When it comes to search engines, Google is considered among the top of the list with more than 88 billion visits every month. However, various Google alternatives offer remarkable benefits and perks.
The quality of the search results in the alternative search engines is becoming increasingly similar. The notable difference often lies in how the top results are ranked. So, if you’re keen on exploring other search engines than Google, we have compiled just the list for you.
Important Factors of a Search Engine
Before we check out the different search engines, let’s understand the different factors you need to check to choose the best alternative:
- Relevance and Accuracy of Results: You need to make sure the search engines provide accurate and relevant information based on your queries.
- Privacy: The level of privacy protection is one of the biggest factors you need to consider. Check how the search engine offers privacy protection, minimizes data tracking, and ensures user confidentiality.
- Ease of Use: Select a search engine with a user-friendly interface that makes navigating and the search process simple and intuitive.
- Speed: The speed at which the search engine delivers results is another factor you need to consider. Ensure the search engine provides you with a timely and efficient response to your queries.
- Customization: Look for search engines that allow customization, allowing you to personalize your search experience as per your preferences.
- Special Features: Explore any unique features offered by the search engine, search as rewards, or distinctive search functionalities that cater to your specific needs.
Best Search Engines Like Google
To know which search engine is best, check out the best and most popular Google alternative search engines:
- Bing
Microsoft Bing is the second largest search engine after Google. It helps users find a diverse range of information on the web. This includes everything and anything, including maps, videos, articles, etc. This search engine provides you with a more visual experience with prominent background photos and displayed large thumbnails for video searches.
Bing can be considered the best search engine for privacy as it provides top-tier privacy protection. It does not save the browsing history of users or track personal information. You can use Bing Translator for seamless translation and even personalize your search experience by saving your search history and changing your setting preferences. Plus, it is integrated with other products like Office and Microsoft and you can access Bing services from within these products.
- Yahoo!
Yahoo is a popular search engine worldwide and has been around longer than Google. Although some may see this search engine as outdated, it still ranks 3rd in the popularity list. Yahoo offers its users a default search engine which is Firefox. Its privacy protection is a great feature, offering users a safe search experience.
You can use Yahoo to perform a variety of tasks. You can search for websites, do online shopping, and even check Yahoo’s web portal for news, emails, games, and more. Yahoo is integrated with Flickr, Yahoo Answers, and Yahoo Finance, thereby offering users better image results and accurate information on various topics.
- DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a free search engine that is highly regarded for its privacy protection policies. This online search engine does not track or collect user data and protects user’s privacy online. One of the best features of this search engine is that it provides an encrypted connection, therefore, your data is not intercepted by third parties.
It also allows you to perform smarter searches by using its search algorithms that help you get instant results for common queries. You can also do anonymous searching and customize the search engine with options like dark mode or regional settings, according to your preferences.
- Baidu
Baidu is a leading search engine company in China with a share of over 70% of China’s internet market. It allows users to find information on the information as well as provides maps and location-related services along with translation services where you can translate text and websites from one language to another.
Baidu also offers a social media platform called Tieba. It allows users to create and participate in forums on different topics. This search engine is monetized through ads and uses rich snippets in the search results. However, this engine is heavily censored and certain images are blocked.
- Ask
Formerly known as Ask Jeeves, this search engine utilizes a simple question-and-answer format for its natural language searches. Its user-friendly interface helps people unfamiliar with search engines easily use it. You can use the Ask search engine to find information online, online content, as well as websites.
Leverage the different search categories and search filters to narrow down your search results. You can use the “Ask the Expert” feature to get answers to specific questions from experts in various fields. It also allows you to personalize the search experience by saving the search history and making necessary changes in the setting preference.
- AOL
Previously known as America Online, AOL is a search engine popular for its online advertising and digital media services. This site search engine offers free email services along with news, lifestyle, and entertainment content. You can efficiently search the web and also active SafeSocial, a feature that provides children with a safe internet experience.
Parents can monitor their children’s online activities and therefore, protect them from any harm. Its enhanced privacy and security features, as well as tracking protection and built-in VPN, are other significant aspects of this search engine.
- Yandex
The Yandex search engine is one of the best Google alternatives as it provides accurate and relevant search results. This Russia-based search engine holds 60% of the search engine market in the country. It has a user-friendly interface and allows users to search websites, send emails, and translate languages.
It also provides users with storage space to store and share files and documents online. Yandex also offers an advertising network through which it helps businesses and organizations reach their target audience.
- Brave
Brave is a Google like search engine launched by Brave Software. It is a fairly new search engine launched in 2021. This search engine significantly focuses on privacy protection and does not track users or sell their data.
