So with the recent Bing situation I wanted to take a second look on private search engines and sharing my conclusions of each search engine. Here is my list of private search engines:
I really like Duckduckgo, it has all important tools, decent result quality and a great image search function. Instant answers is very useful. My main problems are the reliance on Bing as the index and the choice of Apple Maps as mapping solution. Apart from the situation with the browser and Microsoft tracking Duckduckgo has a pretty clear record and the privacy.
Startpage is another great option. Apart from mapping everything is there and, while not as good as Duckduckgo’s, the image search engine good. The results are based on google and on par to better than those of DDG. The main advantages over DDG are European base (Netherlands) and the anonymous view, which basically functions as a quick access VPN, but sadly breaks ad/tracker blockers. Privacy for regular search is equal to DDG, but you have to disable JS to get rid of some telemetry. It is owned by an advertising company
Swisscows is okay. It is also Bing based, but slightly worse than DDG results. It lacks image search filters and mapping, but offers a music search which allows you to listen to ad free music. It also has an anonymous view, but it’s not interactive. Privacy is similar to DDG, but has more telemetry and (temporally) stores your IP. It is from Switzerland, it also has a very strict anti gore/porn policy that sometimes makes normal search terms inaccessible.
Qwant used to be very solid French search engine, has dropped in quality. Similar search quality to DDG, image search like Startpage. They use Bing in combination with their own index. Then problems: They share your IP with Microsoft and they replaced their main advantage, openstreetmap based independent mapping service, with AI summary’s that require an account. Worse privacy than all the above.
Very similar to DDG. The main differences are that Ecosia is based in Germany, it plants trees to fight climate change, but also forwards your IP to MS.
Braves main advantages are being independent, both with the search and the AI, and the goggles that allow you to customize your results. Search results are slightly better than DDG, image search is bad, no mapping is available. Brave has had invaded privacy in the past, but currently the privacy is good as long as you disable statistics. The company itself is a bit concerning and the CEO is homophobic.
SearXNG is self hosted and open source, it uses various search engines as index and has a ton of extra feature like music search, fediverse search and a bunch more. While it has the most features and best privacy of all options, public instances are sometimes slow and the results aren’t really good.
Kagi is in principle a decent quality search engine, but it is paid and has some problems that are only getting worse. For those interested read this blogpost.
4get is a open source, self hostable search engine. It acts as a web scraper for various search engines, also supports Soundcloud. It has great privacy and good results, but it lacks mapping and the official instance requires a CAPTCHA per 100 searches
Yep is an independent search engine. It is private and has good results, but lacks image search tools, video search and mapping.
Decentralized independent search. It has good results but lacks image search tools, is sometimes unreliable and has intrusive advertising
A quick fire round of search engine that have decent privacy, but I wouldn’t use due to result quality:
Ekoru Like Ecosia, but for cleaning oceans, Bing based, few features, requires extension.
Whoggle Like SearXNG, but with less features.
Metager Meta search engine with multiple search back ends, mainly Bing (Yahoo), completely powered by renewable energy
Mojeek Independent UK search engine with few additional feature, is supposed to be unbiased
AstianGO Slightly modified version of LibreX by the Devs of the Midori Browser
Ghostery German independent search engine, regular web only, offers tracker analysis for websites
Stract Open source, self hostable, independent search engine
Lilo Like Ecosia, but with fewer features and the option to support various projects
YouCare Bing based search, shares your IP with MS, does “good deeds”, some missing features
Giburu Google based proxy search
Gigablast Open source, self hostable, independent search engine
Mwmbl Open source, independent, self hostable search engine. Only web results
Marginalia Open source, independent, self hostable search engine. Only web results, offers filters
That would be my list. I’ll still be sticking with Duckduckgo but I’d reconsider if Startpage improves it image search. Brave will probably never be my default, but it has proven it’s role as a more private backup. Comment if I missed any search engine
Search engines I didn’t include due to horrible privacy Bing/Google/Yandex/Yahoo/You/Baidu
I thought that Kagi would have way more users. That blog was an interesting read. If that is their financial management, they’re doomed to fail. The founder also seems somehow worse than Brave’s. But it does give me a chance to mention something I’ve been thinking about for the past 6 months.
There’s right now a massive trend towards co-opting in tech. Where startups and corporations use current trends in the tech savvy consumer to push products and services that ultimately actually go against the trend. Privacy, security, federation, climate change, open source. But just like most con men, it’s all performative, not substantial. They are trying to get fast to the wallet, then run for the hills with it. It reminds me of common greenwashing from oil companies, I call it privacywashing. In the end they still get to keep your data, and push anti-consumer tech like blockchain scams and fraudulent AI.
Thanks for the list!
One point I will add is that Startpage is actually owned by an American spamming company:
https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/
I used to use them a lot before the system1/Privacy One acquisition, but then decided to switch back to google (never liked DDG’s results, but might have to try them again).
Wow that’s quite the thorough list. You’ve included a bunch I’ve never even heard of. I use a combination of public SearXNG instances, DDG, and Leta (Leta acts as a proxy for Google and Brave search results and is only available for Mullvad customers.)
I just switched to Kagi because I liked the idea of a paid search engine who’s aim was to remove the internet’s clutter, not use any profile besides the one I create to show me results, and where I could weight certain sites that produce good content.
Reading the blog post the issues allegedly are:
- Privacy is not guaranteed, like with a 3rd party audit
- AI usage is growing not shrinking
- The business seems to be poorly run and could have a short lifespan
Is this correct?
Yeah that blog post didn’t contain anything damning, just generic level “business could be run a little better”, and “they like AI more” than the blogger dies. Ok, so, and? Whole lotta smoke there without much fire. I still am happy with Kagi from what I read.
The fact that much of the project is discussed over Discord should be damning enough…
Don’t you think is damning that someone’s concern of privacy is handwaved because the data was “volunteered, not collected” ?
And, as a user, many of the AI features are limited at best and factually incorrect at worst. I would only salvage FastGPT and Quick Answer; they summarize the first 4 or 5 relevant links and contrasting views (even if it bases the whole search on a single Reddit comment from 2017).
Funnily enough the Universal Summarizer and Discuss Docs are the least reliable.
All in all, I am conflicted because it seemed like a pristine service and it’s getting clouded with time.
