When it comes to search engines, Google is the one that most of us have heard of, and even some who use it may not realize they are doing so. In short, Google search is just everywhere. However, there are now quite a few decent alternatives that will respect your privacy. In this article, we will talk about alternatives to Google search and how good they are for searching.
To check the results of each provider, I am going to use the search query “date attribute in HTML” and see how each one performs and what kind of results they show.
Bing
Bing is owned by Microsoft and, to be honest, for some, that is enough for them to ditch it without even thinking twice.
When I searched for the query mentioned above, the results were not bad. As expected, they were almost the same as other search engines.
Yahoo search
Does anyone even remember or use Yahoo search anymore? I guess not so much. Searching for the query, it yields slightly different results.
Duck duck go
DDG gained popularity when it claimed to protect your privacy. Many users are using it and have positive views about it. If I remember correctly, there was a privacy issue involving tracking that I read about on HN, and that was not a very good move. Anyway, it was never my preferred search engine because of its cluttered interface and search results.
But while searching for a query after so long, the results were not bad at all. They were up to par with other search engines.
Brave
Brave started as a browser initially, and now we have a Brave search engine. In the early days, they used ads and mining in the browser to support it, which alone put it on my list of no-go services.
For some reason, it is not loading for me. I am not sure if my ISP is blocking it or if there is some other issue. However, many users are still actively using and recommending it.
Qwant
Have you heard of Qwant before? Neither have I. But it looks to be a decent and nice search engine. It claims to respect your privacy and have zero tracking. Impressive, right?
So I went ahead and gave it a shot to see the search results for the query I am testing on others. And it did not disappoint. It looks good to me, so I can definitely keep it on my list of the next search engines to use.
Mojeek
Mojeek is quite a breath of fresh air in the search engine arena. The thing I like the most is that you can set different search engines to query as well. Once you hit the search button, at the bottom of the results, you will see other search engines that you enabled in the settings. Clicking on it will bring you there, searching for the term you searched on Mojeek. Pretty neat, I would say.
Like others, Mojeek also claims to respect your privacy. The search term I queried returned quite decent results.
Startpage
Startpage, like others, claims the same thing – no tracking and respect for your privacy. Great. But what about the results for the queries? Well, they are good, at least to me.
Searx
Searx, not that popular, I would guess. I heard about it long ago but never used it for anything since then. The query results were the ones I expected, so I will put it in the decent and usable search engine platform, removing the Google tracking things along the way.
Interestingly, it is open source, and you can check the code on GitHub.
I am seeing Google in the results, so I feel they query Google for results? I haven’t found details on this.
Ecosia
Maybe not the first, but I found it interesting as they are eco-friendly and will plant a tree the more you use them for search. Also, they show ads on their site, which they claim help in sustaining and planting the trees. Personally, I did not find this to be a huge deal, and I like their initiative.
We plant in 35+ countries with local organizations.
https://www.ecosia.org/
Which one I use?
I have added Ecosia to my Firefox browser as the default search engine, as I like their UI, results, and initiative. Overall, I get pretty good results for my queries.
Next in line are Mojeek and Qwant. They are my go-to search engines after Ecosia.