It also has its own web index with billions of pages to generate search results. Due to this, it doesn’t rely on any other search engine to answer queries. It is one of the most effective search platforms that handles over 20 million search queries on a daily basis.
- Startpage
Startpage is one of the best private search engines that protect the personal information of users. This Dutch-based search engine has a clean interface and provides efficient image and video search. You can use it to conduct your searches without being tracked by third parties.
Its advanced search options also elevate your search experience. However, there’s no option to personalize your search as Startpage offers results based on the user’s query and not their search history or other information.
- Lukol
The Lukol search engine is an anonymous search engine that delivers results from Google but maintains your privacy at the same time. It removes any traceable element, therefore, you can benefit from Google’s search without being tracked.
You can use it to perform a wide variety of searches from information, and news to images and videos. This search engine maintains full anonymity of your searches and keeps you safe by protecting you from misleading or inappropriate sites.
- Excite
Excite is a web portal as well as a search engine. It offers a complete experience with different features like directory, personalization, email, and more. From searching sites for news and information to performing any searches for news and image results.
You can personalize the homepage, receive curated news, and even create custom searches. Create free email accounts and use them for a variety of purposes.
- Ecosia
Ecosia is one of the secure search engines that donates 80% of their revenue to environmental causes. For every search made (powered by Bing), the revenue goes towards its tree-planting scheme. You can use this search engine to search for a variety of information online by inputting relevant keywords and phrases. It also provides browser extensions for other browsers.
- Swisscows
The Swisscows search engine is one of the Switzerland-based advanced search engines that is completely encrypted to protect the privacy and security of users. It does not store personal information, IP address, or even search queries. It also has a unique feature for providing a safe search experience for children.
You can use its search browser to get accurate results. This is done with the aid of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms that understand the search intent and offer relevant results. Swiscows also offers multilingual support and the ability to personalize your search experience.
- WolframAlpha
WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine with a secure privacy policy and doesn’t track your searches. It has its own algorithms, knowledge base, and AI technology and provides users with accurate results.
The search engine is designed to deliver expert knowledge, is categorized with respect to different subjects, and provides you with useful search tools to compute data. These subjects are Science and Technology, Mathematics, Society and Culture, and Everyday Life. You can use these categories and subcategories to find relevant answers within minutes.
- Qwant
Qwant is a comprehensive search engine and is often considered a better search engine than Google. It uses a combination of natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to provide users with accurate results. Its privacy policy makes the search engine appealing as it does not store any data or personal details for advertising.
You can enable the SafeSearch feature to ensure child safety and it also supports several languages like English, French, German, and Italian. Its social media integration feature sets it apart as you can directly connect and access different platforms directly via the search engine.
- Gibiru
Gibiru is one of the good search engines that provides unfiltered private search indicated by its tagline. You can download the AnonymoX Firefox add-on to ensure all your searches are sent through a proxy IP address. This provides you with unbiased and private search results where other users won’t be able to track your history.
This search engine does not use any cookies. So. wherever you input a search query. Gibiru does not save the search queries and erases them within seconds after performing the search. Moreover, it does not use any kind of sponsored or paid results. You can also customize your search settings, language, and regions, and enable the SafeSearch feature.
- Search Encrypt
Search Encrypt is a privacy-focused search engine that makes use of local encryption to protect user information. Your details cannot be tracked when you use this search engine. This metasearch engine gets its results from a network of search partners. Additionally, Search Encrypt automatically erases your search queries from your local browsing history after 15 minutes of inactivity.
- SearX
SearX is an open source search engine that is available to everyone for code review along with contributions on GitHub. This metasearch engine offers unbiased results from a variety of sources and provides you with a decentralized view of the internet.
SearX also allows you to customize it and you can even host it on your server as your own search engine. Moreover, it offers many preferences and settings, providing you with swift and precise search results.
- Monstercrawler
Monstercrawler is another metasearch engine that provides users the opportunity to search from multiple search engines along with advanced search options. You can also search within specific websites using the “site” operator and customize the search results by selecting which type of websites you want to search from and which ones you don’t.
- MetaGer
MetaGer is a German search engine that offers privacy-protected search and find. Operated by the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and funded by the Ministry of Education and Research, you can search in German and English.
By using this metasearch engine, you can enter search queries up to 50 external searches, providing you with unfiltered and unbiased information. You can also use MetaGer to access maps and do route planning without tracking your location. Alternatively, you can also download MetaGer’s plugin for your default search engine to make sure your searches always remain private.
Conclusion
Thus, our curated search engines list sheds light on some of the alternative options that you can use instead of Google. You can search all search engines and identify which one is suitable for your needs and requirements. Understand the search engine use and its benefits before you begin using them.