Google is notorious for giving its users “customized experience”. It is amusing and intelligent - you can credit that to the tech-giant. However, this convenience also comes with a price because it allows Google to pry on your browsing history and collect your personal data. Due to this plenty of users have started using Google alternatives for privacy and security reasons.

This threat has become so popular that a lot of Search engines, not just Google, have taken positive action to protect users against unwanted monitoring. If you are not happy with Google search results or you want a search engine that delivers efficient performance, this article will give you the best Google alternatives.

The Most Popular Google Search Engine Alternatives

DuckDuckGo

If you want to achieve maximum browsing privacy, DuckDuckGo is your go-to alternative to Google search engine. It became popularly known because of its prime user security features – which is what you might be looking for. The website you visit will have zero opportunity to trace you or spy on your browsing activities. This means no ads targeting you. Furthermore, it has a simple interface and it offers search results from Yandex, Yahoo, and other search engines. You can install DuckDuckGo’s extension on your existing browser to maintain private online sessions. It provides the entire essential feature of a search engine such as Google but it has one unique feature known as “bangs” that is worth knowing. It enables users to browse directly on other websites like YouTube, Wikipedia, or Amazon, provided that an exclamation mark is placed at the beginning of their query, (i.e. "!amazon", "!wikipedia", or "!facebook").

Notable features of DuckDuckGo:

• Prevents user monitoring and wards off ads

• Most recommended Google alternative for security and privacy

• Easy to navigate UI with infinite scrolling feature

StartPage pulls up search results and provides proxy service to visit sites anonymously and privately. For a cookie-free internet, it comes with a tailored URL generator that removes the need to set-up a cookie. You can retain your private settings. Also, you can customize the theme of the search engine. You can choose from Night (which is the dark Mode), Air (which is the default Mode), Black, White, and other Classic modes.

Notable features of StartPage:

• Almost similar to Google search engine, minus the monitoring

• Doesn’t log your personal data, including your IP address

SearX

Another brilliant metasearch engine that deserves a shout out in this article is SearX. Combining the goal of a decentralized and worry-free browsing session, this site doesn’t hold on to any of your personal data and provides unbiased search results from wide-ranging sources. It restores search results from different sources including popular ones such as the aforementioned DuckDuckGo, Google, Wikipedia, Google, and many others. SearX established itself as an open-source Google counterpart. It is available to all users for source code review and GitHub contributions. You can tailor it just how you want your metasearch engine to look like and function, and connect it to your server.

This amazing Google counterpart allows you to play with its settings in the Preference sections using upgraded options that other search engines lack. Diehard fans of Torrent will rave about this search engine since it searching magnet links for specific files is easier and faster.

Notable features of SearX:

• Provides numerous options to upgrade search results

• A private search engine that’s easy to customize

Search Encrypt

Search Encrypt is another reliable metasearch engine that treats privacy as its main priority, allowing users to browse online safely and anonymously. The website doesn’t log any information about the user that could reveal your identity since it utilizes local encryption to safeguard your searches. Search Encrypt is almost similar to Google, making it an excellent alternative, however, it is dedicated to blocking the filter bubble of customized searches and it hosts more than 23 million visitors every day. The most incredible feature of this Google rival is that your local browsing activities are automatically deleted after 15 minutes of inactivity. This will give you the peace of mind you deserve, even if someone has access to your personal computer.

Notable features of Search Encrypt:

• Highly-recommended search engine for private browsing

• Sports an auto-delete feature for your browsing history

Disconnect

This Google counterpart is unique compared to other competitors mentioned in this article. Compared to them, Disconnect doesn’t show results on its site. Instead, it redirects your query to its servers, making you anonymous online then shows the search results in your private search engine. Since Disconnect doesn’t own a site where you can carry out your searches, it somehow acts as a browser extension that you have to add. Apart from this, it sources out its earnings from the most recommended VPN service, thus the search results delivered to users don’t have any traces of affiliate codes or ads.

Notable features of Disconnect:

• Allows you to privately browse in your chosen search engine

• An open-source browser extension

• Available in Opera, iOS, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Android.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Google Search

Google is found in almost every device, from your phone, watch, and even car – but nothing beats using Google search in your personal computer. Almost 65% of web surfers in the US utilize Google as their default search engine.

