When you search for something on the internet, related advertisements often follow. Major search engines track your searches, location, and clicks to show you ads. This tracking frustrates many users, leading them to feel constantly pursued by ads. For most people, the primary search engines are Google and its alternative, Bing.
While Google tracks activity for targeted ads, there are other search engines designed with user privacy in mind. A key feature of these search engines is that the information you search for is not used for advertising purposes.
DuckDuckGo: This search engine’s mission is ‘Privacy, Simplified.’ It neither stores personal information nor tracks your search queries. The company states that apps and browsers offer tracker protection features to block third-party tracking.
Swisscows: This search engine claims to be a no-tracking engine. It operates on its own search index and claims to collaborate with Brave for search result quality. While you may see ads on this search engine, as it funds itself through advertising provided by Bing, the company emphasizes that user data is not shared with ad partners.
Brave Search: Brave Search operates on its own web index, reducing its reliance on Google or Bing for most queries. This allows the search engine to avoid tracking users. Brave also offers an optional privacy-preserving web discovery project where you can contribute data to improve the index, but only if you opt-in. You can use Brave Search in any browser.
This search engine also provides an Answers with AI feature, similar to Google’s AI Mode. If you want information via AI, enter your query in the search bar and click the star-like icon next to the search icon. AI will provide detailed information about your query.
Startpage: The Anonymous View feature on this search engine helps maintain your online privacy. The company states that user search history is never saved, and they do not sell user search history.
Startpage uses its own personal data protection technology to show you Google search results. Furthermore, to enhance user privacy, the company states that the user’s IP address is removed from all of its global servers. To prevent ads related to your searches, the company states that they do not allow third parties to access your personal data.
