Bing)
– Peekier (Bing)
– Qwant (Bing)
– Yippy (Bing)
– Ecosia (Bing)
– Whaleslide (Bing)
– Givero (Bing)
– Lilo (Bing)
– Findx (Bing)
– OneSearch (Bing? Yahoo?)
– JiveSearch (Yandex–seems offline)
Metasearch include:
– DuckDuckGo (Yandex, Yahoo, Bing–does not label search result origin)
– Searx (Google, DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Yahoo, Bing)
– Metager (Bing, Scopia)
– eTools.ch (Bing, Wikipedia, Tiger, Mojeek, Yahoo, Yandex, Base, Moose, Ask, Fastbot, Findx, Search, DuckDuckGo, Exalead and Google)
– Carrot2 (based on eTools.ch but with search result clustering)
Somewhere in between proxy and metasearch. More like quick links. Searches made will appear to originate from these websites (?):
– Disconnect Search (DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Bing)
– Infinity Search (Bing with links to quickly search from Internet Archive, Wikipedia, YouTube, GitHub, GitLab, Unsplash Image, Wikimedia Commons, Amazon, Twitter, Reddit, BoardReader, Petey Vid, Stack Overflow, Wolfram Alpha, Project Gutenberg, Wayback Machine, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, Yandex, Qwant, Cliqz, Pixabay, Pexels, Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, Pinterest, Picsearch, Nasa Image, Tineye Reverse Image, etc.)
Check out search engine map, courtesy of Mojeek https://www.searchenginemap.com/
Add one more crawler: Exalead.
Reply to Restorer –
Thank you for your extensive outline of different search options. It’s a great way to look at it.
Making a further breakdown and ranking of them, within the existing categories, based on their privacy/security practices would be amazing. 😉
Although privacy-oriented folks would probably end up with approximately the options that Sven’s article lays out above.
—
On my elderly relative’s tablet which I mentioned in my earlier comment — the tablet on which I had installed a new browser (Brave) and created bookmarks to a couple of search engines a few weeks ago, and on which I clearly remember seeing *so many* Yandex results (I knew they were from Yandex because each individual result was labelled as to its source, in the way that MetaGer does) — I only made bookmarks on that tablet to DuckDuckGo and MetaGer, so I guess it must have been MetaGer that I was looking at, since DuckDuckGo (apparently) doesn’t label the origin of each search result. But I don’t understand HOW it could have been MetaGer, since they apparently only source from Scopia and Bing now (at least as far as what MetaGer on my laptop/desktop computer claims).
That’s why I asked the questions in my comment about whether different iterations (like on different operating systems, different browsers…?) of MetaGer might source from different search providers, and if the above article is outdated where it says that MetaGer provides results from Yahoo and Yandex, or if that is still possible to configure.
—–
Regarding SearX, I read yesterday that not all iterations of SearX source from all the search providers that you have listed for it — some popular iterations eventually become banned from accessing certain providers (such as Google), but some apparently are intentionally set up with a narrower selection of the possible search sources.
It’s too bad that the developers’ SearX.me iteration is no longer active, as I gather it was the most trustworthy one.
The following SearX list of instances and grading system I found helpful:
https://searx.space/# (note: requires Javascript to display the chart)
from that page: “Public instances listed here may yield less accurate results as they have much higher traffic and consequently have a higher chance of being blocked by search providers such as Google, Qwant, Bing, Startpage, etc.”
You’re welcome, Bobo. I’ll try make some breakdown of the search engines. Something compact—if it gets too big, might have to make my own blog ? (privacyrestorer.com sounds nice)
Metager probably used Yandex back in the day. Now it’s just Bing and Scopia. Try eTools.ch for Yandex results without going to Yandex.
This Searx instance looks good https://search.fuckoffgoogle.net . It’s not on the list you gave but the German community building the website Fuck off Google looks legit. They have a Google alternative wiki https://wiki.fuckoffgoogle.de/index.php?title=GoogleAlternatives
This is a follow-up to my April 26 comment regarding my first experiences with SwissCows.
