Undoubtedly, Google is one of the most (if not the most) popular search engines nowadays. In fact, it has evolved from simply being another search engine into becoming a verb. For example, if you are searching for answers, your friends or colleagues would just tell you “Google” it. With its rapidly-changing algorithms, this well-known search engine has accumulated a global market share worth 87%.
Google has become a leading online advertising platform, and its personalized experience comes with the price of vulnerability by letting ourselves get tracked and our sensitive/confidential data get shared all across the web. At some point, this customized experience becomes an irritant when you encounter too many targeted advertisements and content.
It’s no longer a secret that Google keeps track of our browsing habits and shares personal information with advertisers and other third-party components. If you are not a fan of trading your safety and privacy for convenience or for specific needs, there are numerous powerful alternative search engines with a better browsing experience available.
Therefore, if you are looking for top-quality and powerful alternatives, here is a list of the top 12 best search engines that you can try out for yourself.
1. Yahoo!
Yahoo has been in existence longer than the equally popular Google. In fact, netizens are still using Yahoo search engines on a daily basis. Similar to Google, Yahoo also serves as a travel directory, games center, online shopping center, email service, and news page. This popular search engine supports approximately 38 languages and has been the default search page for web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox. Instead of being a separate search platform, Yahoo’s web page provides you with a variety of services ranging from travel to online shopping that is worth checking out.
Also, Yahoo! has integrations with Flickr, offering enhanced image results and modules such as Yahoo! Answers. On the other hand, Yahoo! Finance delivers a rich load of comprehensive information on businesses, stocks, and related information. In terms of privacy, Yahoo! performs better compared to other popular search engines.
Pros
- – Numerous Services Other Than Search Functionalities
– Comprehensive Organic Result
Cons
- – Advertisements aren’t clearly labeled as Ads
– Unavailability of Desktop Search Feature, Book Feature, and User-Generated Videos
2. Bing
Another popular alternative search engines you can try out is Microsoft’s Bing. It has a reputable hold in the online market setting. Bing is more of a visual search engine providing you with diverse tools and resources for a better experience.
Yahoo!’s search page also provides search results on Bing’s platform. Its homepage has a dynamic background showcasing beautiful images of people, sports, places, animals, and food. For video content browsing, Bing highlights a grid of big thumbnails that provides a preview if you hover over them and streams it on the same module with a single click.
Like Google, Bing features promotions and functionalities such as flight status and tracking, sports/game scoring, spell checkers, translations, and conversion. This popular search engine also has mobile apps on Android and iOS.
Bing is considered one of the largest and most powerful search engine alternatives available today.
Pros
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- – Tons of Unique Features
- – Excellent Search Engine for Video/Media Search
Cons
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- – Some Search Results are weak with less relevant content
- – Lag in Lead Generation and Search Engine Optimization
3. Yandex
Yandex is an extremely popular search engine in Russia, with an approximated 55% to 65% share in the nation’s search market. This search engine is also exclusively used in other parts of Europe and is ranked as the fifth-biggest search engine around the world.
This Russian-based search platform is apparently one of the Google’s largest competitors because it offers similar services like mailing service, cloud storage, analytics, translator, maps, web browser, and mobile apps. This wide variety of services make this popular search engine one of the best and powerful search engine alternatives to Google.
Yandex has a sleek and neat aesthetic, and the search results module has a design and layout that is more organized than Google’s. It lets you browse and search through news, videos, and images the way you could with Google.
Overall, Yandex is an efficient and easy-to-use search engine. It provides you with a suite of some pretty unique tools and features that gives it the edge.
Pros
- – Security and Spam Filtering Integrations
- – Numerous Add-On Services
Cons
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- – Too Many Advertisements
- – Less Privacy-Centered Approach
4. Swisscows
Formerly known as Hulbee, Swisscows is one of the best search engine alternatives to Google with a privacy-centered approach. It is well-known among parents who prefer child-friendly and child-appropriate search results for their children. The integrated filter for violent and pornographic content in this search engine is unparalleled.
