To answer this question, we researched a few popular alternative search engines. Our main judging criterion is how each search engine fared in its commitment to protecting user data and privacy. Here are the ones that got our approval:According to the Netherlands-based search engine, your queries are anonymized before search results are pulled from Google. This means all identifying information is blanketed, including your IP address. Privacy-Focused No tracking cookies are used either. Startpage also complies with GDPR, a European Union regulation that protects users’ data.
Still you should know
The country is part of the Nine Eyes intelligence alliance, which shares mass surveillance data with eight countries. DuckDuckGo is easily the most well-known executive data private search engine around—and the antithesis to Google when it comes to favoring user privacy. DuckDuckGo assures its users that it doesn’t share any personal information with them. The same applies to DuckAssist. Switzerland-based search engine that has its own index for German-language queries. For all other languages, results are pulled from Bing. But this isn’t an issue, given that all search queries are stripped of personal identifiers.
Privacy-Focused new type of
Therefore, DuckDuckGo’s SERPs—powered by large language models from Open AI and Anthropic. DuckDuckGo says it doesn’t share any data with the two content partners. A IT Email List possible downside for DuckDuckGo is that it’s based in the U.S., which conducts mass surveillance programs like PRISM. (The U.S. is also part of the Five Eyes.)Brave Search is part of Brave Software, which makes Brave, a browser. Its founders include Brendan Eich (creator of JavaScript and co-founder of browser Mozilla Firefox) and Brian Bondy (former senior platform engineer at Mozilla). While it used to be reliant on Google and Bing for its SERPs, it’s now moved on to complete search independence. Every web result is now served by its own index. For more privacy, you can choose.
