10 alternative search engines to Google

For many people, Google teeth Search — they simply haven’t considered the alternatives. But there are plenty of search engines other than Google that offer benefits like improved privacy, environmental benefits, and AI capabilities.

Choosing one of the alternative search engines doesn’t necessarily mean accepting subpar search results. Some alternative search engines use the same search technology as Google itself, so the quality of your search results won’t be compromised.

Here are 10 free alternatives to Google and why you might want to consider a search engine other than the powerful Google.

Why is Google the most used search engine?

There’s no doubt that Google is the 10-ton gorilla of the search industry.

According to Statcounter, just under nine in ten people in the US (87.5%) use Google for searches, with Microsoft’s Bing (see below) coming in second with just 7.4%.

It’s not just the US where Google dominates: in fact, in Europe and globally, Google’s market share is even higher, at 91.1% and 90.9%, respectively. Entering regions like China and Russia, we see Google’s grip on the search market weaken.

Google wasn’t the first search engine – rivals such as Yahoo got there in the early 1990s – but it quickly established itself as the dominant search engine in the late 1990s, thanks in part to the fact that Google’s search results were less susceptible to manipulation than some of its rivals, and that users were more likely to find what they were looking for the first time.

Google was so confident in the accuracy of its search results that they put a “You’re in luck” button on the search page that took you directly to the top results, a button that’s still there to this day.

Today, Google’s dominance in the search market is strengthened by other factors: Google is the default search engine in Google Chrome, the world’s most widely used web browser. It’s also the default search engine in Android, the world’s most popular smartphone operating system. It also remains the default choice in software that Google doesn’t control, such as Apple’s Safari.

But that’s not your only option.

The 10 best alternatives to Google

There are several reasons to consider a search engine other than Google.

Google is in the advertising business, and it collects user data to help that business. If you don’t want all the information you type into the search engine to potentially be used to build a highly detailed profile of your preferences and habits, there are less invasive alternatives.

Because Google dominates the search market, alternative services often struggle to get into the spotlight, but there are at least 10 strong alternatives to Google, and they’re all free.

1. Bing

Bing is Google’s closest rival, albeit by a distance of about 15 years between a cheetah and a kitten. Microsoft’s search engine has been around for 15 years, but it has only recently come into its own with its Copilot AI feature, which uses the same AI engine used to power ChatGPT to enhance search results.

For example, if you ask Bing “What’s the summary of the 1999 World Series?”, you’ll get an AI-generated response detailing the winner, MVP, and other trivia without having to dig into search results. This is a strong option for people who want to get to the gist quickly.

2. DuckDuckGo

The fantastically named DuckDuckGo is the go-to alternative for anyone wanting to protect their privacy.

Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo promises not to track you by monitoring what you type into its search engine and other websites. It won’t ask you to sign in, and it won’t store or sell your IP address (a unique identifier that can be used to create a personal profile) to advertisers.

DuckDuckGo uses a variety of sources to generate search results, none of which are Google.

3. Yahoo

Yahoo has been around longer than Google and remains a strong leader in search.

Yahoo is more of a content portal than a no-frills site like Google’s homepage, offering news headlines, trending searches, weather forecasts and more from a jam-packed home screen. If you want to get a feel for the big stories of the day before exploring further on the web, it’s a good starting point.

Yahoo search results have long since abandoned their own shaky search technology and are now powered by Bing.

4. Ecosia

If you want to help the planet while you search, Ecosia offers a new way to do so.

The company claims to put all of its profits towards climate change, which means it has planted over 200 million trees and spent almost $100 million on climate change since it was founded 15 years ago.

Ecosia search results are powered by a combination of Google and Bing, so you don’t have to sacrifice the quality of your search results to do your bit to help the environment.

5. Quant

Qwant is another privacy-focused search engine that claims to not store your search history or sell your personal data.

There’s a caveat to this, though: “To use some of our advanced or optional features, you will need to share certain data with our partners,” the company explains on its “About” page, and you might need to take a closer look at their privacy policy before getting started.

The French service relies heavily on Bing for search results.

6. Start Page

Startpage might be considered Google without most of the bad stuff.

Although search results are powered by Google, Startpage emphasizes that it does not log any of your personal data or search history, IP addresses are wiped from its servers, and trackers are blocked. To supplement revenue, it displays sponsored results at the top of search results, but it is less intrusive than Google’s approach.

It has most of the features you’re used to from regular Google, including images, videos, news and shopping search options, but “Maps” just redirects you to Google or Bing.

7. Swiss Cowes

Swisscows is another search engine that claims to offer strong privacy protections, but goes a step further by only showing “family friendly” results.

As always, promises like this should be taken with some caution, especially since the definition of “family friendly” varies from user to user, but in tests, the site returned no results for porn-related searches. It did, however, return results for adult video games and violent movies, so some parents might not necessarily consider it a safe space.

8. Sarks

Searx is a metasearch engine that aggregates results from other engines and displays them on the same page, making it a bit of a nerdy option.

It claims to do this while protecting user privacy, preventing the search engine being used from profiling or tracking users’ search history, and it claims to be “hackable” in a positive way, meaning anyone could get the code and run the search engine themselves.

On the downside, it was buggy in testing and often showed error messages in image and file search results, so we’re treating this as “experimental.”

9. Brave

Brave is probably best known for its privacy-preserving browser, but it’s now getting into the search business too.

However, Brave isn’t just relying on anonymous search and transparent rankings to draw users in. Brave also neatly integrates AI answers into its main search box, so when you ask a question in search, you’re likely to see an AI-generated answer at the top of the search results. As always, be careful with the illusion of AI.

10. Mojik

Mojeek is a privacy-focused search engine with a very succinct privacy policy: “We don’t track our users.” They’ve been around for almost 20 years and they don’t track anyone.

In fact, because it relies on its own search technology rather than anything borrowed from elsewhere, results can be shaky — image search results are particularly weak.

But it does use AI, including summarizing search results pages, and the option to limit searches to Substack pages may be appealing to users of the service.

Conclusion

Google’s enduring popularity is undoubtedly due in large part to the high quality of the search results it provides, but it comes at the expense of privacy.

There are several strong alternatives to Google, some of which use Google search results but offer stronger privacy protections. If you haven’t looked beyond Google, it’s worth taking a look at what the competition has to offer – you might be surprised.