Our Favorite Search Engines for 2023
Discover our top search engine picks
Before you start:
📌 If you're not familiar with what a search engine is, you can find more information here:
📌 If you need help changing your search engine, check out this post:
Choosing a good privacy-respecting search engine might seem like a daunting task, but it's a crucial step in protecting your online privacy and data.
Finding the right private search engine for you is a personal process. Your situation and goals are different from others, so there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Any of the private search engines in this guide could be a good choice for you. However, you'll need to try out the ones that seem best for you to find the one that fits you the best.
Without further ado, here are (ranked from most preferred to less preferred) our favorite search engines for 2023..
1) Brave Search: Privacy-first accurate searching
📍Based in: United States
🔍 Search Results: Brave Search Crawler
This search engine is made by the same folks who created Brave, a super-safe web browser that respects your privacy. Brave Search is unique because it doesn't borrow results from Bing or Google like many other search engines do. Instead, it uses its very own collection of search data (also called a crawler).
We found Brave to strike a great balance between privacy and accuracy. Kudos to the Brave team!
🔗 Privacy Policy
🔗 Website: brave.com
2) SearX: Open-source metasearch platform
📍Based in: Developed as an open-source project with contributors worldwide
🔍 Search Results: Custom
Searx is a unique open-source metasearch engine that stands out for two important reasons: it respects your privacy, and it gives you control over your search experience.
Unlike most search engines that rely on a single source for results, Searx gathers information from various search engines and web sources to provide you with comprehensive search results. You get to choose which search engines it uses to fetch your results, ensuring that you get the outcomes you trust and prefer! This level of control allows you to customize your search experience.
This is why SearX is called a metasearch engine1 and not a normal search engine.
Additionally, Searx lets you fine-tune your searches by specifying categories for your results. Whether you're looking for news, images, videos, or something else entirely, Searx allows you to narrow down your search with precision. This means you can find what you're looking for without sifting through irrelevant information.
🔗 About Section
🔗 Instance List: searx.space
3) Mojeek: Independent and privacy-centric search
📍Based in: United Kingdom
🔍 Search Results: Mojeek Crawler
Mojeek is refreshingly independent in the world of search engines. Unlike many others that rely on existing search engines for their results, Mojeek stands as an autonomous search platform. It doesn't lean on giants like Google or Bing; instead, it has its very own web crawler.
What makes Mojeek even more appealing is its commitment to your privacy. It doesn't store your search history. This means you can explore the web with peace of mind, knowing that your privacy is a top priority.
If you're looking for a search engine that's truly independent and has your privacy at heart, Mojeek might just be your ideal choice!
They also offer a Substack search feature!
🔗 Privacy Policy
🔗 Website: mojeek.com
4) MetaGer: Secure and private metasearch engine
📍Based in: Germany
🔍 Search Results:
🔍 Paid Tier: Mojeek Crawler, Bing and Brave
🔍 Free Tier: Yandex, Yahoo and Scopia
MetaGer is a search engine that comes from Germany and is open source. It doesn't just rely on one source for its search results; it offers two tiers: A free tier that gets results from Yandex, Yahoo and Scopia plus a paid tier which adds Mojeek’s own crawler, Brave and Bing results.
This project started back in 1996 and is now managed by a non-profit group in Germany called SUMA-EV, which is all about making knowledge freely accessible. MetaGer also has some neat features:
It tells you where each search result is coming from. (eg. Bing or Yandex)
There's an option to view websites anonymously through a proxy.
MetaGer takes your privacy seriously. They make your searches anonymous by going through a proxy server, and this also lets you check out websites without revealing your identity. They don't keep your IP address for long, and they don't use cookies or other trackers.
All of MetaGer's infrastructure is based in Germany, where there are strict rules about protecting your data, which is a good thing for your privacy. There’s also an onion website for Tor users!
🔗 Privacy Policy
🔗 Website: metager.org
5) SwissCows: Family-friendly private search
📍Based in: Switzerland
🔍 Search Results: Bing
Swisscows, based in Switzerland, is a privacy-focused search engine that takes your data security seriously. They promise not to track you or collect your information. To back this up, they've set up their server infrastructure in a super-secure data center in the Swiss Alps, often referred to as the "Swiss Fort Knox."
Here's what makes Swisscows stand out:
They run their own servers, avoiding reliance on cloud or third-party services.
Their data center in the Swiss Alps is renowned for its safety.
They've strategically positioned everything outside of the EU and US jurisdictions for added privacy.
They offer anonymous searches like MetaGer does.
Swisscows is a top choice for those who prioritize online privacy, but what makes it unique is its commitment to family-friendly content. They actively promote moral values, steer clear of violence and pornography, and advocate for digital media education.
While some might have reservations about Swisscows' approach to censoring adult content, others may appreciate this feature, especially if they have young children.
🔗 Privacy Policy
🔗 Website: swisscows.com
6) Qwant: A private search engine from France
📍Based in: France
🔍 Search Results: Bing
Qwant is a privacy-focused search engine based in France, and its European location means it operates under stringent data privacy regulations, particularly the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). This ensures robust protections for user data, far more strict than those in the United States and many other countries. Qwant takes your privacy seriously and commits to safeguarding your information by not tracking your online activities, which helps prevent you from getting trapped in a filter bubble.
