6 Google Alternative Search Engines to Use in 2021

Six Google Alternatives Best Search Engines To Use In 2021

Even with a global online market share of 88%, more and more users online are looking for alternatives to Google. It’s become so engrained in our daily lives that we have even adopted it as a verb. “Google it” or “Googling” are commonplace.

But, with rising concerns around privacy, censorship, and even in the increase in prevalence of paid search results, many are looking for alternatives to Google Search.

Some of the reasons that have caused users to look for a Google alternative include:

  • Privacy: Every time you search something on Google, that information is stored. The Google algorithms gather personal information every time you search or use any of their services. They have had some sinister data collection methods, and therefore, the Federal Trade Commission fined Google $170 million for how YouTube handles data for child users under 13 years old. According to CNBC news-post, Gmail can keep track of your purchases and the information can date back to even ten years ago.
  • Censorship: Google’s transparency report shows that the company struggles with giving its users free speech or censorship, which governments and organizations can use to limit free speech. The report shows an increase in the number of government censorship requests. Moreover, the company also wanted to launch a censored search engine named Dragonfly in China. I don’t keep tabs on individuals by linking their queries to your phone number. However, reports on the privacy team’s internal complaints caused the project to shut down before its launch. 
  • Tax Avoidance: In 2017, reports say Google used a Dutch Shell company to move millions of dollars to Bermuda to minimize its foreign tax bill. Taxes are essential to fund national services like health, education, arts, industrialization, employment, and more.
  • Antitrust Behavior. In March 2017, the European Commission fined Google $1.7 billion because they breached the European union’s antitrust rules. Google imposed restrictive clauses in contracts with websites to prevent the arrivals from advertising on these websites. 
  • Bias: Google is usually biased with the display of its products first in search results. A good example is YouTube videos in search or video search results over other video platforms, such as Vimeo. 

6 Alternative Search Engines to Google

There are various alternatives to Google in terms of privacy and search experience. Some of the Best Google Alternatives include:

1. Bing

Bing is a product of Microsoft. It is the second-largest search engine in the United States after Google and has a market share of 8%. It offers some already use search engine features like time, currency conversions, translation, and more. Moreover, it has a rewards program where users get points for searches. They can redeem these points at the windows and Microsoft Stores. Furthermore, Bing does not have a YouTube bias when making video searches.

However, Microsoft collects your data from your interactions with its products and services like Bing. 

2. DuckDuckGo

If your privacy is a concern, then DuckDuckGo is one of the best search engines out there. Launching in 2008,DuckDuckGo does not collect or store any personal information, browsing habits, IP addresses, or use tracking cookies. However, it does claim to save your searches in an unidentifiable manner.

DuckDuckGo displays search results from at least 400 different sources including partners like Bing, crowd-sourced sites like Wikipedia, and more.

3. Yahoo

Yahoo was once one of the largest internet companies in the world. Now, even though it is powered by Bing, it still has the third-largest global search engine market share at 1.5%.

Take note, though. Yahoo does not put a ton of emphasis on privacy and collects information after registering for their services and products. Moreover, Yahoo is owned by Verizon, which can result in some biased search results in favor of other Verizon-owned properties as well as potential Verizon access to your data

4. Swisscows

Swisscows is a search engine from Switzerland and is unique for its built-in family friendly search features that filter out violent or adult content from results. It uses its results index for German searches. Swisscows uses Bing results index to display queries in other languages.

Swisscows does not collect any user data, use geo-targeting, or tracking cookies. Furthermore, it routes queries to Bing through a firewall to eliminate personal identifiers and protect your information from Bing.

5. StartPage

StartPage is one of the best Google alternatives because it provides Google search results but does not track or store your search history.

Based in the Netherlands, StartPage complies with the General Data Protection Regulation policy, which protects people’s data and privacy. The StartPage privacy policy also states that their algorithm strips your query of identifying metadata like IP addresses.

Moreover, it provides a URL generator HTTP support and proxy service. The URL generator removes the need for the algorithm to collect your search cookies.

6. Yandex

This one might seem like an odd choice, but stick with me. Yandex is the largest search engine in the Russian Federation, with a market share of about 44%. While the search engine’s privacy policy lets them collect your browsing and personal information, Yandex does have some very useful tools, including:

  • Safety tools 
  • Machine learning tools
  • Social tools 
  • Testing tools
  • Mobile development tools
  • Search tools
  • Linguistic technology tools
  • Cloud technologies 
  • Business tools
  • Frontend tool
  • Webmaster tools 
  • Geo-technology tools.

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