I thought I would mention something in their favor which I found out tonight when I decided to try them out again.
In my first comment here about them, I had complained about how some of their most-relevant search results were passing through “smartredirect.de” before going to the target webpage, which Ublock Origin is stopping altogether on my browser.
I was not surprised that they are doing this (which presumably gives SwissCows some ad revenue for the referrals, and I don’t begrudge them at all for seeking to fund their operation),
but I am wondering if,
in the “smartredirect.de” exchanges that SwissCows conducts,
they are (like the search engine Metager does) actually revealing the computer user’s IP address and search terms to “smartredirect.de” _and_ to the company whose webpage the computer user is finally delivered to,
because I don’t recall having read any warning to users of SwissCows that this is what was going on under the surface.
(That is in contrast with MetaGer, which does admit — albeit on a slightly-out-of-the-way information page — that it gives away the computer user’s full IP address and search terms to its “Partnershops”.)
(Of course, maybe SwissCows does describe somewhere exactly what computer user information they give away to external companies in that situation — I have not closely studied the SwissCows site.)
On the plus side, what I now see, after revisiting SwissCows tonight to do a sample search, is that frequently the very same search results that are directed through “smartredirect.de” will appear for a second time in the search results list a few rows down, and in the second instances, when the links are clicked on, the computer user is not passed through “smartredirect.de”, but is simply taken right to the target webpages.
MetaGer shows the obvious “Partnershop” icon on the links that will be sent through “smartredirect.de” (and which will be harvested for IP address and search terms) before landing on the destination webpage and SwissCows (at least in my view of it) does not seem to have a little sign indicating that a link is an “ad” or “paid for” (but my view of websites is definitely not the typical view, because I have the settings of Ublock Origin, Privacy Badger, etc., ratcheted up pretty high, so maybe there is normally such a indicator on those redirected links for most visitors to SwissCows).
Based on my brief experience, the benefit of SwissCows over MetaGer in this case is that SwissCows repeats the redirected links again, straightaway, in their list of search results, without embedding any redirection on the second showing of the results — whereas MetaGer does not seem to offer those links a second time (without any redirection), no matter how far down their list of search results the computer user scrolls. This is definitely one reason that I’d favor SwissCows over MetaGer for general searching.
Bobo,
I use AdGuard ad blocker only and for it’s simplicity to it’s users knowledge to operate. I get sometimes in SwissCows when I enter my search terms – Oops ! “we could find that” or something similarly to the wordage. Refreshing the page then brings up all kinds of links- for the same terms used. Strange for sure.
Quote: “(like the search engine Metager does) actually revealing the computer user’s IP address and search terms to “smartredirect.de” _and_ to the company whose webpage the computer user is finally delivered to,”
**I believe some kind of proof would be need to any AD revenue, as anything now a days could be AI based and to repeating the searches endlessly to seek a percentage of the AD revenues.
Is MetaGer is the only search engine that labels the initial source of the search results so clearly?
I’d suggest turning off any ad blockers you run and try that as your interested in a private search engine(s) ad links. One by one then to see – taking screenshots of both ways, no ad blockers used and then turning your adblocker(s) on, with then your refreshing the page for that screenshot.
Once you get them covered that way – go back and compare the images to see a difference. I’d certainly use the same search terms with each private search engine.
Probably the ads revenues links are at the top of the listed links of your search terms…as usual without an adblocker being used. There are millions of pages on the web, but none are more important to digital marketers than search engine results pages, or SERPs.
Search engine optimization specialists and PPC advertisers alike are on par for the same precious real estate in the most prominent parts of the SERPs. So the competition is fierce and any technological developments in web search mean it’s more important than ever for digital marketers to know how web search works and what they can do to maximize their visibility.
That means eventually any third parties trackers are driving the web search engines when it comes to tracking it’s consumers. If you’d stop and consider there are tens of thousands in third parties trackers present in at least two first parties sites of the top 500 most visited by U.S. web audience. Perhaps the tracking game has upped the stakes for 2020.
