Recommended Search Engines

Your search history is a diary of what you are thinking about. Google and Bing keep it, tie each query to you, and sell the attention that builds. A private search engine does not log or profile you. The results are not bent around a model of who you are. Privacy and where the results come from are two different questions. Most private engines pull from Google or Bing behind a privacy shield, while a few run their own index.

How to choose a search engine

The big question is who builds the index. A handful of private engines crawl the web themselves, which keeps them independent of Big Tech but means a smaller index. Most others are metasearch, pulling Google or Bing results through a privacy shield. You get familiar results without the tracking. Neither is wrong. It depends on whether you want independence or coverage.

Here are some things to look for.

No profiling. It should not tie your searches to you or build a profile.
Clear about where results come from. Whether it runs its own index or pulls from Google or Bing.
No filter bubble. Everyone sees the same results, not a feed shaped by a profile of you.
No tracking by IP or cookies. No identifiers stored to follow you between searches.
Funding that is not surveillance ads. Paid by subscriptions, unprofiled ads, or donations.
Open source or self-hostable. So the privacy claims can be checked or run yourself.