Swisscows doesn’t store search queries, IP addresses, and confidential data/information, making it one of the powerful alternative search engines to Google. Another noteworthy aspect is that it is based in Switzerland, a country that has some of the strictest privacy regulations and policies around the globe. Also, Swisscows depend on Bing for retrieving or pulling data based on semantic info for more intuitive search results.
This search engine has its ad system where advertisements are primarily aimed based on a person’s query and not on one’s location. Another reason why Swisscows is a commendable search engine is that it shows a grid of suggestion tags every time you input a query. For instance, inputting “Windows 10” in the search field recommends other keywords such as features, updates, apps, installations, and laptops.
Pros
- – Provides A Wealth of Helpful Suggestion Tags
- – Efficiently Privacy-Centered
Cons
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- – Child Filtering can’t be turned off/disabled
5. DuckDuckGo
If online confidentiality is what you require, DuckDuckGo is the perfect alternative search engine for you. Its popularity quickly grew because of its online privacy features: DuckDuckGo never tracks you and what you do online. This assures that there are no annoying and redundant ads following you.
DuckDuckGo also has a sleek and neat user interface and offers the search results from Yandex, Yahoo, and other Google alternatives. You can integrate DuckDuckGo’s browser extension to keep your online activities secure and private. It delivers all the standard features of a search engine such as Google.
One cool feature of DuckDuckGo worth highlighting is called “bangs.” Through this integration, you can easily search on other sites such as Twitter, eBay, Yelp, Amazon, or Wikipedia by starting your search query with an exclamation point. For example, simply input on the search field “!amazon” when you want to browse something on Amazon; bangs will redirect you there the fastest it can.
Pros
- – Minimal Advertisements and Doesn’t Track Users
- – Excellent Google Search Engine Alternative for Privacy
Cons
- – American Servers Only
6. Search Encrypt
Search Encrypt is a powerful search engine alternative to Google that puts online security and privacy at its frontlines and ensures that your online transactions remain secure, safe, and private. This search engine claims it doesn’t track and store any confidential and personal information about its users as it utilizes local encryption to secure your browsing activities.
The search results are then pulled from Search Encrypt’s network of search partners. It is a relatively new search engine alternative to Google; however, it performs best to eliminate the filter bubble of the personalized browsing experience and has more than 23M visitors daily.
The most powerful feature of this alternative search engine is that your local search history and records expire automatically and get removed every 15 minutes of inactive use. As a result, you don’t need to worry even if someone else has access to your personal computer or mobile devices.
Pros
- – Automatic Deletion of Browsing History
- – Powerful Search Engine Alternative with Privacy-Centered Integrations
Cons
- – If you are prone to forget what you are browsing, you can’t retrieve it in this website
7. StartPage
Formerly known as a metasearch engine named Ixquick, StartPage retrieves answers from Google. This makes StartPage an excellent alternative search engine for those who prefer Google’s search results but are skeptical about their digital footprint.
Aside from retrieving search results, it provides you with proxy service to browse online sites securely and privately. To advocate a cookie-free internet browsing experience, StartPage has a custom URL generator that removes the need for collecting or setting internet cookies. That said, you can store your settings in a privacy-centered approach.
Also, you can modify the theme of the search engine for a more customized experience. It has the Dark Mode (Night), Black, White, Default (Air), and other Classic custom settings.
Pros
- – Google-Like Search Engine Without Tracking Features
- – All Personal Credentials and Details including IP Addresses aren’t saved
Cons
- – Owned by an Advertising Company
- – Powered by Google Search Results
8. Ecosia
Are you planning to save the planet, one tree at a time? You should start using Ecosia more often as it is considered the most environmentally-friendly search engine alternative. Despite being existent since 2009, it is a bit surprising that not many individuals are aware of this free search engine alternative to Google. It is also an excellent option among alternatives to Google for several users.
Ecosia’s user interface is sleek and clean like Google. It can also conveniently handle your search queries. However, its unique selling point is it plants trees across the planet from the generated revenue. Also, this powerful search engine is on the same boat as DuckDuckGo and doesn’t track your browsing activity or sell your confidential data to third-party constituents.
This search engine alternative to Google is available in seven different languages and offers features such as notifications from trees, safe browsing, and automatic suggestions. Another thing to consider is that Ecosia’s search engine is powered by another powerful alternative search engine, Bing. You can allow personalized suggestions as well where the search engine assigns you a distinct identifier which is shared with Bing and removed.