As always I find your contents interesting Bobo, thank you.
I’m just one pebble of sand on the worlds beach hit by the waves of privacy loss in online web use !!!
Where/How are you seeing these Partnershop results? I searched some terms on metager.org that should turn up “shopping” results (i.e. Partnershop results) and got no Partnershop results. Then I tried on the original German site metager.de and I did get Partnershop results, as well as results labeled “Anzeige” (ad, in German).
Swisscows claims it uses its own crawler. https://company.swisscows.ch/en/products Did I understand this correctly?
This is in reply to commenter Sonar’s message to me —
Thank you for your reply.
My purpose in commenting here is to discuss my and others’ experiences, concerns, and privacy/safety strategies; and ask related questions of Sven and his other readers.
I don’t plan to contact these search engine firms myself, but if you decide to do so, let us know what you have found out!
Hey bobo – in all three of your 4 posts on April 26th, great overview in details…
Love the way your mind works, though it’s a state of your observations as an overall chunks viewing as you compared of your mentioned here. Maybe when you can understand it well enough then to be more of a granular fine tuning of it by your deductions – hope you’ll pass on what you’ll learn to all of us here.
– I don’t think Sven sees or understands these points yet of how they affect users privacy as your search and data’s – “ad trackers utilize various browser fingerprinting, identification, and tracking techniques beyond what most of us could comprehend.” Web users unacquainted with the technological affairs of a modern Internet’s based world as seen into the backside of it’s business end.
It all boils down to the almighty Ad-Tech industry -overall view- between your search term and the links your shown to click on to the site you’ll end up at.
Only for now I feel it’s on the back end (server-side, not as the client-side in your browser) will begin the recording of your information and sending it out as telemetry for it’s own profits.
I feel there’s a monopoly forming if it hasn’t yet, to that gleaming of users private data’s for the content they seek displayed on the free internet and for it to live… Resources of web content needs only funding to be there and not by excess to exceeding in funds as they have to profits in trading of users private data’s today.
https://restoreprivacy.com/browser/secure/#comment-79514
Yes I agree when a privacy search engine twists and contorts users privacy from that perfectly clear idealism of using them over another engine. Rather than as to having been financed as they are and from it’s back-end dealings to having a presents on the web, it can become a distorted mess and straining for the users trying to maintain their search data’s privacy. Then when any unknown financing happens by any one of them – who of the private search engines as that can say (or has said) it stops for the month at $$$ as our bills have been paid, and any more is pure profits to them at their users privacy loss.
Take out the VPN (unscripted nature) I had used here and replace them with any of the private search engines and it’s all under the roof of the users browser. Which I feel browsers are at worst SSL-intercepting Proxy Appliances or the ‘private search’ you’ll add to them as tools. To them benefiting in your search privacy becomes then based on intercepting & eavesdropping more-or-less of redirecting their users over to the private search engines monetary gains. https://restoreprivacy.com/browser/secure/#comment-79836
Then on SwissCows my mentioned > “Since Swisscows normally does not advertise, as Google and other search engines do, we offer our sponsors a unique opportunity to publish a banner on Swisscows as a thank you gift for donations of 1,500 CHF or more during the donation period.” What if a SPONSOR is an advertiser and it’s actually an ad shown?
> WANT TO GET RID OF IT? > https://restoreprivacy.com/browser/secure/#comment-77384
and
https://restoreprivacy.com/browser/secure/#comment-77745
I do really think your on to something so I’m asking kindly – please pursue it bobo.
Contact them all (Brave, Qwant, MetaGer, SwissCows – uBlock Origin, Peerblock) for a final word as what they have to say as you’ve tied it together here on April 26th.
I’m also thinking it deals with directly or indirectly private search messing with servers Trusted Certificates / certificate’s fingerprint – which can be easily be viewed through any web browser’s user-interface, completely gives you the truth.
https://restoreprivacy.com/private-search-engine/#comment-77771
Thanks for your information…now and your following up!