When Qwant can't find answers to your queries on its own, it shares pseudonymous data with Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited. Microsoft then provides search results along with contextual advertising based on the keywords you used and your geographical location.
For security and reliability purposes related to its partnership with Microsoft, Qwant may collect and transfer your full IP address. This data transfer to Microsoft is done in accordance with the GDPR's Article 6.1.f and may be retained for a maximum of 18 months, as per Bing's Privacy Policy.
The GDPR should safeguard your data from misuse by Microsoft. Nevertheless, if you want to keep your online searches entirely private from Microsoft, be aware that Qwant may share certain information with them in specific situations.
🔗 Privacy Policy
🔗 Website: qwant.com
7) DuckDuckGo: “Privacy-famous” search engine
📍Based in: United States
🔍 Search Results: Bing and other sources
DuckDuckGo, often abbreviated as DDG, has become one of the most widely used private search engines. Many users, when setting up a new web browser, choose to make DuckDuckGo their default search engine.
Founded by Gabriel Weinberg in 2008 and headquartered in the United States (though this location is not ideal from a privacy standpoint), DuckDuckGo has gained recognition for its commitment to user privacy. It compiles search results from more than 400 sources, including well-known platforms like Wikipedia, Bing, and Yahoo. Notably, DuckDuckGo maintains a close partnership with Yahoo, which is now under the ownership of Verizon.
DuckDuckGo sustains its operations through advertising and affiliate programs, as detailed in their explanation. Similar to Google and other search engines, DuckDuckGo displays ads at the top of your search results. They've established partnerships with Amazon and eBay as part of their affiliate programs.
Regarding data retention, DuckDuckGo's privacy policy indicates that they do save your search queries. However, they stress that this data isn't stored in a personally identifiable manner because they don't retain IP addresses or unique User agent strings. Instead, they use aggregated, non-personal search data to enhance search accuracy, addressing issues like misspellings.
While it would be ideal if DuckDuckGo didn't retain any search data, their approach of saving this information without IP addresses or unique User agent strings helps protect user privacy effectively..
⚠️ Disclaimer: DuckDuckGo's browser had an agreement with Microsoft that permitted Microsoft trackers to go through the DuckDuckGo tracker blocking shield. It's something to keep in mind if you use the DDG browser, especially for privacy-conscious users. DuckDuckGo issued a partial patch regarding this agreement. Read about that here.
🔗 Privacy Policy
🔗 Website: duckduckgo.com
8) StartPage: Google but without the tracking
📍Based in: Netherlands
🔍 Search Results: Google
Startpage generates search results by drawing from Google's index. It acts as a privacy-friendly proxy for Google results. This is achieved through a process where user queries are stripped of identifying information before being sent to Google.
Established in 2006 and headquartered in the Netherlands, Startpage operates under European data protection laws like the GDPR.
Startpage's commitment to privacy extends to its advertising model, which (like DuckDuckGo’s) employs contextual ads based solely on the user's search terms rather than tracking their online behavior.
Startpage is definitely an improvement over using a non-private search engine like Google. If you like Google results, Startpage might not be a bad idea after all.
⚠️ Disclaimer: Startpage was acquired by System1, which is an American advertising company. While trying to assure users that privacy will remain at the forefront of their service, there are still questions to be asked upon the legitimacy of these claims.
🔗 Privacy Policy
🔗 Website: startpage.com
— That’s it! You now know a good bit about most major search engines in the privacy community. Make sure to test-drive the ones that caught your eye so you can find the search engine that fits you!
⚙️ Post Updates:
Post will be maintained until 12/31/2023
12/29/2023: Checked post accuracy. Minor syntax edits.
12/01/2023: Added links to all search engine privacy policies.
11/19/2023: Made disclaimers more visible.
11/02/2023: Added Startpage to the search engine list.
10/13/2023: Added links to DDG’s privacy policy and to GDPR's article 6.1.f.
10/09/2023: Added the Microsoft-DDG tracker agreement section.
10/02/2023: Greatly improved text readability.
9/12/2023: Added DuckDuckGo’s “other sources” link.
9/11/2023: Added MetaGer’s Paid and Free Tier comparison.
9/11/2023: Downgraded Metager to number 4, putting Mojeek in number 3.
Metasearch Engine: A metasearch engine is basically a search engine for search engines. Instead of searching the internet directly, it gathers results from multiple other search engines and presents them to you in one place. This can be handy because it gives you a broader range of results and lets you compare what different search engines find.
Perfect timing this post. I am looking around for a new search engine, privacy-friendly and trustworthy, that does not borrow from bing/google, since I found out that duckduckgo apparently does not block trackers related to microsoft as part of an agreement to use their bing results. Wouldn't surprise me if other search engines also have these kinds of deals. I have tried Searchx but was not impressed by the results. I will give Brave a try. Mojeek is alright so far, they are peer to peer based and also crawl the web themselves.