If you still rely on Google to answer all of your questions up to this day, then you might want to rethink your private search engine choices. Here are five reasons why you should completely ditch Google and opt for other search engines – you’ll think about this article later on.

1. Google tracks your browsing history and you need to stop them

Google will probably defend their company by saying that tracking makes their services better and advertisements more relevant. However, keep in mind that your browsing activities should remain private to protect yourself. If you want to stop Google’s advanced tracking mechanism, you can search Google via a private browser tab, switch off search monitoring, or use other search engines such as DuckDuckGo that doesn’t log their user’s personal data.

2. Google lack efficiency for technical searches

No matter how popular or intelligent Google search engine is, it is still no match to the encyclopedic capacity of Wolfram Alpha that can offer you even the exact location of the International Space Station. Google is capable of a lot of things but Wolfram Alpha will give you probabilities, fractions, and other complex calculations in an in-depth manner. You can even search the famous words in renowned literary works and Wolfram Alpha will never disappoint.

3. Google pries on your deep web searches

If you are still using Google when diving in the deep web, then you should be worried about your security and privacy. To combat Google’s sophisticated tracking technology, you can switch to other search engine alternatives such as SearX or DuckDuckGo.

4. Upgrade video results

When it comes to video, Bing surpasses Google and that’s a known fact. Interface-wise, it delivers matching videos presented in a thumbnail-style, allowing you to hover over the results to access instant previews. Besides this, you can also get extremely accessible filters, without the need to visit YouTube. With its drop-down menus located at the top of the site, you can easily see the duration, resolution, source, and date of the video.

5. Earn more revenue

If you are a resident of the US, you can take advantage of Microsoft Rewards – which was formerly named as Bing Rewards – to earn voucher credits whenever your test out new features, search the web, or avail particular special offers.

The credit that you’ll earn can be used in various retailers such as GameStop, Amazon, and more. You can also spend it on online apps and services like Skype, Xbox, Hulu, and the like.

Why DuckDuckGo is the Most Recommended

So, if you are still questioning the reliability of DuckDuckGo, that’s pretty much normal reaction considering all the data leaks happening online. But don’t worry because you will learn a few important points on why you should switch to this search engine.

For starters, DuckDuckGo focuses on private and anonymous browsing and the company has come a long way as a trustworthy search engine. The following are additional points that will reassure you about DuckDuckGo.

DuckDuckGo has plenty of unique tools that will help you achieve optimum security while browsing the web. They refurbished their browser extensions, as well as their mobile apps, giving it much better features including encryption, quick access, and tracking protection to their anonymous search.

They also incorporated a Site Privacy Grade with a rating that ranges from A to F, to help you determine how good a website maintains your anonymity. Most of the features found in the mobile apps and browser aim to prevent monitoring and secure your privacy. Put simply, DuckDuckGo’s features mainly focus on keeping you secure online.

Furthermore, DuckDuckGo doesn’t keep records of any of your data, which makes it unique among other search engines. It’s how the company safeguards your data online.

DuckDuckGo’s privacy-centered surroundings are the exact opposite of Google’s extremely targeted environment. It doesn’t have customized and targeted ads, filter bubble, or custom search results. Depending on what you are looking for, this is by far the greatest or worst feature of DDG. For those who take privacy very seriously, this monitoring absence wraps up all the good stuff. Just when you think DuckDuckGo laid out all of its cards, it has another incredible feature up for grabs: bangs.

Bangs enable you to directly search in third-party websites from DDG. For example, you want to visit makeuseof.com. Google will allow you to do a site search by typing site:makeuseof.com. On the other hand, with DDG’s unique bangs mechanism, you are required to type !muo followed by your desired search word.

In addition to this, searching a website via thousands of available bangs will route you straight to the site, instead of the search engine results. But if you want to access Google’s custom results, you can always visit it by placing !g at the start of your search term and it will directly take you there.

DuckDuckGo just proves that functionality and security can go together. It is perfect for those who are looking for ultimate privacy, but most especially, it is far from being a niche product.