I switched from Starpage to DDG for a while but have switched back to Startpage as much superior. Reasons much better search results as based on Google but with private searches. DDG very poor results for me , Startpage slightly faster and gives date options to define within last year , month etc DDG doesnt & throws up old web pages at times without you first realising .
The Best Private Search Engine - What are you using?
- Thread starter SearchLight
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Please provide comments and solutions that are helpful to the author of this topic.
- Aug 17, 2014
- 11,256
I'm using Duck Duck Go since a few months, before most of time I have been a user of StartPage.
- May 9, 2019
- 349
I use DuckDuck Go and ecosia.org.
- Mar 29, 2018
- 7,698
Others besides DDG return old web pages, which I encountered recently. I used to use StartPage but haven't for quite awhile, so I tried it again based on your post and I think you may be on to something. They've done a nice re-do of the UI and search results are good.
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I use SearX instances and sometimes DDG on mobile.
- Apr 7, 2016
- 568
DuckDuckGo as primary search engine, both on computers and mobile.
- May 30, 2013
- 125
I've used Google and StartPage. I really liked using StartPage. ( no ads to speak of) However for overall privacy I'm currently using DuckDuckGo.
nico_be_rocky
New Member
- Apr 4, 2020
- 8
I use ddg when I know what I want to look for and I don't have it in my favorites. for the rest I use Firefox with google or edge with bing for the usual searches where I do not care about the privacy factor but only the convenience. edge on w10 is amazing on my pc, much better than chrome, firefox and opera
- Jan 1, 2018
- 494
So if I wanted to search for something on Amazon, instead of visiting Amazon's website and searching for a product, I can just type !a [product] and it'll redirect me to Amazon with the product listings for what I put after !a, as if I'd searched directly on Amazon. (!a is the bang for Amazon.)
You can learn more about them here and see which bangs are available for which websites.
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- Jun 6, 2017
- 477
Am i correct in saying that there are only main two search engines out there- Google and Bing ?
Most of the alternative search engines (Such as DuckDuckGo) return Bing results but strip out the advertising.
Startpage is the only one (that i am aware of) that returns Google results.
Unfortunately the best search engine for results and presentation is Google- but its also the one I trust least of all.
Most of the alternative search engines (Such as DuckDuckGo) return Bing results but strip out the advertising.
Startpage is the only one (that i am aware of) that returns Google results.
Unfortunately the best search engine for results and presentation is Google- but its also the one I trust least of all.
Yes and no. Google and Bing are merely the largest global web crawlers, so in that respect you are correct. In other words, for most of the western countries, Latin-America, Caribbean, Australia and parts of Africa these two are the only options you got (as in proper independent web crawlers and index).
However, there are several other crawlers out there for their own target audiences. Yandex from Russia, the several Chinese-only index crawlers (Baidu to name the largest index), Korea has Naver, Japan and Vietnam a few gigantic search indexes in their own respective languages too. It all depends on the target audience, generally speaking [2].
To name a few alternatives that have been round for quite a while, that do have their own index and crawlers:
[1] SwissCows is a bit of a hybrid. It uses Bing for international searches, but has its own index and crawlers for German websites/-pages or containing the German language.
[2] These are just the onces I remember from memory.
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- Jan 28, 2018
- 2,464
I use various search engines, but the amount of information on Google and Bing still seems attractive.
- Mar 9, 2014
- 617
- Jan 21, 2018
- 814
I've been using several search providers recently to try and work out which one I prefer, so far the answer has not been reached.
DDG, Metager, Mojeek, Searx, SwissCows, Searx (be careful which public instances of this you use, much like Tor nodes they can be used for the wrong purposes - Searx instances Searx - Privacy-respecting metasearch engine ) and Peekier. I quite like the ability to preview sites in the results of the latter one.
I see several mentions of Statpage, I used to use this one a lot but stopped when this news broke in 2019 - Startpage sale raises privacy concerns
This concerned Statpage being bought by an owner where the privacy of it seemed like it could be compromised. Are the users of Startpage convinced that it is OK and privacy respecting now?
I've tried Qwant several times in the past and never really got on with it, it does not seem to like not being the default search engine in Firefox. It reset my preferences several times so as it was the default. I like to make those decisions rather than find an app or extension doing so.
DDG, Metager, Mojeek, Searx, SwissCows, Searx (be careful which public instances of this you use, much like Tor nodes they can be used for the wrong purposes - Searx instances Searx - Privacy-respecting metasearch engine ) and Peekier. I quite like the ability to preview sites in the results of the latter one.
I see several mentions of Statpage, I used to use this one a lot but stopped when this news broke in 2019 - Startpage sale raises privacy concerns
This concerned Statpage being bought by an owner where the privacy of it seemed like it could be compromised. Are the users of Startpage convinced that it is OK and privacy respecting now?
I've tried Qwant several times in the past and never really got on with it, it does not seem to like not being the default search engine in Firefox. It reset my preferences several times so as it was the default. I like to make those decisions rather than find an app or extension doing so.
- May 25, 2020
- 295
I have presearch.org as my main searcher and I set search to Swisscows on my nieces computers. I manually override sometimes and use Duckduckgo (math/cssearcing) or Bing(foreign language stuff). If I'm searching for something connected to a progressive/PC narrative then I use google.
- Jul 11, 2018
- 231
I am currently liking Brave Search (here is some information about it), it is new (still beta) & it still needs a few more features (like a calculator & business contact information), but it is currently my favorite search engine & it is currently ad free.
I am now using Google Search less than ever thanks to Brave Search, so search wise, it is performing better overall than DuckDuckGo for me.
I am now using Google Search less than ever thanks to Brave Search, so search wise, it is performing better overall than DuckDuckGo for me.
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- Mar 29, 2018
- 7,698
StartPage has this convenient feature:
www.startpage.com
Anonymous View by Startpage
Startpage goes beyond private search with our proprietary private browsing feature Anonymous View.
www.startpage.com
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