5 Alternative Search Engines
Many people are bewildered at the number of "free" products online. Many tools and web apps are 100% "free" to use that took thousands of developer hours and likely cost millions of dollars to build. So, how do these large companies recoup their investments? Remember, "there's no such thing as a free lunch," especially when it comes to the cyber world!
Almost all "free" products online, barring open source projects which utilize developers who want to volunteer their time to make software better, are actually not free at all. In fact, when you aren't paying anything to use a product, you are usually the product being sold! (No, tech companies will not literally sell you as a person, but they will happily mine data about you and sell it to other companies!)
The surprising insights of search history
At first glance, it might seem like it's no big deal if a corporation tracks all your searches. After all, if you search for the same query regularly, it even saves time. Many people would likely not care about their search history being logged, until that logging is inevitably abused.
Think about every Internet search you've ever done. Yep, even those searches that you might have done while a bit tipsy that you're not terribly proud of. Then imagine that every single search you made could be tied to your name and be published. Congratulations, you now understand one of the dangers of using one of the "big" search engines!
A lot of information can be discovered about you based on your searches when artificial intelligence (AI) is thrown into the mix. For example, your taste in music, the types of movies you like, some (very) personal attributes that should be private, and more can be drawn. Because most search engine users never bother to configure privacy preferences, this data is then sold to advertising companies. They may simply use this data to "target" ads that better fit what they believe your interests are.
Many large companies say that targeted ads make for a better user experience (UX), but they also make for much larger profits. If you'd rather that one of the big search engines didn't know more about you than your own family and be liable to sell that information to a less than scrupulous company, read on!
5 hot alternative search engines of 2021
We've learned lots of digital lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of them is that most digital platforms aren't nearly as secure as many people expected them to be. In order for you to be a victim of a data breach (you can very quickly and safely check at HaveIBeenPwned.com), there has to be data about you in the first place. By using these alternative engines, you guarantee that there won't be anything meaningful gleaned from your search.
You'll also be supporting small businesses and giving their products more recognition. You may even find that you're provided with less biased results. Each engine uses its own ranking algorithm, so it's worth it to tinker around a bit. Without further adieu, here are five of the very best alternative search engines of 2021!
DuckDuckGo
Arguably the most popular "alternative search engines", DuckDuckGo is actually one of the "preferred search options" contained in most browsers' pre-set search engine options. Even Google's Chrome now comes out of the box with an option to configure your default search engine to DuckDuckGo.
So, how does the service work? DuckDuckGo has advertisements that could be called "targeted" -- although the targeting is only in the form of using your current search to come up with similar "sponsored links" to show you. DuckDuckGo does not log your IP address with your searches, which is fairly unique. You don't have to make an account, and it's blazing fast.
Like all the alternative (and mainstream) engines, it has its tradeoffs. For example, DuckDuckGo cannot automatically help you find royalty-free images to use for your website. Specialized needs like this might require a temporary trip to a more major engine; just make sure that trip remains temporary!
DogPile
With one of the most interesting search engine names around, DogPile is what its name suggests. When you make a search, DogPile searches on your behalf with six major search engines. It uses its own servers as a proxy to shield your identity.
Of course, this means you may get some results optimized for whatever "identity" the major search providers have assigned the millions of DogPile users! They have a very similar advertising model to DuckDuckGo. Similarly to DuckDuckGo, DogPile also contains a wealth of different search options.
One thing that sets DogPile apart is that it actually uses the major search engines you should generally avoid, just in a more clever manner.
WolframAlpha
If you've ever taken a college-level math course, chances are you're already familiar with this tool. Its initial claim to fame was being able to solve nearly any complex math or science problem with minimal input. Over the years, it's been developed into a fully fledged search engine!
Be advised that Wolfram operates very differently from most search engines. It's more similar to Wikipedia than DuckDuckGo. You can do a search by name, and it'll use reliable info sources and its powerful AI to generate a custom page just for you with the info it believes you're looking for.
Best of all, the information comes neatly packaged and sorted! For example, you can type in "most popular song", and Wolfram will tell you what the most popular song in the country of your IP address, and more information about the song. Though you can search in plain English, Wolfram is the only engine out there that has its own fully Turing-complete computational language.
Startpage
Designed to rival DuckDuckGo, Startpage was made from the bottom up with privacy at the forefront of the developers' minds. While the United States is touted as a country that holds up freedom of speech and expression, its complex legal code can make it risky to operate out of. This, and concern for users' privacy, is why Startpage is based in the Netherlands.
When you search with Startpage, no search is saved. There isn't even an option to save your searches! As you can verify yourself using Chrome's Dev Tool Set, absolutely no third-party cookies are ever planted on your computer by Startpage. Though often described as "innocuous", a malicious cookie can end up being a significant privacy risk.
Interestingly, Startpage took a page out of DogPile's book and uses Google's search engine as its backend. Utilizing Google's primary search API, you'll get the same quality of results you'd get as though you'd used Google itself (minus search optimization based on personal usage data). However, IP addresses and search logs are never kept.
It may be the only search engine out there that comes with a fully anonymous and free online proxy! This rounds out Startpage's across-the-board approach to users' privacy. You start by going to their secure page, can search for anything without being tracked, and even look at search results without the individual sites tracking you.
Swisscows
Nope, the name is not a typo! This Switzerland-based search engine is themed on, well... cows in Switzerland! Until recently, this was only available in German. There is now an English option that will automatically be enabled if used from an English-speaking country.
Like Startpage, Swisscows uses a major search engine as its backbone. Unlike Startpage, it uses Microsoft's Bing rather than Google. It also has a few more preventive privacy measures in place for your protection. First, its servers are all in Switzerland, a country that has some of the best and most-enforced privacy laws in the world.
Second, literally nothing is tracked or stored. Your identity, your IP address, what you search for, and others are simply never collected. As a matter of fact, Swisscows developed their own Web Application Firewall (WAF) to ensure that there's no possible way for Bing to even obtain this information if they wanted to. It is an authorized operation, so it's here for the long haul.
If you've done a good deal of digging in the privacy community, you may have noticed that many users are into "dodgy" content. Some people just want to search for "normal" stuff without being spied on! If you're one of those people, Swisscows' family-friendly feature set is just for you. It automatically filters out violence and pornographic images, regardless of whether they are legal in your country or not.
An important caveat of Swisscows
Before you go, there's one very important caveat to know about, especially if you speak German and/or you live in a German-speaking country. For English searches and results, Swisscows utilizes the Bing with firewall approach.
Oddly, for German searches and results, the search engine actually utilizes AI and Machine Learning (ML) with its own dynamic index to do the search for you on its own servers. This may be good or bad, depending on your perspective. This is a little-known feature, but it does make a difference in terms of privacy, depending on the language you use.
In closing
While we can't recommend a specific search engine for you personally, we advise you to think long and hard before making your next search on a major engine. Yes, it's the easiest way to search, but it's certainly not the most private or safe way to do so. Even though it may not seem like an imminent privacy risk, it most definitely is one and should be treated as such.
The best search engine for you may differ from the best search engine for me. There are two key elements to consider: how much you value privacy and what your risk tolerance is. Some people are willing to risk more privacy for convenience, while others aren't. There isn't any "right" or "wrong" approach; the only questionable approach to searching online is when you simply use a default search engine and don't ask questions!