Pros
- – No Data Collection and Online Tracking Tools
- – Easy-To-Use Interface
Cons
- – Search Queries are saved for one week
- – Bing Identification is assigned to users but can’t be turned off
9. Disconnect
Disconnect is one of the most unique Google search engine alternatives. Unlike the others mentioned in this article, Disconnect doesn’t provide search results on its website. Instead, it redirects your search query through its servers to make you anonymous and then provides you with the search results on whichever search engine you prefer.
Given that this search engine alternative doesn’t have its page where you can perform searches, it is more of an extension of a browser that you need to download. Also, it gets its revenue from a premium VPN service. That said, the search results delivered to users do not have annoying advertisements, affiliated programs, or codes in it.
Pros
- – It is an open-source browser extension only
- – Multiple Channel Compatibilities such as Android, Chrome, Firefox, iOS, Opera, and Safari
Cons
- – Fewer Organic Results
10. QWant
QWant is another privacy-centered search engine alternative headquartered in France. This platform claims never to store personal and confidential data for ad-targeting. As a privacy-based search engine, QWant has many features that are similar to DuckDuckGo. One of which is known as “Qwick Search Shortcuts” that are similar to DuckDuckGo’s bangs. This feature lets you get instant research on numerous websites. By adding “!” or “&” followed by your website’s name, you have direct access to the search results or page. If you want to know QWant’s list of compatible websites, you can visit their official page.
QWant’s user interface is sleek, pleasant, and highlights trending topics together with news stories on the homepage in an organized display. Any keyword you search will be shown under three major categories namely Social, News, and Web. This well-arranged search results complete your query in a more efficient approach. For music aficionados, QWant has a dedicated page where you can explore new songs and lyrics with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
Pros
- – Music-Friendly Search Engine Alternative for Music Lovers
- – Privacy-Centered Approach to Browsing
Cons
- – European Servers Only
- – Confusing/Complex Design
11. CC Search
CC Search must be your go-to option if you are on the hunt for almost any type of copyright-free material. This alternative search engine is an excellent option if you need an image for a blog post, a song for a video, or just about any type of content you desire without worrying about an angry musician or artist coming after you for ripping off their masterpiece or creation.
The flow of CC Search is extremely simple and straightforward. It retrieves results from different platforms such as Flickr, Wikimedia, and Soundcloud and shows the search results labeled as Creative Commons content.
Pros
- – Numerous Copyright-Free Content To Download and Use
- – Easy Knowledge Sharing For Different Kinds of Niche
Cons
- – No Control of Reuse and Reproduction of Content
- – Duplicated Search Results or Content
12. SearX
SearX is another metasearch engine that is worth mentioning in this article. With the goal of making the internet decentralized and more accessible, SearX doesn’t store your data and provides you with unbiased search results from numerous sources.
It pulls search results from different sources that include the popular ones (Wikipedia, Yahoo!, Google, and DuckDuckGo). This search engine is an open-sourced search engine alternative to Google and is available to anyone for contributions as well as source code review on GitHub. You can also personalize SearX as your own metasearch engine and host it on your server.
SearX allows you to tweak the settings in the Preferences pages with advanced options that aren’t usually integrated on other search engine alternatives. Torrent lovers will like the SearX search engine because it helps them find magnet links to exact files when browsing for a file through a metasearch engine.
Pros
- – Multiple Settings to Enhance Search Results
- – Customizable Search Engine with Privacy-Centered Features
Cons
- – No Detection of Language
- – Some cases can’t retrieve results from Google
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that Google is the most popular and widely-used search engine available today. It utilizes intelligent and powerful algorithms combined with AI implementations that provide you with a personalized and seamless experience.
However, Google may not be the best option depending on your preferences and needs. Many of the ones we’ve listed in this article are considered powerful search engine alternatives to Google, offering you better user experience.
Whether you are concerned about your safety and security online or just want to know other search engine options, there are numerous search engines to experiment with.
Did we miss anything on this list? What are other search engine alternatives to Google that you’d like to recommend? Feel free to let us know in the comments below!